sailing IS better than sex

Take the America's Cup and . . .


With even the deepest insiders at this point not knowing where negotiations are headed, or not, whether we're going to arrive at compromise and a normal-enough event in 2009 or '10 or '11 or a no-compromises duke-out in big multihulls starting next July, I say the heck with it for now.

I'm off to Thailand—Phuket, to be precise—for the King's Cup, which is billed as the biggest regatta in Asia. You'll be hearing from me on the other end of a very long plane ride. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with some thoughts that I owe to my friends on the sailing team at the University of South Alabama. Their home waters are Mobile Bay, and a while back, for fundraising, they sold t-shirts that listed all the ways that sailing is better than sex. My picks:

If you are having trouble with your sailing, it is perfectly acceptable to pay a professional to show you how to improve your technique.

You can sail with a bunch of strangers and go home and tell your mother.

When dealing with a sailing pro, you never have to wonder if you're actually negotiating with an undercover cop.

Nobody expects you to sail with just one partner for the rest of your life,

Nobody expects you to give up sailing if your partner loses interest.

Your sailing partner will never say, "What? We just sailed last week. Is that all you ever think about?"

Nobody will tell you that you can go blind if you sail by yourself.

My eyesight's fine. Thanks for asking—Kimball