Never Say Die

One would think that when the 630 square miles of Lake Pontchartrain decided to add New Orleans to its acreage after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August, that New Orleans would cease to exist for awhile in the racing arena.

Not true, in the four months post-K, in plain view of the much honored and now burned out husk of Southern Yacht Club and the nearby gutted New Orleans Yacht Club - New Orleans area racers have held four regattas out on the lake replete with several PHRF and one-design classes.

Granted the numbers were down, as nearly 60% of the sailboat stock in New Orleans was destroyed including the J/30 Zephyr which was on course to shoot for her 5th North American J/30 Championship on her home waters in October.

New Orleans area sailors also rallied to fund local Anthony Hudson's attempt at the Laser World Championships in Brazil within a month of Katrina's landfall and have actively followed local single-handed sailor Ryan Finn as he competed in the TransAt.

Moreover, New Orleans Yacht Club, located a short three blocks from the 17th St. Canal breach, also opened up her doors to all Gulf Coast sailors within five weeks of landfall. Still under generator power and a 9:00 pm curfew, this sailing community bellies up to the one yacht club bar that still stands, as club volunteers dish out cold beer and hot burgers to sailors and National Guardsmen alike amidst the ruins of the once scenic West End.

Never count this town and her people out.

Troy Gilbert

12/20/05

Board Room

A report from David Bell on the righteous world of board sailing at the Sail Melbourne Formula Windsurfing Worlds. Enjoy.

A wild start at the Sail Melbourne Formula Windsurfing Worlds on Port Phillip Bay in Australia.

Ninety six entries from 22 countries, with 19 world champions at the Elwood Sailing Club hosted event, include Australian Nathan Bowness strutting his stuff for the spectators on shoreside in Melbourne, Australia.

Competitors have spent a bit of time ashore instead of sailboarding on what is normally a very windy Port Phillip Bay, but today is looking fine, with a big northerly set to get racing underway on time.

Australia’s Allison Shreeve, the PWA Racing world champion is currently leading the Women’s event from current world champ, Dorota Staszewski from Poland and the 1999 and 2000 title winner, Polishman Wojtek Brzozowski, has taken the lead in the Men’s from 19 year-old Youth world and European champion Julien Quentel from France.

12/15/05

Hot Hot Heat
Here's a little anarchy in Arizona. The Santana 23 " Teresa Lynn " is skippered by the owner, Chris Reinhard. The crew was Matt Rands (foredeck), Dan & Todd Biermann (Pit and rail meat) and Steve Kusic (trimmer), keeping dry in my Anarchy shirt. We traveled up from Phoenix for the London Bridge Yacht Club's first annual Thanksgiving Regatta. There was a five boat Santana fleet along with PHRF sipn and non spin fleets.

By the way, Teresa Lynn and crew won the regatta with a score of 1, 1, 1 on Sat, and on Sun we had too much wind, too much jib, and too much Sat night and only pulled a 4. So much for a sweep.

BTW, I am really enjoying your web site. Being a world class smart ass myself, I thoroughly enjoy the way you take the piss out of the blue blazer types. Like I say, it's all about the fun and those little pieces of plastic we may collect along the way.

Steve Kusic
Arizona Yacht Club

12/06/05

The Little Big Boys

Here is a photo from our recent EC12 National Championships. The EC12 is a radio controlled semi-scale model of a 60’s era 12 meter boat. We held three days of racing, getting in 16 races for 43 boats/skippers and also a single elimination match racing contest. Same competitive juices and adrenaline as the full scale people boats but considerably less rigging time. More details on the boat may be obtained at www.ec12.org

It really makes it easy to convince the family to go racing when the venue is DisneyWorld!

Paul Proefrock

11/11/05

Grade A

The number of sailors attending the 5th Annual A-Cat Keys Race Week has now risen to 40 A-Cats. The field now consists of several Olympic medalists, World Champions, North American Champions and world renown marine equipment manufacturers responsible for winning the most recent Americas Cup. Owners/A-Cat sailors of the these corporations now are producing state of the art equipment for the Volvo Round the World Ocean Race and future Americas Cup events. All this in an atmosphere of good fun and a Corinthian experience.

The anticipation now building for the 2007 A-Cat World Championships, Islamarada, Florida.

Bob Webbon
USA 190

11/10/05

Global Knowledge

The big bad boy trimaran Geronimo arrived here in San Diego yesterday (via Tahiti - 4,000 miles covered in 12 days) to get ready for an assault on the outright record from Los Angeles to Honolulu next month. It is part of a very ambitious schedule which will also include the San Francisco to Yokohama Challenge the following month! Your Ed may go out for a sail this week - we'll keep you posted.

11/07/05

Double Crazy

We know you people are crazy, and this only proves it. - Ed

I am attaching an image of our front page of our issue after this years race. The image was taken during a night start in heavy rain and heavy wind during the first race.

Doublehanded sailing is really up and coming in Norway. Next June the Watski Skagerrak Twostar race, which is a 300 nautical mile race for doublehanders, will be arranged for the third time. This morning the registration opened, and the limit of 150 Norwegian boats was reached after just three hours. Read On

11/02/05

Step Up

Sailing Anarchy, I am writing on behalf of the Queen's University Mostly Autonomous Sailboat Team, or MAST. We are an interuniversity design team out of Kingston, Ontario with the goal of designing, building, and competing a two meter autonomous sailing yacht. The contest has been designed to emphasize radical yacht designs as well as the added challenge of autonomous control. The competition consists of several different events ranging from match racing to time trials with fully autonomous control. Originally hosted by the University of British Columbia, we have recently taken over hosting and running the event that will be held in May 2006. Design work of the hull was completed at the end of the last school year and now we are moving on to the construction phase of the project. We would like to submit an article about our competition and our boat. In our view Sailing Anarchy is the best way to reach sailors around the world. We would like to officially offer a challenge to other schools and the SA's audience is the target market. Any consideration will be greatly appreciated,

Mark Callaway Hull and Fins Coordinator Queen's University Mostly Autonomous Sailboat Team

10/28/05

In the Name of Science

Dear Editor,

I work aboard the R/V Knorr which is operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The ship is on a two month science leg in the Southern Ocean bound by the coordinates Lat: 53S-62S, Lon: 75W-103W. Every morning I download the weather off the Internet and then check Sailing Anarchy for the latest updates. It's a great way to start the morning!

Attached is a photo of the ship riding out a 946 mb Low that just passed to the south of us. Winds: 50 kts, gusts 65 kts, seas 25-35 (breaking).

All in the name of science.
A. Seamans 2/M

09/16/05

High End

Down in TV ratings, "Prada-Luna Rossa" try to pick up interest at Rome! During the Capital's "White Night" (a night with no end: shops, museum, restaurants and bars open all night long!) "Luna Rossa" will stay in Piazza del Popolo (in the center of Rome, in front of Twin-Churches..did you read "Da Vinci's Code"??), as a sort of monument. No one knows "monument of what," but this could be the solution: going down in sailing, it'll be used in the public area for children to play or shelter in case of rain!!

09/15/05

The I's have It

Wohoo (pronounced woa-hoo) Woohoo, Wooohoo, yeeha, or whatever your exclamation for fun excitement doesn’t even begin to describe the sheer pleasure of absolutely PERFECT sailing conditions that were enjoyed by 29 I-20 competitors at the 2005 National Championship Regatta at the Fond du Lac yacht club.

The winds were generally out of the south at 10 to 15 all weekend and generally oscillating about 10 degrees. There was little hiking to leeward, few capsizes, some great rides downwind and some great glory in picking the right shift or hooking a great puff. The sailing was really close and the ranks varied throughout the regatta.

The atmosphere was great and many of the sailors would proclaim that this was the best I-20 regatta EVER.

Hopefully we’ll have some time to provide some great stories and more details later, but for now, the results and some pictures are posted on www.inland20.org

Duane Pillar
Vice Commodore
Fond du Lac Sailing Club
I-20 Fd11 Liquid Chaos

09/14/05

On the Beach

Matrix (Iinglis 39) up on St. Kilda beach after returning from a short ocean race down here in Melbourne, Australia....what a bummer...
Courtesy Peter Coleman

09/12/05 .

Anacapa Island and the Dark Side

Some articles just have a way of telling, as they say in Hawaii, "good story." This from friend Billy Bob Boyes does just that. Enjoy.

2 of 10. I guess we are so fast the only pictures of our boat we get are before the starts

Over the last few weekends there have been 2 races around Anacapa Island in Southern California. This beautiful little island lies just 11 miles off Oxnard/Ventura and for this area they are usually well attended races. Anacapa Island, the smallest of the Channel Islands, is about 4 miles long with 3 breaks between two lower lying and one mountainous portion of land and all are very narrow in length. What makes this race stand out is that it is a nice race length for an offshore race (34 miles) and is tactically challenging "on the back side" or the wind shadowed portion of the island. The deep blue water, sheer cliffs of the island and abundant sea life are so amazing in beauty that it is distractingly hard to pay attention to the racing. For that reason when we are not racing our boat we usually take friends out to the island on our boat and just float around in the lee.

I bring this particular race up because of the type of racing we have been treated to the last two times around. As some of you may or may not know I am a 35 year professional offshore racing veteran who in the last 5 years has turned, yes like Darth Vader, to "The Dark Side" which is multihull sailing. This particular race starts at the coast and is generally a tight reach out to appropriately named "windy lane" which begins about 3 miles offshore and stretches to Anacapa's famous Arch Rock. This is almost a perfect angle for a multihull, as speeds of well over warp ten are achieved when the wind is doing its thing. I just love looking back at the wake (every one that sails on the boat would say all you can do is look backwards) behind the boat when I am not totally focused on keeping the boat from getting up to that tipping point with the windward hull out of the water, it would put most power boats to shame! In fact we pass most of the power boats anyway. We certainly are not as dry as them but I guarantee our smiles are much broader. Read on.

09/01/05

I would like to thank Cabrillo Beach YC and all of their volunteers. Also I would like to recognize my crew, Larry Spencer, Ryder Nesbit, Adam Hamilton, Arron Hall, and Mark Gaudio.

Todd Downey

08/31/05

Zephyr Un-interrupted

With 4 consecutive J/30 National Championship wins under their belt, Team Zephyr is shooting for number five, this time on their home waters in New Orleans October 20th – 23rd, hosted by New Orleans Yacht Club.

Troy

25-Aug-2005

Philippe Kahn’s Transpac 52 Pegasus (see picture above) turned in a stellar performance with 8 firsts out of 9 races. Winning first in Division 1 and first overall to earn the King Kamehameha Trophy. A hand carved Koa wood replica of the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Hokule’a. "I sail everywhere around the world and the conditions in Hawaii were the best: Winds from 15 to 35 knots and waves from 1 to 12 ft, tropical waters and unbelievably beautiful scenery. It doesn't get better than this!" said Kahn.

Charles Burnett’s Transpac 52 Braveheart finished 2nd in Division 1 and 3rd overall. Isao Mita’s R/P 72 Beecom finished 3rd in division 1 and 7th overall.

In Division 2, Dave Nottage’s J44 Kaimiloa III came back from a broken boom in race 8 to finished first in Division 2 and second overall. Kaimiloa also won the award for Top Hawaiian Boat. John Myhre & Harvey Arkin’s Farr 43 Flash Gordon finished second in Division 2 and 5th overall. Gary Fanger’s 1D35 Sensation finished on a high note winning race 10 in class and overall to be the only boat in the fleet to beat Pegasus. They finished third in class and 4th overall.

08/08/05

Philippe Kahn’s Transpac 52 Pegasus was the only division 1 boat to sail the first race today in 20 – 30+ knots of wind and 6 to 8 foot seas off Diamond Head. Braveheart, Beecom, Gerontius and Boomerang choose not to race. According to Philippe Kahn, “The Sailing was awesome”.

In Division 2, Dave Nottage’s J44 Kaimiloa finished first for and is the Division 1 leader. Second was John Myhre & Harvey Arkin’s Farr 43 Flash Gordon one point behind Kaimiloa. Third was Gary Fanger’s 1D 35 Sensation. The second race today was abandoned.

The Molokai Race has been canceled. The standing sailing instructions at the Waikiki Yacht Club call to cancel racing when there are Gale Force Warning in the Kaiwi Channel. As a substitute the Race Committee has developed a course to be sailed on Wednesday that will take the boats downwind from Diamond Head to a mark about 2 miles south of Barbers Point. The beat back to the finish will be in the protected waters of Maunalua Bay. www.waikikioffshores.com.

8/3/05

Old VO 60's Don't Die....

I am writing from Rostock, Nothern Germany at the coast of Baltic Sea. If somebody is wondering what happens with some of the former around the world VO60's, they are here :-) Well at least some of them, a local guy bought the former Toshiba and later SEB, found a sponsor (local beer brewer) and organises Speedsailing . Other VO60's are around too, the former Illbruck is called AROSA and is located in Rostock as well. Additionally a VO60 called T-Systems is racing in Rostock too.

Greetings from Germany (it is raining again) and thanks for the great work at SA.

Regards,

Jan

7/28/05

Brazilian Style

Certainly we're the only site that offers such diverse sailing reports from everywhere imaginable on the planet. Here our friend Luciano Secchin tells you about Ilhabela Sailing Week in Brazil. Enjoy.

From July 9 to 16th, the “crème de la crème” of South American racing community had a meeting in paradisiac Ilhabela (which means in Portuguese Beautifull Island) to take part of the Ilhabela Sailing Week. Among the hundreds of sailors in more than 190 boats from Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and UK were Olympic medalists like Torben Grael, Robert Scheidt, Lars Grael, Marcos Soares and Alex Welter. The fleet was completely diverse, from IMS machines (yes we still racing these boats here), like the Fortuna, a brand new Frers 60 the belongs to the Argentinean Navy and Mitsubishi Motors, (former Cristabella), a Vrojlik 47, to some heavy and slow cruisers, that were there just for fun. In this fleet also were 7 Bennies 40.7 and 11 HPE’s 25, a Brazilian built sportboat, both sailing in a one design class. The Brasil 1, the first Brazilian Volvo 70 also was there for some PR sailing, as the ABN Amro crew 2, sailing a Vrojlik 51. Read on.

7/26/05

Local Knowledge
Testing, Testing.....

I found Wharro's Volvo boat dockside at Mornington YC today testing the canting mechanism and swinging the boat over from side to side. I guess after what they went through in the Hobart in Skandia Wild Thing and having regard for where they are going in this VO70 beast, they need to be sure it all works OK!

It seemed to take about 15 seconds or maybe a bit less to cant from level in the water to full canted, or at least, as far as they were taking it today. All seemed to operate quite smoothly, albeit a bit noisily. Hate to be in a bunk in there when they crank the keel over -it sounds very "industrial" in there.

Chris / SPORTSCAR

Speaking of Hawaii...

The Waikiki Inshore Series sailed off Waikiki this weekend was co-hosted by the Hawaii and Waikiki Yacht Clubs and combined the Mesick Regatta with the Waikiki Inshore Series. Sailed in 85-degree trade winds and clear skies made a great weekend of sailing. The Waikiki Inshore Series include the Kokohead race and two windward leeward races off Black Point. The Mesick Regatta includes the night navigator’s race and the Waikiki Inshore Series races.

Read On

7/20/05

Opti Kids

On July 16 Pequot YC on Long Island Sound hosted 86 Optimist sailors for our annual Opti Rumble. For lots of these kids this is their first regatta so as Race Comittee you are never sure what to expect or prepare for, but these kids were great.

The nine to fourteen year old kids had great racing conditions with a steady 10-14 knots and flat water. We started the kids in two fleets and raced four races on a modified trapezoid course.
We had a few capsizes (too much windward heel downwind), a few booms to the head, etc. but most of these guys and girls knew what to do with their boats - rigging, towing, starting at the favored end, gybing the angles downwind... You've got to love seeing kids do all of this by themselves.

It was awesome to see 86 kids with the latest gear and with their boats dialed in (most of them anyway) loving sailing. Hopefully they'll stick with it so that we'll have people to crew for us when we all get old. Charlie.

7/19/05

Rock It 2.......BS Called.....

Yesterday we ran a piece, Rock It, touting the Rocket 22's performance in PHRF. One reader begs to differ with an ORC perspective.....

WAVES 2005
Rocket Shmocket - It got beat real bad in ORC. Dave Cross from Quantum sails Vancouver aboard Black Ice (Olson-30) was the class of the regatta. How do you like them apples DM???? Now you have the full story!!!!

Tim Coughlin

Div 3 Fleet - Sailed: 6 Discards: 1 Ratings: TCF
1 Div 3 Black Ice Olson 30 59 Dave Cross RVYC
2 Div 3 Radiant Yamaha 36 49165 Jamie Van Poele RVYC
3 Div 3 J9 J29 53160 Darren Burns RVYC 3
4 Div 3 Grand Boulevard J-29 8537 Simon Walmsley WVYC
5 Div 3 Rhumbline J29 69117 Wylie RVYC
6 Div 3 Kokopelli Olson 30 74259 Jeremy Wallace RVYC
7 Div 3 Rocket R 22 2201 Don Martin RVYC 7
8 Div 3 Noel's Ark Laser 28 49535 Chris Ladd WVYC
9 Div 3 Legend J30 30147 Michael Schefter FCYC
10 Div 3 Dillligaf R930 6314 Keith Climennaga NYC

7/6/05

Rock It
Scot, I thought this shot might be amusing for your readers. It was taken from our arch rival’s boat about 2 minutes after the start. (WAVES regatta in Vancouver last week).

You gotta love PHRF. In this photo, which boat rates slowest under PHRF? If you guessed the boat left, you’d be wrong!

ButI the Rocket 22 did win the WAVES race regatta series with a 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4 – not too shabby).

Photo: Quantum Vancouver.

7/5/05

Classic

Greetings,

Here's a nice shot of the recently restored R-class National Champion Pirate. On her stern is Grant Adamson of Malibu, CA, grandson of designer Ted Geary of Seattle.

Pirate belongs to the Center for Wooden Boats and is available for public sailing every Sunday afternoon on Lk. Union, Seattle (30 minutes from the airport) - other times by appointment. She is the only racing boat of her size on the National Register of Historic Landmarks and has been restored to the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior; original scantlings and materials. She floats exactly on her original lines and interprets the qualities of these great boats perfectly. For more on Pirate, visit: www.R-boat.org.

All the best,

Scott Roher,
Seattle

6/10/05

Modern

Hello, Here are the photos from our race in France (april 05), its a canting keeler 24ft. This is the prototype (with some problems with the main, we know). We will continue the testing and hope to bring it in production in November.

One conclusion, obvious, you have to sail different. Sometimes we are fast, without knowing why :)

Leo Voorneveld

Designed by Botin and Carkeek.
Photos by Vapillon
Skipper; Loyck Peyron
Yard; www.fast-sail.com

6/10/05

Apex, Baby!

We have gotten quite a few Local Knowledge reports - keep 'em coming - remember, free SA swag if we print yours!

What sailing is single handed, does 45 knots, only has a 4m sail, and rarely touches the water?

38 blokart’s have been regularly racing in Auckland including the current North American and Australian men’s and woman’s champions. Ages range from early teens through to well lets just say a lot older. Racing has been taking place in a local Auckland park on a combination of tar, gravel and grass. Racing is run in two weight divisions of around 15 to 20 in each around a tight course that resembles a cross between a go-kart track and a sailing course with a target length of around 5 to 10 min’s.

Ross

6/9/05

Local Knowledge

Little Down Under

Sometimes a picture is all that is necessary. Here are a couple of IOM's having at it, Brian Lever's Cockatoo #37 and Nick Lindsley's Ares #89 at North Lakes, Wednesday match racing. Photo by Nick Lindsley.

Btw, we love to hear from you and your racing scene - every local knowledge report that we print gets you free SA swag (a shirt, hat or whatever we have laying about).

Send them to The Ed.

6/8/05

Bad Day
Yachting along up the Irish Sea, big bang, rudder falls off, boat starts to sink, liferaft does not inflate, friends who passed by 1 hour ago hear mayday, return to launch their dinghy, crew step off dryshod, board rescue yacht, sit and watch their yacht sink. Happy ending, etc. Could have been very different. Very experienced sailors well respected been at it a long time,and have been racing since IOR days. Good story, true story, real pictures.

6/1/05

Aloha from the Waikiki Yacht Club!

The 2005 DJ Johnson Around Oahu Regatta is pau and a lot of great racing, fun and celebrations are now fond memories. What a great weekend to sail around Oahu. 80 degree trade winds and flat seas made for a fast and fun three races.

The multihulls put on quite a show with Ted Miller's Manju winning the series with a 2, 1, 1. Peter Hershorn's Illusion turned in the fastest time of 3 hour and 7 minute from Waikiki to Kaneohe on Saturday. We had Illusion and Bob Rossen's Bobsled finish within 7 seconds of each other on Sunday and the same two boats finished Monday within 4 seconds of each other. Great racing all around.

The Battle for Americap A and the DJ Johnson Around Oahu Trophy was won by Todd & Cindy Wyrick's Fins. Winning Americap A with scores of 2, 1, 1 and the Overall Americap division with scores of 2, 2, 1. Geoffrey Bourne's Noa from Maui earned second in both the Americap A and overall. Michael Welsh's Squad Car finished 3rd overall.

Americap B was won by Squad Car with 1, 1, 2, and the Tony Miller and Skip Winterbottom's team on Ikaika was second. The largest fleet was PHRF 1 and was won by Geoffrey Bourne's Noa with scores of 1, 2, 4. Gerontius finished second with a 2, 1, 6 and Fins third with 3, 3, 3.

PHRF 2 was won by the Miller- Winterbottom's team on Ikaika with a 1, 3, 1 and Lynn Silva-Barr's Isis finished second. Squad car was third.

A big Mahalo to all the people who worked so hard to make this great event happen. Phil Drips, Dan Sullivan, Charlayne Holliday, Kim & Lou Ickler, Ivan Chan Wa, Nancy Mulford, Ingrid Gales, Timmy Rhea, Bob Heidrick, Tom Pochereva, Cy Gillette, Steve Thomas, Richard Lorenzotti, Marisco boat yard, Mount Gay Rum and most of all my wife and son for letting me come play.

Michael Roth
Rear Commodore for Sail
Waikiki Yacht Club

Photo - Winning boat for regatta

6/2/05

Hardway

Race report - Hardway race

Set up - The Hardway race is a local to Santa Barbara ocean race that starts in Santa Barbara and ends in Ventura. The Classic Hardway route is 67 miles, Santa Cruz Isle to port. The Coastal, or Easy Way route is 43 miles inside the channel. For some reason the multi hulls did an ~50 mile trip around Anacapa Isl. to port - guess they didn't want any upwind work.

The race is getting less and less popular - mostly because everyone is getting smarter. I have only finished before midnight once and that was on Taxi Dancer. The usual form is very light upwind at the start, building and clocking right as the day goes on. Then very windy downwind on the backside of the island. Then the wind shutting off about dark and a drift-athon till about 9:00 am the next morning when you finally finish in a light land breeze. Read On

5/25/05

Photo courtesy www.maxranchi.com

5/13/05

John Laun and his crew aboard J120 Caper pulled victory from a hat when they overcame a huge deficit to clinch the the 2005 San Diego Yachting Cup.

The entire weekend had very close racing in the J120 fleet which was 10 deep and full of talent. In the end, only two points separated the first three boats and only two points separated the next three boats. Now that's one design!

Team Caper started the regatta with a series of uncharacteristic boat handling mistakes combined with some bad luck and before they knew it found themselves quickly buried in 6th place after the second race and 7 points off the lead. A 2nd place finish in the third race of the day helped end the day on a positive note, but still had them in 4th place a distant 8 points off the lead of the strong performance of Chuck Nichols' CC Rider with a 1, 3, 1.

Day two started with Team Caper leaving any remaining problems and doubts at the dock, and had the entire crew brimming with renewed focus on boat handling and boat speed. Brad Wright's Ma Jolie also came out very strong Sunday and pushed Caper even harder than before. The resulting tight races were a beauty to sail and found Caper with two bullets and Ma Jolie with two deuces. A tie breaker between Caper and CC Rider had Caper victorious in what must be one of the comebacks of the season in any class.

In addition to the J120 trophy, John and the Caper team also took Boat of the Regatta Honors for the best performance in the toughest class. While things appeared grim after the first two races, the crew clearly never had a doubt and never quit racing the entire regatta- a lesson for everyone.

5/4/05

Sea & Ski

The Melges 24 specialists made the difference in the weekend's Musto Ski Yachting in Norway. Having the two former alpine Olympic Gold winners Lasse Kjus and Kjeltil Andre Aamodt on the team wasn't enough for Siren Sundby, steering U*B*H*B to third place in the season opening on the Oslo fjord. Winners were reigning Melges Norwegian champions "LEK", featuring Anniken Murstad, Geir Dahl Andersen, Henning Astrup, Nikolai Astrup and Trond Solli-Sæther. "Passe Laidback" steered by Mads Truelsen won the Frist Class 8's class.

Conditions both on the hill Friday and in the fjord Saturday were suprisingly good for the part of the season, making it possible to arrange two runs in the slalom and four starts in the sailing. Fastest in the slalom was Aksel Lund Svindal, in front of the more senior Kjus and Aamodt. Svindal crewed for Hans Olav Kvalvaag on board "Siste Sten", finishing second after the sailing.

LEK's crew members Nikolai and Henning Astrup and Annike Murstad, while not competing on the international level, are far from unknown in national slalom circuit. Their tactics were to perform reasonably well in the slalom and taking it home in the sailing. That certainly payed off.

4/19/05

Flocking

The Florida Yacht Club (FYC) and Jacksonville welcomed 27 teams back to the St Johns to compete in the 2005 District 4 Championships. Sailors came from seven states to sail in the two man, 15 ½’ Snipe Class dinghy. The Snipe is sailed internationally and in the Pan Am Games. Several teams came to compete at FYC to practice for the World Championships this summer in Japan. This ensured the competition was top notch throughout the seven race series.

Henry Filter and Barb Evans (Annapolis/Charleston) won a close contest over runner up and defending champ Hal Gilreath and James Liebl (Jacksonville); and Gonzalo Crivello and Lynn Fitzpatrick in third. Crivello and Fitzpatrick won the regatta on the water but dropped to third when penalized for a starting line incident in the last race. The top junior team of Enrique Quintero and Alex Kas (Miami) took home the Hook Trophy beating out two other junior teams skippered by Max Hardage and Anna Lee Bradley.

4/15/05

Truckin'

A great follow-up to the Good Times for 30 footers in Australia story below comes to us, also from down under.

Hi there - I sail on Tow Truck. Yep we did get caught in a water spout or the beginning of one anyway. I was coming up from down stairs and my bro was on the helm. The call was that there was a big gust on the water just behind us and as it hit the masthead spin back winded onto the forestay so a crew member quickly grabbed the leech so it didn't get really tangled in the rigging. The boat tacked then bore away as the spinnaker began to refill and we did a full 360 on the spot. The boat was tipped over to about 50 degrees for some of the circle. We then gybed and resumed sailing our original course!!! A seriously strange manouuvre.....

We did not know what was happening at the time but it became apparent rather quickly that we had been caught right in the middle of an infant water spout touching down. The spout moved away to leeward and built quite a bit at a safe distance from us.

The breeze continued to build (from the S-SW) over the next 20 min to a solid 30 knots. We changed to a fractional spin and sailed side by side with the Cone for about 35 minutes at speeds of 15-18 knots before deciding we were going to hit Fraser island if we kept going.

I only looked at this site for the first time 2 weeks ago and tend to think that a lot of the info posted on here is way too over exaggerated to be of any practical use.

I can assure this is accurate. I was THERE!!!

Tow Truck - Crew

4/11/05

Good Times for 30 footers in Australia

Thirty footers have proven a most effective tool in this year’s East Australian autumn long distance ‘classics’.

In the first of the ‘classics’, the 370-mile ‘Sydney to Mooloolaba’, the boats were 250 miles down the course when the wind came in from behind at a meaty 25 – 30 knots. This piece of good fortune blew 2 Mumm 30’s home, at averages of 12 knots over the last 150 miles into first and second on handicap. Likewise, the hard running was to our Reichel Pugh 31’s liking and The Cone of Silence’s finished third behind AAPT and Wild Joe. It was a wild wet final 12 hours during which The Cone was averaging about 16 knots across the ground on the GPS. During this period The Cone surfed up to and past several quick boats all going flat out themselves – first it was the Farr 40 AFR Midnight Rambler, then the Inglis 50 UBS Wild Thing, then the Volvo 60 Seriously Ten and finally the Farr 52 OD Ichi Ban. Read On

08-Apr-2005

Just back from the Easter races here in Tuscany, at Porto Santo Stefano (GR). 50 odd boats racing with IRC, 40 or so J-24's. The fun is all in the results: as you can see from the pictures, there are all sorts of mean racing machines - from a Maxi Dolphin 65 and a few Swan 45's down to my favorite, a modified Etchells 22 (see photo below). Sailed by a local "old fox" (Vasco Donini), son and 2 pick up crew, this year they finished SECOND...! (50 seconds out of 1st apparently)

Other years they've actually won. Suppose you could talk about how good it makes IRC look, but I'm not at all a fan of handicaps, and instead get my kicks out of triumphs for the underdogs.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,
James Robinson Taylor
www.jrtphoto.com

4/4/05

"Wing It" Wins Redwood Cup

I’m writing to you today as a testimonial to the uncanny ability of your Sailing Anarchy Dry Shirt to actually win sailing regattas. The story unfolds with an underdog Santana 20 Wing It, owned and skippered by my brother, competing in a five race series in the San Francisco Bay for the most prestigious and coveted Sequoia Yacht Club Redwood Cup (see photo above). The level of competition for “The Cup” is extremely high and unlike the other lesser known regattas to the North (St. Francis Yacht Club RONSTAN Bridge to Bridge, St. Francis Big Boat Series presented by Rolex, oddly, this event is not even mentioned at the Rolex web site, but I digress). These North Bay events have all of those distracting views of the golden gate bridge, Alcatraz, and the city front, and other distractions, like 800’ freighters heading for Oakland. Read On

4/6/05

More Hobies...

Opening Day of the Hobie Tiger Worlds in Santa Barbara, CA was not what the brochure said it would be. The 88 teams from 14 countries sailed off the beach to the race area with winds of 16 to 20 knots. By the time the first race got off the seas were building and gusts were coming up to 30 knots. Several past world champions, national champions and Olympic sailors are competing in the event. P&O Lines sponsored shipping of the boats from Australia, Germany and Italy. Carnage was heavy as many boats flipped and had trouble the conditions. Several people had to be rescued Only 23 boats were able to finish the first race, and races were canceled for the rest of the day. Racing starts again tomorrow morning. For information and photos go to www.hobieworlds.com.

3/30/05

Canoe U

Photos and Text by Phillip DeCausemaker of
Cool Shot! Photography

Sarasota, FL. 18-20 March 2005 -Seven International 10m2 Canoes made the trip to the Sarasota Sailing Squadrons One-Design Midwinter’s this year to enjoy the fun, sun and tune up for the worlds later this year. Bill Beaver of Annapolis, MD sailed Rapid Loui hard and led the way the first two days with John Kells of Maynard, MA and George Saunder of Annapolis, MD a very close second and third. Anders Peterrson of San Francisco, CA (2nd at the last world’s) showed good form and speed on NoGo-55 but was hampered with equipment problems all weekend. Finally sorting his borrowed boat out, he went on to show the way during the Sunday races. Ted VanDusen of Concord, MA sailed his standard IC and experimental IC in the fleet and at times, held the pace and pushed the top guys around the course. Once his experimental IC (13m2 of sail!) is fine-tuned, watch out! Rounding out the fleet and showing flashes of speed were Karl Whittenable and John Matzen both of Annapolis, MD. More Photos

29-Mar-2005

Pond Scrum

As you know, we love to hear what's going on where you sail. Send your reports to The Ed.

Here are a few shots from the One Meter gathering at the Corinthian Sailing Club on White Rock Lake in Dallas, TX this past weekend. It was "HOOTING" both days - easily above 20 and puffs up to 30 out of the south on Saturday. Aeolus turned things around and blew 20 - 30 out of the north on Sunday. I'm sorry that I don't have any results. These pictures are from the Saturday morning/early afternoon races. Everybody was using their #2 rigs, and some went going down to their #3 rigs as the winds picked up. - Rick Tears.

3/17/05

Uh, It Looks Good. Really.

From the report before Hobart 04 I mentioned the dinosaur Volvo 60 that used to be know as Dennis Conner's Toshiba. It was in the Noakes shed being extended and turboed for an owner with way too much money and not enough common sense. Well, we finally managed to get some pics of the beast that didn't break the camera.
Read On

2/16/05 

Local Knowledge

Wild

We on the Sea Eagle recently contested the 2004 Melbourne - Hobart starting on the 27th on the same start line with the Melb - Launceston race. With 40 odd boats lined up at the start with 16 going to Hobart there were plenty of boats. Weather briefing was for gale force winds from the SW and frequent squalls. This was to keep up for about 48hrs until a slow moving high moved through and the wind would drop out all together. Read on.

1/24/05

Damn It

This is why we want y'all to keep sending reports from your neck of the woods. It's how we can all stay in touch and share information. The SA community rocks! - Ed

Your home page says "When you have local knowledge from your area, an interesting regatta story, an editorial comment, a great picture, whatever, send it to us."

This is small time stuff compared to all the Maxi's and Vendee Globes and so on, but hundreds of sailors in Oregon are going to be without water in their favorite lake for 3 to 5 years.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared the dam at Fern Ridge reservoir to be in imminent danger of collapse. As a result, they'll be holding water levels down to reduce pressure on the dam. Apparently the level they have chosen will make the lake deep enough for a sailing kayak, but too small for that kayak to tack more than twice before it hits the mud.

Fern Ridge lake is Oregon's second most active boating location. There are several other options within an hour's drive, but much smaller in surface area.

When will it be fixed? Well, we live in a Blue county in a Blue state. My guess is the Bushies will laugh and wave the middle finger at our Senator's request for expedited handling of the $40 million plus request.

No more Wednesday races. No more Thursday races. No more regattas. No more Santana Nationals. No more moonlight romance. You get the picture.

Keep up the good work on SA.

Charlie

1/20/05

Blow Hard

Last Saturday 15/01/05) the Surf to City yacht Race (a 90 mile downhill slide) was canceled due a gale warning issued by the Met Bureau in Queensland

The forecast was for a gale warning with average winds of 30 to 40 knots with gusts another 40% above that due to a depression of the coast.

However from the synoptic chart it was pretty clear there was not much gradient difference and the low was filling rapidly. Here is the wind plot form a private weather station on the edge of the race course.

If the forecast was geared upwards out of caution for the weekend boating public and fear of litigation then it is of little real use in decision making unless you know this to have been done

If the Met Bureau just got it wrong it is wrong by a long way (there is only one reading over 20 knots)

So it is time to come clean:

Are weekend forecasts exaggerated to protect the public? (or protect the Met Office from litigation)

Or who has the worst Met Bureau (Queensland Australia, Southern California?)

- Craig Coulson

1/18/05