M Squared

Time to (re) assembly the ski bike. I just wish we had that kind of cold smoke around here rather than Oregon oatmeal .

Who is Llyn Brianne ? No, not a late addition to my list of sailors I'd like to have dinner with . The real question is " What kind of lunatic goes down a 1,000ft wall of raging water in a canoe - let alone on a bicycle? " Apparently, there are several "nutters" out there willing to give it a go.

I love sailing. I love working with computers and developing ( CAM ) software. The intersection of these two interests is a sweet spot for me. With all the sailing blogs , regatta websites , class websites , sailing videos , virtual racing and more ... the internet is clearly the best sailing invention of all time in my book. But I'm a little late for that project . Tillerman's latest group writing project invites people to share "which sailor or sailors, living or dead, real or fictional you would like to invite to a dinner party." There are some that quickly come to mind: Hans Horrevoets , John Newton , Alex Thomson , Steve Fossett , Lia Ditton and Zac Sunderland to name a few... Coming back to the intersection of wind and bytes , I think I might put Jim Gray at the top of my dinner party list. No, not that Jim Gray . I'd invite the Jim Gray that (most recently) worked for a giant computer industry monopoly in Redmond, WA who was lost at sea in January

This is the motto of the Volvo Ocean Race and the banner you see when you play the Volvo Ocean Rave Game . Certainly, the expression applies to the sailors spending weeks at a time, far out at sea with only their crew mates, experience and ship underneath them. The VORG on the other hand... Well, we have it a little easier. But in some ways, the extreme nature of virtual ocean sailing can only be understood through the experience of those around us. The following was posted on the Support Forum of the VORG (not the type of "support" they had in mind); DEAR VOLVO OCEAN RACE GAME. Can you please help me my husband has deen acting most strange the past week.he works from home and has his one office he seems to de getting very depressed latelt. he's locked in there for hours at a time,we use to go to the pub four or five times a week.the other day he came screaming out off his office something about he had broken a sale?I thought it was something to do with his work. th

Found this video on sailkarma.com . The Volvo Ocean Race teams have been at sea for 16 days. That's the same amount of time for many of the virtual racers (not everyone started leg 1 at the official start). EVK4 pointed out several similarities and differences between the real sailors and the 42,810 (and counting) registered virtual ones... This video points out another significant comparison. Over the course of a race like this where leg 1 will take nearly a month, health care needs are bound to come up that must be addressed while at sea (at least temporarily). I'm just glad that if I find myself in a similar situation, I can schedule a visit to my local, landlubbing dentist rather than have the watch captain jam a bunch of 3M Cavit in my mouth... Hey, I am the watch captain on my (virtual) boat...

Have you ever attempted to race in two regattas at once? That was the case with me over the Columbus Day weekend (Oct. 11-12). First, that's the same weekend that Yaquina Bay Yacht Club hosts their annual Columbus Day Regatta . Quite a coincidence, eh! Relative to last year , the weather was beautiful and the wind was rather mild but never shut off... There were a few strange (but not necessarily bad) things about this years event. We never went "up river" around 14, we went "out" to 7 five times, we never touched bottom once (no "touch and tack" this year), there were only 4 Santana 20s (in fact the overall fleet was down a bit compared to years past) and finally we had a total of 9 races over two days. Going around 7 (while not quite as big a deal as going around #1 aka the "Whistler") involves leaving the protection of the bay and dealing with the fluky wind and current under the bay bridge. At any rate, the Columbus Day Regatta is alw

SA (or should it be SI) posted a picture of Christophe Bouvet on Sirma in the 1600 mile Cap Istanbul 2008 . The brief post mentioned the challenging conditions facing the single-handed sailors. The Figaro Beneteau class (sweet boats) typically has interesting races with a large number of boats for single-handed ocean racing. The Cap Istanbul has... had 29. That was until this weekend. Fortunately, the 29th competitor will follow the other sailors to the finish... just not on his boat. The internet is great for sailors in general . It's especially nice in the off season and when you live in an area or country where the mainstream media thinks covering bicycle racing is an exotic sport... So, I click on the link to the Cap Istanbul and load the race viewer . It's the beginning of the 330nm, second leg from Cagliari, Sardinia to Marzamemi, Sicily. Not long into it, many boats (whose track is traced out by the viewer) dramatically change directions. Well, this is strange. Everyt

Olin James Stephens II (April 13, 1908 – September 13, 2008) photo from sailing.org His first published design, a Six , appeared in the January 1928 Yachting with these comments by the young designer: “In any design the most important factors of speed seem to be long sailing lines and large sail area, with moderate displacement and small wetted surface. Then comes beauty, by which is meant clean, fair, pleasing lines. Though per se beauty is not a factor of speed, the easiest boats to look at seem the easiest to drive.” [from sail-world.com: Olin Stephens dead at 100 years old ] It's the "pleasing lines" of Olin Stephens J boats and those inspired by them that drew me to sailing when I was young. A legend passed away this weekend.

The EYC , Harvest Regatta was entirely a local fleet affair this year. Although the competition was familiar, the weekend provided plenty of good racing. Rounding the final leeward mark of one race in fourth we managed a second place finish by staying in more breeze than a couple boats in front of us. The finishes all weekend were pretty close. Although we didn't have as much wind as last year , 10 to 18+ was plenty... and too much for some! We usually like these conditions but our old Genoa required more repair tape after day one. The carnage was mostly on Sunday. One poor Lido lost their mast before the start of the first race. Before the day was over, the remaining Lidos agreed to retire. In the Santana 20 fleet, several boats changed to blades for the last race. We're typically among the last boats to make such a sail change but I agreed with the call once I saw that some of the repair tape was AWOL. The jib is almost brand new. The wind continued to build and the ji

SANTANARAMA 2008: Final Report by Snapper via Sailing Anarchy . It’s in the can! Santanarama ’08, the 30th anniversary of Santana 20 Class racing is in the books. 39 boats participated in one of the best run and most fun events the class has ever seen. Only one race was scheduled today so while it was unlikely that there would be any surprises given the points spread anything was possible on this lake. After an hour long postponement the R/C decided to take advantage of the building West wind and sent the fleet out for the final race. Going into this final race Jim Martinez’s team on ‘Loose Nuts’ held a two point lead over Eric Kownacki’s team on ‘Alexa’. It was apparent that the Alexa team were going to attack Loose Nuts and do a little match racing in an attempt to put a boat between them. Leading up to the start Alexa had Nuts pinned (did I really say

SANTANARAMA 2008 : Day 2 Report by Snapper via Sailing Anarchy . With the prospect of a light air day the R/C postponed racing until early afternoon and sent the fleet out around 1230. Once again the conditions were trying with breeze on both sides of the course and lots of holes to deal with. This event has certainly been one of the most challenging Class Championships I can remember and the high scores can attest to that. Going into today, yesterday’s leader Paul Stephens, was comfortably in the lead by six points over Jim Martinez’s ‘Loose Nuts’ team with last year’s runner up Eric Kownacki in third five points back and trying to recover from a deep place (15th) in the first race. Britt Williams from OKC was in fourth place, seven points behind adrift of third. Britt has truly been on of the stalwarts of the class and has hooked up his boat ‘Fayest’ and driven to many of the West Coast events. His enthusiasm and Corinthian spirit is one of the reasons the class

SantanaRama 2008: Day 1 Report by Snapper via Sailing Anarchy . The Sailing Anarchy mantra is ‘where the status quo blows’, which was very fitting for day one of the 30th anniversary Santana 20 Class Championships 39 boats were on the line for race one, held in light to medium winds. The ‘status quo’ would have seen pre-regatta favorites Bruce Golison, Eric Kownacki and Chris Winnard (your scribe A.K.A Snapper) duking it out up front but at the first mark they were nowhere to be seen! In fact all three were buried on the wrong side of the course and ended up lucky to get 15, 16 and 17! The race was won by the Sacramento team aboard ‘Fusion’ with locals Ron Fish and two time champ Paul Stephens rounding out the top three. The R/C decided to send everyone in to wait for the afternoon breeze and the keg was tapped. After an hour or so we w

SantanaRama 2008: 30 Years of Tuna Sailing A preview by Snapper via Sailing Anarchy . The Santana 20 celebrates thirty years of class racing with the ’08 Nationals being held in Eugene Oregon starting tomorrow through Friday. At last count 37 boats were signed up with several of the perennial class heavy hitters in attendance. Over the years many of the West Coast’s finest sailors have cut their teeth on this class. Bill Herrschaft, Tim Hogan, Bruce Golison, Harry Pattison, Tom and Jane Schock, Charlie Ogletree among others have racked up class championship wins and the class continues to be a fun competitive group and this event is a prime example of that. Eugene Yacht Club provides a great venue with on site camping, evening social activities to local Vineyards and brew pubs, and lots of family oriented things to do. One of the n

It's almost here. SantanaRama 2008 starts next week. This is not some tribute tour to Carlos Santana ... It's the 2008 Santana 20 Class Championships hosted by Fleet 19 and the Eugene Yacht Club . Since the championships in 1996, this is the third attempt to bring the "Nationals" back to Fern Ridge . Early in the season , there was a lot of complaining about the lake level and the dumping of water in February. Well, fortunately the lake filled and we should have a great week of racing and fun! So far there are 30 boats registered and the wind have been great (mostly) all summer. We'll see if we can improve on our fifth place finish at the Cascade Locks on 2005.

Although vegetation occasionally cause problems for our local racing , it's nothing like the problems in Qingdao. Fortunately China has been busy (well, their "volunteers" have been busy) cleaning up the sailing venue. "The sailing event [...] will not be threatened by the algae," said Wang Wei, vice president of the sailing committee for the Beijing Olympic organising committee. According to this article , they have constructed barriers totaling more that 40 km in length to hold the menacing weed at bay. The barriers will be patrolled and any algae caught trying to cross the barriers will be "immediately cleared"... in the Olympic spirit of course. Now... what to do about the smell of "rotting broccoli or cauliflower".... Did you know that Qingdao means "Green Island" ?

Well the Emerald Cup was more like sailing in Qingdao than Giddy Up would have liked... They started the fifth race on Sunday with what seemed like an insurmountable lead (half as many points as the second place boat). Somewhere around the penultimate leg of the race they picked up a pile of salad on their keel... No one races salad... It's slow! We had a mediocre regatta (we missed you Don) but managed to do something right on the last race and pulled off a bullet. Looking back down the course we couldn't believe how far back Giddy Up was... and dropping fast. They almost tripled their point total with their 11th place finish. Congrats to Mark and "Q" .

This weekend's Emerald Cup aims to be a Clean Regatta through Sailors for the Sea . Being a good steward of the environment (or 'going green' ) is a good thing and it will be interesting to see how this objective is implemented. Meanwhile... this picture (from Verysailing ) shows a different kind of 'green' sailing in Beijing where preparations continue for the upcoming Summer Olympics. This is not the kind of sailing I'm looking forward to this weekend.

The following summary was posted on the S20 Class site by Mark Forrest : The 2008 EYC Memorial Day Regatta was won by class veteran Chris Winnard, sailing with his team of Lance and Patrica Purdy on the infamous “Disaster Area.” Saturday’s races could not have been more different. The first race started in very light air from the east with occasional ribbons of velocity filling in a different locations and keeping the teams guessing as to who was in the best position. Dark clouds and a new strong breeze caught up with the fleet as they made their way up the final beat. The new breeze built into the upper teens with some strong gusts for the second race and the reach back to the club. There were a few lightning sightings over the ridge, but fortunately, it never made it to the lake. The traditional gathering around the Fleet 19 keg preceded dinner, and followed dinner as well, with the party continuing well into the night. Teams were up early and ready to go for the optimistically

There's been a lot of learning going on lately which encourages me to think about some of the things we learned from the Seattle NOOD . Old sails are slow sails . Gordon and Don decided to bring the "Thursday night" sails. It forced us to pay more attention to the starts, our decisions and execution of maneuvers. 6 Meters are gorgeous old boats (wood beats that fiberglass stuff) Watching the 6 Meters crew work reminds me of whack-a-mole (e.g. From the Lipton Cup 2002 with "Olin Stephens at the helm of Sprig", now you see em ... now you don't ). Seattle traffic is horrible: narrow streets, hills, water, bridges, signals without intelligence and lots and lots of drivers like us who are just visiting The Santana 20 class racing was very competitive (six different boats won races). Congratulations to Inferno (S20 class and overall regatta champ.), Hostile Takeover and Loose Nuts. The bigger to boat the bigger the wind shadow... the more you should avoid

... and so do we along with 218 ( at last count ) other entries. Similar to SOCKS , there will be lots of variety across 24 classes ( 29er , 505 , 6 Meter , ACat , Beneteau First 36.7 , C&C 115 , F-18 , J-29 , J105 , J109 , J24 , Laser , Melges 24 , Mini 12s , Moore 24 , OD35 , Performance 30, Rocket 22 , San Juan 21 , Santana 20 , Tasar , Thistle , Thunderbird and Ultimate 20 ). On average (9 boats per fleet), the boats in each fleet should get to know each other ... Should be a lot of fun. Our first NOOD. Last year at SOCKS , we sailed 9 races over two days in heavy wind. This year there will be three days of racing. Should be just the thing to get us focused on Santanarama '08 .

Well we've been sailing around here for three weeks. The early part of the season is always interesting in many ways. First (and probably foremost) is the excitement of actually sailing again (verses reading, writing or talking about it...) This excitement motivates many people to take advantage of the earliest opportunities for sailing. Others however, take longer (several weeks) to get their boats race ready and in the water... or adjust their schedules... or find crew... etc. before they make it out on Thursday nights. I don't understand these people... Another interesting aspect to the early spring is people griping about the lake level. Fern Ridge is an ACE project. The lake level (or elevation) is subject to the corp's Rule Curve . The whining began in February as the ACE dumped water out of the lake during a period of rain accumulation. The resulting lake level dropped below the ideal lake level (in red) or rule curve. The following days and weeks were relative