February
2007
Long
Shot? Designer Doug Schickler has drawn this, a spec STP 65 design. Doug has an interesting take on the 65, so be sure to check it out. 02/28/07 |
"I'll Drive" Yes, boys and girls, it's caption contest time again. This might be our most bizarre offering yet, and we expect nothing but the most bizarre captions! The best one wins SA swag. We were going to have an advertiser sponsor it, but then thought better of it! Have fun. 02/27/07 |
| Addicted to
SA? Speaking of bizarre, we do get some strange letters, and this one may take the cake. I've included only the most fascinating part, and you can imagine my response.... I'm trying to find out what your policies are regarding member confidentiality and how you deal with information requests. I'm going to be in court soon fighting for partial custody and I may have to make a case my wife is addicted to your site and her activities on it do not reflect that she should have sole custody of our minor children. 02/27/07 |
A New Kind of
Synergy Remember the Synergy 1000 from a few years back? It was one of our all-time favorite boats. Well, here is the new version of that original Carl Schumacher sportboat. It is called the 350RL, and billed as as combination of both race and luxury. They get points for trying a new look, do they not? 02/27/07 |
| Media Lat/Leave We've had a run in or two with writer Herb McCormick in the past, and when he signed up as Editor at Latitude 38 a few months back, we figured we could add yet another clown to our list of enemies. We were pleasantly surprised when he then reached out to us when he got hired, and we were equally surprised when he reached out to us the other day to say that he is no longer at Lat 38. Apparently there was some friction between Herb and Big Cheese Dick Spindler, and Herb left. We'd love to know the real dirt, maybe someday.... 02/27/07 |
On Top  Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Nathan Ellis from the Fiat team won the SLAM-Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan International 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour. Nicely done. Thanks to Christophe Launay and Marine Action Photography for the winning shot. 02/26/07 |
Hey, It Could
Happen  Nothing like a little forward thinking. Called Explorius, it is a conept of a hydrofoil monuhull by Arnold Freidling and is worth a look. 02/23/07 |
| Solo
Sailing Stress Test On the surface, solo sailing might seem like a pretty stress free way to go, but the reality, especially solo racing is something completely different. The new York Times ran a good article on the subject. Be sure to check it out. 02/23/07 |
Beach Cat The joy of starting a race from the beach......F18 World Championship in Yeppoon, Australia. Thanks to Andrea Francolini for the artistic shot. 02/22/07 |
SA
Feature 02/22/07 |
Boat of the
Future From 1971! This is a shot from a 1971 Popular Mechanics magazine. This does look somewhat familiar.....Thanks to anarchist Rapscallion for the shot. Join the thread if you like.... 02/22/07 |
| Question
of the Week The Win So
after a number of years of not skippering a boat, your
Ed is back with his own boat (Flying Tiger), and we have
a couple of early wins right away. The success feels
really good and now I want more! We all sail for various
reasons, but let's not kid ourselves - we sail primarily
for the win. The win, the bullet, whatever you call it,
there is nothing like putting it all together and getting
that win. The
question of the week is: what do you do to improve your
game? Do you practice? Do you read, watch video, ask questions?
Tell us what
you do to up your game. have fun. |
Water World  Creatively pictured here are Darren Bundock and Glen Ashby the Tornado World Champion as they prep for the F 18 Worlds in Australia. Look for a report here soon. Thanks to Christophe Launay for the shot! 02/19/07 |
Lotta Cloth A couple of skiffs doing battle at Day three of the 2007 JJ Giltinan Trophy. Nice. Thanks to Christophe Favreau for the shot. 02/21/07 |
The Look Here is your faithful Ed getting his swerve on (literally) upwind on the Fling Tiger Anarchy at the first organized US FT OD race - ever. This one happened to be a small, but game fleet of four FT's at the Midwinter regatta in Dago. Whatever production problems the boats have had, they are sweet sailing mofo's. In case you ever wonder what sort of things your sailmaker should be doing for you, take a look here - it is Keith Lorence from Quantum getting our rig right. At least we think so. And here is the happy crew, with a wayward designer who wandered into the shot - our friend Doug Peterson. Thanks to Da Woody and Bill Stevens for the shots. 02/20/07 |
The Life This
is the sort of cool
stuff that you get to do when you are a world famous
rock star. Make that rock stars. This has got to be one
of those things, like driving an F-1 car, that must be
incredible. Might we be looking for an Olympic effort soon?02/20/07 |
| Water World Creatively pictured here are Darren Bundock and Glen Ashby the Tornado World Champion as they prep for the F 18 Worlds in Australia. Look for a report here soon. Thanks to Christophe Launay for the shot! 02/19/07 |
| SA Any Excuse Today is President's Day, right? Woo-hoo - we're taking it off then! Truthfully, you're faithful Ed is a bit beat down from steering three breezy races in the Flying Tiger Class So Cal Midwinters Sunday (3 bullets) and going to use the holiday as an excuse to slack off. We've got some good stuff for you this week, and we'll get to it perhaps later today. In the mean time for us yanks, enjoy President's Day and try not to think of the idiotic boob in the white house pretending to be president... 02/19/07 |
Foggy Notion A really nice shot sent to us from our contacts at Reuters. It is a foggy lake Michigan at Sunrise. Courtesy Allen Fredrickson/Reuters. 02/16/07 |
| Under
Build This One Goes to 11  The
new twin rudder, twin canard, canting keel Farr 11s design
is very much under way. We think it is a pretty risky
configuration for a production boat, but we have to say
that we like it - a push of the envelope and a chance
for it to be really quick. Farr has put together a little information
sheet that you may be interested to read. When this
thing hits the drink, SA will be there.02/16/07 |
Seeing Red  Photographer Max Ranchi sends this peak at the Montecarlo Primo Cup. 02/15/07 |
| Ad Rate A reader follow up to our Free market shot from yesterday. Tell us about how prevalent advertising is in your area.  I
read your "advertising" post today and I
have a picture you might like. On January I raced a
Benny 36.7 on Chile sponsored by Corona Extra (the
beer - of course, my favourite sponsor ever!) and were
racing against boats sponsored by Volvo, Mistsubishi
and Abn Amro. The thing is I have a picture in which
we are sailing under spinnaker well ahead of them and
it might be nice to show how the beer sponsor beats
the car and bank sponsors! Bye.
Diego
(the Argentinean bowman) |
| Environment Good News. Bad News Few things piss us off as much as the slaughter, oops we mean fishing, of whales by the Japanese. Barbaric, brutal and completely unnecessary, it continues to this day. We don't care about whatever tradition or needs are put forth as reasons for it, we call bullshit and the butchering of these magnificent animals should stop, NOW. So this story makes us happy on one hand , but... 02/15/07 |
What Is It? Looks like sail drive technology has gotten pretty impressive, but who knows about this one? The first one to give the correct answer to what boat and where, gets one of our limited edition SA Dryshirts! Today's contest is brought to you by RBS Battens. Have fun. 02/14/07 |
| OD Get 'Em, Keep 'Em? We like this idea - get a young team of sailors a boat, some funds and coaching to help a class that needs an infusion of new and enthusiastic sailors to keep it growing. The lightning class is doing just that and it sounds good. Called the Lightning Boat Grant Program, it seems to be a proactive attempt to make sure the historic class keeps the attention of kids who might look elsewhere for their OD sailing. Check it out and tell us what you think. 02/14/07 |
| New Cheese & Cheese  The
latest from C&C, the 43' 131. An IRC design with
it's sights not only on the emerging IRC market,
but also targeting a bunch of new J, Swan, Mills,
etc. boats right in that size range. This boat will
not only have to be very price competitive, but it
will have to be fast - much faster than their last
couple of boats were for their size. To their credit
or discredit, depending on your POV, the boat has
the now well established C&C look, with some
promised build and performance improvements. Read
all about it and also give us your
opinion.02/14/07 |
Free Market As advertising and sponsorship becomes more of a reality and a presence in this sport, is it going to come down to anything goes in terms of who and what may be advertised? We actually don't care who advertises, but would national authorities step in, if for example, there was an influx of adult entertainment advertising dollars? I can see it now, my Flying Tiger 10M Anarchy, brought to you by Evil Angel Video. Nice... Comment? Photo by Paul Berdy 02/14/07 |
Rock On A nice shot from the TP 52's sailing in the Medcup in what now seems quite a while ago. This shot from Richard Page, who now has a new site that he wants y'all to check out, so do so! 02/13/07 |
Ice Cubed An amazing looking ice berg in Lemaire Channel, Antarctica, taken by the adventures aboard Team Mowbray. 02/12/07 |
| Question
of the Week Pimp Daddies? So two of the biggest names (and certainly one of the biggest egos) announce their ambitious plans for an event called the World Sailing League, a rather presumptive title to an ambitious plan to have a series involving 70 catamarans race a nationalistic, world professional tour. Uh, okay. There have been a number of failed attempts to do variations on this theme, but few have had their star power of Coutts and Cayard. What remains to be seen is if there is the money to pull something like this off. C&C are no strangers to big money programs and also making big money off of big money programs, so no doubt they have both of those well in place. Might this be the one big event that gets all the attention and really brings something new and exciting to the sport, or will this just be another overly ambitious plan to make something out of a sport that just doesn't have what it takes to make this a success? What say you? 02/12/07 |
Biggie Smalls  The 18 Ft skiff Macquarie Real Estate with Micah Lane, Jack Macartney and Drew Waller the new Australian 18ft Skiff Champions, training one week before the world 18 feet skiff here in Sydney, Australia. Wonderful work by Christophe Launay of Marine Action Photography. 02/09/07 |
Day Job The folks that created the "melvolution" featured here at SA a while back, have created this, called the Dayracer 29. Hull number one of the pocket canting keel little yacht is sold and under construction, with two more orders pending. Thoughts? 02/08/07 |
| Beauty, Eh? No Canada's Cup this year? A pissing contest between a skipper of some renown and his club has now rendered the Cup held hostage? We know there has been a challenge accepted, but now it has been rejected? Perhaps there is even some litigation around the corner? We're getting the story, but feel free to tell what you know. 02/08/07 |
Go! Real sportboats at the 2007 Bay of Islands Sailing Week. We'll have the story from the winner tomorrow. 02/07/07 |
Looking For
A Class 40? Here is one just looking for a builder and an owner or three. Designer Tanguy Le Bihan has this and some other interesting designs, and a cool opening page on his site - check it. 02/07/07 |
Kid Frost There is sailing, and then there is this. Call us soft, but we'll sit by the fire while you go do this! See story below. 02/06/07 |
UK Rules The
Situation:
02/06/07 |
Hanging
Tough The brand new Farr designed Open 60 Paprec-VIirbac in Tauraunga, New Zealand. This boat is the 4th Open 60 design from their studio (Paprec-VIirbac 1 , Delta Dore and PRB being the other three) designed for Jean-Pierre Dick who commissioned FYD's first Open 60 Paprec-VIirbac 1 back in 2002. Looks pretty good. Thanks to anarchist Greg for the shots. 02/06/07 |
Reason Number
4... ...To get a canting keel boat - cleaning the bottom is a snap! That, btw, is said to be Mike Sanderson in the drink giving the Elliot 52 Outsider a little extra love. Photo by Paul Berdy. 02/05/07 |
| Without A
Trace There is much conjecture about the disappearance of San Francisco sailor Jim Gray, acomputer wizard of some renown. There has not been a trace of Gray or his 1983 C&C 40 since he left last Sunday for a single-handed trip out to scatter his mother's ashes at sea, according to the Coast Guard. Amazon has dedicated a site to helping find Gray, and there is some pretty amazing technology at work that is being used to help find Gray, and we certainly hope it helps, although at this point it does not look too good. SA has discovered that he had an out of date eprib battery, did not have a life raft, survival suit and only had a single VHF radio on the vintage C&C. It would seem he was not well prepared for a trip offshore. The USCG is very good at finding people and if he was out there, we have to believe they would have found him or some sort of trace. He may not be out there, and if not, where would he be? Comments here. 02/05/07 |
| Something
Different Wakey Wakey!  A
number of sailboat designers have and continue to design
power boats, but we haven't seen too many like this!
It is the work of Bakewell-White
Yacht Design and they seem to have drawn something
fairly quick (duh). Their boats finished 1-2 in something
called the premier V8 Superboat division at the first
round of the 2007 New Zealand Offshore Powerboat Championships.
Pretty cool, but we hear they rate horribly in IRC.02/05/07 |
Gray Matter The latest AC boat from the Areva Challenge design team. Picture by Franck Socha and sent courtesy of designer Guillaume Verdier. 02/02/07 |
What's It
Rate? We'd
guess pretty good because it doesn't look too fast. Fast
though, is probably how this went down, no pun intended.
One thing led to another, which then led to this rather
unfortunate situation. Here's the
story. Even the best of us can fuck up! One simple word would have saved the day: the handbrake! Follow the thread. 02/02/07 |
| "The Owls Are Not What
They Seem" -Twin Peaks  A little Thursday fun - the first guess to properly identify this nifty looking day sailor gets one of our cool new SA canvas gear bags. As always, have fun. 02/01/07 |
| New Blow N' Fold  The
title might normally describe light air sailors in breezy
conditions, but here it has a literal meaning. Here is,
conceptually anyway, a folding
high performance dinghy. We don't make this stuff up.
While it looks pretty cool on paper, we somehow think the
reference to being made from "flat sheets of plastic" and
the use of "corrugated plastic" will leave a
bit to be desired, like for example anytime you pull the
mainsheet on. Or wish to hike, or....Thanks to anarchist
Simon for this one.02/01/07 |