Why are there all these blogs about sailing? As Edward recently pointed out on his grandly rebranded EVK4 Superblog most of sailing is uneventful: "A beautiful fun relaxing sail does not make for blog material".
Which got me to thinking? If you didn't blog about sailing what would the subject of your blog be? And why?
I'm not sure what my answer would be. There are plenty of running blogs but they are even more boring than sailing blogs. Went for my usual three mile run. My mile times were 12:30, 12:25 and 4:00. I don't think so.
Or I could write yet another raving, ranting, hyperventilating political blog about how those other guys are evil monsters bent on destroying life as we know it. Too boring.
Or I could cover baseball from the vantage of my couch in front of the TV. But the Yankees are having such a horrible season that that would be way too depressing.
Or I could do one of those food photo blogs and be one of those incredibly annoying people taking flash photos of every dish they eat in fancy restaurants.
Or do something totally wacky like that guy who only writes about the loose change he picks up in the street.
Or be incestuous and blog about blogging.
So many choices. Perhaps I'll just stick to sailing. What about you?
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Hike Harder Tillerman
They say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
It's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
Happy Birthday George. Yeah it's our shared birthday again already. Came around fast didn't it?
It's been a great year for me, thanks for asking George. Two fabulous sailing trips to Menorca in October and Cabarete in January. Then the London Marathon in April and a half-marathon in Boston in May. More significantly we had something of a surge to achieve one of our long-standing objectives, to move to a new home near the water in Rhode Island. Took us a bit longer than we had expected but we can now say with conviction, "Mission Accomplished".
How was your year George? You had a surge too? Things taking a tad longer than expected as well? Good luck. Let us know how it turns out. Soon please.
I hear you were in the area last week. I don't think I received an invitation to your speech in Newport on Thursday. You had a tour of the tall ships? Wow, what a coincidence, so did I. You and Laura should drop by next time you are in Rhode Island. I know you like clearing brush so you can give me a hand with the back yard.
So have a great day Mr. President. I hear you're thinking of retiring soon. You should.
And thanks for the advice. I should hike harder. At least you're right about that. But today I'm just going to relax and enjoy my birthday.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Wifely Words of Wisdom
So there I was last Sunday evening, dozing on the sofa and groaning about my aches and pains after a hard (and extremely enjoyable) weekend of Laser sailing, and the lovely Tillerwoman gave me the benefit of her wifely wisdom on the subject.
What do you think she said?
a) You're too old for this game. At your age the most energetic thing your Dad did was an occasional game of pool down the pub. It's time you started acting your age.
b) I have no sympathy. You know you're going to feel like this after you go sailing so why do you do it?
c) If you actually used that hiking bench and weights down in the basement maybe you wouldn't feel so bad after sailing.
d) Shut up and come to bed.
e) You should sail more.
f) All of the above.
What do you think she said?
a) You're too old for this game. At your age the most energetic thing your Dad did was an occasional game of pool down the pub. It's time you started acting your age.
b) I have no sympathy. You know you're going to feel like this after you go sailing so why do you do it?
c) If you actually used that hiking bench and weights down in the basement maybe you wouldn't feel so bad after sailing.
d) Shut up and come to bed.
e) You should sail more.
f) All of the above.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Laser Sailor Wins America's Cup
Wow. What an amazing race to close out the 32nd America's Cup. Who said the America's Cup is boring?
No point in rehashing the details of the race. You either saw it on Versus or have read about it on any number of blogs written by authors much closer to the action than I am. I'm just pleased for Ed Baird, 1980 Laser World Champion and now 2007 winning America's Cup helmsman. Ed has been one of my sailing heroes ever since I started sailing and racing Lasers in the early 80's. I still have my well-thumbed copy of Ed's 1982 book Laser Racing which I studied intensely when I was learning to race Lasers back in the day.
There's a closer connection between the Tillerman family and Mr Baird. Son #1 a.k.a. Litoralis was lucky enough to spend one summer while in college working on the design team for Baird's Young America AC syndicate. He even went sailing with Ed on one of the syndicate's IACC boats. AC aficionados may recall that during the second Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup in November 1999, Young America's USA-53 reared up in a set of waves whilst tacking, the hull cracked in two, and the boat nearly sank. Litoralis tells me that he was working on sail design and analysis, not the hull, but I'm not so sure.
Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes.
Congratulations to Ed Baird. An American wins the America's Cup just in time for July 4th. More importantly a Laser sailor wins the America's Cup. Just as I expected.
No point in rehashing the details of the race. You either saw it on Versus or have read about it on any number of blogs written by authors much closer to the action than I am. I'm just pleased for Ed Baird, 1980 Laser World Champion and now 2007 winning America's Cup helmsman. Ed has been one of my sailing heroes ever since I started sailing and racing Lasers in the early 80's. I still have my well-thumbed copy of Ed's 1982 book Laser Racing which I studied intensely when I was learning to race Lasers back in the day.
There's a closer connection between the Tillerman family and Mr Baird. Son #1 a.k.a. Litoralis was lucky enough to spend one summer while in college working on the design team for Baird's Young America AC syndicate. He even went sailing with Ed on one of the syndicate's IACC boats. AC aficionados may recall that during the second Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup in November 1999, Young America's USA-53 reared up in a set of waves whilst tacking, the hull cracked in two, and the boat nearly sank. Litoralis tells me that he was working on sail design and analysis, not the hull, but I'm not so sure.
Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes.
Congratulations to Ed Baird. An American wins the America's Cup just in time for July 4th. More importantly a Laser sailor wins the America's Cup. Just as I expected.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
You Are The Problem
You. Yes you. You are the problem. It's all your fault.
What me? What problem?
The decline of the boating industry. It's all your fault.
Me? Why me?
Because you're sitting in front of a computer and according to Thom Dammrich, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the reason why his members aren't selling so many boats these days is all because of computers.
Yes those damn computers. Instead of going out for a blast around the bay you're sitting in front of a computer reading mindless blogs while the marine manufacturing industry is going down the drain and it's all your fault. At least that's what our Thom is reported as saying at SignOnSanDiego.com today. Or words to that effect. Kind of.
I guess it's a theory. I'm tempted to list all the ways in which computers support and enhance the sport of sailing and why anyone in Mr Dammrich's position should be finding even more ways to leverage the power of computers and the Internet to promote the sport of sailing and incidentally his members' businesses.
But no. I'll leave it up to you dear reader. As it's all your fault in the first place. Tell Mr Dammrich what you think of his opinion in the comments to this post. Knock yourself out.
Oh, and by the way, if you were going to chose someone to promote an activity that is often seen (unfairly of course) as a pursuit of the idle wealthy classes, don't you think you would find someone with a better name than Damn Rich?
Thanks to Anon north of 49 for the heads up on this one.
What me? What problem?
The decline of the boating industry. It's all your fault.
Me? Why me?
Because you're sitting in front of a computer and according to Thom Dammrich, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the reason why his members aren't selling so many boats these days is all because of computers.
Yes those damn computers. Instead of going out for a blast around the bay you're sitting in front of a computer reading mindless blogs while the marine manufacturing industry is going down the drain and it's all your fault. At least that's what our Thom is reported as saying at SignOnSanDiego.com today. Or words to that effect. Kind of.
I guess it's a theory. I'm tempted to list all the ways in which computers support and enhance the sport of sailing and why anyone in Mr Dammrich's position should be finding even more ways to leverage the power of computers and the Internet to promote the sport of sailing and incidentally his members' businesses.
But no. I'll leave it up to you dear reader. As it's all your fault in the first place. Tell Mr Dammrich what you think of his opinion in the comments to this post. Knock yourself out.
Oh, and by the way, if you were going to chose someone to promote an activity that is often seen (unfairly of course) as a pursuit of the idle wealthy classes, don't you think you would find someone with a better name than Damn Rich?
Thanks to Anon north of 49 for the heads up on this one.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Teaser
This weekend I sailed my Laser in the Championship of Buzzards Bay and my aching body this morning is telling me I must have had a great time. Lots to blog about including my new sail (yes I finally splurged), what I learned about sailing fitness, losing and finding my groove, watching and learning from a master of the sport, my devilish scheme to beat Litoralis yet again, Tillerwoman's advice on sailing, and coming out of the closet. I may even get around to discussing some helpful advice I received on urination technique, and what was in that mysterious pink drink.
Given that I've been able to milk my experiences at the Laser North Americans for almost two weeks of blogging, I fully expect to be able to do the same for this event.
More to follow...
Given that I've been able to milk my experiences at the Laser North Americans for almost two weeks of blogging, I fully expect to be able to do the same for this event.
More to follow...
Class Act
Our group writing project on worst race-committee screw-ups revealed some amazing tales of staggering ineptitude, conceit, foolishness and even intoxication. Why is that some of us who are probably highly successful in our careers as well as being excellent racing sailors suddenly become blithering idiots as soon as we step on to a race committee boat? Who knows?
On the other hand there are some extremely competent race committees and regatta organizers out there. One place that I can always rely on to run a professional event is the Hyannis YC, host of the Laser North Americans a couple of weeks ago. I've sailed several other major events there before, so with Peter Johns as regatta chairman and Tom Duggan as Principal Race Officer I had high hopes for a superb weekend of well-run sailing.
Thursday was a frustrating day with no racing because of high winds. I talked about this day in Waiting Game and discussed some issues relating to such days in Are You Experienced? There was some grumbling in some quarters about the decision not to race but personally I'm sure Duggan made the right call. Certainly I would not have taken 200 Laserites of varying abilities a couple of miles offshore in those conditions, no matter how many Mommy Boats were there to support me.
So the qualification series was cut to one day and we had an awesome day of racing on Friday with the best conditions one could hope for, and with the Hyannis YC race committee doing their usual top-notch professional job enabling us to complete the maximum allowed three races on that day.
The results of the qualification series weren't posted at the club when I left around 7pm that evening. Not that I cared. I knew that my scores were "good" enough to qualify me to sail in the silver fleet for the rest of the regatta. And I wasn't wrong. When I arrived at the club on Saturday morning and all the sailors clustered around the noticeboard to check the scores I had to squat down on the floor to find my name way, way, way down near the bottom of the list.
But wait. What's this? Some sailors are complaining about the scores. There appears to be a major problem. Some sailors who thought that they were at the front of the fleet haven't made the cut for the gold fleet. The committee is busy handing out forms and various sailors file their complaints. A postponement is signalled. A notice is put on the board explaining that some scores are in error. And we wait.
The problem is that we can't go sailing until the scores are corrected. Today we are going to be split into gold and silver fleets and it would certainly be unfair to put a genuine contender for the North American Championship into the silver fleet along with bozos like me. So we wait. And wait.
The breeze fills in to a juicy 10-12 knots and we all want to go sailing. A rumor goes around the boat park that the Standard Rig scores are now correct but they're still working on the Radials. More grumbling. Harsh words are spoken about the competence of the race committee. We wait and wait as the morning drifts by with the postponement flag still fluttering in the breeze.
But what else can the race committee do? Mistakes will happen when you are running a major regatta. Humans err. Equipment malfunctions. Anchors drag. Software fails (apparently what happened here). The measure of a good race committee is that they recognize when there is a problem and then go ahead and correct it as quickly as humanly possible. If you make an error in a starting sequence, blow off that start and do it again. If you signal the course wrongly and half the fleet goes the wrong way, abandon that race and start it again. Many of the stories told by contributors to the Top Race Committee Screw-ups last week are about race committees who were so ignorant or oblivious that they didn't even know they had made a mistake.
So what did they do at Hyannis? They corrected all the incorrect scores and re-posted a list of who had qualified for the gold and silver fleets. I checked the list again to make sure. Hmmm. I went up two places. How did that happen? In any case my name was still only a few inches of the floor and I was comfortably in the silver fleet.
We eventually hit the water around 11:30am if I recall correctly. Out on the racecourse the race committee had a tough time with shifty winds and a strong upwind current leading to many postponements and recalls. But they persevered and pulled off three fair races for the Standard Rigs. We were back at the club around 6pm so no real harm was done by the scoring screw-up.
At the regatta dinner that night one of the organizers apologised to all the sailors for the problems with scoring that morning. I was impressed. Having spent a good chunk of my professional life running an IT service organization I've been in that guy's shoes more times than I care to recall. Computers have glitches. Stuff happens. Real world activity has to be delayed while the IT guys clear up the mess. And the IT manager has to go to the users and apologise whether there was anything he could have done to prevent the problem or not.
Hats off to Peter Johns, Tom Duggan and all the volunteers who did a magnificent job in running the 2007 Laser North Americans. You guys are a class act. I will be back.
On the other hand there are some extremely competent race committees and regatta organizers out there. One place that I can always rely on to run a professional event is the Hyannis YC, host of the Laser North Americans a couple of weeks ago. I've sailed several other major events there before, so with Peter Johns as regatta chairman and Tom Duggan as Principal Race Officer I had high hopes for a superb weekend of well-run sailing.
Thursday was a frustrating day with no racing because of high winds. I talked about this day in Waiting Game and discussed some issues relating to such days in Are You Experienced? There was some grumbling in some quarters about the decision not to race but personally I'm sure Duggan made the right call. Certainly I would not have taken 200 Laserites of varying abilities a couple of miles offshore in those conditions, no matter how many Mommy Boats were there to support me.
So the qualification series was cut to one day and we had an awesome day of racing on Friday with the best conditions one could hope for, and with the Hyannis YC race committee doing their usual top-notch professional job enabling us to complete the maximum allowed three races on that day.
The results of the qualification series weren't posted at the club when I left around 7pm that evening. Not that I cared. I knew that my scores were "good" enough to qualify me to sail in the silver fleet for the rest of the regatta. And I wasn't wrong. When I arrived at the club on Saturday morning and all the sailors clustered around the noticeboard to check the scores I had to squat down on the floor to find my name way, way, way down near the bottom of the list.
But wait. What's this? Some sailors are complaining about the scores. There appears to be a major problem. Some sailors who thought that they were at the front of the fleet haven't made the cut for the gold fleet. The committee is busy handing out forms and various sailors file their complaints. A postponement is signalled. A notice is put on the board explaining that some scores are in error. And we wait.
The problem is that we can't go sailing until the scores are corrected. Today we are going to be split into gold and silver fleets and it would certainly be unfair to put a genuine contender for the North American Championship into the silver fleet along with bozos like me. So we wait. And wait.
The breeze fills in to a juicy 10-12 knots and we all want to go sailing. A rumor goes around the boat park that the Standard Rig scores are now correct but they're still working on the Radials. More grumbling. Harsh words are spoken about the competence of the race committee. We wait and wait as the morning drifts by with the postponement flag still fluttering in the breeze.
But what else can the race committee do? Mistakes will happen when you are running a major regatta. Humans err. Equipment malfunctions. Anchors drag. Software fails (apparently what happened here). The measure of a good race committee is that they recognize when there is a problem and then go ahead and correct it as quickly as humanly possible. If you make an error in a starting sequence, blow off that start and do it again. If you signal the course wrongly and half the fleet goes the wrong way, abandon that race and start it again. Many of the stories told by contributors to the Top Race Committee Screw-ups last week are about race committees who were so ignorant or oblivious that they didn't even know they had made a mistake.
So what did they do at Hyannis? They corrected all the incorrect scores and re-posted a list of who had qualified for the gold and silver fleets. I checked the list again to make sure. Hmmm. I went up two places. How did that happen? In any case my name was still only a few inches of the floor and I was comfortably in the silver fleet.
We eventually hit the water around 11:30am if I recall correctly. Out on the racecourse the race committee had a tough time with shifty winds and a strong upwind current leading to many postponements and recalls. But they persevered and pulled off three fair races for the Standard Rigs. We were back at the club around 6pm so no real harm was done by the scoring screw-up.
At the regatta dinner that night one of the organizers apologised to all the sailors for the problems with scoring that morning. I was impressed. Having spent a good chunk of my professional life running an IT service organization I've been in that guy's shoes more times than I care to recall. Computers have glitches. Stuff happens. Real world activity has to be delayed while the IT guys clear up the mess. And the IT manager has to go to the users and apologise whether there was anything he could have done to prevent the problem or not.
Hats off to Peter Johns, Tom Duggan and all the volunteers who did a magnificent job in running the 2007 Laser North Americans. You guys are a class act. I will be back.
How to Run Sailboat Races
OK -- it's time to wrap up the group writing project on Top Race Committee Screw-ups. Thanks to all who participated. There were some truly awful stories of incompetence, arrogance, ignorance and stupidity of the highest order. It's good to see that the fine tradition of abysmal race management is alive and well at the grass-roots level. After all as my friend and occasional guest blogger Joe always says, "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."
Here is the complete list of entries.
The RC is Always Right from M Squared.
Miller Genuine Draft by Carol Anne from Five O'Clock Somewhere.
No Foul by jsw225.
Sex Change Operation
T E A S by Chris Jordan.
April Folly.
Joe would be proud of you all.
Here is the complete list of entries.
The RC is Always Right from M Squared.
Miller Genuine Draft by Carol Anne from Five O'Clock Somewhere.
No Foul by jsw225.
Sex Change Operation
T E A S by Chris Jordan.
April Folly.
Joe would be proud of you all.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
So fellow bloggers, you liked the Rate Your Blog post last week?
Here's another test: How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
One again I totally failed to live up to my own expectations.
55%
Hmmm. I see now that the test is on an online dating site. And it's asking me if I want to meet someone from Pawtucket. No thanks. I'm happily married. And I've never been to this site before. Honest dear.
But I do feel a limerick coming on.
There was a young girl from Pawtucket...
Here's another test: How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
One again I totally failed to live up to my own expectations.
55%
Mingle2 - Online Dating
Only 55%? I thought I was much higher than that. You mean there are people even more addicted than me? Sad.Hmmm. I see now that the test is on an online dating site. And it's asking me if I want to meet someone from Pawtucket. No thanks. I'm happily married. And I've never been to this site before. Honest dear.
But I do feel a limerick coming on.
There was a young girl from Pawtucket...
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