Windsurfing - The Movie

Boater's TV

They are getting close to 100 episodes on Boater's TV. Check'em out!

Classic A-Cup Sinking

The People's Boat - Newport 30

One of SF Bay's best known N-30's owned by Dick Arnoff.

We purchased our Newport 30 "Addiction" seven years ago and I have really come to appreciate the build, it's sailing capabilities and bang for the buck you get from these boats. Famed naval architect Gary Mull was hired by Capital Yachts to design a family cruiser for the San Francisco Bay and beyond. He came up with a classic! He was charged with designing a boat that would be able to accommodate a family of four or five for a weekend, be able to handle the chop and waves of the bay and be economical enough for the average Joe to afford. These boats are perfect for that and much more. The layout sleeps five although 3-4 is best. We have had her out on the bay in 40 knot winds and felt pretty comfortable on her. She does best in winds about 15-18 but we push her in the summer when most days are 25-30. A few years ago we added a nice furling jib and it has made our sailing on the bay much more enjoyable. There is lots of room for storage, galley and a full head are standard as are lots of sail controls for racing and fine tuning the rig. We have wheel steering on our boat along with the rigging for a spinnaker. We cruise at 6.5 knots and have seen many 7-8's on the speedo. This is not a blue water boat by any means but does well in the bay/delta and with the right equipment and weather, would be fine for coastal cruising. If you are looking for a used boat that is easy on the pocket book and the eyes, consider a Newport 30. For more info on Newports, please check out the Newport Owners page here.

Kayak Free Fall

It's been a while since we featured some extreme kayaking. Enjoy.

The vid is not working very well. Click on the pic and it should take you to the video. It will be worth it.

Winter Time Blues

SF Bay Bliss

Click the pic for a much larger view. Our 1981 Newport 30 "Addiction".

My boat partner Dan and I took out two friends, Dave and Dennis, for a day on the bay on Sunday. And what a gorgeous day it was. Winds were nice upon our departure at 12-14 and temps in the low 60's. After leaving the Emeryville channel, we were able to hoist the sails and had a fine run straight for Treasure Island. Spirits were high as we tacked away from TI and hit our stride with the speedo hovering in the 6.5 range. As we tacked again and approached Alcatraz, we could see the water was flat and there was very little wind on the other-side of the historic prison grounds. We tacked again and headed towards Richmond on a beautiful run. After one more tack we set our sights on Angel Island. We dropped the hook just off Quarry Beach and got comfortable on the bow as the brilliant sun warmed us. Dennis pulled out his guitar and harp and did a great rendition of the Dylan classic, "Tangled Up in Blue" as well as my favorite Dead tune, "Uncle John's Band". We talked for a while and watched the sail boat next to us almost drop an outboard in the bay. For the trip back we rigged the spinnaker for an excellent 7 knot run home. Very nice to set the spinnaker after not having it out for well over a year. It was a perfect wind to push us across the bay and into our slip. Thanks guys for a memorable sail and for sharing another day in paradise with me.

The Science of Big Waves - Mav's

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Pic of the Day

That Sinking Feeling

Gunnar & Grethe are a truly adorable, funny, fun couple. Teachers from Norway, they took a year sabbatical. They bought Sailabout in January in the Rio Dulce River in Guatemala and their goal was to sail to New Zealand. Greta insisted that they install a Single Sideband High Frequency Radio or better known as an SSB. She finally got her radio when they were in Jonesville, Roatan. Several boaters finally convinced Gunnar that he had to have the radio for safety, since they were planning such a long crossing. Doug, from Kristiana, and Bob, from Shamal, helped Gunner install the radio and they both taught them how to use it.

After exploring Guatemala, they left Monkey Bay Marina for their sailing adventure. They worked their way down thru Honduras, Columbia ... all the way thru to the Panama Canal and started their trek across the Pacific.

Early in the morning on May 4, 2007, friends on sailing Valentina were listening to their SSB and picked up a Mayday on the net frequency cruiser's in the NW Caribbean listen to every morning. It was friends Gunnar & Grethe from Sailabout and they reported that they were taking on water and do not think they can get it under control. They were alone, in a storm and their fore stay had broken loose from the fitting down on the dolphin striker at the water line. Water was coming in the fitting. The bow sprit was torn loose and the anchors were banging against the hull. They were in 12 -14 foot seas with 20+ wind and squalls. They set off their EPIRB. Gene and Brenda from sailing vessel Queen Mary called the 14300 Ham net to let them know that a Mayday had been received from Sailabout and they are 700 miles west of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Read more about s/v Sailabout here.

Duran Duran Singer Le Bon Back in the Saddle

Simon Le Bon, the Duran Duran singer, took the helm of his old yacht yesterday declaring that he had no fear of sailing again in the race that almost cost him his life 20 years ago.

The 1980s pop singer said he was just "excited" to be back on his former boat Drum with his original crew and taking part in the Rolex Fastnet Race again.

Not even the prospect of passing along the same stretch of water where he capsized and spent 40 minutes trapped inside the upturned boat was going to distract him from the main object of the race, namely having fun.

Yesterday, as he eased the £7 million boat out of Cowes harbour, on the Isle of Wight, the 46-year-old was in a bullish mood.

He said: "I just feel relieved to be on the boat and all the preparation over. I'm not nervous, I'm more like excited. It is just the same kind of feeling I get when I am going on stage. Just pumped up and looking forward to having some fun."

His confident air is a long way from how he felt after the accident when he admitted that he was "terrified" to get back in the water.

Le Bon had been asleep when high seas ripped the keel off the boat just off the Cornish coast on the first day of the challenging 600-mile race, which six years earlier had claimed 15 lives when a storm hit competitors. Read more here.

Losing the Mast

It was the moment every sailor dreads. Paul Bayfield, an experienced crew member aboard Purple X, a 49ft Oyster yacht on passage from the Philippines to Hong Kong, had just settled into his berth after a spell on watch when there was a horrible noise above followed by a sharp change in the boat’s motion.

“I was just getting comfortable in the bunk,” Bayfield recounted after recovering from his injuries during a dramatic New Year’s eve rescue operation in the South China Sea. “I hear this sound like someone ripping open a cardboard box. That was carbon fibre ripping. I realised what had happened and seconds later the deck crew said, ‘All hands! The mast has gone.’”

Purple X was in trouble but not yet in distress. The dismasting of the £1m yacht had certainly brought an abrupt end to an idyllic cruising holiday for owner-skipper and Citigroup investment banker Raymond Lee, his wife Carolyn, sons Aaron and Joe, aged 18 and 16, and three crew, including Bayfield.

The waves were large and there was a near-gale blowing – they had been sailing under a double-reefed main and staysail – but the crew were strong, the engine was working and the boat was well-equipped. They donned safety gear and cut away the rigging to release the mast and prevent it from damaging the hull. Instead of continuing upwind towards Hong Kong and home, 350 miles away, they turned back towards the Philippines, which was less than half the distance.

Lee and the others were not without worries, however. The electric bilge pump was working constantly and it seemed that water was coming into the boat, perhaps where one of the mast spreaders had pierced the hull. There was a brief fire in the fuse box when the ripped electric wiring from the mast short-circuited in the sea water.

But it was during the subsequent rescue that life became really dangerous for the crew of Purple X. Carolyn Lee had put out a “Pan Pan” message on the radio – a call for help or a notification of an urgent problem that falls one step short of a Mayday distress call – and the crew were also in touch with the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre by satellite phone. The yacht was located by a spotter plane and a ship, the 110,000-tonne tanker Maersk Princess en route from Taiwan to Thailand, was diverted to assist. After some discussion, they made the fateful decision to abandon ship.

It is difficult at the best of times to board a large tanker at sea from a small boat, and it was made harder on this occasion by high winds and waves and the loss of communications after the battery of the yacht’s handheld VHF radio finally died. Raymond Lee, Bayfield and Martin Franks, following the last available instructions from their rescuers, jumped into the sea to be picked up by a small boat lowered from the tanker.

After a failed attempt to transfer the yacht’s crew via a flailing rope ladder lowered from the tanker’s deck, the boat was hoisted back up with the rescuers and the three yacht crew inside. But as the ship rolled, the plastic boat slammed into the hull. Lee was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken collar-bone and deep gash in his leg, Bayfield injured his back and one of the ship’s crew was also hurt.

Worse was to come. The remaining four people aboard were to put on life rings attached by lines to the ship and jump in the sea so that they could be pulled to the ladder. The two boys made it safely but Carolyn Lee and Victor Gordoncillo, a Filipino crew member, had to swim away with only their life jackets when it seemed the yacht would crush them against the tanker.

Twice they drifted back, had a close brush with the ship’s propeller and ended up far behind the ship in the stormy sea as evening approached. Twice they were found again as the Maersk Princess laboriously turned around and conducted a search. They were finally pulled aboard in a cargo net and the yacht’s crew were all safe.

“It is a horrible, helpless feeling floating away from rescue,” Carolyn Lee told the South China Morning Post. “We were just starting to lose the light when I got on the ship. Another 10 minutes in the water for me, and it would have been all over.”

The crew of Purple X are full of praise for the courage and perseverance of their rescuers from the Maersk Princess, although with the benefit of hindsight they must be asking themselves whether it would not have been wiser to try to make it under their own steam back to the Philippines.

Novice sailors are warned never to step down into a frail life raft from a solid if damaged yacht. Yachts abandoned at sea have on many occasions been found afloat weeks after their crew have died in the open ocean.

In the case of Purple X, however, a ship was at hand to conduct a rescue and everyone who was on the yacht is now alive and well. For a skipper, there can be no tougher decision than the one to abandon ship.

Extreme Boating

There is a Coast Guard vessel in the wave if you look closely. Click the image to see it.

Crash and Burn - 49er

Bears with Bells

To read, click the pic.

Pic of the Day

Click the pic for a bigger view.

Frozen in Time

GOOG 411

When I am on the road, I rack up alot of charges calling 411 on my cell phone. I discovered a neat service from Google that does the same thing - for free! If you need a biz listing just call 1-800-GOOG-411. Say the city and state and it will give you the info you need and connect you at no charge! Give it a try!

EOS - Largest Sailing Yacht in the World

Media mogel Barry Diller has been enjoying the largest privately owned sailboat in the world. Eos is a marvel of technology and opulence. With three masts and a triple cutter rig this boat is as fast as she is expensive. Here is a short interview with a weathly man who loves boats.

B.D. I’ve been lucky that I’ve had, coursing through my life—I started with really great people, and how they developed and what’s happened to them continues to make me smile.

L.G. Explain to someone who doesn’t own a car by choice the attraction for you of yachts?

B.D. [Laughs] Well, it really has to do with water, which is either a pull for you or it isn’t. And for me it’s always been something that I can’t intellectualize, and since I’ve been in and around boats all my life, I have an inexplicable love for anything that moves through the water.

L.G. So it starts there.

B.D. Yeah, it starts and ends there. In other words, there’s no more to it than that.

L.G. But you’re purported to own the largest sailing vessel in the world now [the 300-foot-long Eos, for which Diller paid an estimated $200 million to build last year]. What’s that about? I mean, people have all kinds of theories on why rich guys buy big yachts.

B.D. I promise you, it’s not about size, it really isn’t. I mean, it’s not for me. I’ve had sailboats, and when I started to think about building a boat, I wanted to have a boat that had really good sailing characteristics and at the same time I wanted a boat that could hold my family and friends and be as comfortable as I could conceive it. And when we put those things together, it just dictated the length of the boat. It wasn’t backwards, like I said “I want the biggest boat.” It’s inconceivable that I’d say that. And I’m sure that at some point fairly soon I won’t have the biggest boat.

L.G: [Laughs] That's for sure!

B.D.: But I wanted a three-masted schooner. By definition it had three sticks in the air, it's going to be a little large, because that was the kind of sailing craft I wanted. It's not huge, Eos, and as a matter of fact one of the great things about it is its profile is not imposing, certainly not from some big white refrigerator. [Laughs] Big motor boats are usually white, and they're big, they're very imposing. That's not bad, but that's not my sailboat.

L.G.: If you like big white refrigerators!

B.D.: Whatever. Some of them are beautiful. But, you know, in this thing of boats, it's like planes. There's no justification for this, it's just I'm lucky enough that I got to build something that I had more fun than anyone deserves in building it, and now I'm having even more so in me and my family enjoying it.

L.G: Is that it for you, you think, in terms of being happy with this one for a while?

B.D.: No. I'm sure I'll get hungry for doing another boat as well at some point, another stripe of another kind. Once you're in boats, you either go bankrupt or you keep going.

Hello Febuary!

January has been a rainy, cold, soggy month here in the bay area. The good news is our rainfall totals have pushed above the normal rainfall for the year and our water managers are happy. The Sierra snowpack is also well above 100% year to date and that bodes well for our states water supply. Everyone has been fearing drought conditions as we were well behind last year and there is a slight La Nina in the equatorial waters. I guess we can all share a huge sigh of relief and thank the power of prayer for our good fortune. Speaking of religion, here is a great sign that spells things out for you.

Click the pic for a better view.