First weekend out on the water in the UK, and what fantastic weather!
Corby25 off Cowes from Anarchist Bertrand.
Kathleen running free – painting by Jack Earl
“It’s a beaut life. Everything’s different all the time and you’re very aware of the elements. There’s nothing to stop you, there’s that big dome right over you, 360 degrees all around you all the time. I could stay out there forever, really. You don’t look for bad weather although you get your fair share of it. It’s always pretty lively in a small boat.
We used to laugh about it – that in the Trades you’d expect to be coasting along in beautiful, warm, soft Tradewinds but it doesn’t always work out like that. It blows a blasted gale sometimes and you’ve got to reduce sail and get very wet. We’ve had some wonderful times sailing – between ports. As a matter of fact all your troubles are in landfalls. There’s never any trouble at sea, really.”
Jack Earl – circumnavigator and marine artist (1985)
Holding up a superyacht mast or getting the power from the engine to the wheels on a 950hp racecar are a relative walk in the park when your first project was creating carbon cables for a 124-metre suspension bridge
Many of the key innovations that advance the sport of sailing are not new inventions derived from first principles but spin-off applications of technology that has been fit for purpose in a different sector of industry. There are a few key drivers for dedicated R&D, like the America’s Cup, but the marine leisure market isn’t big enough to be the sole focus for a large hi-tech manufacturer’s research and development. And that’s where Carbo-Link comes in. Read on.
The young shipyard Organic Boats has launched its prototype ecological sailboat. A symbolic step for Julien Gratiot, its founder, who presents the rest of the project to us.
Read on, courtesy of boatindustry.fr.
Scientists will return to Lake Huron this summer to explore one of the deepest mysteries of the Great Lakes – underwater sinkholes.
Lake Huron sits on a layer of 400-million-year-old limestone – the remnants of an ancient seabed. Groundwater runs vertically under the lake and pushes through the limestone, making deep, underwater sinkholes, said Steve Ruberg, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, which leads the research that begins this August. The project includes scientists from across Michigan and Wisconsin.
Much of the mystery involving the sinkholes relates to a unique “microbial community” that includes a type of cyanobacteria that live on sulfur and other bacteria. Cyanobacteria are one of the oldest organisms on Earth. They are notable for their ability to switch between oxygen and sulfur to produce the energy they need through photosynthesis.
The billions of years old cyanobacteria may hold the secret of how Earth went from inhabitable to habitable, sustaining plant and animal life. Read on.
Never not interesting.
The next victim of our “15 Minutes of Fame” series is Charlie Enright, he of VOR fame and soon to be IMOCA fame for the upcoming Ocean Race, sailing for the 11th Hour team. Tons of offshore experience, and now at the top of the heap, he no doubt has a lot to share.
And this is where you come in – ask questions for Charlie here and i’ll do my best to get them asked and answered!
This complete waste of time make one wonder why. Should you wonder, then wonder no more.
Not only was this poster cool, it was quickly followed up with a cease and desist when it first appeared. Something about using an image of The Cup without approval. Douchebags.
This poster looks to be a better kind of AC sailing to us anyway… – ed.
The Infiniti 52 is the first modern racing boat to be designed and engineered to take full advantage of cableless technology – built around a highly efficient, single transverse DSS foil, providing proven performance but without the cost of more complex class-driven foil solutions. The DSS foil provides significant righting moment which allows you to design the boat for a smaller crew, sometimes half the number of a comparable yacht.
According to Stu Bannatyne, four-time Volvo Ocean Race winner, though DSS has been around for a long time only recently has it started to gain mainstream traction: ‘I have raced and sailed on many foil assisted monohulls – including Rambler 88, Wild Oats XI, Charal (Imoca 60), Wild Joe and Maverick (Infiniti 46),’ he says. ‘All of which provided valuable input into the ideal foil arrangement and concept for the new Infiniti 52.’
Energy Observer is the first energy self-sufficient vessel, with zero CO2 emissions, zero fine particles, and zero noise, producing its own hydrogen onboard from seawater using a mix of renewable energies. This vessel of the future has already traveled more than 25,000 nautical miles around the world since 2017.
The word “plankton” comes from the Greek for “drifter” or “wanderer.” An organism is considered plankton if it is carried by tides and currents, and cannot swim well enough to move against these forces. Some plankton drift this way for their entire life cycle.
Others are only classified as plankton when they are young, but they eventually grow large enough to swim against the currents. Plankton are usually microscopic, often less than one inch in length, but they also include larger species like some crustaceans and jellyfish. Read on.
Anarchist 108 has a problem…
I bought a boat in January from Canada. I had in the contract, “delivery to the US”. I get a bill from the delivery skipper. I told him the broker is responsible. The broker said that I was responsible for it so I showed him the purchase agreement that is signed by the seller and myself.
Broker offers to pay half. The delivery bill was over twice the original price because the broker didn’t know how to get a boat across the border and the delivery skipper had to turn back. So instead of one day it was two days and a week of moorage. I don’t want the delivery skipper to get screwed but I don’t want to get screwed either. I sent a message to the skipper explaining my position.
What else should I do? At least I got a cool boat. Olson 911.
I caught some of Sailor Girl’s interview with Tracy Edwards MBE, skipper of Maiden and remember her achievements well in the Whitbread. In fact I may be wrong but I seem to remember she was the only British Skipper to win a leg of the Whitbread until Ian Walker came along with his Abu Dhabi win.
At the time I bought the video – back then it was a VHS tape and interesting to see the change in perspective between then and now.
She was of course the first skipper of an all female team in the Whitbread but not the first female skipper. That fell to Clare Francis who skippered an otherwise male crew on the Swan 65, ADC Accutrac having previously ‘done’ an OSTAR with Robertson’s Golly and a number of other short handed races. She went on to become a successful novelist after writing a number of books about her sailing exploits, most notably ‘Come Hell or High Water’. In fact ask most people and it is as a novelist that people are familiar with.
Not that I wish to take anything away from Tracy Edwards and her girls. They say that getting to the start line of the Whitbread/Volvo [...]
New information is good information. Or something like that!
What image comes to mind when you hear the words “Duffy Boat,” which is perhaps the world’s most iconic battery-powered electric watercraft?
How about a languid trip around Newport Harbor with family or friends? At a steady 5 mph, the whisper-quiet ride on a Duffy is as smooth as the wine flowing from the captain’s cooler.
As Marshall “Duffy” Duffield likes to say, in person and on his company’s website, a Duffy boat is about lifestyle — a luxury lifestyle.
Which is one reason Duffield’s new venture is so curious. It’s called the Duffy SafeHut. And the simple, durable structures that can serve as temporary living quarters for people in need raises a question:
Can Duffield do for homelessness what he’s already done for chill-out leisure living? Jump into the thread, and huge thanks to the OCR.
We will introduce MAX in a one-hour session and show you all the functionalities of our brand new device along with the possibilities of the Sailmon app.
Mark Wednesday the 10th of June at 3:00 PM CEST in your calendar and subscribe today!
After 38 consecutive years holding one of the largest sailing competitions in the world, the postponement of the 39th edition of the Copa del Rey MAPFRE due to “health and safe well being responsibility” in 2020 will go down in history.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced strong social and sports restrictive measures, “health and safe well being responsibility” has remained the main focus of the Organizing Committee, chaired by Emerico Fuster.
An event like the Copa del Rey MAPFRE, with participation figures exceeding 2,000 sailors from more than 30 countries, and more than 3,000 people a day attending the competition, both at sea and on shore, must ensure that health and safe well being responsibility prevails above any sports or social interest.
We teased this a week ago and here is episode 1, taking a close look at the iconic Koehler Kraft Yard in San Diego. Video work thanks to Justin Edelman. What cool stuff.
Personally, I want that Koehler built powerboat, the Neptune! – ed.
For Southern Wind, the delivery of each new yacht from their yard in Cape Town, South Africa usually means a passage of 7,000 miles for those heading to the Mediterranean. Little surprise then that a solid build and a reliable yacht has been one of their core values from the beginning.
Since their foundation in 1991 Southern Wind have been acutely aware of their geographical distance from the yachting mainstream. They have not only built their business around it but have turned the distance to their advantage.
‘We have to be capable of building pretty much everything in-house,’ says commercial director Andrea Micheli. ‘Reliability is key but timing is also a big priority for us throughout the production process.’ All of which has seen the company become experts in semi-custom production. Read on.
Another look back in time, this the 2016 Olympics in Rio, from uber talent Richard Langdon.
One of the all-time greats. We once hung out with Ron Moore at the Reef at a Moore 24 regatta. All I remember is that somewhere in the late hours that night, somebody set up a makeshift mini golf course and for us drunks, it turned out to be hilarious fun. Pretty sure we broke some shit and didn’t tell Ron! – ed.
From the Fabulous Forums, brought to you by Marlow Ropes.
This is a rowboat i drew and constructed some years ago, with the purpose of doing leisurely rowing on a lake. Now i am thinking of adding a small sail to her for some fun. The sail i have in mind is an optimist sail which can be readily found.
I tried to look into many parameters of performance to get a feel for whether she would sail and how. But i got lost as most parameters are for real sailboats of much higher figures. If you can call this a sailboat then her ratios are truly all over the place.
The figures i can provide are as follows: LWL 16.4 ft Max beam 3.28 ft. optimist sail area 35.52 sq ft. Hull weight 120 lb. Displ including myself 285 lb. SA/displ ratio 13.12 Displ/LWL ratio 28.84 Considering sail power adequacy she would be worse than a heavy cruiser. Considering Displ/ LWL she would be ten times better than an ultra racer.
Hull form is not suitable for planing, yet so easily driven that i can row her at 4.5 knots over extended periods. So everything about this proposition are in extremes and do not conform to what we are accustomed to.
Of course I need to add a transom hung rudder, and modify the keel by inserting a shallow piece one third length of the total LWL. ( i need shoal draft) You can read this as no efficient dagger board and no stability contribution by it. Stability shall be provided by yours truly leaning to one side or the other.
What do you think?
Is it worth trying? Would she sail? Would she go higher than a beam reach? Would it be fun? Would it be the end of the boat and myself if i got cought in a blow?
“A boat journey in search of relief was necessary and must not be delayed. The nearest port where assistance could certainly be secured was Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, 540 miles away, but we could scarcely hope to beat up against the prevailing north-westerly wind in a frail and weakened boat with a small sail area.
South Georgia was over 800 miles away, but lay in the area of the west winds, and I could count on finding whalers on the east coast. I calculated that at worst the venture would add nothing to the risks of the men left on the island. There would be fewer mouths to feed during the winter and the boat would not require to take more than one month’s provisions for six men, for if we did not make South Georgia in that time we were sure to go under.” – Ernest Shackleton – South (1919)
(The successful rescue voyage of the James Caird remains one of the great small-boat epics.)
The Italian tall ship builder Perini Navi could join the Sanlorenzo group, a specialist in large motor yachts.
The negotiations would give birth to a major player in the transalpine luxury yacht industry.
My lovely gf and I sailed The Cortez Racing Association Household Wolds this past Saturday, and it was super fun for sure. However, I bet if she hears “Ease the jib a bit, babe” one more time, I may get the beating we all know I deserve. The Harbor 20 is is an excellent day sailor, and in OD, those guys have way too much fun. In a choppy and a bit fluky 9.4 mile bay race, maybe not that great. We sat firmly at 5th out of 10 boats in class. Boom!
Huge congrats to the monohull overall winners, the father-son duo of John and Zach Downing. Two nicer people cannot be found, and they got Ran, their Esse 750 going quite well for the win. Props also to Ian Storer for winning the small but quick 3 boat multihull fleet. It took an amazing effort by CRA’s Colleen Cooke, Susi Graff, shoreside PRO, and Shelly Raming was the Recorder/Scorer to pull off this race with 40 entries!
Said overall winner John Downing:
“Kudos to Colleen who is showing some real chops as a PRO. Doing the whole thing by herself and one on shore is really pretty impressive. 3 minute dingy start sequences, radio hand holding and using herself as the RC start line mark were all creative and really smart. My vote for SCOTW. That girl has done far more for the sport in San Diego than pretty much anyone I can think of.”
We’ll second that. – ed.
Despite the uncertain times and Corona crisis we currently live in, the first Dutch entry for The Ocean Race is a fact!
W Ocean Racing announced their participation and start of their campaign on the Dutch sailing platform Zeilhelden (Sailing Heroes).
There are some pretty interesting and weird aspects to this. Check it out.
“There is something strangely attractive, some glimmer, maybe, of the elusive and indefinable thing called romance, something of adventure and of life as all men would have it lived, if they knew how, about the setting out of a big sailing ship for the sea.
The mere fact that for weeks and weeks to come – months and months often – over perhaps 14,000 miles at sea, she will be dependent upon the wind to blow her to her destination, gives to the sailor an air of the sea that can never be the steamer’s.
The steamer is a machine which uses the sea as a handy means for the conveyance of goods; the sailing ship is the culmination of centuries of progress towards the evolution of the perfect vessel which may progress with the wind at sea.”
Alan John Villiers – By Way of Cape Horn, 1929
The Volvo Ocean Race, formerly The Whitbread, and now renamed The Ocean Race doesn’t happen without Inmarsat, that’s how important it is,’ Brian Carlin says. ‘For the teams and their sponsors it totally hinges on being able to show people what’s happening on the boats in real time. It’s no good coming ashore after 26 days with a hard drive full of amazing footage and photos. People expect to see it happening in real time, that’s a much bigger pull for viewers.’
In a career that has covered many spectacular races and regattas including the astonishingly fast-paced SailGP circuit and the America’s Cup, some of Carlin’s most groundbreaking work has been done during his stints as an onboard reporter and media team leader in the last two editions of the Volvo Ocean Race.
If you’ve seen the gut-wrenching footage of Team Vestas Wind slamming at high speed into the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the crew’s subsequent ordeal in a liferaft, that’s Carlin at work. Read on.
A man arrested off the Oregon coast while on a sailboat containing gallons of liquid meth was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison on Thursday and five years of supervised release.
John Philip Stirling, 65, from Canada, previously pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act.
Stirling was arrested in April 2019 while traveling north about 250 nautical miles from Newport in international waters, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The vessel, named Mandalay, had a home port of Seattle. When Coast Guard officials tried to communicate with Stirling, they say he went below deck and would only respond through VHF radio.
Coast Guard personnel confirmed the Mandalay was a U.S. flagged vessel, boarded, and found Stirling alone on the sailboat. They say he did not have vessel documentation and refused to produce identification. Upon questioning, officials said Stirling’s speech began to deteriorate and he displayed signs of a possible drug overdose. Read on.
The best thing about this is the boat pictured above is from Stirling’ failed coke smuggling in 2013. Some guys just never learn…
As you know,we absolutely love this stuff, and we love the connection:
Attached is a pic/ Newspaper article of my late father Ian, who represented Australia in the 1967 Moth World Championships in Ocean City NJ. – Anarchist Michael.
Got an oldie? Well then send it on in!
Cancellation of 2020 High Sierra Regatta
Even as the country begins to open up, there seems to be no end of unanswered questions relating to operating events during the next few months. COVID-19 issues, coupled with additional expected rules and policies generated by the Forest Service, State of California, and our insurance carrier have led us to cancel the 2020 Huntington Lake High Sierra Regatta.
This is the only the 3rd time in 68 years that the regatta has been cancelled. We will begin planning the 65th annual event for July 10-11 and 17-18, 2021 and we hope to see you all then.
As we understand things, the situation up there is very complicated, involving a number of issues including insurance and the the gubbermint. – ed.
“Ocean racing can be anything you choose to make it, from the occasional jaunt offshore, to a way of life. The driving of small fast-cruising type yachts for great distances at sustained top speeds sets a whole series of special problems in design, equipment, preparation, crewing and navigation.
The point is, that every part of sailing has a special ocean racing aspect. And to those of you who have not tried racing off shore I would tell you that my first race was great fun; and that since then in each year in which I have had the good fortune to get to sea for ocean racing, I enjoy it a little bit more. Your summer will be a full round of high endeavour, interspersed with that special sort of relaxation which follows an all-out effort.”
(While yacht design, sails, spars and navigation have all changed enormously, Illingworth’s 318-page book on offshore racing – written more than 70 years ago – remains perhaps the most detailed single reference for the sport).
Captain J.H.Illingworth, R.N. – Offshore (1949)
Funny, even these guys can’t get it right – it’s cancelled, not postponed. Moving each suceseeding Champs up one year is just stupid. You cancel 2020, and start again fresh in 2021.
Part 3 of Shanghai Sailor’s Chinese adventures…Part 2 is here.
THE AMERICA’s CUP
Steady growth built the membership of SBYC towards 200 and the word was clearly out that there was a new game in town and not just in China. Early in 2005 I received an email from a fledgling syndicate in the USA backed by a Shanghai businessman emigre suggesting the idea for a Sino/US Challenge through SBYC.
Well at first I though it might even be a wind up but soon it became clear it was anything but. However did SBYC qualify? Were we recognised? Meetings with the Chinese Yachting Association (CYA) provided us with that recognition. Di d we run a regatta on the arm of the sea?
Well we quickly put together a Notice of Race for such then an impromptu meeting with the Maritime Safety Agency MSA where sailed led us to learn that the outflow from the lake was only 8 in 12 hours, the other 4 hours being inflow – it was tidal AND seagoing vessels crossed it. Was this good enough? Communication [...]
