Bloggers Go Sailing

The Puma Ten got to go out sailing on Mar Mostro in Abu Dhabi today. Looks like they had a wonderful time.

Here's Brian DiFeo at the helm of Mar Mostro.

photo taken by takingyerphoto

And Yimmyayo posted this picture with the comment, "Steering a 6 million dollar boat. No Biggie."

Yimmyayo also tweeted, "Easily one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done in my life."

And Jamie Beck of From Me To You tweeted, "I think I have a new hobby after today."

I think they get it!

Just Cruisin' Around The Harbor

Originally posted by frommetoyou, one of the Puma Ten bloggers in Abu Dhabi this week.

From Me To You

Check out more stunning photos of the Volvo Ocean Race Village in Abu Dhabi posted by Jamie on her blog From Me To You. Jamie is one of the ten bloggers sent by Puma to cover the VOR in Abu Dhabi.

And see more work of the Puma Ten at PUMA Sailing.

Bedtime

My granddaughter Emily has been attending kindergarten for one term, and now she is the one reading me bedtime stories. Yes, I did get that the right way round. I'm so proud of her.

Say What You Like About The Deaf

On Sunday I raced with the Newport Laser Frostbite Fleet for the first time in a couple of months. As expected, my performance was awful. I could think of a whole host of excuses for my dismal scores - most of which I have mentioned before on this blog - but I don't think I've told you yet about one of my issues (which was a factor on Sunday) - I am a little deaf.

Yes. I don't always hear so well these days. At times it can be a distinct advantage for it to be known that you don't always hear what folk are saying to you. At times you can even deliberately pretend not to hear what is being said. Sentences like, "Will you please stop playing with your computer and come and help me with this," are, for some reason, particularly hard for me to pick up.

It's never been too much of a handicap when racing my Laser. I can usually hear the starting sequence and pretty much all the other race committee signals are visual, right? No, not right! At least not in this fleet.

The race committee had set small orange buoys for the windward mark and the leeward gate. All was fine for the first race which was a simple windward leeward course. But for the second race they signalled a course "H" meaning we had to go Windward – Reach Mark – RC Boat (to starboard) – Leeward – Finish.

But wait. The RC hadn't dropped a reach mark yet. (At least, I couldn't see one.) The race officer was doing a lot of shouting and gesticulating but with the noise of the wind and the waves and all the sails flapping and my warm hat covering my ears and my (very slight) touch of deafness I couldn't quite pick up what he was saying. It's not unusual in this fleet to use one of the government marks in the harbor as a racing mark on occasion, but I didn't see any obvious candidate. I sailed closer to the committee boat.

The race officer was shouting something that sounded like, "Woof woof woof reach mark woof woof red woof woof woof know it's unusual woof woof woof." Hmmm.

They started sounding the horns for the 3-minute starting sequence. As I approached the line I saw one of the fleet captains nearby and shouted to him, "What's the course?"

He turned away from to me to look upwind and waved an arm in the general direction of the windward mark and said, "Woof woof woof windward woof woof woof red woof woof woof." Hmmm.

Now I was really confused. Were we going to use a government mark as the windward mark?

What the hell, I thought, I'll just follow everybody else, like I usually do.

There was a red nun buoy up the course, not as far upwind as the orange buoy we had used as the windward mark in the first race. So I kept all options open and didn't go above the layline to the red nun until I saw others doing so. Maybe the red nun was the reach mark? But it was in a weird spot for an H course.

Eventually I rounded the orange windward mark with the tailenders and said to one of my fellow duffers, "I have no idea where I am going!"

"If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't be here," he replied.

And that was pretty much the story for all my races in my Sunday. In every race, if I had known what I was doing I wouldn't have done what I did.

But it was fun.

And then home to Tillerwoman for a delicious dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

What's that you say dear? Yes, I will have more gravy, please.

Friggin' in the Riggin'

I'm going to be watching with interest the work of the ten bloggers sent by Puma to Abu Dhabi to report on the Volvo Ocean Race. They look like a talented bunch and they certainly have a different style from your average sailing blogger.

The above picture was posted by Ned Hepburn of http://nedhepburn.tumblr.com/ with the caption friggin' in the riggin'.

Puma Loves Bloggers

Dear blogging friends, you have probably heard the news by now that Puma are sending ten bloggers on an expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi to cover the Volvo Ocean Race. These lucky bloggers will "photograph and post updates as the competing sailors rest and recharge while participating in short sprints before departing on Jan. 15 for the race’s next stop in Sanya, China."

Woo hoo! Sailing bloggers finally get the recognition they deserve. What a sweet trip that would be!

But who are these top ten sailing bloggers chosen by Puma for the bloggy trip of a lifetime?

Are any of them winners of the prestigious Tilley Award as one of the Top 9 Sailing Blogs of 2011? Is O Docker going? Is Tweezerman? Surely they will be sending Buff Staysail?

Well, I don't know for sure, but I suspect not. Apparently the ten bloggers going to Abu Dhabi don't hang out in the stuffy old yacht clubs of Blogger and Wordpress and Typepad. They inhabit the lively waterfront bars of Tumblr and Instagram. They are the new generation of bloggers. They are the cool kids.

One of the lucky ten is Sean Sullivan who has a tumblr blog called The Impossible Cool. How cool is that possum?

And we have Ned Hepburn who writes real cool stuff on his blog like "fucking tweens. Hey, could you tween assholes NOT strip the attribution from my fucking posts and pass it off as your own? Don’t fucking steal my work." (Above work is attributed to Ned Hepburn.)

Then there is James Nord who writes a tumblr blog called HIGHLIGHTED LIFE on which he reported that he picked up two new bathing suits for his trip to Abu Dhabi. Here he is...

And Ashley Simko and Frommetoyou are going too. As far as I can gather, Ashley is a graphic and interactive designer who is occasionally asked to write about fashion, and Frommetoyou is Jamie who is a photographer in NYC who collects old typewriters.

I don't know who the other five lucky bloggers are, but I wish them all well on this fantastic assignment. I admit I am a little jealous that Puma didn't invite me but I couldn't possibly have gone to the Middle East for a week in the middle of the Newport Laser Fleet frostbiting season anyway. I shall be following the blogs of Sean, Ned, James, Ashley and Jamie over the next few days with great interest.

Update Mon 9 Jan 10:51am: Just tracked down two more of the Talented Ten. Also going to Abu Dhabi are Brian DiFeo the founder of Instagram NYC and Anthony D. of takingyerphoto.

Update Mon 9 Jan 1:09pm: Shortly after arriving in Abu Dhabi, one of the lucky bloggers tweeted, "My site is blocked in the UAE due to questionable / prohibited content." (You can probably guess which one from what I wrote above. Which probably means Proper Course is now blocked in the UAE too.) Oops! I wonder if Puma knew about Internet censorship in the UAE?

Update Mon 9 Jan 5:15pm: Just spotted another of the Puma bloggers in Abu Dhabi. It's Yimmyayo who apparently offers "visual crack for the ocular fiend." Some of the other bloggers on the Puma Ten are obviously talented photographers. Now the Yimmyayo blog is a striking series of photos, but the author says, "The images hosted on this blog have been hunted, culled and collected from the world wide web to be presented as visual stimulus for those viewing. This imagery is not being presented as my own, unless noted under the specific work." Hmmm. A bit like Proper Course without words!

Why Earwigoagin is the Best Sailing Blog on the Planet

The reason I chose Earwigoagin by Tweezerman as the Best Sailing Blog on the Planet 2011 in my list of Top Sailing Blogs of 2011 is that if I had had to pick one blog, and only one, to read last year it would have been Earwigoagin.

Tweezerman covers sailing from every angle. He writes about his own sailing today, and his own sailing decades ago. He covers current sailing news and sailing history. He has great pictures and great music. At times he educates me; at other times he makes me laugh; he always entertains me.

He wrote a terrific series of article in 2011 about the summer three decades ago when he raced sailed three world championships in five weeks, the International Canoe Worlds, the International 14 Team Racing Championship (the most prestigious event and the defacto world championship at the time apparently) and the actual official International 14 Worlds.

Our man claims that he wasn't World Championship caliber but here's a photo of him leading one race in the International Canoe Worlds...

... and he was a member of the first and only East Coast team to win the International Team Race series. That's our hero on the right, I believe.

These days, it seems that the Classic Moth is Tweezerman's boat of choice and he couldn't resist have a little dig at me (and 200,000 other Laser sailors) with his post on Why a Classic Moth is Better than a Laser. I forgive you, Sir. But even this Moth fanatic has been spotted trying to be a Faux Laser Sailor and he has written 38 other posts about Lasers so he's not all bad.

I love the variety in Earwigoagin. Tweezerman covers the America's Cup and weird European regatta party traditions; he reports on the Volvo Ocean race and reviews pumpkin beer; he has posted several articles about crash boat operation and also some photos of his friend Bob's model boats. I could go on. Always fascinating stuff.

So if you haven't enjoyed the Tweezerman's work before, head over to Earwogoagin and browse around. You won't be disappointed. A very worthy holder of the title Best Sailing Blog on the Planet 2011.

The Future of Laser Sailing

Top 9 Sailing Blogs of 2011

Everyone does top ten lists, but here on Proper Course we have higher standards than most, and only nine blogs on the whole planet achieved the level of excellence required to be one of Tillerman's Top Sailing Blogs of 2011.

1. First up we have Windtraveler, undoubtedly the best blog on the planet about a couple of newlyweds sailing around the world on a 35ft Hallberg Rassy Rasmus.

There is Brittany who is NOT the Brittany with the same last name who blogs about "keeping the fire alive" in relationships, and whose blog is blocked by her company's firewall as being pornographic. And there is Scott who is NOT the Scott with the same last name who is a prolific software development consultant and who seems to be really smart. I love people who tell me who they are NOT in their blog profiles. That appeals to my sense of contrariness.

And then there is Baby Girl who apparently has a Caribbean soul having spent her most formative months in the Islands. With her momma she has swam with sea turtles, snorkeled tropical reefs, sailed through some gnarly squalls, visited over four countries, done a handful of Hash runs, and hiked to waterfalls. Oh, and she's not even born yet! I love sailing blogs that are about people who are not even born yet who go on hash runs.

2. Number 2 on my list of Top Sailing Blogs of 2011 is the deliciously named Doc Häagen-Dazs who writes Time on the Water. He's obviously a good guy because he and his family used to race Lasers back in the 1970's and 1980's. But now he's just another cranky old geezer blogger like me who writes posts about things like this that would never be tolerated on his boat.

I love sailing blogs about intolerance.

3. The third blog on this amazing list of Best Sailing Blogs on the Planet is the misleadingly titled Captain JP's log. It's not a log; it's a blog. And it's not written by Captain JP. The real author is the well-known Australian journalist and sailing personality Buff Staysail who does an excellent job of impersonating a suave, man-about-town from London who supposedly spends his time ice-skating, going to the theater and watching the wild beasts in Shepherd's Bush. But he doesn't fool me. I love sailing blogs that are about the wild beasts in Shepherd's Bush.

4. The fourth blog on my list of Best Sailing Blogs on the Planet of All Time is also somewhat misleading. FrogMa is not a mommy blog for tadpoles, and Bonnie the author is not the mother of a frog. Why would she choose such a ridiculous name for a sailing blog? Bonnie is in fact a hard core Sunfish sailor. She races her Sunfish. She runs Laser regattas. She makes her boyfriend go Sunfish sailing with her. And she even goes Sunfish sailing at the end of December in a typically brutal New York winter. It doesn't get any more hard core than that in the Sunfish world. I love sailing blogs about ladies who are hard core.

5. But the title of Best Sunfish Sailing Blog on the Planet must go to my2fish: a blog about sunfish sailing. Not that my2fish: a blog about sunfish sailing is actually a blog about Sunfish sailing. Of course not. It's actually about Norwegian Laser sailing and how to navigate past the goose. The secret of successful blogging is to choose a niche that nobody is else covering and my2fish has certainly done that for the "Norwegian Laser sailing and navigating past the goose" niche. I love Norwegian goose blogs.

6. Number six on this list of amazing sailing blogs that may or may not be the Best Sailing Blogs in the Solar System is Center of Effort by someone called Judith Krimski who says she is "a graphic designer, freelance sailing writer and blogger of all things one-design sailing" and also "three-time Boston Sailors Regatta Champion." Like me she suffers from a delusion; hers is that she believes that Boston Harbor is the BEST sailing venue in New England. Hmmm.

Anyway, in spite of her delusion, Judith writes a damn good sailing blog, covering such diverse topics as what Judith thinks about in the Laundromat and the sailing achievements of Steve Jobs. No wait. There really is lots of sailing on this blog. She recently scored an interview with elite Laser sailor Clay Johnson where she ventured where no other sailing journalist has dared to venture with her scoop about what really happened to the hair on the back of Clay's legs. No, seriously there are lots of great posts about sailing on this blog. But I do love sailing blogs where ladies talk about men's hairy legs.

7. Number seven - yes possum we nearly are at the end - on this list of the most amazing, fantastic, Bestest Sailing Blogs in the Galaxy is Apparent Wind which apparently is written by a blogging tag team of Annie, Eric and yarg - but it's mainly yarg. Annie, Eric and yarg are apparently "Laser dudes." Ahah. I like blogs by Laser dudes. Apparently yarg is a high school sailing coach and he writes very thoughtful posts on topics such as How Einstein taught sailing, why the America's Cup is like watching gelcoat dry, and how to pack Lasers in a cardboard box.

Apparently his job keeps yarg very busy because he doesn't post all that frequently to Apparent Wind. I wish he would write more often. This blog definitely focuses on quality rather than quantity. Apparent Wind is to Proper Course as Chateau Lafite Rothschild is to Bud Light. Apparently I love sailing blogs that taste like expensive wine with almond and violet aromas.

8. Number eight - almost there possum - on this list of the Bestest Sailing Blogs in the Universe with Almond and Violet Aromas is..... the one and only.... O Dock. What can I say? Unique. Quirky. Original. Amazing. Addictive. Almond and violet aromas. Try it. You'll like it.

9. And finally possum, the winner of the title of Best Sailing Blog on the Planet 2011 is.... Earwigoagin by Tweezerman.