In case you didn’t know, the Velux 5 Oceans race is underway and the race has been full of drama.  There are eight boats in the fleet, six of them started this past Sunday, the other two staying in Bilbao to make modifications and repairs.

 

 

There was a huge storm off the coast of spain that really knocked the boats around, and 4 of the racing competitors recieved enough damage that they had to head for ports on the Spanish west coast. 

If you are into this kind of racing and want to know more than the crappy V5O website, you should check out this thread on SA.  People are posting weather and routing commentary as well as daily positions and GRIBS.  One of the guys who is posting is shore crew for one of the competitors.  It’s neat to hear from people that are there, another cool aspect of this internet thinghy. 

Photos are from BYM.

 

Here’s a great interview posted today on bowman Jerry Kirby. 

Kirby has been kind of a hero for me as he has done every major event in sailing as a bowman.  At 50, he just finished the VOR and still thinking about what it next in his career. 

There’s hope for me yet!

Conservative MP Garth Turner was turfed from the Conservative causcus yesterday because of his blog, the Turner Report.  The Conservatives cited confidentiality concerns.

I like this guy, I don’t agree with him on much politically, but I really like his take on democratic engagment.  His blog has unmoderated comments, and he participates in conversations with people who comment.  This type of front line engagement with constituants is exactly what we need in politics today.  Few people don’t feel threatened by the openness of social media, but this guy is absolutely fearless.

But there is a political blogging lesson in this.  If you are the maverick MP with differing opinions from your causus, I’m not sure that I would use my blog to further the debate.  What is said in Causus, should stay in causcus.  But that doesn’t mean that he should not engage in discussion.  By all means, write about the important issues and express your opinion.  But don’t be an idiot and tip your bosses hand.  That’s the kind of move that’ll get you fired.  And it did.

So as much as I like the guys “people first” attitude, I wish he handled this with a little more tact.  As much as I cringe everytime I read the “reaganomic” basis for his financial policy, I like having someone in the conservative causcus who will ask questions and disagree.  Disagreements lead to discussions, and good heated discussion inherently sqashes dictatorial leadership. 

We are worse off with this guy at home.

PS: Check out the comments in yesterdays post.  Gosh I’m glad I don’t hang out with hardened conservatives.  They might start calling me a commie, and I hate that. 

Matt Fair and I decided that we were going to go for one last little cruise before the boat got put away for the winter.  We did the same thing last year only on Goose, the Newport 27 that I had last year.  This year we took Matt’s Shark to the foot of Wolfe Island, where the club as a piece of property.

We left on Friday evening, and both of us had been watching the weather all day.  Environment Canada had a gale warning in effect (more than 30 knots of wind) and waves from 2.5 to 3 metres, so we were both a little nervous.  The big low that came through on Friday was pretty strong and we were just at the leading edge of the front when we left on Friday.

Now sailors are a superstitious lot, and I have to say that things were not looking very lucky.  It was Friday the thirthteeth, it was gusting to 35 knots just before we left, and a friend of mine had told me just two hours before we left that a 35 foot boat had been utterly destroyed on the rocks the day before. All very unlucky omens, all of which I didn’t want to talk about until we were tied up in Breaky Bay.

We left the dock at 1830 and had a truely aweful departure.  A weird wind eddy behind the club blew us back into some boats, before we could get out into the strong south breeze.  With a bar full of people watching we eventually managed to get the boat out of the harbour.

We hoisted just the 150% genoa, and headed out into the wind and the waves.  We got settled in and set up the bearing to our first mark from the GPS.  About half an hour into the trip we had pretty solid gusts above 35kts, and the waves were as big as EC said they would be.  When the gusts came through, you could really feel the rig load up, and surfing was almost constant.  I was pumping the genoa like a kite to induce surfing or just keep us on the wave.  

Then the wave came through.  I just fell in love with this wave.  I saw it setting up out of the corner of my eye, and so did Matt.  As it was just about to break, we had a big gust which I’m guessing was near 40 knts.  (We don’t have reliable instruments on the boat, so that’s just by feel.)  With Matt and I hiking almost off the transom, we had the bow about three inches out of the water and were pushing water like Volvo 70, huge rouster tail and white water everywhere.  Both of us were pretty concerned about that bow digging in and pitch poling the boat.

Matt had the pressence of mind to click on the back light on the GPS to see that were were traveling 13.6 knots over ground!  That’s crazy fast for a Shark.  It seemed to last forever, but was probobly less than a minute.  Matt kept the boat just on the top of that wave, and I was madly pumping the sheet to keep us on it.  Eventually we fell off and came back to our regular speeds of 8-9 knots, but it was totally a ride of a life time.   

As we headed down river the wind and waves settled down a bit, hooting and howlering whenever we got the boat up surfing again.

When we got to the club property, we got all tied up and had some food and a couple of beers.  It was pretty damn cold and very wet.  Matt is the most prepared camper I have ever met, and he even thought wood for a fire.  We got it going and just stood around staring at it for a while.  Very good times.

The next morning we had a hearty breakfast and headed back to the club around 0930.  The breeze kept building as we headed up river.  We started out with main and 150, but eventually took down the main, as it was flogging more than working.  My hands are fried from all the tacking.  As we got closer to the mouth of the harbour, we saw that the breeze was a pretty solid 30 in harbour with big waves from two or three days of big breeze. 

We tucked into Ceder Island to put the motor on the back and to lash down the genoa, and get the main ready to go.  This was the hardest sailing of the trip, as sloggin up wind in 30 with 2.5m waves sucks even in warm weather, but in less than 10 degrees, soaking wet and tired, it can be downright uncomfortable.

Needless to say we made it back to the club.  Cory, our chef, saw us coming in and made up some chilli for us.  Best damn chilli I have ever eaten.  It was fun to tell all the war stories to the folks at the club, all of which called us totally crazy for going out in it in the first place.

This was an awesome way finish up the season.  It’s great to have friends who are crazy enough to go out in that, even better to have someone who is competant enough to do it safely.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

PS:  Sorry there are no pictures or video.  It was too damn wet and cold to get any pictures and most of the fun stuff happened in the middle of the night.

Photo courtesy of SMITH Magazine

I’ve been reading a graphic novel called Shooting War.  It’s a very distopian view of the Iraq conflict and paints a very morbid picture of what is going to happen in Iraq in the next 10-15 years. 

There is plenty of blogger porn here: cool gadgets, overly left wing political diatribes, and demonisation of major corporations.   If your not into this stuff I would skip this one.  But if you are into these things then you’ll find that the writing is intelligent and the comic book like artwork is very well done.

Last night I had a couple of beers with Jim and Kelly from Volunteer Abroad.  VA is an organization that hooks up students with aid projects in six countries.  They train new volunteers so that they can get by in the language and not get robbed at every turn.  They do a direct connect of the resources (people) to the organizations in county.  Much of the travel industry (and more specifically volunteer aid orgs) are mired in mark ups and dubious ethics.  Not these guys, they are the real deal, doing good things for real people.

They have set up houses in all of the countries in which they operate, and they just moved into a great head office here in Kingston.  (A huge old limestone in the downtown that is just perfect for the 24/7 work that they do.)

I’ve been friends with Jim for years now, and have watched as he has nurtured VA into what it is today.  He’s the CEO of the company, and a very cool guy.

The reason we met up was to talk about social media and blogging for his company and how they should go about implementing things.  It really is a perfect company for a blogging initiative.  They are doing good/ ethical work, they have some PR issues that have more to do with the industry rather then their business, and they have well educated and passionate people working for them. 

I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations with them.  Good karma all around.

This afternoon, on the way home from work I was listening to Digital Planet, the BBC podcast on technology and they had a peice on new technology in air traffic control.  Listening to it I thought “wow what a cool occupation!”.

When I got home I thought I would look up air traffic control in wikipedia.  Great way to kill 10 minutes or so.

Our minister just annouced that e-bikes or electronic bicycles are now legal in Ontario.  Now we are getting somewhere!

Sailing Anarchy is doing a series on weather, which is really good. 

Check it out here.

ok. you’ve had silence for a while now. get ready for a gush of posts….