12 Meters in the Fog

On the return trip from Block Island today there were two 12 meters sailing upwind in the heavy fog. One was US-22 (Intrepid) and the other was US-18 (Easterner).

US-22 Intrepid

US-18 Easterner

I can see your keel!

I know canting keels are supposed to increase righting moment and all that...but does the leeward daggerboard really provide all the lateral resistance these boats need?

Using tides to create electric power

Watch out Bonnie, there might be big propellers under the water in the East River.


A company that seems to have some trouble designing cast aluminum turbine blades has installed a small number of test turbines in the East River. The currents are so strong that several of the turbine propellers have been sheared off a third of the way down, and stronger replacements were hampered by insufficiently strong bolt connections to the turbine hubs. The East River is not actually a river; it's a tidal strait, and one can easily observe the current moving in opposite directions with the tides. The plan is to install a field of turbines anchored to the bottom of the East River and use the currents to generate electricity for the city.


It is worrying when the founder of the company, Trey Taylor, thinks that: "The only way for us to learn is to get the turbines into the water and start breaking them." The trial turbines — five generating electricity and one housing the dynamometer that measures water rotational speed — have been installed on the bottom of a narrow strip of the river’s eastern channel.

That's a lot of Optimists!

The Optimist New England Championships were held this week in Newport. One thing I noticed immediately was the sail numbers. When I was sailing Optimists, my sail number had four digits...now they are up to five!

There were so many boats that the organizers had to launch the boats in flights (as indicated by this special notice from the regatta webpage).

SPECIAL NOTICE:
Sailors Must not leave the spot to which they are currently parked until beach launch is signaled. To control the access to the beach, optis will be called by FLIGHTS. Do not leave until we tell you by bullhorn to get in line for the beach.

There were also quite a few Mommy boats on the water; they even had to register with the race committee (notice the numbered flags on the sterns of the Mommy boats).

Another Use for Duct Tape!

As a sailor and skier, I have used duct tape for many things including the occasional repair of actual ducts (for which it is not actually very good). Just this past weekend I used it to stop my boom from falling off the gooseneck, and to stop my broken inspection port from leaking. I also had a duct tape wallet for a few years. Now it turns out that researchers have proven that duct tape is more effective than cryotherapy for warts.

In patients treated with duct tape, 85 percent of the warts completely resolved, compared with 60 percent in the cryotherapy group. These results were statistically significant. Resolution of warts treated with duct tape usually occurred within the first 28 days of therapy. If there was no response within the first two weeks, the warts were unlikely to respond to a longer course of therapy. The main adverse outcomes with duct-tape therapy were difficulty keeping the tape on the wart and minor skin irritation. The main adverse effect in the cryotherapy group was mild to severe pain at the freeze site during and after the treatment.

The authors conclude that duct tape occlusive therapy is more effective than cryotherapy in the treatment of common warts. They also state that duct tape therapy is less expensive and has fewer adverse effects than cryotherapy.

Ouch!

The story is that "control problems" caused this:

Law and Sailing: The America's Cup

Litigation about sailing! What fun!

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (BMW Oracle Racing/Larry Ellison) sued Society Nautique de Geneve (Alinghi/Ernesto Bertarelli) on Friday in the New York Supreme Court.

In summary, the complaint alleges "that SNG has accepted a challenge that is invalid under the Deed of Gift from Club Nautico Espanol de Vela ("CNEV"), a brand new yacht club that had never had an annual regatta before it was specifically created to collaborate with SNG. Indeed, after its supposed challenge for the America's Cup it sponsored a sham annual regatta for children in a sailing training session. SNG used CNEV, as a fabricated challenger, to engineer a match Protocol in which virtually all challenger rights are eliminated and total control of the event and its rules are granted to SNG, altering the very nature of the competition and giving unprecedented and unfair advantages to SNG."

Both parties (Ellison and Bertarelli) have money to burn, so this might go on for a while before the parties settle. If this thing does go to trial, I think I might have to go down to New York to watch. The partner who filed this case, James V. Kearney at Latham and Watkins in New York, has previously represented tobacco companies...and won, so Bertarelli has a fight on his hands if he wants it.

Is this a regatta?

Looks like a regatta to me, but then I am a dinghy sailor not a fancy big boat sailor.

Perhaps a better question is whether this is an "annual regatta" sufficient to allow CNEV (Club Nautico Español de Vela) to continue as the Challenger of Record for the 33rd America's Cup? I think it is important to ask whether the regatta can be "annual" if it has only been held once.

Ducky!

When I give my daughter her bath, she always wants her ducky. If she saw this thing she'd go nuts:


It's an art installation in France on the Loire River. It's 26 x 20 x 32 meters (which is BIG for you non-metric folks) and is made of rubber coated PVC.

Sailing Photo of the Day: Stars off Nahant, MA

Been there, done that.

Sailing Photo of the Day

"Wow, your sail cover is bigger than my Optimist! Can I come for a ride?"

Tillerman's Caribbean Adventure

Tillerman recently returned from the Laser Caribbean Midwinters with tales of huge waves and high winds. He told me the photos didn't do it justice. You can decide for yourself:




Photos by Roberto Alvarez courtesy of caribwind.com

A new book!

Gasoline Fumes Cause Litigation

John Lagana would like to ride his WaveRunner around the shores of East Hampton, but can't, thanks to the wealthy beach town's ban on water scooters.

Mr. Lagana prefers to travel by WaveRunner, heading out into Gardiners Bay and zipping from Sag Harbor to Greenport to Shelter Island to meet friends for lunch. Water scooters are allowed in the bay, but banned in Hog Creek, which Mr. Lagana must cut through to get there, and Three Mile Harbor, where he stops to get gas.

So, after breathing exhaust fumes for too long on his silly and pointless craft, Lagana is taking the matter to court. And he has an interesting historical argument:

The case is now pending in state appellate court, where a panel of judges must decide if an obscure 17th century charter known as the Dongan Patent does indeed protect a man’s right to buzz around the waterways on a machine its signers could hardly have imagined.

When King James II deeded the eastern tip of the South Fork — which now includes East Hampton, Amagansett and Montauk — to a group of settlers in 1686, the governor in chief of the province of New York, Thomas Dongan, drew up the patent, granting “freeholders and inhabitants” of the area the right to “enjoy without hindrance” recreational activities like “fishing, hawking, hunting and fowling.”

The legal power of such deeding documents, which exist throughout Long Island and in other early-settled places, has been upheld by courts including the United States Supreme Court.

Lagana continues his argument with constitutional contentions:

Among Mr. Lagana’s arguments is that a passage in the federal Constitution prohibiting the creation of “any law impairing the obligation of contracts,” and a provision in the original New York State Constitution protecting “grants of land made by the authority of the king,” gives Dongan power in perpetuity. “If you’re going to ignore the Dongan Patent, you might as well throw out the Constitution,” he said.

But the town has several counterarguments. Their main point is that "the patent is too vague and out of date to govern a modern municipality." But they also have historical contentions of their own:

[Gary] Weintraub, the town's lawyer, pointed out that if East Hampton were to live by the centuries-old patent, it would have other obligations, including the annual tax to the king of “the Sum of one Lamb Yearly and fourty shillings, curant money.”

Assuming East Hampton was not in arrears at the time of the American Revolution, that would amount to 230 lambs and 9,200 shillings the town owes, payable to Queen Elizabeth.

Sailing Photo of the Day: New Island in the Pacific

The crew of the yacht Maiken discovered a new volcanic island in the Pacific. Pretty amazing stuff:
"We left Neiafu and Vava'u yesterday after some tedious checking out procedures and set sail for Fiji, passing the north side of Late island as first way point. After five miles we noticed brown, somewhat grainy streaks in the water. First we thought that it might be an old oil dumping. Some ship cleaning its tanks. But the streak became larger and more frequent after a while, and there were rocklike brownish things the size of a fist floating in the sea. And the water were strangely green and "lagoon like" too. Eventually it became more and more clear to us that it had to be pumice from a volcanic eruption. And then we sailed into a vast, many miles wide, belt of densely packed pumice. We were going by motor due to lack of wind and within seconds Maiken slowed down from seven to one knot. We were so fascinated and busy taking pictures that we plowed a couple of hundred meter into this surreal floating stone field before we realized that we had to turn back...
A couple of hours ago we identified the active volcano as the one close to Home reef, and we are on our way there now to take a closer look.
We are two miles from it and we can see the volcano clearly. One mile in diameter and with four peaks and a central crater smoking with steam and once in a while an outburst high in the sky with lava and ashes."

Sailing Photo of the Day - Schell 2006

Tillerman found some photos of the Schell Trophy regatta, held October 28-29th at my alma mater. Some of my best memories from my college years involve sailing on the Chuck. I once windsurfed in the remains of a hurricane on the river, I have fallen into it while shoveling snow off the dock to go sailing, and I have won regattas there. Even so, a Tech dinghy planing with a storm sail is not something you see everyday.


In the words of MIT Sailing Master's Franny Charles: "This event will be remembered for a lifetime by all who saw it."

Too Windy

I spent most of the last two weeks looking forward to it.

Tillerman helped me install a new hiking strap to be ready for it.

When I saw the weather forecasts I got even more excited about it.

I bought a new spray top to be ready for it.

I packed up the car and took the tarp off the boat the night before to get ready for it.

I emailed the organizers begging them not to cancel it.

I got up early, switched baby seats between cars and hooked up the trailer so I could get there early for it.

But in the end they cancelled it because it was too windy.

I could have been doing this:


and this:
Hopefully some of this:
Or this:
And probably a lot of this:

And this:

But instead I unhooked the trailer from the car, put the tarp back on the boat until next weekend and went for a run instead.

Sailing Video of the Day - Extreme 505

Courtesy of LiveSailDie.com

Sailing Video of the Day - Sailing Bloopers

Sailing Video of the Day - Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta 2006

Sailing Video of the Day - KA Bladerider Demo Sailing

A video of a production foiling Moth, the KA Bladerider.

Sailing Video of the Day - Cherubs

Some excellent video of Cherubs racing on a very windy day.

Sailing Video of the Day - 18 Foot Skiffs

A great video from Ronstan of some of their best footage of 18 foot skiffs.
Includes a skiff being run over by a ferry, and some amazing wipeouts.

Sailing Video of the Day - Foiling Moths

Great footage of foiling moths.

Sailing Video of the Day - 1977 Laser Worlds

1977 Laser World Championships
CABO FRIO, BRAZIL

Entries: 104 Countries: 23
1st John Bertrand USA
2nd Peter Commette USA
3rd Mark Neeleman NED
4th Tim Alexander AUS
5th Gary Knapp USA

Sailing Video of the Day - Laser Sailing

"Reaching Higher"

Is this the best Laser sailing video on the web?

Sailing Video of the Day - Streetsailing

Streetsailing on Mission Beach, San Diego.

Looks like this would be a fun thing to do when the water turns solid up here in the Northeast.

Cheat the Nursing Home...Die on Your Sunfish

Tillerman has a sticker on his trailer that says, "Cheat the nursing home, die on your LASER!" Well, it seems that David Thompson of Bridgton, Maine has unfortunately achieved this dubious goal, albeit on a Sunfish at the ongoing Sunfish World Championships.

From the Charleston Post and Courier:

What was supposed to be a festive gathering for sailors at the end of the second day of racing at the Sunfish World Championships became a memorial of sorts, a race official said. One of their competitors had died.

The race started Tuesday about 2:35 p.m. near Castle Pinckney in the south channel of Charleston Harbor.

Within less than a minute, sailor David Thompson, 55, of Bridgton, Maine, collapsed and fell into the harbor, race spokesman Dan Dickison said.

Another sailor, Andres Cano-Alva of Peru, jumped into the water and tried to keep Thompson's head above water, Dickison said. A female judge for the competition also entered the water to assist.

A U.S. Coast Guard boat soon arrived and took Thompson to a nearby marina, where he was met by emergency medical workers and transported to East Cooper Hospital.

Thompson was pronounced dead at the hospital at 3:38 p.m., Charleston County Deputy Coroner Judy Koelpin said. She said the cause of death is under investigation.

"He had a series of medical issues that he had been dealing with in the last couple of years," Dickison said.

Dave also has a website that has some photos of him sailing and an interview where he discusses why he sails. His answer is particularly poignant:

Dave: That’s like asking, “Why do you breathe?” “Why do horses gallop across their paddocks?” “Why do dolphins surf bow waves?” Every answer I can think of is inadequate. I know that I can become a master sailor, but never master sailing. The challenges are endless and fascinating. Every sail is different and never what you expected. To sail well, you need a “seat of the pants” understanding of the physics involved that transcends mere numbers and formulas. It is not enough to know which course is probably best, or have a feel for what the wind will do next. It is not enough to out think your competitors and choose the right tactics. You must dance with wind and wave, hull and sail until the magical moment when everything is balanced just so and the boat starts to hum and then virtually leaps from the water and flies. Freedom. Undiluted joy. That’s the secret that sailors share and probably why we can never get enough of it.

Horton and Nichol Lead after Day 3

Here's another report from the Star Worlds by Andy Horton and Brad Nichol:

San Francisco gave everyone a "head fake" on Day 3 of the Star World Championship. With a forecast for little to no wind we were once again postponed ashore for an hour. After a slow tow down to the racecourse and lunch on a glassy bay, the forecast seemed right on target. But a break in the cloud cover beyond the Golden Gate fooled the weatherman, and the breeze came on quickly, building from zero to twelve knots in just a few minutes. We were quick to make adjustments to our setup transitioning from light to medium air and got down to business.

Again, it took three tries to get a race off and we had good start all three times in the middle of the line. With the Z-Flag flying on the last attempt, a number of the top competitors pushed the leeward end of the line too hard and saw their OCS numbers posted at the weather mark. We held our course off the line until most of the fleet cleared away and had plenty of good open lanes as we worked our way to the top of the course. We rounded the first mark in second place behind Mark Reynolds, with the Italian and German teams hot on our heals.

Down wind we decided to sail a higher course than Reynolds for more wind and when we got to the bottom we were dead even. Rather then splitting with Reynolds through the gate we felt confident in our boat speed and chose to follow him around and battle it out upwind.

Old School vs. New School; Reynolds had the advantage up the course but after a few well-timed tacks we arrived at the top of the course ahead of him. Meanwhile, Marc Pickel, the German, was free to sail alone and passed us both.

Down the second run we gained a few boat lengths and were even with the Germans at the bottom, but this time we split with them to sail in clear water on the right side of the course. We made good gains working the boat and with a few good shifts we took the gun with a solid lead over both the Germans and Mark Reynolds.

While today's win puts us in first place three points ahead of Rohan Lord (NZL), and seven ahead of Flavio Marazzi (SUI) but a lot can happen in three races. Tomorrow will prove to be a challenging day with a forecast for rain and a southeasterly gradient.

We will try to get some pictures up on the web site Wednesday shot by wonder-host Donna Wotton and if you get the Valley News in NH or VT check out the sports section Wednesday.

Andy & Brad

Tip of the Day: Don't get caught up in a battle when you are trying to win the war. Sometimes it feels good to be able to pass the boat next to you but if you focus on one boat, you can let a dozen pass you while you battle it out. It is better to work together with the boats around you so everyone goes fast!

Standings after three races (no discard) -- 66 boats
1. Andy Horton/ Brad Nichol (USA) 12 pts
2. Rohan Lord/ Miles Addy (NZL) 15 pts
3. Flavio Marazzi/ Martin Kozaczek (SUI) 19 pts
4. Robert Scheidt/ Bruno Prada (BRA) 23 pts
5. Xavier Rohal/ Pascal Rambeau (FRA) 24 pts
6. Hamish Pepper/ Carl Williams (NZL) 25 pts
7. Daniel Stegmeier/ Beat Stegmeier (SUI) 39 pts
8. Mark Medelblatt/ Mark Strube (USA) 49 pts
9. Ian Murray/ Adrew Palfrey (AUS) 54 pts
10. Jim Buckingham/ Mike Dorgan (USA) 55 pts

News from the Star Worlds

Although the story below is from the Sailing Anarchy frontpage, I thought I'd post it here because it has a really good description of tactics for shifty breeze. Andy Horton and Brad Nichol are two young hotshots in the class. I had the opportunity to get beaten by them in the Sunapee Open last year. Their website has some of the best photos of Star sailing I have seen. Here are some examples:




Here's their report from the first day of the Worlds:

It is nice when your hard work and preparation starts to come together. After a week of training, long days for our coach measuring the currents on San Fran Bay, and months of planning we kicked off Day 1 of the Star World Championships with a solid second place finish. There is still a long list of things to improve upon and we still have our debrief before bed, but we are off to a good start.

After being postponed for 90 minutes due to no wind, the first start gun sounded just after 1:30pm. The westerly breeze proved very shifty all afternoon, ranging from as much as 13 knots to as little as 5, with the wind strength varied all over the course. We sailed a course with two mile long legs up and down the bay for a total of ten and a half miles over three hours.

Our plan was to start in the middle of the line where we would not be forced over the line early and sail up the middle playing the shifts. This conservative approach does not win races but if executed well will get you in the top ten as someone will always pass you on the corners of the course. We played the shifts like good lake sailors and hedged towards the favored side of the course. With good boat speed and concentration during the light tricky phases we managed to round the first weather mark in third place.

We played the puffs and concentrated on boat speed through the middle of the course on the first leeward leg which again proved to be a good conservative choice. We rounded the gate in second place and were able to hold the position through the remainder of the race.

The light wind is unusual for San Francisco but we think it will prevail for the next few days before the weather pattern changes and brings the strong winds everyone expects. We have one race scheduled to start at noon tomorrow. We will keep you posted on how it goes!

Cheers!

Andy & Brad

Tip of the Day: Start at the favored end of the line in big fleets. Today the start line was nearly a mile long with 80 boats. In the first general recall, the pin was 10-15 degrees favored. The boat at the pin, Andy MacDonald, was able to start and tack onto port crossing the whole fleet by 20 boat lengths!

Surf City Here We Come...

Where is California's real Surf City? Is it the hippie college town of Santa Cruz, south of San Francisco, where three Hawaiian princes first introduced surfing to the continental United States in 1886?

Or is Huntington Beach, in the suburbs south of Los Angeles, whose board-riding party lifestyle was celebrated by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean? Ask the average Californian surfer, and you will probably get a shrug of the shoulders. Ask the lawyers, though, and you'll get an earful.

Huntington Beach, which has the harder time drumming up tourist business, took the controversial step a few months ago of trademarking the name "Surf City USA" as its exclusive property. Now its lawyers are firing off cease-and-desist letters to shops and small businesses in Santa Cruz, and triggering a classic Californian north-versus-south showdown.

First in the firing line was a popular Santa Cruz beachwear shop called Noland's on the Wharf. The lawyers from down south noticed that one of its items was a T-shirt with the slogan "Surf City Santa Cruz California USA". That, as far as they were concerned, constituted trademark infringement, and they warned that if Noland's did not stop selling the shirt by the end of this month it would find itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

That was when things got interesting. Noland's knocked 25 per cent off the price of the $17 shirt to make sure all 85 in its inventory would sell before the deadline. But publicity over the flap with Huntington Beach caused them to sell out within an hour on Saturday morning. Another 600 people are on a waiting list for more shirts, which may or may not arrive in time.

Quite a few of the T-shirt buyers told reporters they intended to wear it as a badge of honor. Some talked about travelling to Huntington Beach and wearing them there, specifically to taunt their rivals.

Other local businesses with names such as Surf City Produce and Surf City Coffee expect to be next in the firing line. Not that they are entirely defenseless: under US trademark law, challengers have two years to make their case before the trademark is declared final. One California state legislator sympathetic to Santa Cruz also introduced a motion to try to knock down the trademark - a motion that was withdrawn last week.

After the threat to take Noland's to court, a news release by the Santa Cruz tourist office offered Huntington Beach wry congratulations for having "wrangled its first outlaw". But spokeswoman said she wasn't displeased. The controversy, she told one reporter, "put Santa Cruz on the map. We couldn't have bought that kind of publicity."

Far Side of the World

The recent lapse in posting was caused by a trip to England and Ireland for a family wedding, and the beginning of my law school semester. While I was in England I stopped by Rutland Water; it still looked the same as it did when I was learning to sail...there was even a fleet of Optimists on the beach at RSC waiting for a thunderstorm to clear.

In honor of my return to North America, here's a contest. Can anyone identify the beach in the photo below? The winner will get instructions on how to make a duct tape wallet.

In other news, I actually did some sailing back in August at the Sunapee Open in New Hampshire. We did fairly well, coming in 8th out of 30 boats. There were two races in good breeze on Saturday but there was no wind on Sunday. Here's a good photo:

I am crewing in 7101...notice anything strange about this picture?