M Squared

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 ...