I saw the best genoa trimmers of my generation destroyed by
a madness, fit, calm, clothed in the latest technical fabrics,
dragging themselves through the Spanish streets at
dawn looking for a friendly fix of the record book,
angelheaded athletes burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of Harken,
who prosperous and bright-eyed and high on life
sat up breathing the supernatural air
of Alinghi hospitality suites,
floating across the rooftops of Port America's Cup
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to heaven under the windslot
and saw Bernoullian angels dancing on telltales illuminated,
who passed through
Cup campaigns
Cup campaigns
Cup campaigns
with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating endless achievement and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of the war-torn America's Cup scene . . .
Next verse:
The US Olympic Trials and Paralympic Trials opening Wednesday.
Peace, love, and high-tech fibers—Kimball
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Water Rat's Other Tale
The Water Rat had friends on the river, and so do I.
Otherwise, I might still be there.
Heading up the Napa River, I stopped overnight at the Vallejo Yacht Club, and I am so glad I did. Not only were they nice to me (we sort of expect that among sailors, right?), more than one of the people I met went out of their way to tell me about Mean Nasty Number 7. That would be a stake, FL G 4s 15ft "7", where the Napa River takes a lazy bend to port, if you're bound upstream toward the California wine country.
The consensus: Get too close to "7" and, baby, "You're there for the tide."
Now, when one person tells you something like that, it's a note to consider. When five people say it, you start to believe. Here's the J/42 Merry J at VYC. I got to play with it, but the boat belongs to Rob and Teri Moore, who are both past commodores (how rare is that?) at Encinal Yacht Club, Alameda . . .
The Napa River is close to my home in San Francisco, but going there is all about looking at our local landmark, Mount Tamalpais, from the opposite side. Beyond this levee bordering the river is low-lying farmland where a levee has been breached.
Rivers change, river bottoms change, and charts are one thing but local knowledge is everything. The Napa River is not heavily traveled by commercial vessels, so there is no great incentive for the government to make sure of the details.
I rounded "7" wide on a rising tide—lots of tide. Out in the big river, where this is a mere tributary, flood tide rises and current flows turn around, all the way to Sacramento. And I passed "7" clean and clear and grateful for the word. The stake is well away from the shore, so the natural thing would be to cut it close. When I got to the Napa Valley Marina, the first guy I met asked me, had I stuck the boat at "7" ?
No, but I reckon I woulda' had I relied on the chart.
Instead I did my walking-around-the-town-of-Napa thing, enjoyed a decent glass of cabernet, and looked at the massive rebuilding project that is changing the face of the waterfront (while perhaps lowering the risk of flooding). At the same time, I kept up my online reading and saw the thread in Scuttlebutt about team racing, and how much fun it is, and I can endorse that thought. Not long ago I was part of a team that got creamed at the Hinman Masters team racing at Harbour Court in Newport, Rhode Island. We indeed had a great time scrambling up the learning curve: Their boats, their game. I come from a coast where there are more Bigfoot sightings than team races.
But team racing truly is a great way to amplify the game. How to catch up to the active scene in New England? Well, that's a chicken and egg problem, and One Must Ask, would Sonars really be happy on San Francisco Bay? In Southern California or Puget Sound, sure. Anybody ready to buy a fleet?
Here's the new Napa waterfront as a work in progress . . .
Working upriver to Napa was not a big deal as boat journeys go—some things are worth doing because they're a big deal, others because they're not—and in just a few days I made it back downstream as far as Vallejo Yacht Club again in time to pick up a ride for the last Wednesday night race of the season. Because, that's what people like me do. The boatride on Steve Strunk's Luna Sea was just fine, and so was the rising of a full (as the Spanish say) luna. I took my camera along but was too busy to use it.
Oh yeah.
Number "7".
The return.
Coming back downriver, I skirted it so wide, I ran aground.
Now, dear reader, if you're around boats, you're frequently reminded of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows character, the Water Rat, and his famous remark of messing about in boats, simply messing, as the thing most worth doing in life.
It's a marvelous bit of wordsmithing and so true.
But what comes next is less often noted.
Allow me to remind you:
"Look ahead, Rat!" cried the Mole suddenly.
It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.
"-- about in boats -- or with boats," the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. "In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."
I needed this river trip. And I feel an America's Cup blog coming on. I can just feel it boiling up from somewhere—Kimball
Otherwise, I might still be there.
Heading up the Napa River, I stopped overnight at the Vallejo Yacht Club, and I am so glad I did. Not only were they nice to me (we sort of expect that among sailors, right?), more than one of the people I met went out of their way to tell me about Mean Nasty Number 7. That would be a stake, FL G 4s 15ft "7", where the Napa River takes a lazy bend to port, if you're bound upstream toward the California wine country.
The consensus: Get too close to "7" and, baby, "You're there for the tide."
Now, when one person tells you something like that, it's a note to consider. When five people say it, you start to believe. Here's the J/42 Merry J at VYC. I got to play with it, but the boat belongs to Rob and Teri Moore, who are both past commodores (how rare is that?) at Encinal Yacht Club, Alameda . . .
The Napa River is close to my home in San Francisco, but going there is all about looking at our local landmark, Mount Tamalpais, from the opposite side. Beyond this levee bordering the river is low-lying farmland where a levee has been breached.
Rivers change, river bottoms change, and charts are one thing but local knowledge is everything. The Napa River is not heavily traveled by commercial vessels, so there is no great incentive for the government to make sure of the details.
I rounded "7" wide on a rising tide—lots of tide. Out in the big river, where this is a mere tributary, flood tide rises and current flows turn around, all the way to Sacramento. And I passed "7" clean and clear and grateful for the word. The stake is well away from the shore, so the natural thing would be to cut it close. When I got to the Napa Valley Marina, the first guy I met asked me, had I stuck the boat at "7" ?
No, but I reckon I woulda' had I relied on the chart.
Instead I did my walking-around-the-town-of-Napa thing, enjoyed a decent glass of cabernet, and looked at the massive rebuilding project that is changing the face of the waterfront (while perhaps lowering the risk of flooding). At the same time, I kept up my online reading and saw the thread in Scuttlebutt about team racing, and how much fun it is, and I can endorse that thought. Not long ago I was part of a team that got creamed at the Hinman Masters team racing at Harbour Court in Newport, Rhode Island. We indeed had a great time scrambling up the learning curve: Their boats, their game. I come from a coast where there are more Bigfoot sightings than team races.
But team racing truly is a great way to amplify the game. How to catch up to the active scene in New England? Well, that's a chicken and egg problem, and One Must Ask, would Sonars really be happy on San Francisco Bay? In Southern California or Puget Sound, sure. Anybody ready to buy a fleet?
Here's the new Napa waterfront as a work in progress . . .
Working upriver to Napa was not a big deal as boat journeys go—some things are worth doing because they're a big deal, others because they're not—and in just a few days I made it back downstream as far as Vallejo Yacht Club again in time to pick up a ride for the last Wednesday night race of the season. Because, that's what people like me do. The boatride on Steve Strunk's Luna Sea was just fine, and so was the rising of a full (as the Spanish say) luna. I took my camera along but was too busy to use it.
Oh yeah.
Number "7".
The return.
Coming back downriver, I skirted it so wide, I ran aground.
Now, dear reader, if you're around boats, you're frequently reminded of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows character, the Water Rat, and his famous remark of messing about in boats, simply messing, as the thing most worth doing in life.
It's a marvelous bit of wordsmithing and so true.
But what comes next is less often noted.
Allow me to remind you:
"Look ahead, Rat!" cried the Mole suddenly.
It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.
"-- about in boats -- or with boats," the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. "In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."
I needed this river trip. And I feel an America's Cup blog coming on. I can just feel it boiling up from somewhere—Kimball
Monday, September 24, 2007
The People's Boat
Quick, name a class where participation has doubled in the last five years, and no, it wasn't launched five years ago.
Meet the Folkboat, or more likely, renew your acquaintance. These little classics first came to the U.S. more than 50 years ago, and the fleet this year celebrated the 30th anniversary of its International Regatta.
An important component of the success is that, like a very few other types, the Folkboat—to avoid confusion I should properly name it as the Nordic Folkboat—has managed to mix wood and fiberglass hulls. And it is a classic. The boat's just plain lovable, and the Folkboat Association is a cult of its own. As always, it's about the people.
A member of the San Francisco Bay fleet, Svend Svendsen, built the first plastic boat, using number 95 as a plug, but you can find people who believe that the wood hulls are faster when the chop is up on SF Bay and the glass hulls start flexing in the punches.
As for just how the fleet has renewed itself, that's a hard thing to put a finger on. I sat down with a handful of my locals just before the International Regatta kicked off, and class president Chris Herrmann said, "Since I came into the fleet in 2000, there has been a big change. A lot of inactive boats were sold to people who fixed them up and put them back on the track."
For the record, the International Regatta was led by SF Bay locals David Wilson and Peter Jeal in first and second, with Germany's Christoph Nielsen third. I wasn't around for that. I've been upriver on the San Joaquin along with about 700 of my closest friends on an annual retreat. I didn't want it to end, but it did, and now I'm taking the long way home by poking my nose up the Napa River.
The tide is changing, and I have enough water now to get out of Vallejo Yacht Club's harbor, so I'm closing on the bottom line for today. Just a few more observations about the Folkboat. It's tough enough for anything, and perfectly good for cruising if you're the hardy, outdoors sort. To race, it carries three, so all three are engaged in the whole race (that's always a good thing) and the class is going cutting edge soon--aluminum masts are coming in.
Thanks to Peter Lyons for these views of the competition . . .
And I like this comment from the class website about Henrik Hellman, who came over to sail the Internationals (the local fleet limited US participation to ensure that all loaner boats were fully competitive): "Henrik wasn't too sure about this boat when he drew it. It is an ancient wooden Folkboat made in the early 60's, a genuine antique, and they were having to pump a lot of water out. The reason: it just came out of Fred Andersen's yard four days ago, and it is one of our prized Borresen boats from Denmark. The lap planks take some time to swell up and becomed water tight. Wood Folkboats have no caulking between the planks."
Here's what the San Francisco Bay Folkboat Association has to say about itself, which also tells us something about why this show works:
The SF Bay Folkboat Fleet has a program to assist new, current and even potential owners with questions about their Folkboat, racing and even finding a boat. If you own a Folkboat and want to start racing, here is what can help with:
• Finding experienced Folkboat crew
• Review your boat’s, running rigging, hardware and placement of such things as fairleads, etc. to help optimize ease of handling and performance
• Help tune your boat on the water
• Help you locate parts. We keep an inventory of used Folkboat parts (typically hardware, but also includes booms and even masts, when available).
Every year, the Folkboats typically have a one-design start at the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) mid-winter series. (The series races the first Saturday of November through March.) This has traditionally been a great series for a new skipper to get valuable on the water racing experience accompanied by experienced sailors from the fleet. The mid-winter conditions are typically much more benign than the 15+ knots we typically race in on San Francisco Bay.
We periodically run other “one off” regattas to also get new skippers out on the water.
Why do we do this? A fleet that has new members is a healthy fleet. A competitive fleet is a healthy fleet. A healthy fleet is a happy fleet. We’re a happy fleet and want to stay that way.
Time to cast off—Kimball
Meet the Folkboat, or more likely, renew your acquaintance. These little classics first came to the U.S. more than 50 years ago, and the fleet this year celebrated the 30th anniversary of its International Regatta.
An important component of the success is that, like a very few other types, the Folkboat—to avoid confusion I should properly name it as the Nordic Folkboat—has managed to mix wood and fiberglass hulls. And it is a classic. The boat's just plain lovable, and the Folkboat Association is a cult of its own. As always, it's about the people.
A member of the San Francisco Bay fleet, Svend Svendsen, built the first plastic boat, using number 95 as a plug, but you can find people who believe that the wood hulls are faster when the chop is up on SF Bay and the glass hulls start flexing in the punches.
As for just how the fleet has renewed itself, that's a hard thing to put a finger on. I sat down with a handful of my locals just before the International Regatta kicked off, and class president Chris Herrmann said, "Since I came into the fleet in 2000, there has been a big change. A lot of inactive boats were sold to people who fixed them up and put them back on the track."
For the record, the International Regatta was led by SF Bay locals David Wilson and Peter Jeal in first and second, with Germany's Christoph Nielsen third. I wasn't around for that. I've been upriver on the San Joaquin along with about 700 of my closest friends on an annual retreat. I didn't want it to end, but it did, and now I'm taking the long way home by poking my nose up the Napa River.
The tide is changing, and I have enough water now to get out of Vallejo Yacht Club's harbor, so I'm closing on the bottom line for today. Just a few more observations about the Folkboat. It's tough enough for anything, and perfectly good for cruising if you're the hardy, outdoors sort. To race, it carries three, so all three are engaged in the whole race (that's always a good thing) and the class is going cutting edge soon--aluminum masts are coming in.
Thanks to Peter Lyons for these views of the competition . . .
And I like this comment from the class website about Henrik Hellman, who came over to sail the Internationals (the local fleet limited US participation to ensure that all loaner boats were fully competitive): "Henrik wasn't too sure about this boat when he drew it. It is an ancient wooden Folkboat made in the early 60's, a genuine antique, and they were having to pump a lot of water out. The reason: it just came out of Fred Andersen's yard four days ago, and it is one of our prized Borresen boats from Denmark. The lap planks take some time to swell up and becomed water tight. Wood Folkboats have no caulking between the planks."
Here's what the San Francisco Bay Folkboat Association has to say about itself, which also tells us something about why this show works:
The SF Bay Folkboat Fleet has a program to assist new, current and even potential owners with questions about their Folkboat, racing and even finding a boat. If you own a Folkboat and want to start racing, here is what can help with:
• Finding experienced Folkboat crew
• Review your boat’s, running rigging, hardware and placement of such things as fairleads, etc. to help optimize ease of handling and performance
• Help tune your boat on the water
• Help you locate parts. We keep an inventory of used Folkboat parts (typically hardware, but also includes booms and even masts, when available).
Every year, the Folkboats typically have a one-design start at the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) mid-winter series. (The series races the first Saturday of November through March.) This has traditionally been a great series for a new skipper to get valuable on the water racing experience accompanied by experienced sailors from the fleet. The mid-winter conditions are typically much more benign than the 15+ knots we typically race in on San Francisco Bay.
We periodically run other “one off” regattas to also get new skippers out on the water.
Why do we do this? A fleet that has new members is a healthy fleet. A competitive fleet is a healthy fleet. A healthy fleet is a happy fleet. We’re a happy fleet and want to stay that way.
Time to cast off—Kimball
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
98.6° ?
Am I the only guy in the room who thinks, between IRC and PHRF, we live in the golden age of rating rules, and we just don't know what to do about it?
You're on your own to review the simple-minded failures of 19th-century rules that measured length only or length-and-sail only. Think what you will of the way that a going concern, the CCA rule, was traded in for the theoretically-better IOR nearly 40 long years ago (I can't imagine that the CCA rule would still be a going concern, even if it did produce Bolero).
I had a sit-down with Gavin Brady at the Rolex Big Boat Series last week, and one line of conversation rang bells with the part of me that remembers how the golden-oldie IOR did real harm with its measurement points that encouraged designers to create stupid boats to beat the system. Stupid in the sense of hulls shaped like pumpkin seeds that did not want to go in a straight line. The great metaphor for the whole shebang was the way that sailmakers countered by offering a fractional spinnaker to fly opposite the spinnaker, to balance the forces (supposedly), and they gave it the most honest name in the history of sports promotion.
They called it, the Blooper.
(And while we're laying stuff out, yes, once again there were people asking where is the "big" in a Big Boat Series that includes a division of Melges 32s racing one design. But, people, the series didn't change; the world changed around it. Once upon a time, San Francisco Bay was the only place in the world where globe-trotting Maxis raced around the buoys, every three years or so, whenever they came to town. Nowadays in the Med they build Maxis for the sake of buoys racing, and some of them never leave the Med. Originally, the BBS was created because we had the likes of Bolero and Baruna on the bay, and our Southern California friends wanted to come up and play. This has always been a defining regional event, and with time it developed an international overlay, and it was the long-distance sailors who gave the name Big Boat Series to what the annual program called the St. Francis Yacht Club Perpetual Trophy Regatta. Now the program calls it the Rolex Big Boat Series, and I'm reminded of what Stokely Carmichael said—I could pose this as a trivia question but why set you up for failure—when he and H. Rap Brown grabbed control of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Mr. Carmichael said: We are not students. We are not nonviolent. We're sure as hell not coordinated, and we ain't no committee. But that's our name and we're sticking to it.)
Heh. Bet you weren't expecting that.
So there we were, Gavin and me, and he was talking about IRC, the only international rule operating in the USA, and his fears about how that could go wrong. But how wrong could it go? Not as wrong as the IOR, in his mind.
"It would be a shame," Brady said, "to see owners building pure-race boats for IRC with two heads and teak decks—to weigh the boat down, slow it down, help the rating—when what we need is a separation between pure racers and cruiser-racers."
So teak decks are the threat, not hull distortion?
Save the rain forest!
"What's tough on the grand prix side is how to rate a wide range of boats," Brady said. "Hopefully, what we're seeing here with the IRC is the future of the sport. San Francisco Bay and Key West are two places you can go with fast, planing boats and really open them up, and here, people don't want to weigh the boats down because you have to have a light boat to get downwind. They've done the right kind of job at the Big Boat Series of separating the planing boats from the cruiser-racers.
"The thing is, conditions have a massive effect. You can't rate Rosebud against a Beneteau, but you can rate her against other raceboats. We're out there sailing against Rosebud [Roger Sturgeon's STP 65, versus the chartered Reichel-Pugh 45, Sjambok, where Brady was crewing for Larry Ellison] and they're both race boats, and Rosebud is finishing maybe 17 minutes ahead of us and they're beating us by maybe 17 seconds."
Here's the 65-foot Rosebud . . .
Daniel Forster/Rolex
And here is the 45-foot Sjambok . . .
Daniel Forster/Rolex
"No matter what happens with the America's Cup, we're going to have new boats," Brady said, "and they're going to be more like these boats, planing boats, so there are lots of pros out there right now getting experience. You're going to be seeing them in Melges 32s, and when we get into the new America's Cup boats, the gains downwind will be massive. There will be times when the wind changes two knots and you wish you had a different sail, but still, you're not going to peel."
Golden Age or Gold Plated?
Lest you think I have no memory, of course I recall the divisiveness of the 2007 PH-IRC split in Western Long Island Sound (requiring boats faster than PH 90 to race IRC with no PH option) and I'm not sure that's been resolved. I've heard growls about entry levels being down in some key events. But this was not a confrontation with the forces of evil. The rating-rule requirement was an attempt to improve the quality of racing by not fragmenting the fleet. If it's not working, I'd expect it to be re-assessed. And the debate is about how to employ the rating rules, not about the rules themselves.
Being a member of the Transpacific Yacht Club, I'm keenly aware that ORR (son of Americap) suffered an embarrassment in application to the upper size ranges in '07, but I'm not the guy to cure that. What I know is that Transpac has long used adapted ratings to compensate for the downwind bias of the racecourse between Los Angeles and Honolulu, and we'll have to try again in '09. For the rest of the fleet, ORR was fine in '07. The point of the rule is to allow the race committee to go beyond a single-number rating system, to compensate for a course with a history.
But we now have a viable IRC fleet in Northern California, and that is a huge transition. For years, in our wanderings in the desert, post-IOR--and given the failure of IMS and the failure-to-launch of Americap--St. Francis YC was forced to create in-house PH ratings for the Big Boat Series. But then, if you came down from Seattle and gave the boys your Seattle PH number, and they gave you a new number and you had a bad series, how would you feel about that?
The club wanted out of the ratings business and how. After IMS, after Americap, after St. Francis PH, IRC came along, and St. Francis blazed the trail for it in the USA. Now IRC is here, and it's going to stick. Here's a Daniel Forster shot of Sy Kleinman on his Schumacher-designed Swiftsure, still at the game after all these years, and the game he's playing, I do believe, is getting better. Gosh, I hope so. I once beat the drum for Americap, and I did what a mere journo could to get it a place in the sun, only to discover that it couldn't take the heat.
I think this is different. Dockside I ran into the club's former race manager, Matt Jones, and he was comparing 2007 to 2006. The reaction of boat owners, he said, exhibited a sense of "rule security."
Yeah, rule security. At last. Resonates, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, on the Chesapeake, Brady says, "We're having the IRC East Coast Championship in November, and it's probably going to be the biggest yet in the Chesapeake. November is the best time to sail there; we've got the breeze and flat water, and lots of boats are on their way to Florida after a summer in New England."
The Storm Trysail Club/Chesapeake Station says it intends to limit the fleet to 45 boats for those races, Nov. 2-4; entry deadline is Oct. 17. The championship is also the wrapup of the Gulf Stream Series.
Quote Unquote John Mendez
Executive Director, US-IRC
We've been recommending to everybody in the US that IRC should be used as a self-measurement rule. Just try it. That's our message. The constituents have to try it, and if they like it, you're on. But they also ought to understand that, fully measured, they might come out with a better rating.
In 2007 we're revitalized the US-IRC web site, expanded our mailing list, and looked for every way we could find to communicate better with people who are interested in IRC.
Quote Unquote Rich DuMoulin
Chairman, US-IRC Owners Association
To be successful in marketing a rating rule in the US--and nobody had ever really marketed a rule here--you have to take care of the existing boats, and you have to take care of new boats. You can die from either end. IRC lets people build boats that have desirable characteristics. There are features you might get charged for, but not hammered. There's a constant tension there that has to be managed, and that's why the Owners Association is so important.
PH is the fundamental building block of racing in the U.S., but PH can't handle high-end programs, and that is where IRC comes in. We may have gone too far with requiring endorsed certificates, so we're going to allow people to sail with unendorsed certificates in anything except major championships."
Breaker Breaker
Thanks, guys.
Whew! Once you start talking rating rules, there's no end to it, is there. You just have to pick a point and stop. Usually I take a deep breath and say a little prayer before I even begin to talk rating rules. This time, I forgot, so I'll give the bottom line to
Tiny Tim:
"God bless us one and all."
P.S. To J/105 BBS sailors from Leucadia. Yes, it's possible, after you've fouled out as a contender and you don't have anything more to lose, to try to make a point by going back and really fouling the hell out of the boat that protested you in the first place. But before you make this a way of life, read the first sentence of Rule 2, Fair Sailing, very carefully. And consider that famous quote by Paul Elvstrom. If you don't know the one I mean, maybe that's part of the problem—Kimball
You're on your own to review the simple-minded failures of 19th-century rules that measured length only or length-and-sail only. Think what you will of the way that a going concern, the CCA rule, was traded in for the theoretically-better IOR nearly 40 long years ago (I can't imagine that the CCA rule would still be a going concern, even if it did produce Bolero).
I had a sit-down with Gavin Brady at the Rolex Big Boat Series last week, and one line of conversation rang bells with the part of me that remembers how the golden-oldie IOR did real harm with its measurement points that encouraged designers to create stupid boats to beat the system. Stupid in the sense of hulls shaped like pumpkin seeds that did not want to go in a straight line. The great metaphor for the whole shebang was the way that sailmakers countered by offering a fractional spinnaker to fly opposite the spinnaker, to balance the forces (supposedly), and they gave it the most honest name in the history of sports promotion.
They called it, the Blooper.
(And while we're laying stuff out, yes, once again there were people asking where is the "big" in a Big Boat Series that includes a division of Melges 32s racing one design. But, people, the series didn't change; the world changed around it. Once upon a time, San Francisco Bay was the only place in the world where globe-trotting Maxis raced around the buoys, every three years or so, whenever they came to town. Nowadays in the Med they build Maxis for the sake of buoys racing, and some of them never leave the Med. Originally, the BBS was created because we had the likes of Bolero and Baruna on the bay, and our Southern California friends wanted to come up and play. This has always been a defining regional event, and with time it developed an international overlay, and it was the long-distance sailors who gave the name Big Boat Series to what the annual program called the St. Francis Yacht Club Perpetual Trophy Regatta. Now the program calls it the Rolex Big Boat Series, and I'm reminded of what Stokely Carmichael said—I could pose this as a trivia question but why set you up for failure—when he and H. Rap Brown grabbed control of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Mr. Carmichael said: We are not students. We are not nonviolent. We're sure as hell not coordinated, and we ain't no committee. But that's our name and we're sticking to it.)
Heh. Bet you weren't expecting that.
So there we were, Gavin and me, and he was talking about IRC, the only international rule operating in the USA, and his fears about how that could go wrong. But how wrong could it go? Not as wrong as the IOR, in his mind.
"It would be a shame," Brady said, "to see owners building pure-race boats for IRC with two heads and teak decks—to weigh the boat down, slow it down, help the rating—when what we need is a separation between pure racers and cruiser-racers."
So teak decks are the threat, not hull distortion?
Save the rain forest!
"What's tough on the grand prix side is how to rate a wide range of boats," Brady said. "Hopefully, what we're seeing here with the IRC is the future of the sport. San Francisco Bay and Key West are two places you can go with fast, planing boats and really open them up, and here, people don't want to weigh the boats down because you have to have a light boat to get downwind. They've done the right kind of job at the Big Boat Series of separating the planing boats from the cruiser-racers.
"The thing is, conditions have a massive effect. You can't rate Rosebud against a Beneteau, but you can rate her against other raceboats. We're out there sailing against Rosebud [Roger Sturgeon's STP 65, versus the chartered Reichel-Pugh 45, Sjambok, where Brady was crewing for Larry Ellison] and they're both race boats, and Rosebud is finishing maybe 17 minutes ahead of us and they're beating us by maybe 17 seconds."
Here's the 65-foot Rosebud . . .
Daniel Forster/Rolex
And here is the 45-foot Sjambok . . .
Daniel Forster/Rolex
"No matter what happens with the America's Cup, we're going to have new boats," Brady said, "and they're going to be more like these boats, planing boats, so there are lots of pros out there right now getting experience. You're going to be seeing them in Melges 32s, and when we get into the new America's Cup boats, the gains downwind will be massive. There will be times when the wind changes two knots and you wish you had a different sail, but still, you're not going to peel."
Golden Age or Gold Plated?
Lest you think I have no memory, of course I recall the divisiveness of the 2007 PH-IRC split in Western Long Island Sound (requiring boats faster than PH 90 to race IRC with no PH option) and I'm not sure that's been resolved. I've heard growls about entry levels being down in some key events. But this was not a confrontation with the forces of evil. The rating-rule requirement was an attempt to improve the quality of racing by not fragmenting the fleet. If it's not working, I'd expect it to be re-assessed. And the debate is about how to employ the rating rules, not about the rules themselves.
Being a member of the Transpacific Yacht Club, I'm keenly aware that ORR (son of Americap) suffered an embarrassment in application to the upper size ranges in '07, but I'm not the guy to cure that. What I know is that Transpac has long used adapted ratings to compensate for the downwind bias of the racecourse between Los Angeles and Honolulu, and we'll have to try again in '09. For the rest of the fleet, ORR was fine in '07. The point of the rule is to allow the race committee to go beyond a single-number rating system, to compensate for a course with a history.
But we now have a viable IRC fleet in Northern California, and that is a huge transition. For years, in our wanderings in the desert, post-IOR--and given the failure of IMS and the failure-to-launch of Americap--St. Francis YC was forced to create in-house PH ratings for the Big Boat Series. But then, if you came down from Seattle and gave the boys your Seattle PH number, and they gave you a new number and you had a bad series, how would you feel about that?
The club wanted out of the ratings business and how. After IMS, after Americap, after St. Francis PH, IRC came along, and St. Francis blazed the trail for it in the USA. Now IRC is here, and it's going to stick. Here's a Daniel Forster shot of Sy Kleinman on his Schumacher-designed Swiftsure, still at the game after all these years, and the game he's playing, I do believe, is getting better. Gosh, I hope so. I once beat the drum for Americap, and I did what a mere journo could to get it a place in the sun, only to discover that it couldn't take the heat.
I think this is different. Dockside I ran into the club's former race manager, Matt Jones, and he was comparing 2007 to 2006. The reaction of boat owners, he said, exhibited a sense of "rule security."
Yeah, rule security. At last. Resonates, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, on the Chesapeake, Brady says, "We're having the IRC East Coast Championship in November, and it's probably going to be the biggest yet in the Chesapeake. November is the best time to sail there; we've got the breeze and flat water, and lots of boats are on their way to Florida after a summer in New England."
The Storm Trysail Club/Chesapeake Station says it intends to limit the fleet to 45 boats for those races, Nov. 2-4; entry deadline is Oct. 17. The championship is also the wrapup of the Gulf Stream Series.
Quote Unquote John Mendez
Executive Director, US-IRC
We've been recommending to everybody in the US that IRC should be used as a self-measurement rule. Just try it. That's our message. The constituents have to try it, and if they like it, you're on. But they also ought to understand that, fully measured, they might come out with a better rating.
In 2007 we're revitalized the US-IRC web site, expanded our mailing list, and looked for every way we could find to communicate better with people who are interested in IRC.
Quote Unquote Rich DuMoulin
Chairman, US-IRC Owners Association
To be successful in marketing a rating rule in the US--and nobody had ever really marketed a rule here--you have to take care of the existing boats, and you have to take care of new boats. You can die from either end. IRC lets people build boats that have desirable characteristics. There are features you might get charged for, but not hammered. There's a constant tension there that has to be managed, and that's why the Owners Association is so important.
PH is the fundamental building block of racing in the U.S., but PH can't handle high-end programs, and that is where IRC comes in. We may have gone too far with requiring endorsed certificates, so we're going to allow people to sail with unendorsed certificates in anything except major championships."
Breaker Breaker
Thanks, guys.
Whew! Once you start talking rating rules, there's no end to it, is there. You just have to pick a point and stop. Usually I take a deep breath and say a little prayer before I even begin to talk rating rules. This time, I forgot, so I'll give the bottom line to
Tiny Tim:
"God bless us one and all."
P.S. To J/105 BBS sailors from Leucadia. Yes, it's possible, after you've fouled out as a contender and you don't have anything more to lose, to try to make a point by going back and really fouling the hell out of the boat that protested you in the first place. But before you make this a way of life, read the first sentence of Rule 2, Fair Sailing, very carefully. And consider that famous quote by Paul Elvstrom. If you don't know the one I mean, maybe that's part of the problem—Kimball
Monday, September 10, 2007
Scouting the Outer Limits
Steve Fossett is—or was, we don’t know yet, but he's missing—a great sailor. He was also different. A great pilot and balloonist, but different in those worlds too.
Fossett's transatlantic-record navigator, Stan Honey, recalls, "It was the challenge that Steve cared about. After he had set all the records he could on Playstation I asked him if he would get a different boat. He looked at me as if I were crazy."
So it wasn't about sailing, exactly. It was about a drive to set records. Most of them, Fossett knew, would be broken eventually. No matter, as long as he'd been there, done that. He held Pacific sailing records, Atlantic sailing records, and a round-the-world sailing record. Playstation's 2001 transatlantic crossing was the first to break five days, and it was an amazing feat in its moment. The giant catamaran, after months on weather watch and multiple false alarms, hooked into the leading edge of a storm and rode it all the way across the Atlantic, sailing in high wind over yet-to-be disturbed, smooth water ahead of a moving maelstrom.
© Claire Bailey
A year later, on his sixth try, Fossett completed the first circumnavigation by balloon. No one can take that first-ever accomplishment away from him, or the first solo, nonstop, round-the-world airplane flight. Fossett's 115 records spanned the range to triathlons and dogsledding.
His cat also set an east-west transatlantic record, and Fossett's 58-day circumnavigation in 2004, with a crew of 12 and with the boat re-named Cheyenne, knocked six days off the previous best. (The boat's most recent appearance was made sans mast as a transpacific cameraboat for Roy Disney's Morning Light movie.)
Steve Fossett was 63 years old and searching (perhaps) for a lake bed for a jet-powered land-speed record attempt when his single-engined plane disappeared over western Nevada on Labor Day. I interject "perhaps" because I am updating this post internally, and as of Tuesday, September 11, the search has adjusted its focus. It now seems possible that the flight was purely a pleasure outing, not a search mission, and efforts are focused within a 30-mile radius of the departure point.
Hopes continue that Fossett might be found alive, but with those hopes dwindling, I dialed up Stan Honey to ask what it was like to sail with this singular individual. I found Stan in the UK, where he has taken on the role of technical director to the new British challenge for the America's Cup, Team Origin.
[more AC stuff at bottom, but why rush?]
"Steve wasn't a sailor the way a lot of us are," Honey said, "but he never stopped being an unassuming good guy while becoming a famous rich guy. It was normal to him to go to dinner with a bunch of mechanics in blue jeans, and if he talked about himself at all it was something self-effacing, like how he swam the English Channel and set a record for the slowest crossing in history.
"He may also have been the toughest person I've ever known," Honey said, "just in terms of tolerating physical discomfort and going days without sleep. He trained for that. If you talked to Steve about growing up, you got the idea that joining the Boy Scouts was a turning point. Scouting gave him a feel for the outdoors and a vision for meeting challenges. He was an Eagle Scout, and he stayed with Scouting his whole life. If you talked to him about business, you got the idea that, to him, it was something he had to do so that he could finance these other things. He went to school, became a programmer, and figured out that it wasn't going to get him there, so he developed an algorithm for trading commodities. Once he had enough money, he lost interest."
Another American sailor in Fossett's international transatlantic-record crew was West Marine's Chuck Hawley. For him, the defining feature of Steve Fossett is that the man, "Was never just along for the ride. He was focused, he was a co-navigator, he slept the least-possible amount of time, and if there was a sail to be changed he was up there on the trampoline getting the new one up and the old one down.
"Imagine, I show up at the Monterey [California] airport, and Steve drives up in this exotic car, and then we take off with Steve at the controls of the fastest jet a civilian can buy—he has a co-pilot, and they trade off, but again, he's never just along for the ride—and we're flying to Orange County to pick up Gino Morelli and then we were headed for the East Coast.
"People know that Steve was making plans for a land-speed record. What's not well known is that there is also this highly-modified helicopter ready to go for helo records because Steve had that in the works too. It's amazing the variety of skills that Steve Fossett developed, amazing when an individual gets to the top of the game in any one of them, and he did it in so many."
Despite the new focus on areas close to Fossett's departure airport, the possible search area covers some 17,000 rugged, canyon-strewn square miles of western Nevada, with supplemental searches being conducted out of Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch near the popular soaring areas of Minden, Nevada. The Internet public is invited to participate thus:
Internet satellite image analysis: 'The 'Amazon Mechanical Turk' internet-based satellite image analysis project continues in its efforts to find Steve. To offer your help, please go to:
Amazon Mechanical Turk
"There you will be shown sample images of a similar aircraft and an actual recent single satellite image to review. You will be asked to note if there are any objects that resemble an airplane (or a damaged airplane) like the Super Decathlon Steve was flying on Monday. Please file your report through Amazon Mechanical Turk - they will vet and cross reference your findings and contact us if information is pertinent."
Is the NY Court composed of Solomons, or are these people always this happy?
You decide. As I understand it, the motion before the Supreme Court for the State of New York, heard Monday, had two parts. Golden Gate YC, challenging with Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle, asked the court to 1) expedite the timing of an eventual hearing on the merits of its case against Société Nautique de Genève, America's Cup defender with Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi; 2) rule on GGYC’s request to enjoin SNG to select a location for the Deed of Gift match and to provide a copy of the sailing rules that will apply for that match. I'm sort of doubtful that the Oracle legal team expected action on #2, but if you're going lawyering, why not offer the opportunity?
When that much was said and done:
Alinghi sounded pleased as punch with yesterday's court ruling on America's Cup proceedings:
After a brief hearing in the New York Supreme Court today before Justice Cahn, the Société Nautique de Genève is pleased to announce that the Judge did not grant the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s application for an injunction, and instead ordered the parties to submit written legal arguments designed to dispose of the case in the shortest possible time. The Judge set the 22 October as the date to hear legal arguments to resolve the central issue, which focuses on the validity of Club Náutico Español de Vela, the Spanish challenge, accepted by the SNG after winning the 32nd America’s Cup.
The Spanish challenge, CNEV, also advised the Court that it will intervene in the case as a party so as to reinforce and confirm its legal standing as Challenger of Record for the 33rd America’s Cup.
Importantly, this is the second successful legal outcome in only a matter of days, following the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel’s ruling over the weekend that declared legitimate the Challenger of Record, and that the 33rd Protocol complies with the Deed of Gift.
“Naturally we are pleased with this outcome which is another welcome positive result in this unfortunate legal process,” said Hamish Ross, Alinghi General Counsel, adding: “As we had asked the Court, SNG will be submitting, as planned, its motion to dismiss the case entirely, and we look forward to having an opportunity to clear this matter up as quickly as possible on the date set by the Court. We now need to draw a line under the uncertainty and damage created by the Golden Gate Yacht Club and BMW Oracle Racing’s actions and focus on the future.”
And the BMW Oracle Racing folks sounded equally pleased:
The Supreme Court of the State of New York today ruled that it would hear argument on October 22 on the validity of the challenge that has produced the proposed protocol for the next America’s Cup.
“We are very pleased with this decision, as we are keen to see this issue properly resolved with a minimum of further delay,” Tom Ehman, Head of External Affairs for GGYC’s team, BMW ORACLE Racing, said.
“During the hearing, the court suggested that the parties engage in mediation to resolve all disputes. This is a course that we continue to support,” Ehman said.
“Our strong preference remains to negotiate a solution. If this is not possible, today’s decision provides for swift resolution through the courts.”
He said the team strongly favors an America’s Cup regatta like the last one sailing in monohulls, and had supported seeking a quick legal resolution so that all participants could know the outcome of the case as soon as possible.
The San Francisco club alleges that the current America’s Cup Defender, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), is in breach of its duty under the Deed of Gift that governs the Cup. It says SNG has accepted a challenge from an invalid contender, and is seeking to impose an unprecedented one-sided set of rules that unfairly advantage the defender to the detriment of all other competitors.
So, not much happened yesterday, nor was it ever in the works to expect a lot to happen yesterday. Whichever side you're on, the show opens now, with filings to come and the first-possible ruling on October 22.
I note that Farr's recent signing to design for Desafio Español includes no pesky Argentinian sidekicks—Kimball
Fossett's transatlantic-record navigator, Stan Honey, recalls, "It was the challenge that Steve cared about. After he had set all the records he could on Playstation I asked him if he would get a different boat. He looked at me as if I were crazy."
So it wasn't about sailing, exactly. It was about a drive to set records. Most of them, Fossett knew, would be broken eventually. No matter, as long as he'd been there, done that. He held Pacific sailing records, Atlantic sailing records, and a round-the-world sailing record. Playstation's 2001 transatlantic crossing was the first to break five days, and it was an amazing feat in its moment. The giant catamaran, after months on weather watch and multiple false alarms, hooked into the leading edge of a storm and rode it all the way across the Atlantic, sailing in high wind over yet-to-be disturbed, smooth water ahead of a moving maelstrom.
© Claire Bailey
A year later, on his sixth try, Fossett completed the first circumnavigation by balloon. No one can take that first-ever accomplishment away from him, or the first solo, nonstop, round-the-world airplane flight. Fossett's 115 records spanned the range to triathlons and dogsledding.
His cat also set an east-west transatlantic record, and Fossett's 58-day circumnavigation in 2004, with a crew of 12 and with the boat re-named Cheyenne, knocked six days off the previous best. (The boat's most recent appearance was made sans mast as a transpacific cameraboat for Roy Disney's Morning Light movie.)
Steve Fossett was 63 years old and searching (perhaps) for a lake bed for a jet-powered land-speed record attempt when his single-engined plane disappeared over western Nevada on Labor Day. I interject "perhaps" because I am updating this post internally, and as of Tuesday, September 11, the search has adjusted its focus. It now seems possible that the flight was purely a pleasure outing, not a search mission, and efforts are focused within a 30-mile radius of the departure point.
Hopes continue that Fossett might be found alive, but with those hopes dwindling, I dialed up Stan Honey to ask what it was like to sail with this singular individual. I found Stan in the UK, where he has taken on the role of technical director to the new British challenge for the America's Cup, Team Origin.
[more AC stuff at bottom, but why rush?]
"Steve wasn't a sailor the way a lot of us are," Honey said, "but he never stopped being an unassuming good guy while becoming a famous rich guy. It was normal to him to go to dinner with a bunch of mechanics in blue jeans, and if he talked about himself at all it was something self-effacing, like how he swam the English Channel and set a record for the slowest crossing in history.
"He may also have been the toughest person I've ever known," Honey said, "just in terms of tolerating physical discomfort and going days without sleep. He trained for that. If you talked to Steve about growing up, you got the idea that joining the Boy Scouts was a turning point. Scouting gave him a feel for the outdoors and a vision for meeting challenges. He was an Eagle Scout, and he stayed with Scouting his whole life. If you talked to him about business, you got the idea that, to him, it was something he had to do so that he could finance these other things. He went to school, became a programmer, and figured out that it wasn't going to get him there, so he developed an algorithm for trading commodities. Once he had enough money, he lost interest."
Another American sailor in Fossett's international transatlantic-record crew was West Marine's Chuck Hawley. For him, the defining feature of Steve Fossett is that the man, "Was never just along for the ride. He was focused, he was a co-navigator, he slept the least-possible amount of time, and if there was a sail to be changed he was up there on the trampoline getting the new one up and the old one down.
"Imagine, I show up at the Monterey [California] airport, and Steve drives up in this exotic car, and then we take off with Steve at the controls of the fastest jet a civilian can buy—he has a co-pilot, and they trade off, but again, he's never just along for the ride—and we're flying to Orange County to pick up Gino Morelli and then we were headed for the East Coast.
"People know that Steve was making plans for a land-speed record. What's not well known is that there is also this highly-modified helicopter ready to go for helo records because Steve had that in the works too. It's amazing the variety of skills that Steve Fossett developed, amazing when an individual gets to the top of the game in any one of them, and he did it in so many."
Despite the new focus on areas close to Fossett's departure airport, the possible search area covers some 17,000 rugged, canyon-strewn square miles of western Nevada, with supplemental searches being conducted out of Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch near the popular soaring areas of Minden, Nevada. The Internet public is invited to participate thus:
Internet satellite image analysis: 'The 'Amazon Mechanical Turk' internet-based satellite image analysis project continues in its efforts to find Steve. To offer your help, please go to:
Amazon Mechanical Turk
"There you will be shown sample images of a similar aircraft and an actual recent single satellite image to review. You will be asked to note if there are any objects that resemble an airplane (or a damaged airplane) like the Super Decathlon Steve was flying on Monday. Please file your report through Amazon Mechanical Turk - they will vet and cross reference your findings and contact us if information is pertinent."
Is the NY Court composed of Solomons, or are these people always this happy?
You decide. As I understand it, the motion before the Supreme Court for the State of New York, heard Monday, had two parts. Golden Gate YC, challenging with Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle, asked the court to 1) expedite the timing of an eventual hearing on the merits of its case against Société Nautique de Genève, America's Cup defender with Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi; 2) rule on GGYC’s request to enjoin SNG to select a location for the Deed of Gift match and to provide a copy of the sailing rules that will apply for that match. I'm sort of doubtful that the Oracle legal team expected action on #2, but if you're going lawyering, why not offer the opportunity?
When that much was said and done:
Alinghi sounded pleased as punch with yesterday's court ruling on America's Cup proceedings:
After a brief hearing in the New York Supreme Court today before Justice Cahn, the Société Nautique de Genève is pleased to announce that the Judge did not grant the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s application for an injunction, and instead ordered the parties to submit written legal arguments designed to dispose of the case in the shortest possible time. The Judge set the 22 October as the date to hear legal arguments to resolve the central issue, which focuses on the validity of Club Náutico Español de Vela, the Spanish challenge, accepted by the SNG after winning the 32nd America’s Cup.
The Spanish challenge, CNEV, also advised the Court that it will intervene in the case as a party so as to reinforce and confirm its legal standing as Challenger of Record for the 33rd America’s Cup.
Importantly, this is the second successful legal outcome in only a matter of days, following the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel’s ruling over the weekend that declared legitimate the Challenger of Record, and that the 33rd Protocol complies with the Deed of Gift.
“Naturally we are pleased with this outcome which is another welcome positive result in this unfortunate legal process,” said Hamish Ross, Alinghi General Counsel, adding: “As we had asked the Court, SNG will be submitting, as planned, its motion to dismiss the case entirely, and we look forward to having an opportunity to clear this matter up as quickly as possible on the date set by the Court. We now need to draw a line under the uncertainty and damage created by the Golden Gate Yacht Club and BMW Oracle Racing’s actions and focus on the future.”
And the BMW Oracle Racing folks sounded equally pleased:
The Supreme Court of the State of New York today ruled that it would hear argument on October 22 on the validity of the challenge that has produced the proposed protocol for the next America’s Cup.
“We are very pleased with this decision, as we are keen to see this issue properly resolved with a minimum of further delay,” Tom Ehman, Head of External Affairs for GGYC’s team, BMW ORACLE Racing, said.
“During the hearing, the court suggested that the parties engage in mediation to resolve all disputes. This is a course that we continue to support,” Ehman said.
“Our strong preference remains to negotiate a solution. If this is not possible, today’s decision provides for swift resolution through the courts.”
He said the team strongly favors an America’s Cup regatta like the last one sailing in monohulls, and had supported seeking a quick legal resolution so that all participants could know the outcome of the case as soon as possible.
The San Francisco club alleges that the current America’s Cup Defender, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), is in breach of its duty under the Deed of Gift that governs the Cup. It says SNG has accepted a challenge from an invalid contender, and is seeking to impose an unprecedented one-sided set of rules that unfairly advantage the defender to the detriment of all other competitors.
So, not much happened yesterday, nor was it ever in the works to expect a lot to happen yesterday. Whichever side you're on, the show opens now, with filings to come and the first-possible ruling on October 22.
I note that Farr's recent signing to design for Desafio Español includes no pesky Argentinian sidekicks—Kimball
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The Good Scout
Steve Fossett is—or was, we don’t know yet, but he's missing—a great sailor. He was also different. A great pilot and balloonist, but different in those worlds too.
Fossett's transatlantic-record navigator, Stan Honey, recalls, "It was the challenge that Steve cared about. After he had set all the records he could on Playstation I asked him if he would get a different boat. He looked at me as if I were crazy."
(Dear reader, for technical reasons, it was easier to put up a new post, after this one, using most of the same material; it's not part of our regular diet, but if you're reading down into this Sunday post from the Monday post above, you're right, it's a re-run. Stick with me; it's not something that keeps on happening and happening--KL)
So it wasn't about sailing, exactly. It was about a drive to set records. Most of them, Fossett knew, would be broken eventually. No matter, as long as he'd been there, done that. He held Pacific sailing records, Atlantic sailing records, and a round-the-world sailing record. Playstation's 2001 transatlantic crossing was the first to break five days, and it was an amazing feat in its moment. The giant catamaran, after months on weather watch and multiple false alarms, hooked into the leading edge of a storm and rode it all the way across the Atlantic, sailing in high wind over yet-to-be disturbed, smooth water ahead of a moving maelstrom.
© Claire Bailey
A year later, on his sixth try, Fossett completed the first circumnavigation by balloon. No one can take that first-ever accomplishment away from him, or the first solo, nonstop, round-the-world airplane flight. Fossett's 115 records spanned the range to triathlons and dogsledding.
His cat also set an east-west transatlantic record, and Fossett's 58-day circumnavigation in 2004, with a crew of 12 and with the boat re-named Cheyenne, knocked six days off the previous best. (The boat's most recent appearance was made sans mast as a transpacific cameraboat for Roy Disney's Morning Light movie.)
Steve Fossett was 63 years old and searching for a lake bed for a jet-powered land-speed record attempt when his single-engined plane disappeared over western Nevada on Labor Day. Hopes continue that Fossett might be found alive, but with those hopes dwindling, I dialed up Stan Honey to ask what it was like to sail with this singular individual. I found Stan in the UK, where he has taken on the role of technical director to the new British challenge for the America's Cup, Team Origin.
[more AC stuff at bottom, but why rush?]
"Steve wasn't a sailor the way a lot of us are," Honey said, "but he never stopped being an unassuming good guy while becoming a famous rich guy. It was normal to him to go to dinner with a bunch of mechanics in blue jeans, and if he talked about himself at all it was something self-effacing, like how he swam the English Channel and set a record for the slowest crossing in history.
"He may also have been the toughest person I've ever known," Honey said, "just in terms of tolerating physical discomfort and going days without sleep. He trained for that. If you talked to Steve about growing up, you got the idea that joining the Boy Scouts was a turning point. Scouting gave him a feel for the outdoors and a vision for meeting challenges. He was an Eagle Scout, and he stayed with Scouting his whole life. If you talked to him about business, you got the idea that, to him, it was something he had to do so that he could finance these other things. He went to school, became a programmer, and figured out that it wasn't going to get him there, so he developed an algorithm for trading commodities. Once he had enough money, he lost interest."
Another American sailor in Fossett's international transatlantic-record crew was West Marine's Chuck Hawley. For him, the defining feature of Steve Fossett is that the man, "Was never just along for the ride. He was focused, he was a co-navigator, he slept the least-possible amount of time, and if there was a sail to be changed he was up there on the trampoline getting the new one up and the old one down.
"Imagine, I show up at the Monterey [California] airport, and Steve drives up in this exotic car, and then we take off with Steve at the controls of the fastest jet a civilian can buy—he has a co-pilot, and they trade off, but again, he's never just along for the ride—and we're flying to Orange County to pick up Gino Morelli and then we were headed for the East Coast.
"People know that Steve was making plans for a land-speed record. What's not well known is that there is also this highly-modified helicopter ready to go for helo records because Steve had that in the works too. It's amazing the variety of skills that Steve Fossett developed, amazing when an individual gets to the top of the game in any one of them, and he did it in so many."
Sunday, September 9
Hawley had spent much of Saturday calling Air Force and Civil Air Patrol/Search & Rescue offices to see if he could help in the search. On Sunday he emailed Stan Honey: "I even offered to take a sonar-equipped boat to Walker Lake to see what I could find on the bottom, but they have three boats there already."
The search area covers some 17,000 rugged, canyon-strewn square miles of western Nevada, with supplemental searches being conducted out of Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch near the popular soaring areas of Minden, Nevada.
Did somebody say America's Cup ?
Lucky Russell Coutts. He's in Hyeres, France for TP52 racing while other members of the BMW Oracle Racing team are in New York for a court hearing at 1400 Monday to determine whether or not Larry Ellison's suit against La Société Nautique de Genève/America's Cup Management/Alinghi will be expedited . . .
lordy lordy however this thing comes out let's expedite and get it over with
. . . and a lot of people around the world are holding their collective breath. Ernesto Bertarelli's people are on hand too, of course. Wanna see lawyers in very expensive suits? Check out either side of the aisle.
It's very nice that the AC 33 arbitration panel on Saturday ruled in favor of Alinghi, but we already know that Ellison's allegation of "self dealing" on the part of the defender renders the arbitration panel and its rulings moot, should Ellison win his point in court. We won't know the answer out of this hearing of course. We'll just learn, maybe, when we begin to get the first answers, or the first opportunity at (sigh) the first appeal.
But it was interesting talking to Stan Honey about the early workings at Team Origin, where, "My chief job is to recognize small differences in performance. In the past that's been done with two-boat testing, but Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD, has been getting better and better."
[The SNG/CNEV protocol permits building only one of the new 90-footers for AC 33, so forget two-boat testing, in-house anyway.]
"I was impressed when I was working with Juan Koujoumdjian on ABN AMRO's Volvo boats (Honey navigated the Volvo Race winner) at how good his computer models were at predicting performance."
Related news: The head of Team Origin, Sir Keith Mills, last week spoke of why his team had gone forward as a challenger under the existing protocol:
“ACM ran a fantastic event this spring, not only from a sports and entertainment point of view but also by setting the standards on a number of non-sports aspects placing the America’s Cup firmly in the 21st century, in amongst the most important sporting competitions in the world today. Alinghi and ACM should be complimented on running an event in Valencia that has had a massively positive impact not only on the America’s Cup but the sport of sailing as a whole.
“We do not believe that the new Protocol will have a negative impact on the future of the America’s Cup. To the contrary we believe it provides a platform for further growth and some real opportunities for those who decide to challenge."
A bottom line
Congrats to San Francisco Bay ace Chris Perkins, who wrapped up his second International Knarr Championship over the weekend at The San Francisco Yacht Club—in a tiebreaker with Denmark's Soren Pehrsson. Suddenly I realize I should have recorded the Knarr cheer--if you've never heard the Knarr cheer you may have missed out on a complete life--and dropped it here as a podcast.
Too late smart, again—Kimball
Fossett's transatlantic-record navigator, Stan Honey, recalls, "It was the challenge that Steve cared about. After he had set all the records he could on Playstation I asked him if he would get a different boat. He looked at me as if I were crazy."
(Dear reader, for technical reasons, it was easier to put up a new post, after this one, using most of the same material; it's not part of our regular diet, but if you're reading down into this Sunday post from the Monday post above, you're right, it's a re-run. Stick with me; it's not something that keeps on happening and happening--KL)
So it wasn't about sailing, exactly. It was about a drive to set records. Most of them, Fossett knew, would be broken eventually. No matter, as long as he'd been there, done that. He held Pacific sailing records, Atlantic sailing records, and a round-the-world sailing record. Playstation's 2001 transatlantic crossing was the first to break five days, and it was an amazing feat in its moment. The giant catamaran, after months on weather watch and multiple false alarms, hooked into the leading edge of a storm and rode it all the way across the Atlantic, sailing in high wind over yet-to-be disturbed, smooth water ahead of a moving maelstrom.
© Claire Bailey
A year later, on his sixth try, Fossett completed the first circumnavigation by balloon. No one can take that first-ever accomplishment away from him, or the first solo, nonstop, round-the-world airplane flight. Fossett's 115 records spanned the range to triathlons and dogsledding.
His cat also set an east-west transatlantic record, and Fossett's 58-day circumnavigation in 2004, with a crew of 12 and with the boat re-named Cheyenne, knocked six days off the previous best. (The boat's most recent appearance was made sans mast as a transpacific cameraboat for Roy Disney's Morning Light movie.)
Steve Fossett was 63 years old and searching for a lake bed for a jet-powered land-speed record attempt when his single-engined plane disappeared over western Nevada on Labor Day. Hopes continue that Fossett might be found alive, but with those hopes dwindling, I dialed up Stan Honey to ask what it was like to sail with this singular individual. I found Stan in the UK, where he has taken on the role of technical director to the new British challenge for the America's Cup, Team Origin.
[more AC stuff at bottom, but why rush?]
"Steve wasn't a sailor the way a lot of us are," Honey said, "but he never stopped being an unassuming good guy while becoming a famous rich guy. It was normal to him to go to dinner with a bunch of mechanics in blue jeans, and if he talked about himself at all it was something self-effacing, like how he swam the English Channel and set a record for the slowest crossing in history.
"He may also have been the toughest person I've ever known," Honey said, "just in terms of tolerating physical discomfort and going days without sleep. He trained for that. If you talked to Steve about growing up, you got the idea that joining the Boy Scouts was a turning point. Scouting gave him a feel for the outdoors and a vision for meeting challenges. He was an Eagle Scout, and he stayed with Scouting his whole life. If you talked to him about business, you got the idea that, to him, it was something he had to do so that he could finance these other things. He went to school, became a programmer, and figured out that it wasn't going to get him there, so he developed an algorithm for trading commodities. Once he had enough money, he lost interest."
Another American sailor in Fossett's international transatlantic-record crew was West Marine's Chuck Hawley. For him, the defining feature of Steve Fossett is that the man, "Was never just along for the ride. He was focused, he was a co-navigator, he slept the least-possible amount of time, and if there was a sail to be changed he was up there on the trampoline getting the new one up and the old one down.
"Imagine, I show up at the Monterey [California] airport, and Steve drives up in this exotic car, and then we take off with Steve at the controls of the fastest jet a civilian can buy—he has a co-pilot, and they trade off, but again, he's never just along for the ride—and we're flying to Orange County to pick up Gino Morelli and then we were headed for the East Coast.
"People know that Steve was making plans for a land-speed record. What's not well known is that there is also this highly-modified helicopter ready to go for helo records because Steve had that in the works too. It's amazing the variety of skills that Steve Fossett developed, amazing when an individual gets to the top of the game in any one of them, and he did it in so many."
Sunday, September 9
Hawley had spent much of Saturday calling Air Force and Civil Air Patrol/Search & Rescue offices to see if he could help in the search. On Sunday he emailed Stan Honey: "I even offered to take a sonar-equipped boat to Walker Lake to see what I could find on the bottom, but they have three boats there already."
The search area covers some 17,000 rugged, canyon-strewn square miles of western Nevada, with supplemental searches being conducted out of Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch near the popular soaring areas of Minden, Nevada.
Did somebody say America's Cup ?
Lucky Russell Coutts. He's in Hyeres, France for TP52 racing while other members of the BMW Oracle Racing team are in New York for a court hearing at 1400 Monday to determine whether or not Larry Ellison's suit against La Société Nautique de Genève/America's Cup Management/Alinghi will be expedited . . .
lordy lordy however this thing comes out let's expedite and get it over with
. . . and a lot of people around the world are holding their collective breath. Ernesto Bertarelli's people are on hand too, of course. Wanna see lawyers in very expensive suits? Check out either side of the aisle.
It's very nice that the AC 33 arbitration panel on Saturday ruled in favor of Alinghi, but we already know that Ellison's allegation of "self dealing" on the part of the defender renders the arbitration panel and its rulings moot, should Ellison win his point in court. We won't know the answer out of this hearing of course. We'll just learn, maybe, when we begin to get the first answers, or the first opportunity at (sigh) the first appeal.
But it was interesting talking to Stan Honey about the early workings at Team Origin, where, "My chief job is to recognize small differences in performance. In the past that's been done with two-boat testing, but Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD, has been getting better and better."
[The SNG/CNEV protocol permits building only one of the new 90-footers for AC 33, so forget two-boat testing, in-house anyway.]
"I was impressed when I was working with Juan Koujoumdjian on ABN AMRO's Volvo boats (Honey navigated the Volvo Race winner) at how good his computer models were at predicting performance."
Related news: The head of Team Origin, Sir Keith Mills, last week spoke of why his team had gone forward as a challenger under the existing protocol:
“ACM ran a fantastic event this spring, not only from a sports and entertainment point of view but also by setting the standards on a number of non-sports aspects placing the America’s Cup firmly in the 21st century, in amongst the most important sporting competitions in the world today. Alinghi and ACM should be complimented on running an event in Valencia that has had a massively positive impact not only on the America’s Cup but the sport of sailing as a whole.
“We do not believe that the new Protocol will have a negative impact on the future of the America’s Cup. To the contrary we believe it provides a platform for further growth and some real opportunities for those who decide to challenge."
A bottom line
Congrats to San Francisco Bay ace Chris Perkins, who wrapped up his second International Knarr Championship over the weekend at The San Francisco Yacht Club—in a tiebreaker with Denmark's Soren Pehrsson. Suddenly I realize I should have recorded the Knarr cheer--if you've never heard the Knarr cheer you may have missed out on a complete life--and dropped it here as a podcast.
Too late smart, again—Kimball
Thursday, September 6, 2007
39 and holding
In the big picture of competition under sail, it doesn't matter in the least who wins the International Knarr Championship.
That's part of the success.
Because, inside the Knarr fleet, it doesn't matter in the least what goes on in the world around. They have their own thing going. If what this class has developed in the way of community could be bottled and sold, the world would be a better place. When you buy a Knarr you don't buy a boat, you're buying into a way of living, you're joining a fraternity/sorority of lifetime devotees, and you're telling the world where you will be on weekends and Wednesdays. Nobody ever leaves this fleet. Somebody might sell a boat and not buy another. They might sail in other fleets
(many do) but they'll always be back crewing, they'll be at the parties, they're not "gone."
The frustration is, I can be a witness for the Knarr phenomenon; but how to explain it?
And I hear many of you asking, what in blazes is a Knarr? Stay with me. First let me tell you, more than one world class sailor has jumped into the SF fleet expecting easy pickings and discovered that it's . . . not . . . that . . . easy.
Here's a look at the fleet, courtesy of Peter Lyons.
We're not talking high performance, we're talking minute details and a lot of time in the boat to be successful. I once went out to crew for Steve Taft, a co-owner of #122, Gossip, and a former North sailmaker who's won the Fastnet, Admiral's Cup, Transpacs, etc. so I figure he's pretty good. He loves his Knarr, but he has a sense of humor about it too.
Steve put the boat on the wind and trimmed in the main. I did my front-of-the-boat thing. Ease jib and move car forward. Trim. No. Ease jib and move car back. Trim. Yeah, it was better where I started. I turned to Steve and I asked, How does she feel?
"Like a desk."
Now, I'm familiar with the Knarr fleet on San Francisco Bay but not the fleets in Europe. If the picture of the class is different there, that's not my problem. What I do know is that European fleets are active and strong, they use the boats (especially the Danes) more often for cruising than American owners do (roughly zero), and in the fjords of Norway, where the boat originated, they pronounce the "K". Here are two more views from Peter Lyons.
The 39th IKC regatta is under way now at The San Francisco Yacht Club, on the northern shore of San Francisco Bay, and that's a story, but I'll come back to it in a minute. First, let's nail down the boat itself, because most of you reading this are still going, "Knarr? Knarr?"
Think occupied Norway, WWII, and two young men wanting a boat larger than the popular 25-foot Folkboat but not as dedicated-racy as a Six-Meter or Dragon. Here is the thread, as related by the late, great, Shimon-Craig van Collie:
Their search led them to Erling Kristofersen, a designer who had a knack for inexpensive but fast boats. He drew up plans for a 30-footer. Among Kristofersen's innovative techniques was building the boat upside down on a last, as a cobbler would make a shoe . . . known originally as a "Last Boat" it was later renamed Knarr after a Viking cargo boat.
The prototype was built in a little shack in the woods. Native pine was readily available, but oak and mahogany had to be scavenged or hauled across the border from neutral Sweden. When the occupying authorities got wind of the project, they declared that the boat's construction could continue only if they got use of the boat upon completion.
After launching and sailing the prototype in the summer of 1944, the owners declared it to be "unseaworthy" and in need of changes. Another boat was started in the winter of 1944/45. Curiously, by the time the builders had satisfied themselves that the boat was safe, the occupation had ended.
Along with developing one single, solitary, but vigorous U.S. fleet (there are a few other Knarrs scattered around the U.S.), there have been two important developments in the life of the Knarr class. 1) As the world changed around them, the leaders in the fleet moved to allow boats to be made of fiberglass, but the weight and weight distribution were spec'd to keep performance characteristics the same, and it worked; choose wood or glass to suit yourself, but not because one or the other will make you a winner; 2) Beginning in 1969, the class began the International Knarr Championship on a three-year, three-city, revolving circuit that has become in itself a reason to race Knarrs. Foreign contestants are hosted and housed by local sailors, feted and celebrated, and supplied with boats (locals racing are not allowed to sail their own boats). The next year, the former visitors return the favor when the show comes to their own town, and yes, this is quite the way to make friends in faraway harbors and really experience a place.
This year the San Francisco Bay fleet is hosting the IKC. Then it's on to Norway and Denmark before returning to San Francisco in three years. The sparkplug in the development of the IKC was Knud Wibroe, a Dane who was living in the U.S. in 1966, when he received an invitation to sail in the Royal Danish Yacht Club's Centennial Regatta. Here's Knud: "I was the only American who raced at Copenhagen, and I won, and that inspired me to invite them to come over to the U.S. Soon we were talking about an international regatta. The centennial of The San Francisco Yacht Club was coming up in 1969, so that's when we had the first one. This is IKC number 39."
But, Knud, what's the secret sauce?
"The Knarr is a lifestyle that involves the whole family. There's a support group who don't own boats, but they participate ashore. We have a wealth of volunteers. On that measure, we are the envy of all the classes on San Francisco Bay."
Here is the post-race scene dockside at SFYC.
For results as the regatta continues (through Saturday), click into knarr-sf.
I realize I haven't answered what ought to be the fundamental question here. How do they do it and why does it work? Sorry. I'm just a reporter, but that's my good news for the day. One further note. The San Francisco Yacht Club will also host the Folkboat San Francisco Cup beginning September 16. That's another woodies classic that has bridged the fiberglass chasm and soldiered on with success. We'll check on those guys too—Kimball
That's part of the success.
Because, inside the Knarr fleet, it doesn't matter in the least what goes on in the world around. They have their own thing going. If what this class has developed in the way of community could be bottled and sold, the world would be a better place. When you buy a Knarr you don't buy a boat, you're buying into a way of living, you're joining a fraternity/sorority of lifetime devotees, and you're telling the world where you will be on weekends and Wednesdays. Nobody ever leaves this fleet. Somebody might sell a boat and not buy another. They might sail in other fleets
(many do) but they'll always be back crewing, they'll be at the parties, they're not "gone."
The frustration is, I can be a witness for the Knarr phenomenon; but how to explain it?
And I hear many of you asking, what in blazes is a Knarr? Stay with me. First let me tell you, more than one world class sailor has jumped into the SF fleet expecting easy pickings and discovered that it's . . . not . . . that . . . easy.
Here's a look at the fleet, courtesy of Peter Lyons.
We're not talking high performance, we're talking minute details and a lot of time in the boat to be successful. I once went out to crew for Steve Taft, a co-owner of #122, Gossip, and a former North sailmaker who's won the Fastnet, Admiral's Cup, Transpacs, etc. so I figure he's pretty good. He loves his Knarr, but he has a sense of humor about it too.
Steve put the boat on the wind and trimmed in the main. I did my front-of-the-boat thing. Ease jib and move car forward. Trim. No. Ease jib and move car back. Trim. Yeah, it was better where I started. I turned to Steve and I asked, How does she feel?
"Like a desk."
Now, I'm familiar with the Knarr fleet on San Francisco Bay but not the fleets in Europe. If the picture of the class is different there, that's not my problem. What I do know is that European fleets are active and strong, they use the boats (especially the Danes) more often for cruising than American owners do (roughly zero), and in the fjords of Norway, where the boat originated, they pronounce the "K". Here are two more views from Peter Lyons.
The 39th IKC regatta is under way now at The San Francisco Yacht Club, on the northern shore of San Francisco Bay, and that's a story, but I'll come back to it in a minute. First, let's nail down the boat itself, because most of you reading this are still going, "Knarr? Knarr?"
Think occupied Norway, WWII, and two young men wanting a boat larger than the popular 25-foot Folkboat but not as dedicated-racy as a Six-Meter or Dragon. Here is the thread, as related by the late, great, Shimon-Craig van Collie:
Their search led them to Erling Kristofersen, a designer who had a knack for inexpensive but fast boats. He drew up plans for a 30-footer. Among Kristofersen's innovative techniques was building the boat upside down on a last, as a cobbler would make a shoe . . . known originally as a "Last Boat" it was later renamed Knarr after a Viking cargo boat.
The prototype was built in a little shack in the woods. Native pine was readily available, but oak and mahogany had to be scavenged or hauled across the border from neutral Sweden. When the occupying authorities got wind of the project, they declared that the boat's construction could continue only if they got use of the boat upon completion.
After launching and sailing the prototype in the summer of 1944, the owners declared it to be "unseaworthy" and in need of changes. Another boat was started in the winter of 1944/45. Curiously, by the time the builders had satisfied themselves that the boat was safe, the occupation had ended.
Along with developing one single, solitary, but vigorous U.S. fleet (there are a few other Knarrs scattered around the U.S.), there have been two important developments in the life of the Knarr class. 1) As the world changed around them, the leaders in the fleet moved to allow boats to be made of fiberglass, but the weight and weight distribution were spec'd to keep performance characteristics the same, and it worked; choose wood or glass to suit yourself, but not because one or the other will make you a winner; 2) Beginning in 1969, the class began the International Knarr Championship on a three-year, three-city, revolving circuit that has become in itself a reason to race Knarrs. Foreign contestants are hosted and housed by local sailors, feted and celebrated, and supplied with boats (locals racing are not allowed to sail their own boats). The next year, the former visitors return the favor when the show comes to their own town, and yes, this is quite the way to make friends in faraway harbors and really experience a place.
This year the San Francisco Bay fleet is hosting the IKC. Then it's on to Norway and Denmark before returning to San Francisco in three years. The sparkplug in the development of the IKC was Knud Wibroe, a Dane who was living in the U.S. in 1966, when he received an invitation to sail in the Royal Danish Yacht Club's Centennial Regatta. Here's Knud: "I was the only American who raced at Copenhagen, and I won, and that inspired me to invite them to come over to the U.S. Soon we were talking about an international regatta. The centennial of The San Francisco Yacht Club was coming up in 1969, so that's when we had the first one. This is IKC number 39."
But, Knud, what's the secret sauce?
"The Knarr is a lifestyle that involves the whole family. There's a support group who don't own boats, but they participate ashore. We have a wealth of volunteers. On that measure, we are the envy of all the classes on San Francisco Bay."
Here is the post-race scene dockside at SFYC.
For results as the regatta continues (through Saturday), click into knarr-sf.
I realize I haven't answered what ought to be the fundamental question here. How do they do it and why does it work? Sorry. I'm just a reporter, but that's my good news for the day. One further note. The San Francisco Yacht Club will also host the Folkboat San Francisco Cup beginning September 16. That's another woodies classic that has bridged the fiberglass chasm and soldiered on with success. We'll check on those guys too—Kimball
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