Pics of the Day

Not sure where this is but boy would it be fun to hang at this beach for an afternoon or two!

Take The Sailing Quiz

I found a fun sailing quiz online. Not to difficult and pretty fun to test your sailing knowledge. See how you stack up with your sailing know how. Check it here.
Here is my sailing question of the day: On a sailboat, what is a painter?

Long Wins With Perfect Ride

In last heat yesterday, California's Greg Long, 26, came from behind to win $55,000 and the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. Pardon the pun, but Long was a "long shot" to win "The Eddie" considering that this was his first time invited to this event.

Yet, yesterday was special for the San Clemente native and the iconic surf contest. It was exactly 25 years to the date when this big wave event first ran in 1984 as a tribute to legendary waterman Eddie Aikau. Aikau was one of the most prolific Waimea Bay surfers and was the first lifeguard at The Bay. He was lost at sea while attempting to paddle for help when the Hawaiian voyaging canoe, Hokule'a, capsized off of O'ahu. "Riding big waves is my passion and I've been following "The Eddie" since I knew exactly what it was, I was probably 12-years-old just getting into surfing," said Long who lives out of his van in California for greater mobility to chase big swells. "I never would have thought that this being my first year surfing the event, to come away with a victory is really a childhood dream become real."

The biggest sets of "The Eddie" rolled into Waimea Bay during the final hour ranging from 22-to 25-feet. These mountains of water allowed Long to catch four high scoring rides to overtake 9-Time World Champ Kelly Slater. Furthermore, Long caught a perfect scoring 100-point wave in the final heat.

"There were a couple of big sets that started feathering out the back and you thought they were going to close out, but you had to hold your ground. I was checking my lineups and where I needed to be," said Long of his 100-point ride. "I turned around, put my head down and there was no way I wasn't going to go. And, it was one of the bigger and better paddle-in waves I got in a while. That heat lent itself to coming from behind."

While this event pays homage to Aikau's endearing legacy of aloha, the Quiksilver Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational brings out the best in the sport of surfing according to Long. "It really is about the wave and celebrating the ocean," Long said. "The respect and camaraderie in the lineup you don't find in too many places in the world, and this event really encapsulates everything that's great about surfing: the friendships you make in the water and looking out for one another."

Former Eddie Aikau Champion Kelly Slater had an immense amount of respect for Long's performance and the event yesterday. Despite, finishing runner-up Slater was still psyching on the overall vibe of the contest. "One of the best days of surfing in my life, for sure." said Slater who won this event in 2002 and claimed $10,000 yesterday. "I had a couple of my most memorable rides I've ever had. That last heat was just pulsing with huge sets coming in, it had the biggest sets and Greg won the whole contest with one heat."

Here was a perfect ride from the previous contest in 2004 riden by Bruce Irons.

Ricochet - The Cool Surfing Dog

We are proud owners of a Golden Retriever named Kona. He is 17 months old and a wonderful family dog. Like every dog he is great in so many ways but certainly not perfect. We have done a ton of work with him to try to curb his obsession with food. Our training has paid off but we still have to be very vigalant when there is food around or he will try to get it. This video made me realize you just have to make the best of what you have to work with. I got a little misty at the end and you might too.

Eddie Would Go!

The Quicksilver Surf Contest may happen this week. As you may know, the Maverick's contest is a no go, however the waves in Hawaii are in the 40 foot range and getting bigger each day. The Quicksilver contest has not been held since 2004 as the waves have not been over 40 feet. Yesterday they exploded and the roads were jammed with folks hoping to get a glance at these Pacific monsters rolling into Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu. Check out the site for updates and more info.

Trifoiler

TriFoiler Original Video
by h2ojoe

Alltop - One Stop for all your Sailing Info Needs

Here is a great site to get all your sailing blogs, news and more at one site. If you sign up you can create your own page with all your favorites. It's a great way to get all the sailing, or whatever your sport or interest is, all at one place. Here is the
sailing page.

Sailor Know How: Transom to Target

So you are out on a bright day and tacking out of your home waters. You want to make it out with the least amount of tacks as possible to get to your destination. However there is an obstruction off your stern and blocking your course once you tack . You are not sure how far you have to go until you can tack and make it around that object. This has been a question that I have asked many a sailor and no one could tell me the answer, until yesterday. I was out with a bunch of friends who have sailed a bunch and Pierre knew the answer: Transom to Target. When you can draw a straight line between the angle of your transom to the object, then it is time to tack. We tried it yesterday around the Berkeley Pier and it worked perfectly. Currents could be a variable to work into the formula as well. Give it a try next time you are out and see if it works for you. And maybe I can save you a few tacks in the future. Here was another sailing know how tip from a while back.

My Favorite Sea Creature - The Sun Fish

The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, or common mola, is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. It has an average adult weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.

Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of jellyfish, but because this diet is nutritionally poor, they consume large amounts in order to develop and maintain their great bulk. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate.

Great Apps for the Sailor/Mariner

A few months ago, I wrote an article about iPhone apps for the sailor. Here is an update with lots more from Paul Oliva of the SF Chronicle newspaper.

When award-winning tech entrepreneur and Santa Cruz sailor Philippe Kahn sails a grueling ocean race, his navigation bag holds something unexpected: an iPhone. A growing number of mobile applications, or "apps," are helping to keep boaters informed, on course and entertained. Plus, they're often free or low cost, making a $25 gift card go a long way.

For the uninitiated, a mobile app is software that downloads just like a ring tone to a Web-enabled phone or other device.

Kahn's iPhone 3GS, packed in a watertight OtterBox case, runs an app his company developed called MotionX-GPS. A thousand miles from California, racing his boat, Pegasus, in this year's Transpac to Honolulu, Kahn used MotionX to navigate, record his course and upload his positions to a Google map, Facebook and Twitter with comments, photos and video. Incidentally, Pegasus set a world double-handed record in that race.

Palm and mobile Windows devices have some apps, but Apple's iTunes store has the most.

There's an impressive array of navigation apps there, in addition to full GPS navigation such as MotionX-GPS ($2.99). For instance, Navionics offers $9.99 interactive marine charts with navigation and a database of tide, current and marine services. Wondering how long it takes to tack toward Alcatraz? SailTimer ($13.99) calculates the answer. Anchor Alarm ($9.99) says your boat is drifting, Ship Finder ($4.99) gives details of that ship about to run you over (California not yet available), and StarPilot is a celestial almanac ($29.99) that could be used with a 99-cent Sextant app.

Mark Wilson of Concord religiously packs his iPhone in an Aquapac dry pack on a lanyard to check conditions before and during a day of fly-fishing.

Surf Report is a free app for coastal conditions. Tide Graph ($1.99) and apps like it deliver tide, current, sun and moon information. RiverGuide for Kayakers ($4.99) gives real-time river flow information. The NOAA Buoy Data Reader ($2.99) and Boating Weather ($1.99) deliver easy access to government weather feeds.

Wilson says such apps are great for potentially dangerous river and ocean conditions: "They tell you real-time information, what the seas are, what the winds are, what the temperatures are."

Mobile apps pack a ton of technical reference in a tiny space for a tiny cost. Boater's Pocket Reference ($4.99) is a mini encyclopedia. Official navigation rules go for $2.99, while $1.99 buys cool apps for identifying the navigation lights of vessels (Ship Shape) and the code flags they fly (Naviflags). A mere 99 cents buys Boat Ramps, which shows exactly where to put your boat in the water.

Some learning tools use animation to teach tricky things such as knot-tying and sail adjustments.

Non-Apple devices won't run these apps. Practical Sailor's December issue reviews three pocket navigation apps for Palm and Windows.

Yet even different versions of the iPhone and iPod touch have different position-tracking, motion-sensing and communications capabilities.

Bottom line: Always check whether the app matches the device, and never let technology distract from safety or enjoying the outdoors.

New Mascot for the Horses Mouth

Come on dawg, you need a new mascot for your site! :~}

Latitude 38

The latest issue of Lat38 is available for free download. For those not familier with this West Coast magazine, she is considered one of the finest sailing rags available. Written by sailors, for sailors. I always enjoys reading the Letters section, as well as the Changes in Latitude section. Plus there is a ton of great info and sometimes interviews with sailors from around the globe. Check it out with a download.

The Yellow Light Is On

Big waves are on their way to the Bay Area, raising the possibility that the Mavericks Surf Contest could be held next week - possibly Tuesday morning.

Organizers, who have had to scrap the contest two out of the past three years because of stubbornly calm seas, are looking for a rare mix of giant swells and clear weather at the Mavericks surfing spot north of Half Moon Bay.

If conditions now predicted for Tuesday hold up, the 24 surfers in the contest field will be asked to vote Sunday morning via e-mail on whether to make "the call" and hit the water in 48 hours.

Contest co-director Katherine Clark said conditions could change. A series of storms is predicted to roll over California next week, and the waves hitting the Bay Area may turn out to be too rough even for champion surfers.

Organizers determined to hold the event this season opened the contest window early. It now runs from November through March.

The 24 invited surfers are voting for the first time this year on when to hold the contest. They were asked to weigh in on a date last month but rejected it.

For pics, vids and more info, go here.

Taming the Sea Monster

Trimaran 60 pieds - Foncia - Alain Gautier
by Ettorival

Damian Foxall is steering a sailboat through howling wind on a starless, bone-chilling November night on the North Atlantic. The yacht, Foncia, is an ORMA Open 60 trimaran, the fastest and most sophisticated class of sailboat on the water, a flighty thoroughbred born of computers and carbon fiber and capable of sustained speeds even few powerboats can match. There are nine other three-hulled boats like Foncia nearby, along with 19 traditional monohulls. They're racing from Le Havre, France, to Bahia, Brazil, in the Transat Jacques Vabre, one of the world's most prestigious transatlantic sailing races. Foxall, a lanky Irishman with close-cropped hair and an angular face, hasn't slept in 24 hours, but that's OK; Foncia is in the lead.

At 4 am the wind drops and Foncia slows - a good time to refine course and tack. Foxall gives the helm to his sole crewmate, Armel LeCleach, and crawls into the cockpit. He pulls in the sails and drops the canting mast away from the wind. Suddenly there's a gust, and the massive boat, 60 feet long and 60 feet wide, lifts. Foxall dives toward the mainsheet to release the sail and decelerate. But another gust, 49 knots - just short of hurricane force - knocks the yacht on its side. In an instant, Foncia is upside down and Foxall is underwater, pinned between a winch and the boom beneath a 5-ton boat.

Somehow, Foxall wriggles free, gulps air, and pulls himself aft. LeCleach, marooned on the upturned hull, yanks him aboard. But Foxall's chest and right shoulder are in agony, and he's unable to stand. So LeCleach opens one of the watertight hatches in the hull, drags Foxall inside, and sets off Foncia's distress signal. Continue here.

Tiger's Mistress

No not that one....his yacht silly. Several years ago, Tiger took delivery of a brand new $20M yacht. Too bad he doesn't like sailing. You can get a very nice sailboat for that much coin. The yacht is called Privacy and it looks like an awesome ride.

Moitessier - The Sailor's Sailor

"I have no desire to return to Europe with all its false gods. They eat your liver out and suck your marrow and brutalize you. I am going where you can tie up a boat where you want and the sun is free, and so is the air you breathe and the sea where you swim and you can roast yourself on a coral reef....(1)"

IN EARLY MARCH 1969, THE FRENCH-COLONIAL SINGLE- handed circumnavigator Bernard Moitessier, aboard his unique 39 foot steel ketch Joshua, rounded Cape Horn and stood to the north "outside" the Falkland Islands for the long run uphill to England to finish first and fastest in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race around the world.(2)

Joshua was so far ahead of the other entrants that winning was almost a certainty, barring any unforeseen emergency-and there were few exigencies that the capable and versatile Frenchman could not handle, including Cape Horn, which Moitessier had now doubled twice in his long sailing career. Waiting for Moitessier would be the cash prize of $25,000, the trophy, and the inevitable storm of noto- riety, adulation, and perhaps a million dollars in books, endorse- ments, public appearances, emoluments of all kinds to say nothing of the nationalistic pride of beating the English at their own game, and winning the Legion d'honneur.

Joshua at the moment was a shoo-in. Then something happened. Moitessier changed course, headed eastward along the Roaring Forties (after having already crossed his outbound track) on a second nonstop circumnavigation, automatically dropping out of the Times race.

In his log, and in a long letter composed for his publisher, which he hoped to give to a passing ship, Moitessier's reasons were although he professed to be of sound mind weird in the extreme, incomprehensible at best. He was in a region noted for phenomena and hallucinations, which had affected many lone voyagers such as Captain Slocum (for whom Joshua was named), Al Hansen, and Vito Dumas. Had he succumbed to some strange mental unbalance? Had he just plain gone nuts?

"Why am I doing this? Imagine yourself in the forest of the Amazon. Suddenly you come upon a small temple of an ancient, lost civilization. You are not simply going back and say, "I have found a temple, a civilization no- body knows." You are going to stay there, try to decipher it . . . and then you discover that 100 kilometers on is another temple, only the main temple. Would you return?"(3)

But no. How could anyone understand? It is this thing, this strange cosmic dimension, which time takes. You feel as if you could sail on for a thousand years....

Read more here.

Fleurtje

Cool schooner for sale. She's yours for $15M Eruo! Here is a discription of this beauty: During the past 22 years, much of the Schooner FLEURTJE (ex-ARGONAFTIS) has been overhauled, modernised, rebuilt, redecorated, refitted or replaced during 4 major refits and several other maintenance periods. The vessel has always been kept in Lloyd’s class.

She has been a strictly private yacht during this time, having never chartered.

Her present owner increased the number of guest cabins to 6 in 1985 and, more recently, each cabin has been refurbished and all gold plated fittings. In addition to many technical aspects of the refits, we are informed that the decks were replaced, the hull was completely refaired and repainted, sound proof insulation was installed in the engine room and throughout the guest accommodation.

Gerald Dijkstra conducted full inclination tests and re-distributed much of the 100 tons of ballast to further improve Fleurtje’s sailing performance.

FLEURTJE is a unique 3 masted schooner and is, the only one of her type and in her condition available for sale worldwide. More pics and info
here.

Survival Mode

Pics of the Day

Deep Water

Watch Deep Water in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Just finished watching Deep Water, a film about the first non stop sail race around the world in 1969. One of the competitors, Donald Crowhurst, a 36-year-old English businessman, who went to sea in a leaky boat and committed suicide in the Atlantic 243 days later. Now, splicing harrowing onboard audio and visual footage of Crowhurst with interviews of the sailor's friends and family, a film, Deep Water, tells the story of Crowhurst's last voyage, and his descent into madness.

A former RAF pilot with a small, ailing electronics business called Electron Utilisation, Crowhurst was, at best, an enthusiastic weekend sailor. He was also married and a father of four children. So what convinced him he should go to sea for nine months is anyone's guess. But not only was Crowhurst determined to enter the race, he was determined to win.

To understand Crowhurst's peculiar obsession with competing in this gruelling race, one needs to know that in 1968, Britain was in the grip of sailing fever. The previous year, Sir Francis Chichester had achieved the then monumental feat of sailing around the world, on his own, punctuated only by a stop in Australia. In the era of the space race, when the possibilities of human endeavour seemed limitless, the world lapped up the heroism of Chichester's achievement, and 250,000 people lined the south coast to cheer him home.

The Sunday Times, which had reaped the rewards of sponsoring Chichester's journey, was looking for a way to continue tapping into the appetite for maritime derring-do. The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was born. Using the clipper route, from Britain, through the Atlantic and round the Cape of Good Hope; through the Indian and Pacific Oceans; round Cape Horn and back to Britain, the competition was billed as a test for the world's greatest yachtsmen.

But, to encourage entrants, no evidence of sailing experience was required, and competitors were allowed to set off any time before 31 October. A trophy for the first man to complete the course, and a separate prize of £5,000 for the fastest time, would be awarded. Out of the nine men who set off in 1968, only one, Knox-Johnston, finished.

You can rent the video at the iTunes Store for $2.99. Continue reading here.