It's Good To Be Back

Or is it... After spending time back east, I was eager to get back on the water and racing again. It had been several weeks. The guys did okay without me but the familiarity of sailing together (Don and Gordon for over 30 years and the three of us of nine) is a big comfort and advantage. So it felt good to be out on the water, in a good stiff breeze and gearing up for a race last Thursday evening. We got off the line fairly well as did several others. We had to hold our position for a while until the others tacked away (no wanting to duck three or four boats). We had Faux Pas below us and couldn't quite get the clean air we wanted but had no place to go. Finally after the boats above us tacked away, we were free to tack over on port. We continued for a while until our lift decreased and we tacked back to starboard.... "starboard... STARBOARD!"... BANG. Similar to this. After getting over the initial shock and briefly making sure Faux Pas was okay, I checked out the damage. We had a pretty good "dent" along the port rub rail. Fortunately, it was behind the shrouds and forward of the spin sheet block. I looked from below and it looked like the hull was okay. We got our heads back in the race and tacked for the first mark. Incredibly, we were the first around and start the reach leg with a boat length lead. At this point, I attempted a quick repair. "It's amazing what you can do with duct tape." It was primarily to keep water on the outside of the hull. It seems they float better this way. It also seemed quite undesirable to sit on the broken edges of fiberglass. The rest of the race was uneventful for us. We extended our lead on subsequent legs and roundings and finished comfortably in first. So what do we take away from this besides a bruised and battered boat? Well for one thing, yelling on a windy day does little good. I'm not sure how to do a better job of getting another boat's attention. Second, it's vital for crew to look below for boats on starboard. When you have inexperienced crew, the skipper must do it and remind his or her crew. Third, in high wind, falling off to duck a transom is a bad emergency maneuver. We suspect this is what happened. As you fall off, you gain speed and the collision just happens sooner. It's better to crash tack. Whew! It's good to be back...

Port rail and deck damage Mid race duct tape repair Port rail and hull damage

Did the Vikings have Mommy Boats?

The Sea Stallion, 100-foot-long replica Viking longship departed a Danish fjord Sunday to sail across the North Sea to its home port in Ireland. It is the largest Viking warship ever rebuilt and with 65 crew will make the seven week voyage powered only by sails and oars.

The ship will be the crews only home on the 1000 nautical miles long journey across the North Sea, into the Atlantic Ocean and south through the Irish Sea. The crew must fight through the toughest waters of Europe and some of the most challenging waters of the world north and west of Scotland.

Do you think Vikings need a Mommy Boat? Well certainly not real Vikings! But these... replica Vikings will be escorted by Cable One (a ship for hire).

Test sailing is not safe
"We've done everything we could to minimize any risks concering the historic test voyage of the Sea Stallion. For three years, the crew have practised in a long series of test sails, getting to know the ship and learning to sail it. No one have sailed a Viking warship like the Sea Stallion for the last 900 years. Basically, the purpose of the practising has been to regain a knowledge lost a long time ago. However, even though we've done everything we could to improve the security, it is never safe to sail an open ship through some of the most challenging waters of Europe. It was risky in the Viking Age - and it is risky today. That's the reason for the escort ships, who can help us if the worst comes to the worst," Carsten Hvid explains.

Addicted to Blogging or Just a Geek

Tillerman has been posting about the quizzes at mingle²... First he found his blog rated as Parental Guidance Suggested. Turns out this blog came up with the same rating because of the words "shoot" and "hurt". Most recently he wondered: How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I found I am (according to the mingle² quiz) 52% addicted to blogging. Then another quiz caught my eye. This one quantifies your geekness. With this quiz I find (what I already knew)... That I'm a geek albeit not over the edge...

I may not be the Sci-Fi loving, always playing video games type of geek... But I recognize "/(bb|[^b]{2})/" as Shakespeare no problem... and here I was early on a Sunday morning checking in with Google Reader looking for the latest word on Race 7. After seeing there was no racing today, I start scanning through other blogs and news and find someone is asking if I'm addicted to blogging. Na, my conclusion is that I'm a bit of a geek. How else can I explain taking quizzes on an online dating site?