Proper Course

Night Race

2009-11-07T11:11:00.003-05:00

Antolin left a comment on my post about (almost) giving up sailing in which, among other things, he said...

another tack (one that I use often) is to sail just because sailing is such an extraordinary experience... last Thursday night we had the last Thursday night race of the season... so I rigged a glow stick on the sail's head atop the mast and went racing...but the sunset was so, the moon was so, the tangerine tinge on the water due to the lovely sunset, the sound of dolphins... the whole evening was magical...

Today he sent me this photo taken that evening.

For once I am lost for words.

John Lennon: Family Man, Sailor

2009-11-06T06:53:00.002-05:00

John Lennon's Watching the Wheels seems like an especially appropriate Song for the Day in the light of yesterday's post. Lennon wrote this song to answer those who were mystified by his withdrawal from his musical career from 1975-1980 in order to enjoy family life with his wife Yoko Ono and their son Sean.

It's not widely known that John fulfilled a lifelong ambition by learning how to sail in early 1980 and that in June of that year, accompanied by a small crew, he sailed a 43-foot sloop from Newport to Bermuda. There is a fascinating account of the voyage at Whatever gets you through the storm. Apparently the passage inspired John to come out of his five year retirement from the music business. Once in Bermuda, he started writing songs for a new album Double Fantasy, which he recorded with Yoko and which was released in November 1980.

Three weeks later, on 8 December 1980, John Lennon was murdered.

The morals of this story (uh oh, I feel another list coming on) are...

People say I'm crazy.
It's good to put family first.
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
If you have a sailing ambition, do it now. Next year may be too late.
When you take a break from the activity that defines your identity you can take it to a whole different place when you return to it.
Sailing can change your life.
I just had to let it go.

10 Reasons Why I (Almost) Gave Up Sailing This Year

2009-11-05T05:42:00.001-05:00

I (almost) gave up sailing this year.

I probably haven't sailed a dozen times since the beginning of the year. I didn't sail in a "real" race once between 2 Nov 2008 and 1 Nov 2009. This is terrible.

There was a time when I raced on at least 30 weekends every year. Plus some major regattas like a North Americans or CORK in the summer. Plus a major regatta somewhere warm in the off-season like a Sunfish Worlds or a Laser Master Worlds or a Midwinters. In 2008 I sailed on 94 days.

I wasn't just a casual sailor. I was a fanatical racing sailor. So what happened?

I have no idea. But here are some reasons that might go some way to explaining why I (almost) gave up sailing this year.

1. Family. My two grandchildren are fascinating little people. I am the only grandfather they have. I barely remember my own grandfathers; one died before I was born and the single memory I have of the other is of being taken to see him in his bed, probably during his final illness. I want my own grandkids to have better memories of me than that. More than that, I treasure every moment I can spend enjoying their company and watching them change and grow. They came to see us almost every weekend this summer and it always seemed the right choice to play with them rather than to go sailing.

And yet, there were lots of other days when I could have gone sailing but didn't...

2. No BHAG. The last couple of years I have set myself Big Hairy Audacious Goals for my sailing. In 2007 it was to finish in the top half of the Laser Masters World Championship. (I did it.) In 2008 it was to sail on at least 100 days. (I failed.) In 2009 I didn't have a BHAG to drive me.

But if that's the only reason I sail it's pretty pathetic, isn't it?

3. Burnout. As I mentioned in 2008 I sailed on 94 days in my failed attempt to sail on 100 days in the year. It was fun. It motivated me to sail more and I had some fabulous days on the water. Was it too much? Am I burnt out from too much sailing last year? Maybe.

But surely that can't explain why I (almost) gave up sailing altogether?

4. Community. If I think back to many of the years when I sailed a lot it was partly because I was part of a club, a community, and part of the motivation to sail was to go and have fun with all my friends at the club and to hang out with them afterwards over beer and pizza or whatever. I haven't really established the same strong links to the local sailing community since moving to Rhode Island.

This is entirely my own fault. I need to fix it.

5. One bad experience. Can one bad experience of sailing turn you sour on the sport? You wouldn't think so. But I think my racing on the first day of frostbiting last winter did dull my appetite for racing for a while. Pretty much everything went wrong that day. The wind was nasty and shifty and gusty and chopped-up with vicious slam-dunk headers. There was a huge turnout of sailors on a short course so the start line was too crowded, the mark roundings were too crowded and there was way too much bad-tempered shouting as we played bumper-boats. I tried to make the best of it and write it off as a learning experience but I think it planted a seed deep in my mind that keeps reminding me that racing isn't always fun; sometimes it's just plain frustrating and annoying.

But surely all the hundreds of memories of good days on the race-course would outweigh that one bad day? You would think so.

6. Paralysis by analysis. I have way too much information about the weather. I can see the wind on the bay from my window. I can check multiple websites for real-time wind information and weather forecasts. Uh oh - it's gusting 35 knots at Conimicut Light. Uh oh - the wind is dying in Bristol. Uh oh - the wind in Newport is forecast to die away this afternoon. Too many days I convinced myself that it wasn't a good day for sailing today. So I didn't sail.

7. Too much time. This will sound nuts, I know. But back in the day when I worked for a living I only had certain days I could sail. If I had planned to go frostbiting in Connecticut on Sunday, I went. Never mind if the weather forecast called for rain or snow or no wind or too much wind, I went anyway. It would probably be the only chance I had to sail that week so I went.

Now I'm retired I can sail almost any day I want. So I look at the weather and think maybe tomorrow will be a better day for sailing. But we all know the problem with tomorrow: it never comes.

Yes, I told you it would sound nuts. But I'm just trying to be honest about what went wrong this year.

8. I'm getting old. It's true. Now I'm in my 60's I don't have the same appetite for sailing on days when it's blowing over 30 knots or the temperature is under 30 degrees F. I don't have the same stamina I used to. It takes me longer to recover from a day of vigorous exercise than it used to.

But even so, if that explains why I skipped some days of frostbiting, it doesn't explain why I skipped every day after the first week. It doesn't explain why I hardly sailed all summer.

9. I'm a wimp. Probably

10. All of the above. I think the truth of the matter is that one of these reasons by itself wouldn't have been enough to (almost) turn me off sailing this year. Sailing is part of my identity. None of these things, by themselves, could destroy my love of sailing.

But cumulatively, taken together, I think these factors did (almost) cause me to give up sailing this year.

That's a scary thought.

But recognizing the problem is the first step in fixing it.

I need to fix it.

Any advice?

Laser Sailing Blogger of the Week

2009-11-04T08:30:00.005-05:00

Those of you who hang out at Sailing Anarchy may know B.J. Porter. His SA profile says he has made 19200 posts in the forums there! Can that be right?

He also has a blog, Sail Evenstar, where he mainly writes about working on the teak on something called a "1997 Hallberg-Rassy 53" whatever that is. But he has recently bought a real boat, a Laser, and has been learning to sail it which is why he is this week's Laser Sailing Blogger of the Week for his post Humility Lessons. Please do click over to his blog and give him some encouragement.

Windward Mark Rounding

2009-11-03T21:40:00.003-05:00

When rounding the windward mark, steer by heeling to windward and moving your weight aft. Ideally you should execute the turn without using any tiller movement.

What? Is that Tillerman actually getting something right on Day 1 of the Newport Laser frostbiting season? Well, judging by the telltales he should have eased the sheet more, but even so it's not too bad for an old geezer.

OK. Now all you armchair critics can pile in and tell me what else I am doing wrong.

The Meaning of Wife

2009-11-03T08:23:00.002-05:00

I don't usually like books about ocean cruising. All that guff about the wonderful weeks they spent in the doldrums admiring the thirty seven different shades of green of the ocean; or boasting about how the author went up the mast in fifty knots of wind in the Southern Ocean to fix the lower spritbuckle yardfickle that had got tangled with the toplifting shroudbobbin. It does nothing for me.

Thankfully, Janna Cawrse Esarey's new book isn't really about ocean cruising.

Sure, it's about how Janna decided she wanted to sail around the world after hearing Crosby, Stills & Nash's Southern Cross as a fifteen-year-old, and how she used to use "I'm going to sail around the world one day" as a pickup line for boys. And how she almost made her wish come true when she married a chap called Graeme, who knew a thing or two about boats having come from a family of commercial fishermen, and how Graeme and Janna sailed across the Pacific for their honeymoon.

Janna's book is titled.... wait for it.... the Motion of the Ocean, 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife. (The book is a little longer than the title but not by a lot.)

OK, so Janna and Graeme sailed across the Pacific, and Janna wrote this book about the experience. But the book is not really about sailing. It's about The Relationship. Or, more specifically, Janna's ever-changing view of the state of her marriage with Graeme (starting on the first page with what an "asshole" she thinks he is) as they spend the first months of their marriage cooped up together on a 35 foot boat which is incidentally cruising across the Pacific.

It's at this point in the review where I expect most of my male readers will write off this book as being purely for the chicks. Please don't. First of all, Janna's search for the "Meaning of Wife" is hugely entertaining - even for guys; and secondly, her book will give you new insights into the mystery that is woman (and we could all use some help on that topic.)

So let me introduce our major characters...

Graeme, as I mentioned, grew up with boats and the sea and knows his shit. He has been doing some high-powered corporate stuff where he is renowned as a firefighter, a problem-solver, which is just as well because he is the one that has to solve every minor crisis that our intrepid cruising couple encounters along the way. He is smart, brave, calm, competent, hard-working, and level-headed, and according to Janna "knows her body - her angles and lines, her moans and her hums." (I think we all know what she is talking about here.) In other words, Graeme is just the sort of person you would want to cross an ocean with, not to mention also having all the qualities of a perfect husband (or so you would imagine.)

Janna, on the other hand is a slow learner when it comes to sailing, and is frankly not interested much in acquiring many of the skills that are relevant to crossing an ocean on a small sailboat. Janna writes about how many cruising couples have a division of labor on the boat based on Blue and Pink tasks...

The Blue tasks are all the traditional male things like "engines, electronics, the mechanics of in-mast furlers et cetera." Janna admits that she knows nothing about this stuff, cares nothing about it, and has difficulty learning about it. OK. I guess Graeme can handle that side of thing. He does.

The Pink tasks are traditional female things like cooking, dishes and laundry. Janna confesses that she sucks at cooking, doesn't find any joy or stimulation in most Pink tasks, and as a truly liberated woman avoids Thinking Pink because it "reinforces the stereotype that woman cannot understand engines, electronics, the mechanics of in-mast furlers et cetera." Hmmm. I guess Graeme will have to handle a lot of the Pink stuff too. He does.

Can you see why there might be some tension in this relationship? Wait, it gets worse.

The saintly Graeme is super-efficient and is always actually doing stuff that is useful and necessary on the boat. "He oils and caulks and fills and empties and cuts and connects and tightens and loosens and gaskets and scrapes and solders and screws and maintains and repairs and installs and diagrams and consults and buys." And what does Janna do while Graeme is busy doing useful stuff? She might plait her hair; she might find an Internet cafe and email her girlfriends; she might stick wedding photos in an album. Hmmm.

Can you see why these two might have an occasional disagreement? Wait, it gets worse.

You see Janna is a thinker, an over-thinker actually, a worrier. She is forever questioning the status of the marriage. Have they lost the spark? Are they having enough sex? Is he The One? How do you even know when you've found The One? Should they be having more exotic sex? Is the relationship drifting? Was it a good idea to schedule sex for 3pm every day? And so on. And so on. Asking herself and her long-suffering husband questions like, "When we fall in love with someone is it with their best self? Or their whole self?" Yes sir, women really do think like this.

So while Graeme is steering around typhoons and avoiding pirates and rescuing Janna from rabid dogs, Janna is having all these thoughts about the "Meaning of Wife" and capturing them on her laptop for our future entertainment. Gentlemen, I suspect that what Janna has written about Graeme in this book is much the same thing that all our wives and girlfriends say about us when they get together on a girls night out and spend hours telling each other what assholes their male partners are. Which is why this is such an excellent handbook into the mysterious workings of the female mind.

For example...

What does it mean if you forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed? (Not that I ever would of course.) In her mind, it means you don't find her attractive any more. Didn't know that, did you?
Why does she always take at least half an hour to get ready when you want to go ashore? She's giving you time to read a book and brush your teeth. Didn't know that either did you? I'm telling you, the book is full of gems like this. Dental hygiene is the key to success with women.

Other things you might not know...

When you pee over the side of the boat she is imagining how she is going to fail to rescue you after you fall overboard. This is a sign of how much she loves you.
Women are secretly envious of our ability to pee over the side. When women sailors get together they discuss how a woman can learn to pee standing up. Sometimes they even demonstrate to each other how to do it. Apparently they think this is a turn-on for their husbands. Didn't know that did you?

There's much much more in this field guide for men to the female psyche or "what she is really thinking when she gives you that strange look." Every man should buy a copy of this book. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you a better husband or boyfriend. It will remind you to brush your teeth and change your underwear. Seriously.

As I mentioned before, Graeme is as close to being a saint as any dude you will meet in real life. Early on in the book when Janna is having one of her periodic woman-to-man discussions with him about, "How do I know if you are The One?" and "How do you know if love will last? Like forever?" Graeme speaks the truest words of wisdom about marriage in the whole book...

You have to make it the One every day. Through blood, sweat, and tears, laughter, hope, and faith. You don't know (if it will last). You DO. You do the things that will make your relationship good today. And the next day you do it again. And again. And again. The goal isn't simply to have a marriage that lasts. The goal is to create something wonderful, together, every day for the rest of our lives.

You will have to read the whole book to discover whether or not Janna really takes this message to heart, and what shape their marriage was in after their trans-Pacific adventure. Along the way you will learn how Janna found out that "it's not the size of the ship that matters, it's the motion of the ocean." (I think we all know what she is talking about here.)

Oh. And there are some good bits about sailing too.

Full disclosure: I was given a review copy of this book.

Lists

2009-11-02T09:05:00.004-05:00

Anal-retentive people (such as me) like to-do lists. Writing lists make us feel organized and in control of our lives. Anal-retentive people love feeling in control.

On Monday last week I made a list of my Fitness Goals for Winter 2009/10.

On Tuesday I changed one of the items on my list of fitness goals to make it easier and made a list of 7 Places I Want to Travel to This Winter.

On Wednesday I made a list of 13 Things to Fix on my Boat and a list of 4 Sailing Goals for Winter 2009/10 and a list of 9 Ideas for Future Blog Posts. Wow. Three lists in one day. What a productive day!

I spent most of Thursday playing with my grandkids. Didn't write a single list all day. Felt like a real slacker.

On Friday I went for a long run by the side of the bay. Sure it felt great to be running again after a layoff of several weeks with a back injury and a cough. But I didn't write any lists at all. Two days in a row without writing a single list! Not good!

On Saturday I checked over my boat and trailer to make sure everything was in good order for sailing on Sunday, and collected together all my cold weather sailing gear. I was so distracted with these tasks that I completely forgot to write any lists! Can you believe it? Three days now without writing a list! I'm starting to suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

On Sunday it was the first day of the frostbite season and I went Laser racing. When I arrived home there was a spectacular sunset. Tillerwoman cooked us a delicious dinner and then the Yankees beat the Phillies in game 4 of the World Series. It would have been a perfect day except that I didn't write a single list all day! I felt like a miserable failure. What is the matter with me?

Today I am determined to get back on track with my list writing. No more wasting time with trivial stuff like sailing and having fun with my grandkids. So I crossed 4 things off my list of 13 Things to Fix on my Boat and then I wrote a List of Lists That I Will Write This Week and then I made a List Of All The Lists I Wrote In The Last 8 Days and wrote this blog post. Anal-retentive people get really excited about lists of lists.

Aaah. That feels better.

How about you? Written any good lists lately?

Sunset Over Mount Hope Bridge

2009-11-01T19:43:00.002-05:00

When I arrived home from sailing today there was a spectacular sunset. Mount Hope Bridge connects Aquidneck Island (aka Rhode Island) to the mainland at Bristol. For 40 years it was the longest suspension bridge in New England.

I love this place.

Happy Spider Day

2009-10-31T17:20:00.005-04:00

And check out more spiders at frogma and Love & Coconuts.

It's Snowing

2009-10-30T17:01:00.004-04:00

Conversation yesterday between myself and my 3-year-old granddaughter.

Emily: Look Grandad, I've drawn you a picture!

Me: That's very nice Emily. Who is it?

Emily: It's you Grandad!

Me: Oh yes. Now you mention it, I can see it's me. What's all this at the top of the picture?

Emily: It's snowing!

Me: What am I wearing?

Emily: Mittens!

Me: It's good to wear mittens in the snow. What else am I wearing?

Emily: A dress!

Me: A dress? Why am I wearing a dress?

Emily: Because it's snowing, of course!

Me: Oh.

Frostbite racing starts on Sunday. I'm not sure how the other fleet members will react if I show up in mittens and a dress. Even if it is snowing.

Book Review: Saving Sailing

2009-10-29T05:59:00.000-04:00

Nick Hayes is in love with sailing. He is one of those people who believes that sailing takes us as close to God as we think we might ever be.

But he is troubled. The numbers tell him that sailing in America is in decline. And he wants to understand why something as rich and rewarding as sailing should be losing popularity. More than that: he wants to work out how to save sailing.

So he has studied sailing and sailors and sailing clubs. He has interviewed more than 1,200 sailors worldwide. He has drawn some fascinating conclusions as to why sailing is decline and what we need to do about it, and he has written all about it in his new book, Saving Sailing.

Actually, in the process of pondering what is happening in sailing, Nick has developed some theories about how people choose to use their free time generally, and how to support any challenging but rewarding inter-generational life-long pursuit. His conclusions are as applicable to making music or hunting or knitting as they are to sailing.

Saving Sailing is a book which challenges you to examine many of your own assumptions about our sport. Time and time again as I read it, I found myself thinking, "Hmmm. That's a good point. How does that relate to my experience at that club or that sailing program? Do I agree with his argument or not?" My mind is still buzzing as I mull over the ideas in this book. I suspect I may revisit some of the issues in future blog posts.

A couple of examples...

Nick argues that one of the reasons that an activity like sailing, a "life pastime" as he calls it, is deep and rich and socially meaningful is that it requires more skill and more time commitment than some "time filler" such as watching TV or surfing the web. Paradoxically fewer people are embracing a life pastime because other options are easier; but those of us who are drawn to a life pastime, like sailing, do so even though it is hard - or perhaps partly because it is hard. Nick concludes that, "If sailors hope that sailing will survive and grow, they won't try and convince others that it is easy. They will rightly call sailing what it is: difficult, time-consuming, evolving, sometimes risky and always worth it." Quite a controversial stance. One that our new president of US Sailing doesn't seem to have embraced (yet).

As someone who was once involved in teaching junior sailing classes, I have always seen the large number of kids involved in junior sailing programs as a healthy sign for the future of our sport. Nick, however, is skeptical about this view. He sees that the vast majority of kids, even those who go on to college sailing, eventually drop sailing from their lives after they graduate college and find more important things to take sailing's place, things like a career and wife and kids. He also sees that, for many families, sailing is just another one of those activities like baseball and ballet and soccer where the parents drop off their kid for some lessons, Mum and Dad are not involved themselves in their kid's sailing, and indeed they often don't even understand what the kid's sport is all about.

After ranging far and wide (and deep) and analyzing the decline in sailing from all angles, Nick develops a set of recommendations for attacking the problem based on a model of mentoring across generations, preferably within the family. He is a strong believer in parents investing in skills so as to be able to transfer skills, in parents doing things with their children not just for them, in parents making difficult time choices in order to share time with their kids in their chosen life pastime.

His vision is compelling. I have seen at least one sailing club where it is working superbly well. I am not totally convinced that Nick's vision is the only way to save sailing, but his book certainly stimulates the reader to think through all these issues.

I would recommend the book to anyone concerned about the future of sailing. If you are a parent who would like your kids to sail you should read the book; it could change your whole approach to sailing as a family. If you are in any kind of leadership position in a sailing club or a community sailing organization, then you should buy some copies of this book for all the officers of your group, read it, and then discuss as a group how you are going to use the ideas presented to improve your program. If, like me, you are just some old dude who loves sailing as much as Nick does, then you should read the book to rouse yourself to work out what you can do to make sure that our sport doesn't decline any more.

Nick's analysis of these issues is interspersed in the book with anecdotes about different people's experiences of sailing - some good, some not so good. (I'm assuming that the characters in these tales are fictional but based on reality.) As the book progresses we slowly discover that many of the people in these stories are actually connected with each other, and that Nick is writing about a complex web of relationships across genders, generations and ethnicities, a web in which memories are created and passed on and in which one generation mentors the next.

And now for a surprising coincidence and a hopeful sign...

I read the last one of these sailing anecdotes in Nick's book on Monday. It was the final link in the chain of connections between all the characters, but historically it was the earliest story. It was a tale about the seminal incident that had sent ripples of relationships and memories and teaching across families and across generations. It was a story about a sailing race in a Thistle about fifty years ago. A guy whose name began with E. took his young daughter and her best school friend out sailing. Immediately after reading this chapter of the book I turned to my computer and saw that my friend Edward had just posted Sailing Camp on SF Bay, an account of a sail he had with his daughter and her friend and how they were having fun learning about sailing.

I think Nick Hayes would approve. Edward is doing his bit to save sailing. There is hope. Sailing does have a future.

Full disclosure: I was given a review copy of Saving Sailing.

Gary Jobson - Please Don't Make Sailing Easy

2009-10-28T13:20:00.007-04:00

Gary Jobson is a good guy (he used to be a Laser sailor) but I can't agree with what he just said. He was recently elected president of US Sailing and it was reported that in his acceptance speech he said, "We want to make sailing safe, easy, and fair."

Easy? I don't want sailing to be easy. It wouldn't be any fun if it were easy.

Watching TV is easy.
Mowing the lawn is easy.
Chatting with friends on Facebook is easy.

Sailing is difficult. That's what makes it so engaging. I have spent half a lifetime just trying to learn the skills to race one relatively simple boat as well as I can, and I still feel that I have so much to learn. It's the challenge of trying to learn something that is difficult and then attempting to use my hard-won skills that keeps me involved. I don't want sailing to be easy.

Having written the above I decided that, to be fair, I ought to watch the full video of Gary's speech. It is true that the context of his first remark about "making sailing easy" does leave open the possibility that what he actually meant to say was that he wants to make access to the water easy. And then later in the speech he gives three other examples of things about sailing he would like to make easier: handicaps, racing rules and measurement. So maybe I shouldn't blame Gary for that sound bite of, "we want to make sailing safe, easy, and fair." Maybe we should blame the PR person who wrote the press release.

Whatever. US Sailing should not be trying to give the impression that they are going to make sailing easy. It ain't easy. And I, for one, don't want it to be easy.

What do you think?

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

2009-10-28T09:23:00.002-04:00

If you have a hankering for a bigger boat you could always try this option. Just saw your boat in half and add a new section in the middle. Of course you don't need to go to the extremes of the Royal Caribbean International cruise line who decided to add 73 feet to the middle of Enchantment of the Seas using this method.

I Want One

2009-10-27T12:14:00.000-04:00

Photos shamelessly stolen from Sailing Anarchy

Less is More: Wrap-up

2009-10-25T07:00:00.006-04:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in this month's group writing project Less is More. We had about 25 responses...

Andrew says Less is...
and Greg and Kris say ahem.
I predictably wrote about the Laser.
Sam added some LASER TWO WORD STUFF.
Susie Pegel gave us her Star and Laser Comparison.
And Carol Anne couldn't quite make up her mind about the Etchells.

Earwigoagin was contrary at first...
The Laser......Not!
The Sunfish...... Not!
before deciding that canoe sailing beats paddling!

Joe likes sea kayak sailing
while Pat likes kayaking and the OPB gambit.
But it was Antolin who took the "Less is More" concept of boating to its logical conclusion in Hanging.

And then we had a group of writers who took the "Less is More" idea and ran off with it in all sorts of unexpected directions...

Emily Fabpants dreamed of warm summer days on the Norfolk Broads.
Crazy Swim Dad says the more you drive the less intelligent you are.
Some_day_soling wrote about the exquisite moments in sailing.
Manfred wrote about the pleasures of a very small regatta.
Captain JP offered us some random thoughts on the topic.
Janna concludes that it's all about time in the boat.
O Docker describes minimalist boat maintenance.
Jos found a great example in The Racing Rules.
Zen offers sailing Hawaii through Zen eyes.
Edward explains why Popeye eats spinach.
Zen educates us on Wabi-Sabi.
And Yarg likes Molting.

Wow. You guys are the best. You never cease to amaze me with your ingenuity and creativity in taking a simple idea from me and spinning it into such a wide variety of nautical tales. Did I miss anybody?

Thank you.

Blogger of the Week

2009-10-24T11:19:00.004-04:00

Welcome to the world of sailing blogging to new blogger, and my Blogger of the Week, SailFast13©.

SailFast13© is written by 16-year-old Brent J. Burrows (aka BJ) who is fortunate enough to live in the Bahamas. This past week he has been competing in the Sunfish Worlds in the Bahamas and blogging about it every day... in both text and video formats. In his profile he says, "I will discuss various regattas I have taken part in, as well as my sailing in general, and also how sailing is affecting my life. Videos and photos of my sailing campaign will also be posted." So it sounds like he is going to keep the blog going now the Worlds are over. He should.

I hope you enjoy BJ's accounts of his racing at the Worlds as much as I did. It sounds like it was a windy, fun regatta. I must admit that reading his stories made me a little nostalgic for my former life as a Sunfish sailor, and part of me wished I was out there with him thrashing around in the bottom half of a Sunfish Worlds fleet just like the good old days in Cartagena and Santo Domingo.

But it was an aside in Thursday's post that made me realize how much BJ and I are alike (even if we are separated by 45 years in age). He confessed, "The more I sail Sunfish, the more I can't wait to get into Lasers ."

Yes dude. I know exactly what you mean.

By the way is BJ the first blogger to include that little copyright symbol © in the name of his blog? Damn. Why didn't I think of that?

Anal-Retentive People Like Numbers

2009-10-23T14:41:00.009-04:00

Anal-retentive people (such as me) like numbers.

We like to use numbers to analyze things and measure things in order to make decisions that ordinary folk would just make on "gut-feel". This satisfies our preoccupation with details and organization. It feels good to us.

One example...

How do you decide whether to go to a particular regatta? You probably take into account such factors as the likely weather, how attractive the sailing venue is, who else is going, how much fun it will be... and then just go.

Not me. Not anal-retentive people. We need to work the numbers first.

It all started after that invitation I received to sail in the Asia-Pacific Laser Masters in Thailand next year. I wrote about it in the ironically titled Small World. "Ironic" because as I wrote the post I was actually thinking, "It's not a small world at all. Thailand is a hell of a long way to travel to go Laser sailing. How many hours would I have to spend cramped up in an airplane?"

Ahah. I had asked myself a question with a number as an answer. I could put a number on the "to go or not to go" question. And for that matter I could work out how many hours of traveling vs how many hours of sailing are involved for any regatta I might be considering.

Ahah. A ratio. Even better than a number. Anal-retentive people love ratios.

So I built myself a spreadsheet to calculate the hours sailing divided by hours travelling for all the potential sailing practices, clinics and regattas that I could conceivably attend.

Ahah. A spreadsheet. Even better than a ratio. Anal-retentive people love spreadsheets.

So now I can read off the S/T ratios and decide which sailing trips I really want to do. Here are a few examples. (A higher S/T means more sailing and less travelling and is a "good thing").

As a baseline I calculated the S/T for two sailing activities I have really enjoyed in the past...

frostbiting at Cedar Point YC in Connecticut travelling from my former home in New Jersey
Saturday afternoon practice at Lake Massapoag in Massachusetts travelling from my current home in Rhode Island

They both came out with S/Ts of approximately 1.000. (Anal-retentive people absolutely love meaningless decimal places.)

So then I looked at a couple of other options for sailing locally...

solo practice for a couple of hours somewhere very local
one day regatta at one of the relatively nearby locations around southern New England

These both came out with S/Ts of approximately 4.000. Woo hoo. That's very good.

What about driving longer distances to regattas?

One-day regatta in Vermont or New Hampshire. S/T=0.667
Drive to Florida for Laser Masters Week. S/T=0.640

Wow. That's bad. What a shame. I really wanted to go and sail in some of those other New England locations, and that Florida Masters Week sure sounded like fun. But the numbers do not lie.

How about overseas travel to regattas? (For the sake of simplicity, in this calculation I counted airplane hours and car hours as equally painful and monotonous, and just added them together.)

Caribbean Midwinters and pre-regatta clinic in Cabarete. S/T=1.050
2010 Laser Masters Worlds in UK. S/T=1.500

Hmmm. Interesting. Not bad. But not as good as doing local regattas or local practice. Perhaps less is more?

And what about the regatta that started all this anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive decision making by the numbers orgy?

2010 Asia Pacific Laser Masters in Thailand. S/T=0.420

Ouch!!

Of course this way of looking at the issue will only make sense to other anal-retentive people. I'm sure this post is going to attract lots of comments from so-called "normal" people who think I'm crazy to analyze things this way, and who will urge me to seize the opportunity to travel all over the world to see exciting places and meet all kinds of new people, and who will tell me how the actual physical travel is all part of the experience and not to be seen as something to be balanced against the sailing, and who will chide me that if I took my analysis to its logical conclusion I would never travel outside of my tiny little state of Rhode Island.

Of course you are right. You are normal. I am not.

My name is Tillerman and I am an anal-retentive.

Song for the Day

2009-10-23T06:02:00.000-04:00

More Than Enough Less is More

2009-10-22T11:32:00.003-04:00

Another couple of posts came in before the deadline for this month's group writing project Less is More.

Earwigoagin has really entered into the spirit of the theme by writing more 'Less is More' posts than anyone else. (Or perhaps he is trying to prove the counter-argument?) Anyway, his third post harks back to his Boy Scout days: Less is More.... or Less; Anyway, It Beats Paddling! tells the tale of how he (re)invented a very minimalist style of sailing.

And Manfred writes about a 'Less is More' subject that is dear to my own heart: how sometimes a very small regatta can be a more special experience than a huge one.

Update: Oops, missed another one because of an email snafu. The delightfully named Emily Fabpants dreams of warm summer days on the Norfolk Broads.

Full wrap-up on 'Less is More' coming shortly. Thanks to everyone who participated. Once again you guys have exceeded my expectations.

Hang on to the Mainsheet

2009-10-21T17:19:00.007-04:00

Continuing my series of posts of Tillerman's Top Five Tips For Making Sure I Don't Die on my Laser, my third tip is... if you fall out of the boat for any reason, Hang on to the Mainsheet.

I guess this piece of advice is really just a means to following that instruction given to all beginning dinghy sailors: Stay With the Boat. I used to drum that into my little Opti students right from the first day on the water. If the boat capsizes or you fall out of the boat, stay with the boat. Do not under any circumstances try and swim to the shore. From my coach boat I can see an Optimist in trouble a mile away. I may not see a little head in the water 50 yards away if it's choppy. Also your boat floats so hang on to it.

Where was I? Oh yes, how to stay alive on a Laser. Or rather off a Laser.

In most capsizes it's not too difficult to maintain contact with the boat...

The best of all is the so-called "dry" capsize. The boat goes over to leeward; you step over the windward rail on the daggerboard; you right the boat and step back into the cockpit without ever getting your feet wet. The youngsters do this on about 90% of capsizes; with my slow reactions I do this on about 0.05% of capsizes.

Next best is when the boat goes over and you fall in the water next to the boat. You can swim round to the daggerboard while still in contact with the hull. No problem.

But there will be times when the boat decides to eject you in a way that will initially leave you some distance from the boat.

One method the boat uses to achieve this is when you have just completed a perfect tack to lee-bow "that guy" and as you hike out on the new windward side you realize (too late) that the boat has tricked you into not putting either of your feet under the hiking strap and so you fall backwards headfirst out of the boat and everyone around including "that guy" laughs their socks off.

Another favorite way for your Laser to eject you is the famous "death roll". This is a windward capsize when heading downwind which can happen so fast that you don't even know it's happened until you notice that you are totally underwater and the boat is sailing off without you.

It's occasions like these that you need to hang on to the mainsheet. Your Laser probably won't sail very far away without you in it, but some days it can go even faster without your 200+lbs of weight slowing it down. In particular, a Laser that has done one of those pretty death rolls where the boom stays sticking up in the air can sail surprisingly quickly downwind in a good blow.

So it's important to hang on to something that connects you to the boat. Now, of course you are already holding two things that connect you to the boat: the mainsheet and the tiller extension. For many beginners the instinct is to hang on to the tiller extension. Do not follow this instinct. When your body weight levers the tiller extension against the gunwhale of the boat as you fall in the water, only two things can happen, both of them bad: the tiller extension can bend (if made of aluminum) or it can break (if you have one of those fancy schmancy ones made of carbon fiber.) Either way it's going to be expensive, and either way you probably aren't going to be able to sail very well with it in its altered form. Worst case you are suddenly floating around on your own holding half of an expensive carbon-fiber tiller extension with a nasty jagged end while your boat runs away downwind on its own at a rate of knots.

So hang on to the frigging mainsheet. Say this mantra to yourself ten times every night before you go to bed.

Even if you do hang on to the mainsheet your troubles may not be entirely over. Nine times out of ten the boat will round up, capsize if hasn't done so already, or just generally behave itself while you reel it in and regain contact with the hull. I do recall one day though when I fell out of the boat (don't ask how -- some stupid mistake or other) and as I hung on to the mainsheet the boat carried on sailing downwind at great speed... dragging me along underwater as it did so. That was a fun ride I can tell you. It wasn't so much fun when I surfaced and realised that my involuntary underwater speed swim was so fast it had sucked my expensive prescription sunglasses (which were of course secured by a croakie) right off my head and they were now sinking into the depths of Lake Ontario and I was now as blind as a bat. There are days when I wish I wore contact lenses.

Anyway hang on to the mainsheet. I do pretty much all the time these days... except when I forget to, or when I am too busy using both hands to try and disentangle myself from the mainsheet of some other dude who is trying to strangle me.

Yet More Less is More (Or Should That Be Yet Less More Is Less?)

2009-10-20T09:15:00.005-04:00

And still they come. Yet more contributions for this month's Less is More jamboree.

First time participant in one of my writing projects, Antolin, has written a real gem. He remembers how his love for the water started... riding on his father's back and Hanging on to a line of buoys. I'm hoping we will see more articles from him in future group writing projects.

Then Andrew pushes the envelope of minimalist blogging saying Less is...

And Captain JP offers us some random thoughts on the topic of Less is more (more or less) and hints at more to come (if he can decipher what he wrote on his iPhone.)

Update: Oops I missed one. Pat has an excellent suggestion for how to enjoy more boating for less money and less hassle - the OPB gambit.

I'm going to extend the deadline until Wednesday midnight as a couple of folk have told me they are still hoping to present an offering at the altar of minimalism in boating. Full details of how to participate at Less is More.

Hanging

2009-10-18T11:07:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Antolin for this contribution to our Less is More group writing project...

I have always loved water. Being in the water swimming, body surfing, jumping waves, relaxing; just the feel of the ocean moving you about in one global watery embrace. We start our lives surrounded by water in the most loving environment we will ever have.

Now as a grown man, I still love the water with passion! Race and cruise her body on all sorts of sailboats. From very complicated ocean going fractional rigged racing machines to the sublime uncomplicated Laser (my beloved mid-life crisis solution). How it all started has to be the apex of the "less is more" equation.

As a young boy, dad always took me to the beach. Long walks on the beach holding hands with dad or running ahead "exploring" on my own always included entering the ocean realm. An avid swimmer, dad would always take me into the water way beyond mother's tolerance....as deep as I could be, the assurance of his presence always made me feel safe. I would climb on his back and he would ferry me about as he powerfully swam towards the buoy lined edge of the swimmers area, beyond it, the rest of the world.

Dad would then leave me "hanging" holding the rope that tied all the buoys together in a sine wave parallel to the beach and swim away for his part of the swim. There, clinging to the buoys' line I would see my dad disappear below the waves. Every now and then our bodies would be lifted by the swell at the same time and I could see him speeding away from the top of a cresting wave, splash all about him. The rest of the time, I would be isolated from every sight of land as the troughs between waves only allowed me to see blue water, blue sky.

At those times all there was in my world was the sea holding me. What a pleasure, me in that embrace. With on shore winds, the waves crashing about, the troughs shielding me from any sights or sounds but water and sky, total isolation, total immersion. My only connection to any outside world experience would be the feeling of the rough buoy line in my hands and that barnacle population clinging to the bottom of the buoy. The passing of time vanished.

Eventually, dad's smiling face would appear back from the deep ocean. We would hang together to the buoy line while he caught his breath and rest. The things we spoke about, the silences we shared just bobbing about hanging to the buoy line. Time to go back he would say. I would again climb on his back and he would swim me in. I now could wave hellos to mom waiting for us on the shore.

Proudly riding the ocean on dad's back I was king of the world. Dad was my first boat and if less is more, then I can say a finer vessel has yet to be found.

Even More Less is More (or Less)

2009-10-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

I wasn't sure how my readers would respond to the topic of Less is More for a group writing project. Would anybody else find it interesting enough to bother writing a post on that theme? I needn't have worried. We've had a great response so far, including six more posts today...

Firstly we have another Laser freak like me who has let his enthusiasm for the boat take him to a whole new extreme of minimalist blogging. Sam Chapin offers LASER TWO WORD STUFF.

Then we had Susie Pegel's Star and Laser Comparison which makes a pretty convincing case for the 'Less is More' movement.

Having rubbished the Laser in his first submission, Earwigoagin comes around the course on his second lap and takes a whack at the Sunfish too in Less is More; The Sunfish...... Not!

Jos of Look to Windward attacks the issue in LTW on 'Less is More', with a great example of 'Less is More' from the Racing Rules. But he doesn't want you to read his post. Do not go there. And if you do go there, he begs you not to look up the Rule he has in mind. You have been warned.

Half the time I have no idea what Greg and Kris are talking about. Is ahem something to do with 'Less is More'? It's certainly about less sailing and less blogging. But where is the 'more'? 'Down with this sort of thing,' I say.

Finally, Pat says if less is more..., then his kayak certainly fits the bill. Nice one. What can beat a kayak as the ultimate example of minimalist boating? Isn't anyone going to put in a good word for surfing or stand-up paddling?

The project will remain open until midnight on Monday October 19. Full instructions on how to participate at Less is More.

Song for the Day: Streets of Philadelphia

2009-10-16T07:00:00.004-04:00

So why is the song for the day? What makes it topical?

I think this one's a bit easier than last week's question.

Star and Laser Comparison

2009-10-15T12:06:00.006-04:00

Before I wrote my own paean on the Laser for our Less is More writing project I received an email with a submission from Susie Pegel, in which she addressed the same issue by comparing the Laser and the Star. Susie of course has had a distinguished sailing career in both classes, winning the Laser North Americans as a young woman, competing successfully in the Star in her "middle" years, and is now a regular on the Laser Masters circuit (where she still beats most of the men.)

These days I tend to avoid posting a direct comparison between the Laser and another class of boat because of the inevitable impression it creates that I am implying that someone else's choice of boat is inferior to mine. So before you attack this post just remember

It's not written by me.
Susie knows what she's talking about (even if I often don't).
Just because some of us like Lasers doesn't mean that we don't know that they aren't for everybody.
Personally I think it's a marvelous thing that are so many different kinds of sailing boats and so many different styles of sailing. That way we can all choose a boat that suits our interests, aptitude, and income.

Chacun à son goût!

Peter Vessella, John MacCausland and I can speak to the topic of "LESS IS MORE." I am referring to comparing and contrasting the Star to the Laser.

STAR	LASER
more control lines than you can count	5 control lines
crew required	no crew required
trailer required	trailer optional
hand brake on trailer	dig your flip-flops into the gravel to stop runaway boat
usually mast breaks when you death roll (see Vince Brun death roll, 1988 Star NAs)	mast does not break when you death roll
hiking strap and hiking vest required	need hiking strap only
halyards	no halyards
more stays than you can count	no stays
spreaders	no spreaders
jib	no jib
whisker pole	no whisker pole
$65,000 for a new boat	$6,000 for a new boat
spreaders and stays constantly need adjusting for changing conditions	only need to adjust outhaul, cunningham and vang for changing conditions
more expensive than a 3-ring circus	more fun than a barrel of monkeys