Puma in the Volvo Race

Savage Beauty on the Rocks

Savage Beauty was competing in the YRA Second Half Opener, which is generally a pleasant jaunt out to the Golden Gate to Point Bonita and then down hill all the way back to the Oakland/Alameda Estuary and finish at the Encinal Yacht Club. On the day of the incident, there was very large flood tide, and many of the boats took well over an hour to get from the start area just to the Golden Gate bridge.

Seeking relief, many boats utilize the north sides rocky shoreline, dancing within inches of the massive basalt wall on the Marine side. Savage Beauty was with a group of other boats in a tacking duel and got a tad closer than they should have or wanted to. ( I did not see the incident's onset, just the general current events)

There was a large underlying 10ft south swell from and expired tropical storm near Tahiti a week or so ago which was mostly hidden under its 18-20 interval length. I believe Savage Beauty bumped an under water snag, lost momentum and was then picked up by the swell and placed closer to shore than they wanted. Apparently they attempted to start the engine and rescue themselves, but the prop got fouled leaving them helpless.

A nearby recreational fishing boat called the US Coastguard almost immediately, and their response was quick. The Horseshoe Cove HQ for Station Golden Gate is less than half a nautical mile away.

Attempts to dislodge the boat initially failed, and when the Marine County Sheriff Dept arrived with USCG, they quickly accessed the situation and ordered the crew off. Between sets of swells they dashed in and grabbed crew members and hauled them into their RIB. When all were unloaded and the owner finally rescued, they hung out a bit waiting for a salvage crew to arrive and attempt saving the Flying Tiger. I'm not sure if they even got a line on her, but within an hour, the boat was reduced to large pieces of flotsam and jetsam - which littered the area just west of the Golden Gate bridge between Point Diablo.

Restoration of a Classic

Just recently restored, a William Fife designed, 6 meter, called Nada. It was found rotting on the beach by Woodstock Boat Builders who painstakingly restored her to her former glory.

Mirabella V

The largest single masted yacht in the world became a reality in May 2004. Mirabella V was launched in November of 2003 and her mast was stepped six weeks later. She proceeded to the Mediterranean in June and completed five weeks charter in her first season.

This revolutionary composite super yacht presented unique challenges to the leading designers and engineers involved in her creation.

Performance was a key demand of this pioneering vessel, with special emphasis on windward capability, and her brief had called for a speed exceeding 20 knots under sail.

Mirabella V is available for charter summers in the Mediterranean, and winters in the Caribbean. If you have a cool half mill sitting around, she's yours for a week!

The mast is almost 300' tall. There is a cool story about one of the crew that had to climb the mast during a sail. They went into a fog bank and he was so high that he was above the clouds and looking at the sun while the yacht was shrouded in fog. That's one tall mast!

Specs:
LOA: 75.22m (247 ft)

Beam: 14.80m (48.5 ft)

Draught (Keel Up): 4.0m (13 ft)

Draught (Keel Fully Down):
10.0m (33 ft)

Displacement:
765 tons

More pics and vid here.

Big Day at the Wedge

Would You Do This?

This racer sets his autopilot and goes for a surf behind his boat. Crazy?

Wave of the Year 2008

Sail On Sunday

We sailed from Emeryville to Tiburon.

Satellite view of Paradise Cove.

Went for a great sail yesterday with 6 other folks. We headed out in a fair breeze from the southwest of about 12 knots. We were headed towards Tiburon when the winds started to build to about 20 knots. Got behind the lee of Angel and had to motor for a bit. Picked up again and we dropped anchor at Paradise Cove for lunch. The cove was fantastic as the water surface was calm and the sun was hot. We opened a bottle of Champagne and sat down for a nice lunch in the cockpit. Soon we were swimming in the cold waters of the bay and it felt great. I scrubbed the bottom a bit and enjoyed the water. After the swim, had a nice chat on the deck and everyone was enjoying themselves. Time to head back and as soon as we left the lee of Angel the full force of the 30-35 knot wind hit us. We reefed the jib a bit and made our way back to Emeryville with some fairly large swells pushing us along. The Addiction did just fine and I was confident. We passed only one other boat on the way across...who else would be crazy enough to be out in this tempest?? Pulled into the slip and relished the fact that we have the perfect boat for conditions of the San Francisco Bay!

Ellison's New Toy

Today in the SF Chronicle Newspaper they had a front page spread on the new tri from BMW/Oracle. Once they finish up all the courtroom battles, maybe we will see some of the most exciting sail races ever! Here is the article.

They call it "Dogzilla" - a towering beast of a high-tech sailing machine whose mast soars into the clouds. It is billionaire Larry Ellison's best shot yet in his quest to capture the America's Cup.

"It's awesome," said Russell Coutts, the Kiwi skipper and chief executive of Ellison's San Francisco-based BMW Oracle Racing. "Something that goes three times wind speed when you're going downwind is incredible. If I was a kid, I'd say, 'How is that possible?' The acceleration is just dramatic."

"It's an incredibly unique boat," said tactician John Kostecki, a world-renowned pro sailor who began racing as a kid on San Francisco Bay. "At times, there's a lump in your throat because of the danger of it all. There are moments when you're on edge."

Dogzilla - the nickname Ellison's sailors have given their monstrous machine - has an archrival, of course. It is the Alinghi 5, a giant catamaran launched Monday in Switzerland on Lake Geneva by Ellison's nemesis, Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli. Bertarelli's team won the America's Cup in 2003 in Auckland, New Zealand, and defended it successfully in 2007 in Valencia, Spain.

The teams are preparing for a showdown in February - a two-out-of-three America's Cup series on a 40-mile-long racecourse to determine who will win the oldest trophy in professional sport. The venue has not yet been decided. Leading possibilities are Valencia, Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates, and Auckland.

Ellison's team, sponsored by the Golden Gate Yacht Club, is training in the ocean waters off San Diego, conducting speed tests and making design modifications.

"This boat goes so fast that you can actually generate a lot of lift like a hydrofoil," said Ian "Fresh" Burns, the team's head of racing design. "We regularly sail two or three times the wind speed. ... It's a big advantage to have a boat that you can push pretty hard. The guys like to sail it to the limits."

In just a breeze, two of Dogzilla's three hulls are lifted out of the water.

"There's incredible danger from capsizing, but the bigger the boat, the slower the motion happens," Burns said. "It doesn't happen in a fraction of a second."

If the boat doesn't flip over, it might collapse. Because of the tremendous pressure on its carbon-fiber hulls, mast and rigging, there's a threat of sudden breakage. Oceangoing multi-hulls have been known to lose their masts and crack like eggshells.

Ellison's sailors often wear crash helmets.

On Monday, Dogzilla (officially named BOR-90) and several chase boats dodged an outbound Navy warship and an inbound submarine while running tests. An emergency medical technician and a diver stood by. A sailmaker snapped photos to study the effectiveness of the sail shape.

"I think it's actually quite beautiful," said Burns. "It's kind of insectlike. There's a natural form to it. You can't help but be awed by the power and scale of the thing."

Others have compared Ellison's yacht to a spaceship. Its beam, or width, is, like its length, 90 feet - which makes the vessel's footprint the size of a baseball infield.

Its 15 crew members wear electronic earpieces to hear the skipper's orders. It's an international team, with sailors from Italy, France, New Zealand and other nations.

Ellison, the founder and CEO of the Oracle software company, spent about $200 million on his 2007 America's Cup campaign, but failed to reach the challenger finals, and therefore didn't get a chance to race the champion Alinghi team. He had spent $85 million on his 2003 campaign before losing 5-1 to Alinghi in the challenger finals. He has invested untold tens of millions of dollars in his latest campaign.

"It's obviously not cheap. It's a brand-new piece of technology," said Coutts, adding that nearly 60 percent of the campaign's cost is labor. The team has about 75 full-time employees in San Diego, Valencia, and its boat-building facility at Anacortes, Wash.

Dogzilla's black, carbon-composite hull is a 1- to 2-inch-thick honeycomb. Its mast is supported by 1-inch-diameter stays that are made of PBO - an exotic, lightweight material that can handle a pressure load of more than 50 tons. It has a far greater breaking strength than stainless steel.

The boat's machine-laid fiber mainsail is 5,000 square feet, and its gennaker - or largest headsail - is 7,000 square feet.

At times, Dogzilla issues piercing groans as a line wrapped around its huge winches is eased to trim a sail.

From his perch on a sportfishing boat stuffed with gadgetry, Burns eyes the race boat's real-time digital and visual data.

More than 500 sensors have been placed on various parts of the race boat, including its mast, rudder and hull - providing data on about 2,500 variables - to measure the stresses on its components and rigging.

Computer screens at Dogzilla's two steering stations provide digital readouts on everything from boat speed to pressure loads. An alarm sounds if a component is overloaded.

Digital video cameras are mounted on the mast to monitor the sails.

Burns said that Ellison's race boat has reached speeds of "somewhere between 40 and 50 knots." For a sailboat, that's screaming fast - more than twice the speed of traditional, America's Cup yachts with a single hull.

Ellison's design team was assisted by French naval architects who've designed blue water trimarans that have set transoceanic speed records.

"This boat is designed to be pushed flat out pretty much all the time without any slowdowns," said sailing coach Glenn Ashby, an Olympic silver medalist in Tornado catamarans.

Its rotating, aerodynamic mast can be pointed toward the wind, and hydraulic rams - essentially a super-strength water pump - keep the mast vertical even when the boat is leaning over.

"It's a pretty cool machine, that's for sure," said helmsman Jimmy Spithill. "It's probably some of the best, most exciting sailing I've done in my life. There's no way of really relaxing in this boat. You always have to think ahead. If you make a mistake, you'll know all about it."

High-speed catamarans and trimarans are able to sail faster than the wind because these light boats with huge sails create their own wind.

The boats minimize their frictional resistance by using aerodynamically designed foils - wings that are lowered into the water - to help lift one or two of their submerged hulls above the water.

The boat's own velocity creates an "apparent wind" that allows acceleration to speeds that are two or three times the true atmospheric wind speed - or the wind that can be measured when the boat is at rest. The faster the boat speed, the greater the force on its sails - driving the boat forward.

Or, to put it briefly, if unhelpfully: It's physics.

New Jupiter Scar Bigger than the Pacific

Astronomers in the Bay Area and around the world are all agog over an immense scar larger than the Pacific Ocean that has suddenly appeared on the surface of Jupiter.

For only the second time in the 400 years since Galileo trained his primitive telescope on Jupiter, professionals and amateurs alike are observing how the planet has been blasted by a cosmic collision, and excitement is mounting about the mystery.

The only similar impact occurred 15 years ago, when chunks of Comet Shoemaker-Levy rained down on the planet at interplanetary speeds for five days and pitted the gaseous surface with clusters of huge black spots.

That crash has intrigued astronomers ever since, and they have been hard at work analyzing its effects on the planet in scientific paper after paper.

The new scar was first detected Sunday by Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Australia, who promptly posted on a blog for other astronomers.

Franck Marchis of the SETI Institute in Mountain View soon posted on his own blog about a huge black spot detected near Jupiter's south pole. He followed it with more blog posts about its nature after colleagues using the powerful Keck telescope in Hawaii saw it as "an anomalous bright spot" shining in the infrared region of the spectrum.

If the object that hit Jupiter was an asteroid rather than a comet, it might well have been one of those millions of objects that normally fly around the sun in the "asteroid belt" between Mars and Jupiter. But so far, no one knows.

"We really have no idea what it was, and our observations so far have only confirmed that the scar did indeed come from an impact," Marchis said in a phone interview Tuesday. "If more observations in the infrared show water in the scar, then the impactor was most probably a comet, as comets do hold water; but if not, then it was most probably an asteroid."

After Marchis alerted many colleagues Sunday night, astronomers Mike Wong from UC Berkeley and Michael Fitzgerald of UCLA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used the Keck telescope to make detailed observations of the impact site.

"Whatever hit Jupiter this time," Marchis wrote on his blog, "it was not disrupted with multiple fragments like Shoemaker-Levy."

Wong said the scar covers 73 million square miles in an irregular shape. By comparison, most geographic maps set the Pacific Ocean's size as about 60 million to 69 million square miles.

The scar's complex, blotchy shape indicates that the mysterious object must have exploded into fragments before it hit Jupiter, Marchis said, and was probably too small to be detected by any Earth-bound telescopes aimed at the planet before the crash.

Marchis hoped to make new observations of the scar Tuesday night from the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton above San Jose. Other professional and amateur astronomers are also training telescopes on Jupiter's clouded surface, trying to analyze the scar and determine what caused it.

Not the best way to start your day!

Blue Hole

Sixty miles off Belize in the Lighthouse Reef is this natural wonder known as The Great Blue Hole and it is believed to be the largest of its kind. The Great Blue Hole was formed when a limestone cave created during the last Ice Age collapsed leaving a hole 1000 feet across and 400 feet deep. Now it's a haven for divers including the late Jacques Cousteau who charted its depths in 1971.

Alinghi Sails Lake Geneva

The Swiss America’s Cup Defender, Alinghi, hoisted the sails on its giant new catamaran Alinghi 5 for the first time today on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. The 90ft multihull was cheered off the dock at midday by hundreds of spectators watching the maiden sail out of Le Bouveret.

Murray Jones, who is running the initial trials of the giant multihull that represents a first step in the development process towards the 33rd America’s Cup, gave his comments on a good first day on the water: “We went out this morning with a list of objectives to work through: testing the boat, checking the structure, doing some manoeuvres and seeing if the sails would all sheet and it went pretty well; we ticked off just about everything. There are a lot of systems on the boat that are complicated and new, but it was fantastic. To fly the boat upwind and downwind with gennaker was awesome for the first day of sailing. The boat is a tribute to the designers and the boat builders. To deliver a boat of this complexity that works straight out of the box on the first day is impressive; really impressive.”

Grant Simmer, design team coordinator, was observing the trials from a RIB: “It’s been a good day, we had a list of things we wanted to do and we took it slowly and carefully and have finished the day achieving all those things. It was exciting to see the boat sailing for the first time after so much time designing, boat building, sail making and spar making; seeing all those bits come together and seeing the machine working is great! We’re looking forward to tomorrow.”

Zac is Back

Slater on a Perfect 10

Worst Wipeout

Cali Surfing - Malibu

Malibu may not have the biggest waves but it does have a colorful history in surfing lore. Check out the cool photo essay of Socal's favorite surf spot.

Uncle Walt

Watch CBS Videos Online

Strike One

The retired chief biomedical scientist, whose home overlooks the Tresillian River, said he took the opportunity to get some shots as he heard the storm approach around midnight on July 1.

'When it got louder and closer I became aware of the flashes,' he said. 'I thought, well I'll set up my camera and have a go. Of course, I didn't know when the flash would come.'

After an hour, Mr Evan's patience was rewarded when his 10mm wide-angled lens captured the milliseconds of the moment the bolt tore through the night sky - and hit the mast of his neighbour's yacht Red Fox.

'The end of the lightning stopped just where it touched the mast,' he said. You can see the green navigational light was on. I think it was because electricity from the flash went through the circuits.'

Red Fox's owner, Jason Goodden, said he heard a loud bang but had no idea it was his yacht that had been hit until Mr Evans showed him the picture the following day.

The renewable energy engineer and father-of-three said: 'I heard the crack, I heard it outside my window. I thought, that's a loud one. I wish I had been looking.

'I didn't know anything about it until I was shown this photo the next day, so I went out with some trepidation. I didn't know what I would find.'

Mr Goodden, 59, said he thinks the damage, which appears to be limited to a radio aerial and a light, was minimal because the mast acted as a lightning conductor for his family's sailing boat.

'It just discharged it like a lightning conductor - straight through the boat. If someone had been in there touching that I don't like to think what could have happened.'

Why Not?

Amazing Vid of the Day

Quote of the Day

Pics of the Week

Zac Arrives Home On Thursday

THERE'S NOTHING THAT CAN STOP HIM NOW. Barring almost impossible-to-imagine events, Californian 17-year-old Zac Sunderland is about to become the youngest sailor on earth to circumnavigate the world solo. He will break the record held since November 1996 by Australian David Dicks who completed his eight month trip when he was 18 years and 41 days old.
Zac pulled out of San Diego yesterday after clearing customs, and is due in Marina del Rey, on the central Los Angeles coastline tomorrow Thursday(16th July), just 13 months and two days after he began his epic journey. With only about 100 miles to go from San Diego, Sunderland is making a big tack to Catalina Island and back in, to time his arrival at 10.00 local time. Read the whole story here.

iPhone Apps for Sailors

The iPhone does so many things well and now it can help you on the water with many free and inexpensive apps. I own several of the apps described in this article and will also mention several that I do not own but you may want to try. If you have the new 3GS you have a head start with the Compass app. If you don't have the latest phone, you could download a compass app called MotionX. There is a lite version as well as a full blown one with many more options The lite version (free) works fine and will also allow you to create waypoints and give you all the info you would have on a handheld GPS. You can even set the compass to true and magnetic bearings. The one weakness here is that it does not show you where you are on a chart.

I was almost ready to buy a handheld GPS when the new iPhones came out last year. With GPS built in, I decided to upgrade and am very happy using the navigation software from iNavX. This a $50 app but it bets the heck out of buying a Garmin. Download the free NOAA raster charts and off you go. It can do waypoints as well as show your track on the charts. It's easy to zoom in and out by pinching the screen and I have found it to be a great help at night when sailing near the Berkeley Pier. It could come in very handy in the fog as well. This hand held chart plotter is constantly being updated and is an amazing app.


Next up is a tide and current app that is very helpful called Tides. There are several tide apps but this one is great because it also gives you current predictions. Easy to use and very straight forward. Wind Meter will give you good idea how fast the wind is blowing and is a steal at one buck. Wind Speed is one I do not own but it looks promising. If you would like to check the buoys in your area for weather data you may want to try Windbuoy.

There has been alot of chatter about Anchor Alarm. If you anchor alot, this is an app you want to have on your phone. The $10 app will give you piece of mind while you drift off in to a sound slumber. Be sure to set it past 20 meters so you donot have a false alarm.

For current wind conditions in your area checkout sailflow.com and dial it into you favorite waters. In the SF area, I use windandtides.com for a quick wind check and forecast before I go out.

Here is a list of apps you may also want to check out at your local app store:
Sailmaster (for the racer)
NOAA National Weather Service
Harry's GPS Sailor
iTrim
Marine Rules and Navigation
Sailor Knots
Points of Sail
Marine Rules and Signals

Users assume all risk when using these apps at sea. If you have a favorite app that you want folks to know about, please leave a comment. Sail on!

Cool World

Click the link below for a very cool look at our world in pictures. Make sure to give it plenty of time to load. Then keep clicking on any part of the picture. Who woulda thunk it?? Click here.

My Hero: Capn' Ron

My Kind of Waterslide!

Somewhere on Lake Tahoe

Bonehead Move of the Weekend

If you would like to read how this happened, click here.

Latest Image of BMW/Oracle

90'x90' Click the pic for a huge view!

A Look Back at the 2008/9 Volvo Race Around the Planet

Help!

Trifun

Playboating

Apollo 11 - 40 Years!

July 20, 1969. Where were you when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for the very first time? I was 10 and watching TV at a friends house on a street called Mercury. Some say it was a hoax. If you talk to the second man who touched down on that dusty disc, it was no joke. Here is a recent interview with Buzz Aldrin and the affects that his moon walk had on his life.

You Are Nobody Till You Have Pie In Your Face

Americas Cup Preview

The next Americas Cup is going to be awesome. Think NASCAR on the water. 90' x 90' rockets racing at speeds close to 40 knots with amazing wipeouts and pitchpoles. Major carnage and lots of hoopla! The races will occur before the end of February somewhere on the planet that boosts light airs for these light and fragile craft. With immense sail area, the loads on the boats could exceed 100 tons according to local experts. The boats are shrouded in secrecy but L38 spoke to a duck that wandered into the compound of BMW/Oracle in San Diego. Here is what the mallard said:

"Last year they had the tri sailing at more than 40 knots, which would be fast enough to get my feathers ruffled. Given the speeds and loads, somebody could really get hurt. No wonder that principle helmsman James Spitall and the rest of the crew wear helmets and body armor. And that there are EMTs on the support boats that chase the big tri. There have been rumors around the nest that Larry Ellison, owner of the campaign, sailed on the tri once, and that was enough for him. What's even more telling is that Russell Coutts, the America's Cup legend, is rumored to be afraid of the boat, too. But I think that's just gossip, don't you?

"You probably want to know what they've been doing inside that building since they stopped sailing operations in February," said the loquacious duck without giving us time to answer his question. "I'd probably end up as Peking duck on the BMW Oracle crew menu if they knew that I told you, but they've been making a hard sail for the trimaran. Sort of like the one Dennis Conner used when his catamaran beat the Kiwi 'big boat' monohull in the funky America's Cup in San Diego many years ago. I also heard that something like $5 million was spent on either modifying or replacing the two outer hulls. If anyone is feeling sorry for syndicate owner Larry Ellison, they don't have to. My 401K for ducks has taken a beating in the last year, but not from Oracle. They had an operating income of almost $8 billion in the last quarter, and if I'm not mistaken, Ellison still owns something like 20% of the company. So he's not having to chase the America's Cup with a cup in his hand."

"But when is the big tri going to be test-sailing again?" we asked.

"I'm glad you asked," said the duck, "because the big news is that they'll be sailing shortly. If you're in San Diego, you won't be able to miss her. But at the speed she travels, you won't be able to see her for long — unless you're in one of those F-18s flying out of North Island."

Since the duck seemed to be such a know-it-all, we asked him who he was picking to win the next Cup. "Some chicks and I were discussing the America's Cup the other day, and figure BMW Oracle has their work cut out for them. I'm just a duck, but I figure this is going to be — because of the extreme speeds and risk of personal injury and boat destruction — the most NASCAR-like America's Cup ever."

Bonehead Move of the Month

"No problem honey, I'll just drop the boat in the water and then come pick you up. Oh, the boat goes in first? Sorry about that."

L38

I was traveling to see my family on the east coast last week and new I would be off line during the plane ride and at other times during the week. I downloaded the July issue of Latitude 38 to my computer and had plenty to read during my trip. You get the entire mag in PDF format so it makes for easy navigation and reading. Known as the west coast's top sailing rag, isn't it time you downloaded this free mag to your computer?.

CG Plucks Man From Ocean

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter has rescued a French kayaker who became fatigued in the Bering Sea during his quest to circumnavigate the world.

Jean-Gabriel Chelala contacted authorities from his kayak Saturday after he encountered several days of rough waters and became too weak to paddle through the currents.

A Jayhawk helicopter airlifted Chelala from his specialized kayak about 40 miles off the coast of Alaska's St. Lawrence Island and flew him to Nome, where he was treated for mild hypothermia, the Coast Guard said. The kayak was abandoned.

The 28-year-old has been attempting to circle the globe through human power — bicycling and kayaking. He left France by bike in January 2008, kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean to Florida and then pedaled from Florida to Alaska, according to his Web site.

Chelala left Emmonak on Alaska's western coast on June 27 with the goal of reaching Gambell on St. Lawrence Island — a journey of 250 miles, the Coast Guard said. But rough seas threw him off course.

___

On the Net:

— 48 North Expedition, http://www.jeangabrielchelala.com/

New Yacht Gets Wet

More videos at MachoVideo.com

Click the pic to see the video.

Push the Tempo

Tube Vision

I am in New England at my sister's new pad on Lake Sunapee. We are really struggling here with a redwood hot tub, beautiful lake house that sits on its own peninsula, a wine cellar stocked with awesome wines from around the world, a boat house with an upper deck overlooking the bay and all my family. My sis has a very nice sculling boat I really like for low impact, aerobic workouts. Also running the local ski slope. The weather has been unsettled and rainy for 8 weeks they say. Raining right now. But who cares, we are having a great time! Happy 4th to you!

Cool New App - Wind Meter

I am working on an article about apps for sailors that own an iPhone. One neat app I recently ran across is Wind Meter. Activate it and hold it into the wind and the microphone senses the pressure of the wind and gives you a read out in knots or mph. Check it out at your local iTunes store! For .99 cents it does an amazing job.

Foto Flood

Have a relaxing weekend!

Sailing Vessel Found Floating in Mid-Atlantic

There was just a light breeze by the time the Belgian yacht Genesis spotted the white-hulled sailboat adrift in the middle of the Atlantic.

The drifting boat, a French vessel named L'Actuel, was upright, the mainsail still on the mast. The headsail was torn and partly furled. Lines trailed in the water.

There was no one aboard, and the satellite phone and survival gear had been left behind.

The discovery of the empty yacht on Sunday, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest landfall, leaves a mystery about the fate of its crew, two French sailing enthusiasts, who had left Newfoundland on May 24.

'There was no signs of anybody on board. ... Anything could have happened,' said Jeri Grychowski, a spokeswoman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax.

Search operations will continue, said a duty officer at the Gris-Nez Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in France.

The skipper, a veteran regatta racer named Gaétan de la Goublaye, 62, had set off from the French Caribbean island of Martinique with a friend, Denis Guilmin, 47. The two were on their way to Le Havre in Normandy.

'He's not a novice. He's very competent, very cautious. That's why I have trouble grasping what could have happened,' said a friend, Gilles Jolly, who lives next door to Mr. de la Goublaye's villa in Martinique.

Mr. Jolly noted that L'Actuel's sails were reefed, meaning that the two sailors had reduced the amount of sail exposed to the wind. The reefing, Mr. Jolly said, suggested that the two men may have been trying to keep the yacht from capsizing during a storm. Inside the boat, loose items had fallen to one side, suggesting that the 10-metre Jeanneau Sun Rise 35 had rolled.

'Was there a big wind gust? Did the boat capsize? Did he grab a buoy to go find his crewmate who had fallen in the water? We don't know,' Mr. Jolly said.

The search began when Mr. de la Goublaye's daughter, Marie, reported him missing last Thursday.

Canadian, British and French search planes scoured thousands of square kilometres of the Atlantic. On Saturday, a long-range Lockheed CP-140 Aurora from CFB Greenwood in Nova Scotia spent hours looking for the French boat.

The Belgian yacht found L'Actuel about 500 kilometres west of the Azores, 1,150 kilometres southeast of the spot where Mr. de la Goublaye made his last communication.

Complicating the search was the fact that L'Actuel did not carry a satellite rescue beacon as required by law, according to a duty officer at the Delgada Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in the Azores.

Mr. Jolly said Mr. de la Goublaye's wife, Sylviane, had been in hospital with an unrelated illness and is too sedated to react. 'It'll be harder when she'll come home,' he said. 'This is a great tragedy,' Mr. Jolly said. 'It's very hard on us'

The last contact with the boat was on May 24, when Mr. de la Goublaye phoned Marie in France. He had left Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the south coast of Newfoundland. He said he wanted to stop either in Ireland or Scotland, depending on the weather.

The French Coastguard at Griz Nez received the first call reporting that the vessel was overdue and passed the information to a Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Canada, from where the response to the incident is being coordinated. Numerous attempts to contact the missing yacht have been made, but without success.

The search effort includes a Hercules aircraft out of Greenwood, N.S., a Nimrod out of Falmouth, England, and a plane from France. Broadcasts were made to cover mid Atlantic as well as coastal broadcasts by Clyde, Stornoway and Falmouth Coastguard and the Irish and French Coastguard.

A retired entrepreneur who ran a packing and export business in Le Havre, Mr. de la Goublaye and his wife moved to Martinique six years ago.

Mr. Guilmin and Mr. de la Goublaye had sailed together when Mr. de la Goublaye brought L'Actuel to Martinique. They had agreed to reunite should Mr. de la Goublaye want to cross the Atlantic again.

They were returning home after sailing down to the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

The skipper told family members that he might make a stop in Scotland or Ireland on the way home but there's nothing to indicate he did.

Order Yours Today. Operators are Standing By.

Skip to the 2 min. mark for a great look at this cool vessel.

Wallypower

Our Future?

2010: Entertainment and Communication from Faris Yakob on Vimeo.

Surfing Cat

Nice vid from Hawaii of a cat surfing home in the channel.
Check it here.

Who Has the Right of Way?

Falcon

Click the pic for a better view.
I am still blown away by the enormity and complexity of this amazing boat. Here is another look at the world's largest privately owned sailing vessel.

Rescuer Saves the Day

How far will the coastguard go in saving a sailor? UK Coastguard station officer Nigel McColm showed just how far this week when he took a ship-wrecked sailor to his own home for the night after saving his life.

Sailor Jonathon Orme-Dawson, a retired teacher had planned a 12 month solo voyage round Britain when salt water drowning of his yacht's engine removed the last chance of saving his yacht.

He had restored the 24 ft yacht during the previous two years, and planned the adventure-of-a-lifetime, but the boat hit the rocks between Lyme and Bridport.

He was two months into his voyage when the incident happened. He told Jim Durkin of the Daily Echo how he was rescued:

“The boat was rocking and crashing and I was thinking, ‘any minute now, that is it. I’ll be in. I'm fairly fit but I have asthma. The shock of hitting cold water would have triggered an attack. I was fearful for my life.”

He told how he had gotten into trouble after weather closed in around steep cliffs at Golden Cap on Friday night.

He said: “I’d been to Torbay. I’d arranged to meet my family at West Bay for the weekend and was making my way there when thick fog set in.

“The wind was quite fast and blowing in the wrong direction, and the sea was rough, with metre high waves.”

But it was the salt water that flooded into the engine bay that removed his last chance of saving the boat.

Mr Orme-Dawson said: “I battled for an hour to get away from the rocks, but there was a sheer cliff and it distorts the wind when you get near it. So I was just drifting. But the response I got was absolutely unbelievable.”


Yacht went on the rocks between Lyme and Bridport on the south coast of the UK - .. .

He told of the speed of the Lyme Regis RNLI crew and coastguards, including the helicopter, who answered the call within minutes.

“I got a huge boost when I saw them. I knew I wasn’t alone,” said the battered sailor.

But as the boat's sail was still up, a down-draft from the helicopter threatened to tear it apart. It was decided to use the lifeboat to get alongside the vessel, but this proved fruitless.

Lifeboatmen were put ashore and managed to get to the vessel wedged between rocks but close to the beach.

“The lifeboat came along and John, from the lifeboat crew, got on my boat and pulled down the sails. He helped me off then we got ashore and the helicopter winched me up.'

He watched his beloved yacht, and all his possessions, sink into the sea.

...and that was when Portland Bill coastguard station officer Nigel McColm put the weary sailor up in his own home for the night.


by Nancy Knudsen

Fast is Fun

Morning Light on DVD/Download 6/16

The Power of Less

Our lives are going faster and faster and there are many of us who have become slaves to our work and the technology in our lives. I have several friends that are so connected to their work that when I spend time with them, it's hard to enjoy as they spend most of their time on the phone talking, texting, or emailing. Very annoying! I am sure you have been there too or even done this to your friends and family. I found a great article about this problem and it has some great suggestions to slow things down and enjoy the moment. Here is one suggestion that relates to some of my frustration:
4. Focus on people. Too often we spend time with friends and family, or meet with colleagues, and we’re not really there with them. We talk to them but are distracted by devices. We are there, but our minds are on things we need to do. We listen, but we’re really thinking about ourselves and what we want to say. None of us are immune to this, but with conscious effort you can shut off the outside world and just be present with the person you’re with. This means that just a little time spent with your family and friends can go a long way — a much more effective use of your time, by the way. It means we really connect with people rather than just meeting with them.
Read the entire list here.

Spinnaker Flying

Spinnaker Flying in a Nutshell

All you need is some decent wind, one medium to large sailboat, preferably a masthead rig, a boson's chair, and (preferably) a tri-radial spinnaker.

1. Anchor off the stern.
2. Attach boson's chair to the clews of the sail. No guy, no pole for this.
3. Enter the water off the bow, sit in the boson's chair (with the sail collapsed), and release the sheets.

You will be launched from water level, to the height of the mast in about 1 second.

Then, you can control horizontal and vertical movement by manipulating the sheets.

What's funny is this: the force of the launch usually leaves whatever you're wearing around your ankles, so boys, and girls (if you're wearing a bikini); you just might be flying naked.

The only way to pull 'em up is to bail, and most of the time, when you bail you're bottoms are lost forever.

We've thrown many a towel overboard.

Anyway, it just takes a couple of times before you get the feel of it.

It's too much fun and too many laughs. Everyone always has a good time.

Hook In and Hold On

Wam Bam Thank-You Mam

Waking Life Clip

Cool movie about a boy who meets a bunch of interesting folks talking about life and what it's all about. See the entire movie here.

Missing Cali Sailors Found

Two novice Californian sailors who set off from Avalon Beach in a 27ft Coronado sailing boat on Thursday 4th June and triggered a search at sea covering over 22,000 miles and involving one aeroplane and two helicopters say they don't plan to stop sailing.

They will set off again as soon as the citations against them by coast guard are satisfied.

The two, who had no sailing experience and carried no life jackets, flares or communications equipment and no way of recharging their mobile phones, soon lost contact.

On Sunday, when the worried parents had not heard from them since Friday, they called out the Coast Guard to search for them. They told the coastguard they were somewhere 'between Santa Catalina Island and the Monterey Bay'.

For about a year, 22-year-old Zebulon 'Zeb' Tryon and his friend 18-year-old Chris Reuter had been talking and dreaming about sailing. So after a little bit of research the men saved $2,000 and bought a boat in Southern California.

'We just went and hopped on a train. We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into,' said Tryon.

With just the shirts on their back and a few belongings, the two started their journey.

Since Thursday, the men said they had been eating, sleeping and drinking on their 27-foot boat, while the coastguard searched for them.


27ft Coronado sailing boat was found off Pismo Beach - .. .

The Coast Guard says after they sighted them off Pismo Beach, they terminated their voyage, escorted them into Port San Luis and gave them three citations. The two will be staying in Port San Luis until they get those citations corrected.

'They just didn't have the right radios or equipment on board. Their cell phones had died and couldn't be charged so they they just didn't have contact with anyone. But as far as we know, they didn't run into any problems. There is nothing wrong with the boat or anything along those lines,' said Petty Officer Cory Mendall of the Coast Guard.

The two sailors were cited for not having a personal flotation device, not having a sound producing device, and not having a visual distress signal.

'We had dolphins coming up to our boat and jumping out in front of the bow,' said Tryon.

'We were really surprised. We didn't know what was going on,' said Tryon about the coastguard search, 'When we came around the point we just headed in this direction and then that's when the C130 came flying over our heads.'

A spokesperson for the Coast Guard said search and rescue missions are a top priority. The sailors will not be required to pay for the search and rescue.

In a statement released to Action News, the Coast Guard said: 'This is not only a free service provided to those in distress, but considered an honor and duty for the men and women of the Coast Guard.'

'The fact that everyone is telling us that we can't do it makes us want to do it even more,' said Tryon.

The two intend to set sail for Santa Cruz on Wednesday.

The Coast Guard wants to remind folks to have proper safety equipment on board before embarking on any sailing trip.

Pic of the Day

Beam me up!

A Beautiful Night Sail

My niece Julie is out from the east coast on a visit and we went for a night sail that was awesome. Had a wonderful sunset as we headed out and raised the jib. We were the only ones out and the winds were 12-15 and just perfect. We tacked our way out to the end of the pier and headed toward Angel. We got in the shadow of this great island and so tacked again towards the city. I was telling Julie that this was indeed a very special sail. After about 2 hours, we headed into the dock under motor and an almost full moon. It was a night to remember.

Some Pics

Click on any pic for a better view.

DMB

I have been a Dave fan since "Under the Table and Dreaming" was released in the early 90's. I have seen his band in concert many times. A few nights ago he played an intimate show at the Beacon in NYC. They streamed it live and we bring you the link to the show. If you are a fan, sit back, roll a fattie, and enjoy this show!

At Sea

I LOVE THE SUBTLETY AND RICHNESS OF all the variations on the theme of society and solitude that can be experienced when traveling by sea. It is like living inside a metaphor for the strange voyage of a human soul on its journey through life.

Out on the open sea, with a breaking swell and the wind a notch too high for comfort, you are the loneliest fool in the world. You are trying to follow the vain hypothesis of a compass course. It's marked on the chart, 347 degrees magnetic, a neat pencil-line bisecting the white space of the ocean. The absurd particularity of that number now seems to sneer at you from the chart as the boat blunders and wallows through the water, its hull resounding like a bass drum to the impact of each new ribbed and lumpish wave. The bow charges downhill on a bearing of 015 degrees. Ten seconds later, it's doing 330 degrees, up a potholed slope. Abandoning the helm to the autopilot, which at least will steer no worse, if little better, than you do, you go below.

Slub...thunk. Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and the rest lurch drunkenly in line along the bookshelves. Two oranges and an apple chase each other up and down the floor. Your morning coffee is a jagged stain on the oatmeal settee. The decanter has smashed in the sink. The closet door is flying open and shut, as if a malevolent jack-in-the-box were larking among your shirts. A dollop of green sea obscures the view from your living-room window. Your precious, contrived, miniature civilization appears to be falling to pieces around your ears, and you can't remember what madness drove you to be out here in the first place.

Then you hear voices. For a moment, you fear that you're losing your wits; then you realize that the voices are coming from the VHF set: a captain calling for a harbor pilot or a fisherman chatting to his wife in the suburbs. It is, after all, just a dull morning at sea, with the invisible community of the sea going about its daily business. You turn up the volume on the radio, climb the four steps to the doghouse, and regain control of the wheel. Three or four miles off, a gray, slab-sided bulk carrier shows for a few seconds before being blotted out by a cresting wave, and you find yourself watching the ship with a mixture of pleasure at finding a companion and rising anxiety at encountering a dangerous intruder.

Letting out the sails to steer clear of the big stranger on your patch, you quickly recover your taste for solitude--and the waves themselves seem to lose their snarling and vindictive expressions. In the society of the sea, it is the duty of every member to keep his distance from all the others. To be alone is to be safe. It's no coincidence that those two most English of attitudes, being "standoffish" and "keeping aloof," are nautical terms that have long since passed into the general currency of the language. Standing-off is what a ship does to avoid the dangers of the coast; aloof is a-luff, or luffing your sails, head to wind, to stay clear of another vessel. The jargon of the sea is full of nouns and verbs to describe the multitude of ways in which a ship can keep itself to itself. The ocean is, in general, a sociable and considerate place, where people (professional mariners, at least) treat each other with remarkable courtesy. But this civility is based on distance and formal good manners. Always signal your intentions clearly. Always know when to give way and when to hold your course. If people on land behaved like ships at sea, they'd look like characters in an Italian opera, or members of the Japanese imperial court.

I'VE NEVER CROSSED AN OCEAN UNDER MY own steam--never, really, more than nibbled at the ocean's edge. The longest open-sea crossing that I've made was from Fishguard, in Wales, to Falmouth, in Cornwall: 200 miles, 35 hours; a day, a night, and most of the next day, with a dream-harrowed sleep (full of collisions, groundings, swampings, and founderings) at the end of the trip. Cowardice is one reason for my failure to tackle an ocean; my passion for arrivals is another. When the light begins to fail and the sea turns black, I yearn to make landfall--to pick out the winking entrance buoys and find my way into a strange port. The intricate, heart-stopping business of coastal pilotage is for me the great reward for a day spent jouncing about in the waves offshore.

Dusk is a good time (though just before dawn is best), when lights stand out but the shape of the land is still clearly visible. You bring one shadowy headland into line with another, then find the lazy flash of the fairway buoy, timing it against your watch to check its ID. Cautiously standing-off, you wait until the pinpricks of light ahead resolve themselves into a narrow, winding lane, into which you thread the boat, moving under engine, at half speed.

The most satisfying harbors are those that are fringed with a maze of shifting sandbars, like the entrance to the Somme estuary in northern France or the approach to Wexford in Ireland, where buoyed channels take one on bafflingly serpentine routes into town. Each channel represents a pooling of knowledge by the local pilots and fishermen and is a path whose broad outline has been trodden for hundreds of years. But sandbars alter their positions after every gale, and the buoys are never exactly in the right places. As so often at sea, you are at once in good and experienced company and entirely on your own.

Inching warily from buoy to buoy, you watch the shivering needle on the depth sounder. It is your blind-man's stick, with which you have to tap-tap your way, feeling for deep water as you go. Twelve feet. Ten feet. Eight feet--and you've lost the channel. Nine feet. Ten feet--and you breathe again. Now you're inside the line of breakers, in a broad, lakelike sea, with the lights of the town silvering the water in the distance. In a moment of inattention, the bow of the boat suddenly climbs as the keel scrapes sand, but it settles back, the buoy slides past, and the floating town drifts slowing toward you, taking you in.

Anyone who has struggled into a harbor out of a bad sea will understand why the words "heaven" and "haven" are closely cognate. A dismal slate-roofed town (visit the Methodist chapel and the fish-and-chip shop) is paradise itself when you find shelter there after a day of being cold and frightened aboard a lurching boat. You'd willingly kneel to kiss the stones of the dock, you are so full of gratitude for the fact of Dulltown's existence. Its people are so friendly! so attractive! Its Methodist chapel is, as Methodist chapels go, a very cathedral! Its fish and chips are, without doubt, the best fish and chips in the world!

Few travelers have ever felt this way about Dulltown. You are privileged. Your means of arrival has revealed to you a place hidden from the mass of humanity: Dulltown Haven...Dulltown as Heaven. For a writer, such an epiphany is pure gift--and it will save you from the addled cynicism that is the usual curse of traveling.

Yet we were, a few moments ago, on the Somme estuary and the mouth of the River Slaney, and neither St. Valery nor Wexford is in the least like Dulltown. They are beautiful and complicated places even if you reach them dully, by car. The miracle of coming into them by sea is that as soon as your boat is attached to the dock by a trapeze of ropes, it becomes part of the architecture and skyline of the town. You belong to the working fabric of the community as no ordinary visitor can aspire to do. Your neighbors (at least in places unspoiled by yachting marinas) are fishermen, longshoremen, local boat owners; and the more difficult the harbor approach, the more nearly will you be accepted as a resident. In the more remote communities, your patience and skill as a navigator (you wouldn't be there if you were a total buffoon) is an automatic ticket of entry to society.

For a day, or two, or three, or as long as the weather outside remains discouraging, you settle into dockside life. You go visiting in the afternoons. You work on your boat. You learn a dozen names. In the evenings, you go with your new neighbors to the bar across the street, where (if you are a writer) you try to listen harder than you drink. You hear things that no one would dream of telling you had you come here by car.

Then, at five o'clock one morning, in the final hour of the flood tide, you untie the damp ropes in the dark and steal away from the place without saying good-bye. You leave behind a small gap, like a missing tooth, in the shape of the town as you will come to remember it.

At the fairway buoy, the sea is oily, with curlicues of rising mist. The remains of a big swell make the water surface bulge and contract, like a fat man breathing. Visibility is down to a mile or less. A moderate westerly is forecast.

Ahead lie the open sea and a day like a blank slate. But some things are certain. There will be--as now--moments of wonder and elation such as rarely visit you on land. There will be the building magnetic power of the unknown port across the water. There'll be at least one serious cause for alarm, and at least one unpleasant surprise.

You kill the engine and let the boat drift on the tide, waiting for enough wind to hoist the sails. The town you left is now hidden in haze. Alone in a circle of diffuse light, you float in silence. In time, the sea and the day will begin to impose their own narrative order on your life; but for now, you are a character as yet unformed, awaiting the sequence of events that will define you.

Bon voyage!

Jonathan Raban's books include Old Glory, Coasting, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, and Bad Land: An American Romance, forthcoming from Pantheon Books.

Vintage

Extreme

Nuit de la glisse - Wingsuit
by Fredy_K

New World Record - Free Dive

Pic of the Day