Saturday Sailing #39

Rolex Sydney Hobart Day 1



Rolex Sydney Hobart Day 2



Cat Crash









Dinosaur sailing fans?

Saturday Sailing #38

Volvo Ocean race at sea for christmas







Canadian Olympic Sailors had a successful worlds in Perth

Two or more Canadian boats are in this vid:


6 Canadians are now qualified to go to the olympics.  Story here:
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Canadian-Sailing-Team---Perth-2011.html?soid=1103755470060&aid=kATe0FZmOmg


Mike Golding completed the Transat B to B single handed open 60 race:






Cat meets bridge ...






Clever animation that has nothing to do with sailing.


Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.

Saturday Sailing #37

I'm posting one day early this week as I was a day late last week.

The most interesting thing happening this week is the ISAF world championships:



More at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/isafchannel?feature=watch


Banc Populare continue to rock around the world.  The boat is 100 feet long.  How big does that make the waves in this vid?

Saturday Sailing #36

Published Sunday the 11th.


Volvo Ocean Race leg 2 start.  All the boats are back in one piece and racing.




Britain's Mike Golding is back racing Open 60's again.




Three boat crash at the start of the Brest to Bristol race for single handed open 60's




The Maxi Trimaran "Bank Populaire" is at sea attempting to win the Jules Vern trophy for the fastest crewed passage around the planet.

http://www.thedailysail.com/offshore/11/60608/0/banque-populaire-jules-verne-trophy-attempt-2011-10-dec-report

Saturday Sailing #35

30 Min Highlight video of the Volvo Ocean Race leg #1 into Cape Town





Sailing world article "Casualty Corner" describing the status of the three VOR boats under major repairs:
http://www.sail-world.com/Canada/index.cfm?SEID=0&Nid=91339&SRCID=0&ntid=113&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0


Global Ocean Race departing Cape Town

Saturday Sailing #34

Yachting Monthly Crash test boat test.

Yachting Monthly is a UK magazine that has been doing a series called "Crash Test Boat"  The last one is what happens when a gas system is poorly maintained.  You can probably guess the results ...
http://www.yachtingtv.co.uk/explosion.php

Click here for the rest of the series
http://www.yachtingtv.co.uk/index.php


More big trouble in the Volvo Ocean Race.  Puma is dismasted.

Story here:
http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/PUMA-Ocean-Racing-retires-from-Leg-1/4117/news.html

Video here:




Canadian open 60 "O Canada"

Saturday Sailing #33

Canadian Finn sailors training




P28 Foiling multihull with a wing sail





AC 45 match racing highlight show

Saturday Sailing #32

Azam dismasted in Volvo Ocean race 6 hrs after start




4 Days in, down to 4 boats:





A mast climb aboard Goup Ama




Conrad Colman finishes leg 1 of Global Ocean Race






My first and possibly only powerboat video posting:


Cocktail Class Championship 2011 from Gary Reich on Vimeo.

Saturday Sailing videos #31

 Ocean Race started Today!





Tour of the Volvo boats.



Race start + inport action



More info here:
http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/home.html

more video here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/volvooceanracevideos

Saturday Sailing Video #30

Vesta Sail Rocket breaks 100 km/hr with Journalist aboard






Volvo Ocean Race in port race was today!

Saturday Sailing video #29

An Opti Regatta shot from and RC helicopter





505 sailing with 420 sails in 30 + knots

Saturday Sailing video #28

Here's Vesta Sail Rocket going 40+  knots




First boat enters the start port for the 2011/2012 Volvo Ocean Race





Low Bridge ahead

Saturday Sailing video #27

Global Ocean Race, double handed circumnavigation in Class 40's starts







my new theme song ...

Saturday Sailing video #26

Extreme 40 cats





AC 45's Plymouth capsize club




Royal Canadian Yacht Club Team win NYYC invitational regatta

Thanks readers

Hi Readers

This blog now gets about 200 page views a month.

Thank you all for reading this blog.  I have enjoyed surfing for links to put up, and I have enjoyed some of the comments I have had from people I meet locally.  I have some more written posts and less video highlights planed for the near future.  I hope you enjoy them.

I have a great opportunity for two students who are interested in getting their CYA Intermediate Cruising qualification in November. You would need to have completed CYA Basic Cruising and be available in the Vancouver area for a 5 day cruise and learn course.  For those who have read Basic Cruising Skills, this will be a chance to sail with Gillian West, as she will be supervising as I upgrade my qualifications.

Thanks again for reading.  Contact me by email at: joel@allseasoninstruction.ca if you are interested as soon as possible.

Joel Taylor

Saturday Sailing video #25

Fishermen attacked by a swarm of sail boats






lasers in waves






Sail training program volunteer sails with Quantum





AC 45's in Plymouth

Saturday Sailing video #24

Gulf Island cruising with Simply Sailing, my new employer




Bowman's view of spin handling on the TP52 "Quantum"





keep a good lookout or else!




lasers in waves

Saturday Sailing video #23

Melges 32 Wipeout




Another Wipout video:

Saturday Sailing video #22

Hobicat jumping a wave





Volvo Open 70;s in the fastnet




Ramble 100 capsizes in the fastnet




And in a follow up, righting Rambler 100




p.s.  Rambler 100 essentially the bigest, fastest US owned race boat.




Laser Heavy weather slalam event in San Fran.





Unwise sailor surfing a 40 foot cruising cat through a treacherous entrance

Saturday Sailing video #21

Yacht dismasted by a tanker.  Should have gybed away.





30 min video of new America's cup boats, 45 foot cats with wing masts.






Short clip of the action at stage 5 of the extreem 40 series in Cowes, UK

Saturday Sailing video #20

Promo video for Scandia team GBR






America's cup 30 min TV episode






Lasar slalom event in San Fran.

Saturday sailing #19

A novel ungrounding technique

half hour show of the extreme 40 catamaran event in Instanbul Turkey







Sailing a keel boat backwards under spin.

Saturday Sailing video #18

Excellent videography from Trans Atlantic race




A dolphin capsizes a laser.





Lasers Attack!

Copied from Sailing Anarchy.com

Saturday Sailing Video #17

Climate Scientists trying to get attention

Saturday Sailing Video #16

a Ted Talk about Trash





A cool promo video for a cat event


Ocean Defender Corporate from EASY RIDE on Vimeo.



A cool promo video for a match racing event





A promo video for a land yacht






A cat event video

saturday Sailing Video #15

A nice cruising video





Long dolphin video











America's cup 45 foot catamaran capsizes

Saturday Sailing Video #14

This post is late because I had a technical difficulty.Blogger didn't post it when I thought it did.

A group of 2000ft tall waterspouts near New South Wales, Australia.

Promo video for the "New America's cup"

Saturday Sailing Video #13

Mast climb on a 50 foot beneteau





Big Crash in Extreme 40 cat racing






Crazy mark rounding in Extreme 40 cat racing









A video from the new UK 18 foot skiff league

Saturday Sailing Video #12

Odd video interview of sailors racing in the Atlantic cup in class 40's




Vesta Sail Rocket 2 Up on her foils for the first time. close to 20 knots with main eased.

Saturday Sailing Video #11

Worlds cutest cabin cruiser.





My excellent cruise with my sailing club for our big boat orientation program

Saturday Sailing Video #10

You can do match racing maneuvers in an AC 45 wing sail cat.








The KYC yacht club is open for the season!




Same event from the pier...







Vesta Sail Rocket II is under going tow trials before their assult on the sailing speed record

Saturday Sailing Video #9

This clip made me laugh.





First Volvo Ocean 70 for 2011 race hits the water.





This one made my wife laugh.



From Proper Course, the excellent blog mostly about laser sailing
http://propercourse.blogspot.com/

Saturday Sailing Video #8

Barcelona world race, the double handed around the world non stop race in open 60's has finished. Here's an English language video from the second place finisher.





Abu Dabi Ocean Racing team, lead by Ian Walker are gearing up for the 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean race.





Extreme 40 catamaran series had a wild and woolly day in Qingdow.

Saturday Sailing Video #7

A neat laser video





A cool video of the KYC 505.





A link to a really excellent blog post. Why is it excellent you say? Because it contains the phrase "For me the water maker has been like the flux capacitor in the Deloriean, I know what it does, and I know what it sounds like when it's doing it's thing but the how has always passed me by."

//Velux 5 oceans, CSM's blog



A really gutsy move ...

Badly done Crew Overboard

Here's a video of a badly done COB.



Can I get some comments listing what was done wrong?

Saturday Sailing Video #6

Watch this and then tell my you don't need a holding tank




Watch this and tell me life jackets are to uncomfortable to ware.




Here's the article this is from:
http://www.sail-world.com/cruising/index.cfm?nid=81827&rid=11



Even Sail boat obey stop signs. Tell me you can't do the same ...

Saturday Sailing Video #5

A slightly different mix than normal.

4 AC 45's racing in New Zelland

The Japanese Tsunami wave passes under a coast guard vessel on its way ashore.

SAP 505 worlds will have excelent live coverage again

A video from my three day tour of the gulf islands

Fair Sailing!

Joel

Saturday Sailing Video #4 - High wind videos

49er sailing in High wind with dramatic ptich pole





British Lady Mini Sailor downwind in 35+ knots




Neutrogena in High winds on the way home to the finish of the Barcalona World race.http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breymaier-Sailing/259689104089#!/video/video.php?v=10150444768400501

Saturday Sailing videos #3

80 year anniversary video of the race round the Isle of White in the UK









Vesta Sail Rocket 2 prepared to set new outright sailing speed record.  Lookout kite surfers!

Vestas Sailrocket 2 from Richard Langdon on Vimeo.

Video from the masthead of a 100 ft cruiser going under the panama canal bridge








Thomas Coville gives a tour of his 105 foot tri, in English.

Traffic jam at Cape Horn

Two race boats from two seperate races rounded cape horn at the same time on Tuesday March 9th.

The boats are Neutrogena, an Open 60 racing in the double handed Barcelona World Race and Sodeb'o, a huge trimaran the is challenging for the Jules Vern trophy for fastest single handed voyage around the world.  

In fact four other boats from the velux 5 oceans race also rounded the horn this week.  I find this remarkable because it points to the number of sailing races that are all happening at the same time.  All the boats from every race set their start date so that they pass cape horn during the peak of the southern hemisphere summer when it is safest, thus creating a relative traffic jam of boats in one of the most remote and hostile places on the planet.

The following is video from Sodeb'o

Velux 5 oceans leg three ends in sprint.

The Velux 5 oceans leg 3 from New Zeland to Brazil finished in a sprint, with the second, third and fourth place boats all within sight of each other.

The big story seems to be how each skipper delt with mechanical issues aboard his boat as all three skippers had there fair share of troubles.  Gutek had a loose keel, which ment he could only sail with the keel pined against the hull at maximum cant.  This prevented the keel from working loose, but limmited his options at times.  Derrick had mechanical issues with his engine and some issues with his navigational equipment.  CSM, Chris Stanmore Major had sail issues.  He had a 2+ m rip in his main that took him two days to repair in the lead up to cape horn.  Then he had a minor rip in his head sail that he was able to fix with out dropping the sail. 

In the approach to Cape Horn, Derrick and Gutek where with in site of one another, and CSM was a couple hundred miles astern.  CSM made up the gap and passed both of the other boats and was leading into the last hour or so of the race.  He then made a navigational error that required him to complete two more gybes to cross the line.  This allowed Gutek to close the gap again and beat him accross the line by 40 seconds! This is the closest finish for any leg of the velux 5 oceans in History!  Derrick trailed the other boats in by an hour.  All three skippers were able to celebrate their safe passage togeather on the dock. 

Here's a link to a video from Velux describing the action.
http://www.velux5oceans.com/#/latest-news/ocean-sprint-3-an-amazing-finish/1642

Saturday Sailing links #2

Here's more sailing related video and  links

1) Steven Colbert talking about a 2005 Charlston to Bermuda race.  He's doing the race again this year.


2) An article from Attainable Adventure Cruising:
http://www.morganscloud.com/2011/02/16/this-and-that-february/

3) A boat review of an Island Packet 34
http://nasailor.com/2010/12/15/boat-review-island-packet-36-estero/#more-3182

4) 23 min Highlight show of 1989-90 Whitbread around the world race


5) Chris Stanmore-Major rocking around cape horn
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150093094975896

6) An Ice boat crash

Memory aid for Port hand bouys

Port hand Bouys are like 7 up cans.

They are always green, odd numbered and have a square top.

This nugget of wisdom came from a Kayak blogger named Bonnie who is Bouy Crazy

How not to Navigate with GPS

The following is a list of stuff not to do when navigating with GPS

1) Do not place waypoints on solid objects.  This can lead to collision with said objects.

2) Do not "Drive the TV".  This is a situation where a skipper sits at the nav station and stares at the pretty boat on the screen and does not consider outside information.  The worst case of this is the powerboat skipper who sits on his flybridge at night with all the interior lights on and is not able to even see outside.  He just stares at the "TV" and does not keep any semblance of a proper lookout.

3) Do not assume the chart information displayed on your screen is correct.  Most chart software suppliers only provide updates to their data every year or two, where paper charts can be updated regularly by hand.  This can be an issue when depths change in an area of high silt deposit or other man made alterations to nav aids.  Also most electronic chart data is digitized from another source.  This is an opportunity for human error.

4) Do not assume GPS will always be available.  Murphy's law is an important consideration at sea.  Your GPS can fail from something as simple as lack of power, physical damage, or corrosion.  The American government can also de-activate selective availability and reduce your GPS from 10m accuracy to several hundred meter accuracy when ever they feel like it.  The safest option is to be prepared to take over from the chart plotter by recording regular fixes in your log or on a chart.  To do this you also need to have paper charts, navigation tools including a hand bearing compass, and the skills to use them.

In short, having a GPS aboard does not mean that you no longer need to know how to navigate by hand and eye.

Canadian Ocean racer rounds Cape Horn Safely

Yesterday Canadian Ocean Racer, Derick Hatfield, rounded cape horn safely.  He's past the most dangerous point on the whole circumnavigation, and is headed for the next stopover port in Brazil.

He has had a challenging race.  The first leg from L'oreant France to Cape Town South Africa started nicely, then he appeared to gybe to early and had less wind then the boats that went further off shore.  The second leg he promised to be more competitive and it looked really good.  He was first out of the port of Cape town,  and was challenging for second place for much of the leg.  Then the Polish skipper, Gutek, chose a better route into Wellington New Zealand and beat him in by a day or so.  In this third leg he has rounded the horn and is within 20 miles of the second place boat.  All the boats except for the Leader, Brad Vanlou are having issues on this leg.  The keel on Guteck's boat in moving several millimeters from side to side due to a broken component on the outside of the hull.  He has had to throttle down to stay safe.  Derick has engine issues that lead to low power available for the boats pilots and navigation equipment, as well as a leak in a forward compartment.  Then there is Chris Steinmouth Major.  He has had a ripped main sail that resulted in a marathon sail repair session.  He posted an excellent video of his work at the link below.  Chris has consistently done good video and written blog posts.  See them at the same site.

http://www.velux5oceans.com/#/latest-news/csms-sewing-marathon/1562

It looks like this will be Derick's last race.  He has made several comments that he feels he has done what he needs to do with ocean racing.  Time to go back to his young family and retire from his second career.    He's not done yet though.  The last leg from Brazil up to France is still to come.  Hopefully he can cross the line with a second place instead of the string of thirds that he has got so far.

A navigational poem

A Navigational Poem

Meeting steamers do not dread;
When you see three lights ahead
Starboard wheel and show your red.

Green to green or red to red,
Perfect safety, go ahead.

If to starboard red appear,
’Tis your duty to keep clear;
Act as judgment says is proper:
Port—or starboard—back or stop her.

But when upon your port is seen
A steamer’s starboard light of green,
There’s not so much for you to do,
For green to port keeps clear of you.

Both in safety and in doubt
Always keep a good look-out;
In danger with no room to turn,
Ease her—Stop her—Go astern.

 Copied from John Vigo's blog at:

http://www.johnvigor.com/Blog.html

And a poem about single handed sailing:

Pablo Neruda:

……and now, nothing more,
I want to be alone with my essential sea…… 
I don’'t want to speak for a long time, 
Silence! I want to learn, 
I want to know if I exist. 


From Royal Vic YC single handed sailor Andrew Evans e book "Thoughts, Tips, Techniques &Tactics For Single handed Sailing"

Boat Show highlights

Here's some Highlights from the 2011 Vancouver International boat show.

From the Vancouver Convention Center

Could this be my next coach boat please?...

 A cruising tug I liked ...






A Beneteau 30  I really liked ...

A Cruising Cat

Cabin of cruising cat

Interesting sailing video

Here's some sailing videos I enjoyed this month:

Helicopter assisted yacht racing:

AC 45 on Auckland Harbor

Chris Stanmore-Major aboard eco 60 spartan in the velux 5 oceans race.  In the Cook Straight, New Zelland in 45 knots of wind.

http://www.velux5oceans.com/latest-news/brad-speaks-the-challenge-of-the-horn/#/csm-gets-a-battering-in-the-cook-strait/1376

Ryan Breymaier aboard open 60 Neutrogena in the Barcelona World Race

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150398684770501

Ice Wind surfing with a wing and skates from earlier in the year


Crazy wind powered kinetic sculptures


Neutrogena pushing hard
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/video/video.php?v=10150407337295501&oid=259689104089&comments

Hope you like 'em

Why IOC and ISAF decisions affect amature sailors - Part III

Continuing with the list of decisions made by the ISAF equipment committee and how they will affect local sailors.

5) Introduce a high performance skiff class for women.  There will be an equipment trial for this event that will possibly result in new skiff designs that can be sailed by mixed husband and wife teams.  As this new boat gets exposure and becomes more popular, it may start turning up at our local club races.  A new toy toy to play with can only be a good thing.

6) Introduce a new kite boarding medal event for men and women.  As more people see kite boarding on TV in the Olympics, more people may want to come out and try it.  There is a local windsurfing school.  This school may take up teaching kite boarding as it increases in popularity.

7) Keep the 49er for the men's high performance skiff.  This decision affects local sailors similarly to the 470 as the 49er has a youth development boat that leads directly to the adult version in the 29er.  Keeping the 49er won't have much affect locally as there aren't many 29ers or 49ers around locally.  It's still a cool boat though.

8) Keep the Laser full rig for men single handed sailors, and the Laser radial for women single handed sailors. Both of these boats have served our sport well.  They are all affordable and sailed in large fleets locally.  They are also an awfull lot of fun to sail.  The introduction of a dinghy that filed the same niche could only be counterproductive at both a national and local level.

9) Keep the Finn for single handed heavy weight men.   The Finn has served international sailing well as a more technical boat to sail than the laser that is suitable for a more average weight man.  The laser requires a crew weight that is slightly below the average male.  This is the one decision that I am not sure about. It seems a bit odd to have both a light weight single hander and a heavy weight dinghy.  This class may be vulnerable for replacement with a boat that better meets IOC criteria.

And that brings me to the end of how high level political decisions in the sailing world governing bodies affect local sailors  Did I give you some information you didn't have?  Was this post useful to you?  Should I continue with such long wordy posts?

Why IOC and ISAF decisions affect amature sailors - Part II

Here's the first 5 decisions made by the ISAF equipment committee regarding medal events for 2012 and how they will affect local sailors

1) Remove the Men's keel boat competition that is currently sailed in Stars.  There are some local Star sailors, but they are unlikly to be affected by this change.  They will still happlily sail against each other in their own events.  Less CYA resources will go to Star sailors nationally, but they aren't getting much now anyway.

2) Keep the Woman's match racing format that will be first sailed at the London games in 2012.  I predict that since match racing meets the spectator and media friendly requirements of the IOC, the men will want to get in on the action as well.  This may result in a mixed keel boat match racing event with both men and women.  Locally I hope this trickles down to a local match race event.  It seems like something the M242 fleet would be interested in.

3) Reintroduce a catamaran event.  This event will be sailed with mixed teams of men and women.  The concept of mixed sex events is unique to sailing.  No other sport can do this on a level playing field.  This is one of the things that will help keep sailing in the Olympics  A lot of local fleets have mixed crews already, but this may result in some more respect for the crews that do this.  Hopefully this will influence the high performance classes like the Volvo 70s.

4) Change the 470 event to a mixed teams event.  The national level sailors are not happy about being required to break up the teams that they have spent years developing, but it will probably turn out for the best.  IOC is not going to allow more medal events for sailing, so there have to be some changes.  The athletes will probably accept this decision because it is better than having your event removed from the games as first the cats and now the Star have had to deal with.  The 470 class has a direct effect on local sailing. The 420, its development class, is very actively sailed locally.  I think it will be mostly positive as the class will probably get more exposure as they are breaking new ground and trying new things.

Continued in part III...

Why IOC and ISAF decisions affect amature sailors - Part I

First off some definitions.  IOC is the international Olympic committee.  They make the rules governing the Olympic games.  ISAF is the International Sailing Association of Federations.  They govern the rules of the sport of sailing for all participating national sailing organizations and classes of boats.  Each national sailing organization is set up essentially to develop Olympic competitors. In Canada this is CYA.

Now, the first decision that affects us as sailors is the IOC's criteria for a sport to remain part of the Olympics.  Early last year the IOC updated its criteria to keep the Olympics relevant and interesting to all nations.  My understanding of this extensive document is that In order for a sport to stay part of the Olympics they must: be accessible, affordable, played by the majority of countries in the world, and spectator friendly, and generate media interest and coverage. IOC also decided that sailing would be required to stay with the same number of medal events.

This raises some issues for sailing.  We have some classes such as the Star boat that do not meet any of these requirements but are an Olympic class.  (http://www.starclass.org/index.shtml).  We also have several classes that only meet most of the requirements such as the Laser.  Lasers as you know have an international following, are popular in many areas of the world, and are affordable when compared to other race boats.

Now we get to the ISAF decision that affects sailors.  ISAF must keep sailing as an Olympic sport in order to justify its own existence.  If there is less international sailing competition, there is less need for the ISAF.  So the ISAF equipment committee wrote a recommendation in November that will make some major changes for the classes and formats that compete for medals in the Rio games in 2016.  Here are some of the changes that were recomended in november and how they may effect local sailors.  These changes are not official and will be voted on in the spring.  I will detail these in part II.

Clarification of rules question in pre start

I posted the following to Matthew Knowles, a US sailing Racing Rules Committee member who writes a blog called Unruly at http://rulestalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/q-2010-40.html


Hi there

I have been enjoying your blog.  Discussion of the RRS is improving my overall rules knowledge.

Anyway, I have a rules question that came up when I was discussing pre-start with a member of the local Tasar fleet that I race with here in Vancouver BC.  Here's the situation:


In the last minute of the start, two boats are approaching the start below a close hauled course on parallel courses aiming to start about 1/3 of the way in from the boat end.  Boat W continues to slowly approach their chosen start point, but boat L accelerates and drops to leeward and obtains an overlap, then heads up and calls for room.

Is W required to give room because she L is Leeward, or is she not required to give room because L is the overtaking boat?

Thanks in advance

Joel Taylor









I got the following response by email.




Hi Joel,

Glad to hear you are enjoying the blog.

There is no provision concerning an "overtaking boat" in the Racing Rule of Sailing. That concept from the COLREGS does not carry over.

In your scenario, W must keep clear of L under rule 11. However, L must initially give W room to keep clear at the time the overlap begins (rule 15) and must also give W room to keep clear of her each time L alters course (rule 16). To put it differently, W must do everything she can to keep clear, but L can't do anything that makes it impossible for W to do so.

Best,

Matt


I like this explanation and will be using it in my Learn To Race teaching.