At this event, guests will have a chance to meet Andy Horton & Brad
Nichol, there will be a 50/50 raffle and a silent auction, along with
cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, special guests speakers and a presentation. Check it out and if you can attend, by all means do. Miami, represent!

11/22/06

Money Shot

Whaddaya reckon this R/P 66 canting keeler cost? 2 million? It has bought the owner the lead in the World Famous Hot Rum Series here in Dago. This is the same owner who had his lawyer send us a nasty letter complaining about some posts in our forum a few months back. The owner of course couldn't simply contact us, he called his dogs in, which tells us plenty about him. Perhaps the owner will read the OK Computer story below and go bark up some other tree next time.

This nice shot is courtesy of our friend Da Woody and be sure to click here to take a look at what happens in San Diego when the wind blows over ten knots - hahahaha!

11/21/06

The New Orleans sailing community is asking our peers around the country and world to give us a hand in fundraising to help restore our circa 1837 Lighthouse which was wailed on first by Hurricane Katrina and then Hurricane Rita. Through the efforts of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation we are trying to raise enough money to bring the historic structure back into operation and build a museum and a small docking facility. So far, we've done pretty well on our own, New Orleans Yacht Club alone held a party two weeks ago where the club members raised over $10,000 and the membership of Southern Yacht Club plans to do the same in the Spring.

If any Anarchists out there would care to join in, please visit www.saveourlake.org and make a donation. It would be even cooler if everyone did it under Sailing Anarchy's name and we could then get the Foundation to place a plaque on the restored Lighthouse acknowledging Sailing Anarchists everywhere.Thanks!

Troy Gilbert

11/21/06

The court, in a unanimous decision, said those claiming defamation can only sue the original source of the allegedly offending comments, not publishers or distributors, even if the distributor is an individual. Internet users are protected by the same 1996 Communications Decency Act that grants immunity against defamation claims to publishers in most circumstances, the court said, overturning a San Francisco appeals court.

``By declaring that no `user' may be treated as a publisher' of third party content, Congress has comprehensively immunized republication by individual Internet users,'' the court said today. Read on.

11/21/06

Stern Too

An interesting piece of work from Andrea Francolini at the Etchells Worlds in Australia.

11/20/06

Here Comes the Sun
Talk about solar power! The transatlantic21 association’s solar catamaran will leave Basel this month en route for its transatlantic record attempt to New York. Seville. The journey will proceed via the Canary Islands and Cape Verde to the West Indies and then on to Florida. The boat will hopefully continue its journey along the US coast to New York, where "sun21" is due to arrive on 8 May 2007, having covered about 7000 sea miles.

Sun21 is a 14-meter-long catamaran powered exclusively by solar energy, and hopes to be the first motorized crossing of the Atlantic without using a drop of gasoline. If they attain the record, it should show the potential of the solar technique for ocean navigation.

11/15/06

Over the Top

11/10/06

Rhute du Rhum

Over Easy

The Orange project trimaran capsized at 23h28 GMT in big breeze and sea, and Ross Hobson is now safe aboard the ship Carmen after his capsize was signaled at 23:00 GMT on Tuesday, 1760 miles away from Pointe à Pitre, during the Route Du Rhum.

Orange skipper Steve Ravussin activated his Sarsat distress signal and this morning, the Russian tanker "Okhta Bridge" picked up Ravussin.. The rescue was difficult, but Ravussin was said to be in good condition. Click here for Ravussin's story.

11/08/06

Launched

Welcome Mat
The latest from Mark Mills
The successful launch of the MAT 12 is the first in a series of new Mills Design yachts being produced in the region. The Enigma 34 One Design is a sporty high performance design under construction in Istanbul, while the tooling for the new Landmark 43 is nearing completion at Dubai based Premier Composite Technologies. This IRC 43’ Cruiser/Racer design already has 5 boats ordered for the growing Scandinavian market, where promoter Claus Landmark sees growing interest in IRC. Full details of this new design will announced shortly. Dubai and Turkey are some of the rapidly expanding economies where Mills Design has been developing relationships which can promote quality composite boatbuilding with lower labour rates, but also with relatively low shipping costs to Europe and the US.

11/07/06

Stiffer early morning winds ushered in a fiercely competitive second day of the Professionals 2006 New Zealand blokart® Open.

A weather system that baffled the event’s experts saw the forecasted light winds blown away by steady 10 – 12 knot winds, with gusts reaching up to 18 knots at times.

Racing got underway at 10:15 with the Heavyweight and Super Heavyweight divisions being run off first, to make up for those not run the previous day when dropping winds forced race officials to finish racing early.

But it was in the Middleweight division where controversy flared. The tight, fierce battle that waged between America’s Sean Fidler and Australia’s Ben Lazzar in one of the heats, showcased the wheel-to-wheel action that makes blokart® sailing an exciting spectator sport. Their battle ended in grief when the two locked karts and grinded to a halt in the chicane, leaving New Zealand’s Matt Beckett no where to go. The pilots avoided injury, but the resulting collision saw two karts needing serious attention in the pits.

Day Two ended with ten out of the sixteen races for the series completed, and the Kiwis dominating the top seeds in three out of the four divisions.

Day Three was a lay day – with fun deuce and team racing.

Peter Ronalds
Blokart International Ltd.

11/03/06

The main initial impact was taken by the drop keel, which was fortunately in the up position, but the main rudder mechanism was completely destroyed and the trimaran, which is about 140 miles north west of the island of Florès, in the Azores, is no longer maneuverable.

Stève is, however, trying to reach the island, where his technical team will try to arrive with a new rudder. He has not yet had an opportunity to dive and inspect the state of the central hull, but cannot see any water ingress at the moment, so there is no question of abandoning the trimaran. Thanks to BYM News and be sure to check out all our latest news, RDR and otherwise.

11/02/06

Great Build

Reinforced Plastics magazine recently had a superb article on how the VOOR dominating ABN AMRO ONE was built, and they were cool enough to share it with the SA readers. Enjoy.

11/02/06