Messing About In Sailboats

Favorite Sailing Photo of 2009

Carlo Borlenghi took some amazing photos of the Fatsnet Race, which this year commemorated the 30th anniversary of the 1979 disaster. I found this one particularly awesome. 

 

East Coast Blizzard Seen From Space | Wired Science | Wired.com

via www.wired.com

Enough with the White Christmas already!

Personal Sailing Moments of 2009

Over the weekend, I had time for a bit of self-indulgent looking-back at my personal sailing year.  As I looked back on my most memorable sails, I realized that everyone of them was a "learning moment". Few of the sails were spectacular but each one made me a better sailor or at least a less dumb one. 

I started the season with a sail where anything that could go wrong would go wrong.This shook out the winter cobwebs. In June, while crewing in the Leukemia Cup, I was reminded about the importance of safety and boom avoidance. Photo to the left for a hint).

In August, Alice and I learned how to sail on a lake and what an amazing experience that can be, with a wonderful day sail on Lake Dillon, Colorado. OK that sail was spectacular.

I closed out my sailing year with one of the best sailing lessons I have ever had, crewing with Eric Leitner, getting an intense tuition in dinghy sailing.

I am still working on my sailing plans for 2010. All I know is that after 20 something years of sailing I still have a ton to learn

Dear Santa, what I want for a Christmas is..

 Photo c/o of Scuttlebutt.
 

My favorite blog post of the year: a nautical bestiary « Bowsprite: A New York Harbor Sketchbook

via bowsprite.wordpress.com

This is brilliant. The product of a very creative mind and a very talented water-color painter!

Battening Down the Hatches and Warming-up the Snow-blower

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Sailing Photo Of The Day - 8th Dec Geoff Holt prepares for the Atlantic - photo © Digby Fox

Lo-res 8th Dec Geoff Holt prepares for the Atlantic - photo © Digby Fox, originally uploaded by personalatlantic.

You can see more about Geoff Holt's Personal Atlantic here http://www.geoffholt.com/

Sailing Photo Of The Day - SBYC Snowbird Race

12 December SBYC Snowbird Race, originally uploaded by Walkabout Wolf.

Song For Friday: Head of Heels - Tears for Fears

I miss the '80s

Famous Boat Captains Compared | Harbour Exchange

via www.harbourexchange.com

I am sure I am the last person to see this but I thought this was brilliant.

Yacht Charter Market Study

International online survey of quality in yacht charter business. Minitransat sailor Christian Kargl and software architect Ralph Zimmermann from Austria start an international survey of quality in the yacht charter business. In cooperation with Vienna University of Economics and Business the most substantial report will be continuously updated. It is possible to post the reviews from December 3, 2009.

via www.yachtadviser.com

I got an email the other day from Ralph Zimmerman in Austria asking for help with a survey ion the Yacht Charter market. Sounds like this would be a useful piece of research. You can submit a review here

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Schooner Eastwind

Schooner Eastwind, originally uploaded by nelights.

Marine Photography Competition

Check out this beautiful gallery of marine photography. These are entries for the UK's Sunday Express's Marine Photography competition. They are nearly all taken on the coast but still beautiful shots. Thanks to Old salt Blog for pointing it out. I especially liked this one of Corryveckan in Scotland, a frickin' terrifying place to sail. I was chatting to a chap the other day who took his Swan 38 round Scotland. He described how careful you have to be with the tides to avoid the whirlpools. These are created by strong current and tides whipping around either side of one of the Western Islands of Scotland and converging on the Westerly side.  

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Sailing on the Maine coast

Sailing on the Maine coast, originally uploaded by nelights.

Sailing Blogs - Blur.se Explained

Yesterday, I blogged about the awesome blur.se. As I don't speak Swedish I haven't a clue what they are talking about. As it turns out, there is a great back-story on Blur. Bloody inspiring. This is why we blog! Here is what Peter Gustaffson, the Blur Blogger had to say:

Blur started out in 2005 as a crew website for our racing project, and have since grown into Scandinavia’s largest site focused on sailing and yacht racing. Amazing really.

I try to make Blur.se the “one-stop-shop” for the active sailor or boat owner who wants to stay on top of the latest news, rumours, go-fast tips and gear. It's a fine line between our own project, local news and things that happen in the big world.

We still run our corinthian J/109 Blur Racing project. I got the boat two years ago, and have been struggling getting it up to speed. This year we nailed it and won some big races. Pretty cool, beating the pros. We're also doing on-the-water race coverage and try to be very active in the local sailing community.

Today we reach more sailors than the traditional sailing press, and I use that to activate people to go sailing. Overall participation in the region is up 20% and we managed to get 65 boats (vs 15 last year) in a doublehanded race that we promoted pretty hard.

My only problem is time. A day job running a consulting firm, a family, a race boat and then the blog... But I found out you can cut back on sleep (and that's great training for those shorthanded races).

Getting Tough | Geoff Holt's Personal Atlantic

Everything is getting much more challenging now. Yesterday the motion was so bad, I could barely keep myself upright in my wheelchair, let alone type a blog, even now, every tap of the keypad is a chore. The honeymoon period of calm seas after leaving Lanzarote is now a distant memory. It's not that we are enduring any horendous weather, in fact the wind barely reaches 20 knots and, right now it is only blowing less than 10 knots. The real debilitating factor is the sea state. Again, it is nothing too bad, at worst waves are only 2 metres and the Atlantic swells barely 3 metres. The problem is that it is a very confused sea; waves and swells coming from all directions and the wind is blowing directly on the starboard beam, not good for a lightweight catamaran.  Impossibe Dream is bobbing like a cork, pitching and yawing, snatching and jerking, her 60ft length belying her skinny 17 tonnes as she gets picked up and slapped broadside by the seas.  I found yesterday and last night very tough indeed. It is difficult enough existing in a wheelchair in a house that does not move but negotiating my chair around ID is like riding a unicycle on a rollercoaster.  One of the factors of quadriplegia is having no tricep muscles in my arms. Those who know me may think I have full movement of my arms, I don't, it's a false impression, I only have 30% use of my biceps and that is it, no triceps at all, nor wrist, hand or finger movement, what you see is like a kind of "trick movement".  Controlling my arms so I may use my finger to type or to use my knuckles to push a button on the radar is made all the more difficult by the constant motion of ID, it's as though my arm has no spacial control.  For every correct keystroke you read, I have deleted more than double because of mistakes and my knuckles are red raw from continually pushing wrong buttons on the instrument panels.

via www.geoffholt.com

I thought this summed up how tough Geoff Holt's personal challenge is. When you watch his video logs it's easy to be deceived by his positive tone. Make no mistake this is is an incredibly tough feat.

Blur Sailing - Why I wish I could speak Swedish

I wish I spoke Swedish. Why? Well then I would understand the Blur Sailing Blog. It's a great blog, full of great videos and sailing photos. Only problem is that I don't speak a damn word of Swedish so I haven't a clue what they are blogging about. Here is what I can figure out:

• The blog (I think) is run by a guy called Peter who races a J109 in Sweden. And from what I can tell he knows what he is doing
• The crew look like Vikings and have some damn cool sailing gear.
• Sweden is a gorgeous place to sail.
• The have a very good sailing blog. Really nice design and full of great stuff. Much more carefully thought out than my blog. Just check out the sailing photos. Bee-oo-tee-full
• For the more technical folks, he has specs and polars for a bunch of boats. I used to think that was nerdy but after a couple of seasons racing I am impressed. So I guess, I am now nerdy!
• They also have a Youtube Channel which has some very cool sailing videos. Like the one below which is their season wrap-up. Well-worth sitting back and enjoying with a cold one in hand.

Hey Peter from Blur Sailing, please tell us more about you.

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Thalassa

Thalassa, originally uploaded by Stefan Randholm.

Laser Of The Day - Ferry wave

Ferry wave, originally uploaded by Ronan LP.

Could this be you TMan?

Song for Friday - Paul Simon and Lady Smith Black Mambazo - Diamonds on the soles of their Shoes

As Invictus coms out today I thought I would do a South African SFF. I have been looking forward to Clint Eastwood's new flick since I saw the trailers in September. If you haven't heard about it, Invictus is about the 1995 Rugby Wold Cup where a nation was brought together by one match. You can see the trailer below.