Sevenstar RBIR

Tune-Up Now!

A Quantum Leap in yacht racing simulations: now currents are added and overlay winds! 

It's not as nightmarish as it first seems!

Trust me! You can test it out here before you put so much as a dime down for your boat's sails!

Anyone wishing their boat to be added to our list of Boats of Interest to be tracked for this race, should indicate in comments below.

Let's Hear It for Privatized Prisons!

News Item:

Escaped fugitives (and murder suspects) John McCluskey and his fiancee, Casslyn Welch, arrested at campsite after tip-off from forest ranger

.... McCluskey was among three prisoners who escaped on 30 July from a privately operated state prison in Kingman.....

The arrests came hours after officials discussed a report that outlined a series of embarrassing security breakdowns that allowed the escape.

A Yacht Race Is Not a Demolition Derby

Neither is competitive sailing even a contact sport.

I have sometimes quietly murmured that we are engaged in a contact sport, but those words are just me being ironic, and I don't want to encourage them to be taken out of context. Stuff happens on the water, but the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) do not intend boats to derive advantage through their making contact. Quite the contrary.

Last Wednesday's twilight provokes this comment.

The wind was 16 knots for the first 90% of the weather leg. In our large fleet, things had been tight at the starboard pin, and shouts were heard at the start. But the real problems developed on the approach to the weather mark where the wind abruptly dropped by about five knots and boats belatedly realized the extent of the adverse current. The Good Guys (our boat) had to make an agonizing number of what, in retrospect, should have been unnecessary tacks. We rounded well behind our normal group of boats.

La Solitaire du Figaro - Leg 4

The English Premier League Is Off & Running

So is our rotisserie league.

Since I am heavily into another fantasy, Virtual Regatta, to engage in a second fantasy would be stretching my thinning energies and attention in the real world. However, just to ensure I'm in the swim of things with family and friends, I drafted a team.

The EPL runs 38 weeks and the first week is already history. The problem is, in the early going things turned out rather well for the Latitude 34 Football Club.

The Wyliecat-30: A Laser for the Geriatric Set

My illustrated presentation to members of my Club Fleet Thursday Night

We often hear that great boat designs begin with a conversation in a bar and are originally drawn up on a paper napkin with a ball point pin.

A comparable urban myth is associated with the origins of the Wyliecat-30.

Designer Tom Wylie says the idea for the first Wyliecat originated in 1988 when he and his builder, Dave Wahle, were chatting about a fix for the most common problems facing yachtsmen.

One of them (not sure which one) posed the problem facing many of us in this manner:

If we could be in five yacht clubs at the same time anywhere in the world, we'd hear sailors talking about the same three things:

· I can never get enough crew.
· I can't take the boat out for a sail during my lunch hour.
· I never have the right jib up for the weather.

La Solitaire du Figaro - Leg 3

A Summer Sunday

We had an above average Sunday race, despite the fact that Trophy Wife was on the injured list, that the Hard Core was on the family duty list, and the anemometer seemed stuck on 9.99 knots or below (which for the Good Guys means our boat will circumnavigate the same boring four-legged course in the middle of the fleet).

What happened instead was the replacement crew person looked more promising today than on Wednesday, we executed a very creditable spinnaker set, and the breeze kicked up to 15kts. So we ended up decidedly in the hop half of the fleet.

But the really, really high point of the day was that hundreds of miles away, Son #4 and Daughter-in-Law #4 raced their first race ever together -- and trophied! They raced a course twice as long as ours, in winds appreciably larger and in a boat almost half the length of ours. All credit goes to Daughter-in-Law, who put her bod on the line.

The hook is in, hopefully, and son will follow his father and grand father in the financially ruinous tradition of serial yacht owner.

The weekend began with concern about transitions and concluded with a renewed trust in regeneration.

The Scandinavian Cruiser-20: A Laser for the 21st Century!

Just had to comment on a brand-new concept boat which I have encountered just about everywhere on the 'Net.

Before I do so, I have to disclose certain prejudices I carry around. Well, one in particular: a preference for free-standing rigs. Trophy Wife and I had a two-decade romance with Lasers. Actually, it was just short of two decades before we sold off the last of five boats. And the two of us directly lapsed into another menage a trois with a much larger and heavier free-standing rig.

The thing of it is, even before I realized that it has a free-standing mast, the Scandinavian Cruiser 20 had caught my eye.

La Solitaire du Figaro: Leg 2

The King Harbor Race

Never again in my boat!

The Good Guys have attempted the SB-KH race twice. Twice we finished. Twice we became despondent in the early (0200hrs) morning doldrums and elected not to postpone the inevitable motorized trip home, beginning in the evening of the second day. DNF-ing was the best option for all of us.

As Mainsheet Guy said,

There's nothing wrong with the King Harbor Race. It's great! Only problem is that when it's over, you're in King Harbor!

I make no bones about it. I am motoring-aversive; mainly because I am engine maintenance-aversive. If I am going to King Harbor and back, I'd rather do both trips on the freeway than have to do the return trip under power on the water; even - as it is - only half the return under power. (Trophy Wife disagrees! She thinks the return sail across Santa Monica Bay easily makes the race worthwhile.) If we had gone this year, we would be finishing the sailing portion about now as I write this, or at least thinking about turning on the engine to plow through the residue chop from the day's winds.

But, until midnight of the first day, it is a great sail. If we had a different hull under us and could finish earlier or ghost through two-knot breezes in the wee morning hours of the second day, I Could feel much different. 

Such a hull could be Bucket Boat #1, about which I have already written. The reason I bring it up again is that I just ran across this video:


An E-33 would get me to King Harbor and back in a style to which I could become accustomed. At least, that is my fantasy!

"Fun" Race

This race didn't apply toward either the just-completed Summer Series and the yet-to-come Fall Series. As always, 'Day' glasses were at stake and bragging lies in the bar the just rewards for all sailors. We were short-handed in these 21 knots. The fact that we had a pin prick hole in the chute caused me to pass on a spinnaker for two legs. As a previous years' Foredeck Guy we had used to say, "Put it all up; let God take it down!" Well, often in the past I passed on that advice, and I wasn't going to entertain it today. Fun is fun. It shouldn't have to be expensive. Our huge barn door main would see us through in the fun range, I argued.