Sailing Anarchy

pool before you

A nice piece of imagination  and thinking outside the box from Glenmore Sailing Club in Alberta especially as the outside temperature is more conducive to Ice Yachting right now with temperatures of around -7C right now. Just shows what can be done by even a small club to promote or continue interest in our sport out of season with a bit of effort. Excellent initiative.

It reminds me of when, back in the day the Paris Salon Boat Show used to have Indoor Yachting at Versey although on a much bigger pool and budget. It was even televised on Eurosport much to the delight of those sailing fans starved of coverage of our sport back then – way before the advent of Youtube of course.

If you can find it on line it may bring a smile to your face given the youthful look of Sir Russel Coutts and Peter Gilmour with even rules guru Dave Dellenbaugh in the mix. See, he doesn’t just write about the rules .

Some pretty aggressive match racing to boot. Apologies about the quality of the screen grab, this was way before HDTV. – SS.

ya dare?

If at first you don’t succeed, sail, sail again. That’s the mantra of dinghy adventure sailor Ken Fowler who is back on the water with his latest “dizzy adventure”.  Back in 2017 he took his 12 foot RS Aero dinghy along the length of Great Britain, covering 865 miles of action filled sailing in his “Race To Scotland”. Fog banks, nuclear submarine exercises, giant whirlpools and surf beach landings typified the roller coaster ride of taking on this challenging route. Having pushed his body to the limit with 10-12 hour days in the dinghy he managed to raise a staggering £37,000 for two cancer charities. Most sailors would give themselves a pat on the back; say “Well done” and walk away feeling “Mission Accomplished”.  But not Ken.

For Ken and Yoda (his RS Aero dinghy) it was more a feeling of “Unfinished Business” having set themselves the target of raising £50,000 for cancer charities and come up short. So in order to finish the job Ken came up with the equally crazy idea of becoming the first dinghy to sail around all the islands in England and Wales. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than he thought, once he started discovering more and more islands!  So far the count is up to 183 islands and over 1000 miles of sailing – but who knows what the final totals might be?

The 183 islands vary in size from the 120 miles around Anglesey in Wales to the multitude of stunning “Caribbean”  islands of the Isles of Scilly, some of which are only around 30m in length! Each island has its own intriguing history such as “Deadman’s Island” – full of coffins and bones that are visible at low tide and the Napoleonic forts guarding the home of the British navy at Portsmouth.

The sailing is going to be challenging with multiple islands in the Severn estuary where the tidal range is 49 feet – about four times bigger than Ken’s dinghy. In other locations the islands are over 10 miles off shore or involve surf beach landings, so no day is going to be a straight forward one!

For some of the adventure Ken will be out there on his own travelling and living out of his 20 year old VW campervan as he travels between the launch sites. For some of the more challenging sections a support crew will follow his journey along the coastline and monitor his progress on GPS tracking. They will be in constant contact either by radio or phone.

Safety will be provided by emergency equipment on board and a GPS tracking his position at all times, which will be available live on the internet– a great way to follow the adventure.

You can find out more about his adventures by following him on Facebook at “Yodare”, on Twitter @goyodare and at www.yodare.co.uk where you can find out all about the amazing islands of England and Wales and follow his progress live on the “Where’s Ken”  GPS tracker.

So why not become an armchair adventurer, learn all about the amazing islands, their intriguing histories, and most importantly help raise money for two amazing charities.

Yodare – sailing to make a difference.

a true tragedy

A fire broke out at the Mount Gay Distilleries in Barbados yesterday, with the blaze burning 150,000 gallons of alcohol in a storage tank before being brought under control by the local fire services.

The Rémy Cointreau-controlled rum brand confirmed that there had been a blaze at its St Lucy site yesterday (16 January).

The Barbados fire service received a call at 2:18pm local time after reports of an explosion.

Deputy chief fire officer Henderson Patrick told local media: “Arriving on the scene we discovered that it was an alcohol tank that was involved in the fire. The tank normally holds around 300,000 gallons of alcohol and we were informed that it was about half-full”.

old ain’t bad

Your readers might get a kick out of this. The picture is of Steve Dashew sailing his C-Class catamaran in SoCal in 1968 with a double skin, asymmetrically trimmed mainsail- not miles different from the next Americas Cup mainsail configuration. Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. The Herreshoffs patented most of the good ideas in the early 1900s and the C-Class sailors made a lot of them work. Today we have better funding, better materials and better tools for modeling, but not necessarily better ideas. – Anarchist Dan.

final chapter?

Webb Chiles, 77, is about to sail from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for Panama and San Diego, in GANNET, his ultralight Moore 24, to complete his sixth circumnavigation and her first.  Since leaving San Diego in 2014, GANNET’s daily runs total 25,028 miles.

Their intended course to Panama is east of the Bahamas and through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti.

Webb Chiles has never had sponsorship or shore teams.  He goes to sea with no radio beyond a handheld VHF with a range of less than ten miles.  He has contempt for crowd funding of other people’s dreams.  Decades ago he found freedom by choosing to be independently poor.  The key word is ‘independent’.

He and GANNET will depart when he sees a GRIB he likes, but no earlier than Wednesday, January 16.  Once at sea he cuts ties to the land completely and receives no outside weather information.  He studies the sky, the sea, and the barometer, looking for signs of change.

He hopes to reach San Diego in time to be with Carol, his wife, on her birthday in late April.

If you want to follow, GANNET’s Yellowbrick tracking page is:  https://my.yb.tl/gannet

His website is:  www.inthepresentsea,com

His online journal:

self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com

not a laser, a cluster

5 new rigs and counting …

3 new Aussie rigs: c5, c7, c8

And 2 new ARC rigs in North America.  (See quote below from Laser Performance)

Add the 4.7, Radial and Standard: that’s 8 rigs.

Can the Laser survive this?

« Further, we will introduce the ARC in May 2019, a contemporary racing rig and sail for Laser and Laser Radial that broadens the sailor weight range and increases overall performance. »

Picture: Aussie c5 rig.

bahia chill

Anarchist Tony towed his little tri down to Mexico and here it is a repose in Bahia de los Angeles.

here we are

So after far too long, here is our new design for Sailing Anarchy. More of an evolution than a revolution, it nonetheless is a much cleaner, easier to use site with better functions.  For example, when you click on a front page story, it takes you to that story’s own page,  where – and we are stoked about this – you can comment on the story immediately via Disqus. Not exactly earth shattering, we know, but it is a great way to comment quickly and directly about the article you just read, rather than having to go over to the forums. The forums exist in their own galaxy anyway!

Ever since we started this site –  20 years ago! – we have never much cared about putting up every race result from everywhere, you know like that other poseur site does?  So to address a void in content, we now have added a Sailing News feature that constantly updates news from around the world. No reason to waste time at Cut n’ Paste central.

Our research has indicated that 30% of you view SA via mobile, with that number rapidly increasing.  As such, we have made that experience significantly better.

Our classifieds are much easier to use and to search, so hopefully that helps make the user experience better there as well. Bear with us as we update all the listings… We have ditched the free classifieds as we got spammed by a never ending stream of Nigerian Love Spell Doctors, and we have raised the price of ads by $25, the first price increase in 15 years.

This is just the first phase of the new design. You will be glad to know that part of phase 2 includes the reopening of the famous Sailing Anarchy Store! New gear, new designs (but yes,the god damn hillbilly hats will be available). And given what a horrible job we did fulfilling orders, we are going to have Amazon fulfill all orders going forward. Look for the store by mid year.

So that’s it. Let’s see your comments by clicking the Leave a Reply button at the bottom of this page.

life downunder

Josh Tucker (Boo-Boo) is one of the coolest dudes ever, and has been a faithful contributor to SA over the years with some of the best stories ever. Welcome back dude!

With the great ‘Ho Down’ taking all the sailing media and forum talk from downunder, little old NZ flies under the radar but still ticks along with plenty going on and some huge events coming up.

Shorthanded handed sailing in NZ is going from strength to strength and the upcoming 2 handed race around New Zealand makes the Sydney Hobart look like a walk in the park. 7 boats are now signed up for the event starting on the 16th of February that takes the boats on a 4 Leg 2100nm circumnavigation of New Zealand’s North and South Islands and deep down into the southern ocean. Check it out.

Run by the legends at the Shorthanded Sailing Association of NZ (SSANZ) who have made the 2 handed sailing scene what it is today by putting races like this on. They do a damn fine job and have fun doing it.

In the Round NZ race we have a strong fleet of 35-40fters. 2 Farr 38s, a Sunfast 3600, Pogo 40, 2 35ft Elliotts, and a Stomp 38. Should be some close and exciting racing. Im sure the SSANZ boys will be doing an official write up at some stage and get it out to the media and we will be updating our facebook page regularly during the race.

For many like us this race is actually just a warm up for the infamous Round North island (RNI) 2 handed race in 2020, it seems strange to take on a race like this as a build-up event for a shorter race, but the RNI is the one everyone wants to win. With a maximum entry number for the RNI restricted to 30 boats due to constraints with berthage for the stopovers, the race is always over subscribed with New Zealands top offshore boats and sailors. With names like Sir Peter Blake on trophies and over 40 years of history there is a huge element of prestige associated with the event.

After being out of the racing scene for the last one and a half years, sailing our boat down to NZ from France with the family and an unbelievable 1 week turn around to handover to the new owner upon arrival in NZ. I’m straight back into it purchasing an older but heavily modified Elliott 35 now named Motorboat II in partnership with Damon Joliffe who was my crew for our last successful RNI overall PHRF total corrected time win on board the Sun Fast 3600. We have been sailing together since doing the 1997 Sydney Hobart as a couple of teenagers 21 years ago, with much in between including tormenting the New Zealand race fleet with good results on (and off) the water and loud obnoxious music all night to rub it in afterwards…. True Anarchy Style.

For me personally its been a huge couple of years. Resigning at my sailmaking job of 18 years with North Sails, selling everything in NZ, packing our lives into a few bags and taking our 4, 6 and 8 years old boys to France to jump on board our newly purchased, sight unseen 50ft yacht. From there it was the most amazing year and a half of sailing, covering a total of 16000nm and 28 countries without a single tack- true story. 3 months in the Med, 5 months in the Caribbean and 5 months through the pacific. Our trip took us to some far out of reach places like Cape Verde Islands, Cocos island in Costa Rica, Suwarrow in the northern Cook islands as well as all the standard stop offs along the way like Galapagos islands, the Mt Gay factory tour in Barbados, Divisional win in the Heineken Regatta and round Tortola Race and many social gatherings on ‘Rogue’, our aptly named 2007 Beneteau Oceanis 50.

The coolest thing about the mission was involving the family and really getting to know our 3 energetic and enthusiastic boys on a voyage that tested their (and our) boundaries to the maximum extent. A lifetime worth of memories made and a good base layer of world and life experience to broaden their minds. What could ever be a more fun adventure to take the family on, 1.5 years of literally sailing into the sunset.

I can tell you there was simply no greater feeling than sitting with my family watching the coast of NZ slowly appear over the horizon after an epic adventure such as this.

I was always not completely sure what to do on my return to NZ- stick in the sail making business, or try something new. Then I got a message from Rodney Keenan from Evolution sails who I did my sailmaking apprenticeship with in the 90s. He came to me with a proposal and with it a challenge to help grow the already booming business and take it to the next level. With a massive new loft and full membrane laminating plant just down the road, it certainly had its appeal. More control of the product, flexibility with the ability to turn a sail around from raw fibre to a completed sail quickly and efficiently, and a great bunch of talented and motivated sailmakers- many of whom I have worked with in the past.

I got my first taste of the membrane plant when I laminated up a new #2 Jib for my own boat over the summer holidays with the help of my sailing obsessed 8 year old son. I went for the fully cocked, 80% carbon-20% aramid, liteskin membrane. It certainly looks the part and based on what I have seen, it will have the performance and durability to match the good looks. Membranes like mine get shipped out of here all around the world on a regular basis, and in the 6 weeks since I have been here the membrane plant and loft have both been running nearly 24/7 to keep up with the demand.

It’s a product that is world class and I’m proud to be involved.  Is this the next Evolution of my life – certainly looks like it….

who knew?

This tragically slow and rather pathetic “race”, has, amazingly become a race! Wtf? Read on.

port!

This appears to be dicky no matter the sitch, and while we don’t exactly know, here is what Anarchist Liz said about it:

Hi, this is the second image recently taken Jan 12 on Tampa Bay at an Opti Regatta. The negligent adult skipper plowed through the clearly marked Opti race course no sign of safety. He also yelled obscenities at the children (ages 8-12) telling them to get the F%$# out of the way.

Please note he is also on Port tack. Regardless, he had the choice to stay clear like all of the other large boats and chose not to. There are several upset parents about this and I thought if I shared it here you may have advise how to spread the word for better safety on the water. This behavior is not acceptable I’d like to hear what y’all think.

12 year bitch

Local Knowledge

It’s pretty rare when you race against the same boat with pretty much the same people for the better part of 12 years. I am speaking of the FT 10 Justice, first with my original FT 10 Anarchy, then with my Melges 32, and now with my recent FT 10 A4. (Yes, there was a Shaw 650, a GP 26 and the SC 33), but those don’t really count.

One reason why I got a second Tiger (besides absolutely loving the boat) was to take care of some unfinished business. When they first got Justice, we had our way with them pretty easily, but the owner is a good sailor and by the time I was fading racing the boat, we were beating each other pretty even, with maybe a nod to them. Fine.

And let’s be clear, they don’t like us and we don’t like them. I’ve never had a boat swear at us as much as they did in close situations. Kind of shocking, considering their alleged religion, but it is safe to say that we weren’t very pleasant in return. All’s fair in love and war, ain’t that right?

So 11 years later, when I found this FT sitting in a backyard, part of the motivation was to make the boat as fast as I could, and go out and not only pound them – which we convincingly did – but to punish the rest of the FTs. For the most part, mission accomplished. And hey, I’m no stud and certainly no rockstar, rather a fading mid level douche, and the racing we do is simply what is out there for our boat. You try to win wherever you race. Don’t fucking blame me.

A few people pointed out that Justice is now for sale, and while we don’t know why, we can’t say we blame them. We are not fun to lose to, but them’s the breaks. As Bruce Nelson once famously said, “Overbearing in victory, and surly in defeat.”

You’ll have to find it on your own, ’cause we’re not doing the broker’s work for free, but it is a quick boat, a bit of a beater, and at $32k, while it might seem like a deal, it ain’t. If you want it, go see it and figure out how much it’s gonna take to get it in fighting shape. We’ll miss them, but not really.

Great competitors, but no offense, by and large, those guys bounced between being halfway decent, and total dicks. Like a lot of us.

AMF.

sex raft?

From the WTF files…

In 1973, Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés set out to test a hypothesis. He had been researching the connection between violence and sexuality in monkeys. “Most conflicts,” he noted, “are about sexual access to ovulating females.”

But would this apply to humans, too? To find out, Genovés asked a British boat builder to make a 12×7 metre raft called the Acali on which he planned to sail with 10 sexually attractive young people across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Mexico. It was like a prototype for the glut of reality TV shows since, a Floating Love Island or Big Brother at Sea, but with a twist – the participants were so isolated from the rest of the world that it would have been futile to cry: “Get me out of here!” The only ways out were drowning or getting eaten by sharks.

Genovés was a veteran of extreme rafting. A few years earlier he had been one of the seven-strong multinational crew on Thor Heyerdahl’s two Ra expeditions to sail reed rafts, like those used in ancient Egypt, across the Atlantic. The Norwegian adventurer wanted to show how people of different races could cooperate effectively.

Genovés had even grander motives in planning his voyage: he sought to diagnose and cure world violence. To that end, he placed ads in international newspapers and made his selection from respondents, choosing a crew of strangers from different races and religions so that he could create a microcosm of the world. Among the five women and five men were a Japanese photographer, an Angolan priest, a French scuba diver, a Swedish ship’s captain, an Israeli doctor and an Alaskan waitress who was fleeing an abusive husband. Genovés called his boat the Peace Project, but it rapidly became known in the world’s press as the Sex Raft.

Read on, thanks to the Guardian. Forum thread here.

who needs foils?

The power-to-weight ratios of the Australian 18-foot skiffs are astonishing. Here is Asko Appliances, roaring to the finish on Sydney Harbour yesterday in just 15 knots to secure their win in the 2018-19 NSW State Championships.  Photo: Frank Quealey.

smoke this

When Steve Travis and the TP52 Smoke TEAM sent us this photo of them leading the fleet, we knew they were on to something great. Sailing in the Caribbean circuit last year Steve and his team crushed it on their chartered TP 52 Conviction.

With just 38 days until the 2019 start of the Caribbean-600 there is still enough time for you and your team to order up the FASTEST SHIRTS AVAILABLE. (UPF 50+ Pro-Tech).  

Let us help make your team look amazing too. Order now and save up to 60% on the short sleeve, long sleeve and hoodies in the best fabric available for the 2019 season. Click here for more information on Pro-Tech and other team gear options.

is it me or is it you?

Is this a legit beef or some sour grapes?

So here is picture from the Australian Youth Championships at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania which I took on Friday morning. This a premier event of Australian Sailing.

All up about 75 coach boats were moored on this and the other wharf. At say an average of AUD $60 000 each that makes about AUD $4.5 million. I could not see that too many were privately owned. People wearing national body issued clothing were busy running around. Presumably, these people are being paid handsomely for what they do as well. Again I these people are not privately funded.

Later on Friday I went to usual Friday afternoon drinks at the little sailing club up the road from my house. Just 35 miles south of Hobart by sea is the Port Esperance Sailing Club. Port Esperance has a very proud maritime heritage having been a whaling port then a timber port and presently a major crayfish and abalone centre. It is also the home of both Tassal and Huon Aquaculture which are Australia’s two largest salmon growers.

The Sailing Club dutifully pays affiliation fees which make there way up the tree to Sailing Australia or at least to Sailing Tasmania. The club house is a converted apple packing shed that was built in the late 1800s. One major event is held each year which is the Easter Regatta and this year was 160th Regatta. All types of boats are catered for from classics to rowing skiffs to Mumm 36s and usually about 100 boats turn up.

So next weekend, the Sailing Club is holding a learn to sail weekend. Two days for $50.00, boats and lunch provided. There will be a good turnout for the weekend and it will be a community event for a small town even if not everyone who turns out, wants to learn to sail. The first thing you might notice about the Flyer is that there is no mention of Sailing Australia or any so called “pathway”. Just call “Matt”.

So here are a few pictures of the storage shed at the Sailing Club. A few timber Pacers and two newish Optimists. The Optimists were funded by a “dollars for dollar” grant offered by local government. The old Pacer and Lasers were donated.

The baby RIB was funded by the Salmon companies as part of a community engagement programme. Needless to say, there has never been any Sailing Australia support grant money for the Port Esperance Sailing Club.

I don’t expect anyone up the road in Hobart will be asked to make a gold coin donation to use the shower so a second shower can be built. And no doubt there will be a warning from Sailing Australia that the Sailing Club cannot hold a learn to sail course without some special Sailing Australia mandate which sees more money sent up the tree and never to come back down.

Funnily enough I have a problem with the proposition that we can spend AUD $4.5 million dollars on coach boats for one youth event for generally well-heeled kids when at the same time small club that puts on a community event that brings people into the sport asks for a gold coin to use the shower so they can build a second one.

So my first response last Friday was not anger but disappointment in the leadership of the sport. So to each director of Australian Sailing I say this, You are not Sailing Australia just Sailboat Racing Australia. Sports grow from the ground up not the top down. Do not pretend to represent sailing as clearly you do not and have no interest in doing so.

You are becoming more and more irrelevant to those you purport to serve but you don’t seem to understand this. You cannot call yourself a “peak body” of the sport. So time you change your name to reflect all you really do.

If your excuse is we don’t make the funding guidelines then if you are representative of the sport you should be arguing to change the guidelines. If the argument is that small club infrastructure is a local matter then either you are not representative or Sailing Tasmania Office which you operate is not doing its job.

It is not without great irony that the biggest sailing event in the country with the largest public engagement will happen next month in Hobart and you will have no involvement or presence.
So you can sling Port Esperance Sailing Club AUD$ 80 000 out of your “Reptile Fund” so it can build another shower, maybe even as shower block.

It is just the cost of one coach boat after all.

And maybe make “Matt” the Australian Sailor of the Year next year.

Jump in the thread.

piss poor

This is one of the lamest protest’s ever. If this is the direction our sport is headed, then it is doomed. I know all about lame protests – the biggest whiner i have ever seen, tried to protest me for not being in “OD trim”. Only one problem, it wasn’t an OD or even PHRF race. Oh yeah,and said genius forgot to inform me, or even bother flying a flag.

And what is the piss pour protest? “A crew (of a rival boat – ed) exposed his private parts to urinate when they were abeam of each other.”

In this PC culture, nothing surprises anymore. Jump in the thread.

we hear the meth is outstanding in astoria

Not convinced solely on this exterior shot? Well then click here and examine the interior shots. You’ll be convinced.

the machine

Big Pimpin’

There’s a lot happening at Persico Marine right now. The renowned Italian shipyard, which ranks among the world’s leading builders of highend racing yachts and large, highperformance luxury sailing cruisers, has a wide range of ground-breaking projects on the go.

The latest news is from Persico’s racing yacht production facility at Nembro in Lombardy, where two America’s Cup projects are under way. In addition to building the boats for the Italian challenger team Luna Rossa, Persico is also developing the hydrofoil arms that will be used by all of the teams in the forthcoming Cup.

An interesting Imoca 60 is also taking shape at Nembro and various structural components including foils, beams and rudders are being produced for the 100ft Ultim Class trimarans Gitana and Sodébo.

Meanwhile, a 145ft Wally superyacht is now in build at Persico’s performance cruiser shipyard in Massa-Carrara following the launch in September 2018 of the Umberto Felci-designed P65, a remarkable and radical cruiser-racer that redefines the genre.

Read on.

this is what they are

We teased you with this, and now here is that. You’re welcome.