PORN STAR

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Movistar or Sailing Pornstar

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing for this website, and in my current life there’s not a lot of spare time. So I’ve been wondering why I sacrifice time I could spend mucking about in boats, hanging with my nephew and sleeping with my girlfriend to write articles for nothing more than the joy it brings me (he's lying - Ed).  I suppose vanity explains part of it, but that’s not really what motivates me.  I’ve been writing and editing sailing articles for about half a year now, and they really only have one thing in common besides foul language: Each subject was something I felt passionate about.  I include a lot of non-sailing stuff about my friends, family and co-competitors so I can help readers to differentiate between what I’m writing and the increasingly vapid material so prevalent in sailing media today.  I am not being paid by some corporation to go report on an assignment.  I do not care if some sponsor’s PR person hates me or vows to never let me near any boat sponsored by them.  If I piss off a pro sailor by writing about his obnoxious attitude, I won’t care.  I am not a journalist.  This is not my job.  This is my way of sitting around the salon table at anchor or the barbecue on the club lawn with new friends, a bottle of rum and a smoke, telling stories and sharing information.  One of the major reasons we all love sailing is because it is a lifestyle at least as much as it is a sport.  These articles and SA allow me to share some of the infinitely cool things about the life with thousands of people.

ABM AMRO

Movistar

Black Pearl

My partner in love and war, Mer, her good friend Kris, my big brown dog Bob and I trickled in to Port Covington at around 6:30 AM.  I hadn’t been able to sleep one minute on the drive out- I was too busy doing work on the laptop for the first 6 hours, and the girls were passed out in back for the rest of the drive.  The girls were sleeping as we took detour after detour to finally reach Tidewater Marine.  I was looking for a parking area, but my eyes were stuck nearly closed with dryness after 11 hours staring at computer screen and then windscreen. I missed the parking lot and kept driving without any real clue of where I was.  I was kind of looking at the monstrous gray naval supply ships warped to the quay in front of me and I almost drove underneath ABN1 before I saw her, dangling from the travellift while an army of shore crew cleaned and polished the hull.  They were either wearing full body and face CDC contagion suits or I was hallucinating badly.  I swerved around the lift and pulled up next to the container with the big movistar awning, only to realize that there were five more movistar containers, alongside dozens of others. They ringed the big gravel staging area, arranged like a miniaturized industrial park in a U shape surrounding the travellifts, cranes, and the waterfront quays themselves. 

My sleep-deprived brain registered the tens of millions of ultimate ocean race boat surrounding me, but I didn’t take in much and frankly I didn’t think my mind was lucid enough to register them properly anyway.  I’ve been around some big and beautiful yachts and it wasn’t the size or the

Timber Wolf

ABN lifted

Honey look at my walk-in closet

expense that overwhelmed me - hell, I ran a gorgeous hundred foot racing schooner for two years that was the state of the art (in 1914) - but I’ve been awed by VO70’s since the first video and picture of movistar blazing across the Atlantic hit the internet.  These boats are just so aggressive; up close Movistar looks like a timber wolf and I bet you’d only be half surprised if she growled as you walked past.  .  I turned away from the boats and walked around the open containers with their perfectly organized clothing, spares, line, and sails showcasing the level of professionalism pervading every part of these programs.  Meters of perfectly smooth spare daggerboard lay coddled in foam, perfectly aligned on sawhorses just as everything else was.  I watched the ABN washers for a while longer, then let the dog out of the truck and followed him down to the pier. 

In one of those incredibly cheesy moments that only come when you’re postcoital, chemically altered, or completely overtired, I watched the sun glide through the horizon line.  The first fat rays poured over the breakwater and filled the basin with gold like a warm bath of saffron.  The garish sponsor logos became modern art, and the water glimmered with jewels.  It was heady stuff to be all alone with a dog and the cool northerly flowing along my cheek, the only person among these six amazing machines that represent the absolute pinnacle of the sport that consumes so much of our lives.  I stayed in that moment for what felt like hours.  Then, a pungent smell flowed over me and I felt a little nauseated.  I looked down to see a giant steaming pile of very-used dog chow and grass. Bob had a very proud look on his furry face.

We had an incredibly busy day planned, and I knew I needed at least a catnap.  I could have pestered the some of the support crews for information; they were just now starting to stroll up, but I knew it would leave me useless for the rest of the day.  We had scheduled a sail with Bouwe, a tentative sail with the VX40 Basilica, a half dozen sailors to sit down and interview and dozens more to talk to.  I promise you’ll read our tale tomorrow.  It’s got boat porn galore, good stories, good sailing and great people.  There’s even a gratuitous tit scene, but that was the one time I didn’t have a working camera.

TO BE CONTINUED