Race Committee and a Coaching Tip

This is one of those years where I've served on Race Committee before I've actually got one of my boats out sailing (hopefully before July 4th - I'll let you know).

Not that I'm complaining. It's not all work, work, work for Race Committee. In watching bits and pieces of the races we always hope to derive some amusement from the dinghy racers, those screw-ups, yelling, near-collisions (nobody likes to see real collisions). Well that weekend, the Johnson 18 fleet was up to the task of amusing the Race Committee - almost to a man they refused to take their spinnakers down until they were abreast of the leeward mark, which resulted in much flailing, boats turning upwind with jibs half out, poles not retracted, this all happening usually at a great distance downwind from the leeward mark. One poor fellow who made a complete hash of it, sailed way out of the three boat circle, reentered it going upwind, only to meet a fellow competitor who had been behind but had done a better job of rounding. Fortunately no collisions but the rule implications on having someone exit and then reenter the three boat circle makes the rule experts giddy with analysis.

I was thinking of wandering over to the Johnson 18 area of the dinghy park after the racing and mentioning how to correct this, but then I thought better of it; nobody wants a Mr. Know-it-All interrupting the post race drinks. Wait a minute, I have a blog - I can offer advice from afar (but should I?, spinnaker screw-ups are always a good source of merriment on the Race Committee.)

I'll be a nice guy, a tip for the Johnson 18 Fleet;

Start taking the spinnaker down far enough away from the mark so everything is tidy and shipshape when you enter the three boat circle! Figure out where that needs to be given your experience. Start taking the spinnaker down at say 8-9 boat lengths and as you get better tighten this up (or if you still can't shave around the mark with everything percolating, lengthen this out). 

Tillerman's Photo Tips for Bloggers

Tillerman put out a request for photography tips for bloggers and got lots of great answers.

I can't add much that hasn't already been offered up as advice. I am mostly a consumer of photos; I use what photo's people send me or the photo's I can troll for online. I do own five digital cameras of various ages, makes and models; the most expensive one was around $300 in cost, but I usually don't remember to carry them. I have become reasonably adept at fixing photo's, my favorite software being an older version of Adobe's Photoshop Elements, their "Fix Everything" button does an amazing job.

I do have two tips:

1. Don't sweat the small stuff. This has already been mentioned many times. You don't need the latest, greatest camera. You don't need the greatest picture. If it does a good job of illustrating the point of the post - go ahead and use it



2. CROP your photos. Cropping a photo is just like another layer of zoom-in for your bag of photo tricks. It can bring immediacy and interest to, what was before, a blah photo. And you have lots of latitude. I crop my header photos to 1150 pixel width which just fits on the screen of my older laptop. Considering that most modern digital cameras are producing photos with something like 3000 to 4000 pixels in both directions, you can throw away a lot of your photo and still have something eminently serviceable to put on your blog.

Romain's yacht

I've been promising Earwigoagin's European correspondent, Romain Berard, to do another post on his yacht for over a year now. You see, Romain owns a wooden International 12 and has supplied me with several photos, one of them now gracing the header of this blog. The International 12 is one of my favorite classes; certainly if I was based in Italy, where it is very popular, I would own one. I've posted several times before on the International 12 at the following links:

1. Brief overview of the International 12 here.
2. Other pics of Romain's yacht.
3. Old farts should sail Old boats

Last fall I talked to Louis Sander of Ronstan at the U.S Sailboat Show. He is based in Italy and the conversation turned to the International 12, which, it turns out, is known simply in Italy as the "Dinghy" class. Louis said it is very popular in Italy (I notice online that they get fleets of 70 for big regattas in Italy) and, according to Louis, is based around Portofino/Tigullio, with the other most active fleets around Lake Como, and in the Veneto and Lazio regions.

Next year the International 12 will be 100 years old; without question it is the most popular vintage dinghy going. It is built in wood and glass and retains the original lug rig, though the racing types have completely modern blocks, lines, and Dacron sails.

A pic I lifted online, taken by Pascale Guittonneau of an International 12 sailing in a French vintage regatta. Very pretty lapstrake hull (clinker to those from England) with a very round hull shape. Sailing these craft can be tricky. Romain sent me a video of his boat sailing downwind in a breeze - rock and rolling all the way.



A YouTube video. The title screen, a disclaimer roughly translated from Italian by Google....

"The video was shot while I was making a photo shoot and it is not representative 'of the event, or of my work. These are only images to share with friends "dinghisti." Camera images are attached to the dinghy of Nicola Rainusso."

Bloggers Note: For those who have raced singlehanders, the onboard video at 3:25 into this YouTube is amusing. Apparently the skipper, in attempting to gybe around the reach mark, lost control, rounded up head-to-wind (as usually happens) and ran into the poor fellow who was following behind.

 

Header Photo: New Zealand Moth

All spring the header photo that has graced the top of this blog has been of a capsized New Zealand Moth, somewhere on the South Island. The New Zealand Moth is a more modern interpretation of the Len Morris Mk II Antipodean scow Moth. (Len did this design post WWII and the Mk II jump started the Moth class in Australia). As with most things in the Classic Moth world, the Laser supplanted the New Zealand Moth, which pre-Laser, in the 1960's, was a very popular class in New Zealand. The New Zealand Moth still has a fleet in Stewarts Gully Sailing Club in New Zealand and can be found for very reasonable prices, as did this fellow yanking on the daggerboard, who bought his Moth for $200.

Bloggers Block

In March, having some time on my hands, my daughter asked me to help her coach her high school womens lacrosse team. I said yes, having done quite a lot of spectating at womens lacrosse games, but no actual coaching. The season, behind the bench as it were, was a great experience and a lot of fun - the high school athletes at Wheaton HS had a great attitude - win or lose. We weren't that good - every win was a struggle but we got a couple of them which made the season.

What I learned during the lacrosse season is I can't coach and blog - my brain isn't wired to switch from thinking about defensive matchups and offensive techniques to then write a sailing blog. It wasn't happening when I sat down to the computer.

And that's my excuse.

Like daughter, like father.....

Way Back When

In the days before you had motors on sailboats, but still idiots on the helm.....from the Sept 10, 1900 issue of the newspaper, Toronto Daily Mail and Empire;

Sept 9, Rochester NY -

"Shortly after midnight Thursday night the schooner Fleetwing entered the river mouth and headed for the harbour. Something was evidently wrong on board, for before coming to anchor the schooner had created no small amount of damage to the yachts belonging to the Rochester and Royal Canadian Yacht Clubs. The local yacht Cinderella was tied up to the pier near the lighthouse, and although there was apparently no excuse for so doing, the stranger luffed wildly and before the crew of the yacht could protect themselves, the Cinderella's spreader was carried away. Then the schooner made for the steam launch attached to the yacht and punched a hole in her bottom and otherwise damaged the craft. Continuing further up the river the stranger, which by this time had aroused several of the yachtsmen at the clubhouse by the noise she made, swung over  to the other side of the river and her jib boom made connections with the fore topmast of the Canadian yacht Clorita. There was a snap and the topmast went by the board. At last evidently satisfied with the damage done, and after yawning about the river a bit more and narrowly missing several more yachts anchored nearer inshore, she passed the bridge and made for her berth at Charlotte. The Clorita was anchored almost directly opposite the clubhouse and but for her presence some of the smaller craft astern of her might have suffered severely."

As an aside, Tillerman added this comment which got me laughing;

"Clorita has 3 vowels and 4 consonants,"

Curse of the Tillerman and Wrapup of the Wordsmith Boat Name

The Curse: Tillerman mentioned that when he bestows kudos upon another blog, that blog eventually goes silent. I didn't pay it much mind at the time, but doggone it, when March rolled around, just as predicted, Earwigoagin fell silent. I'll detail the reason in a following post but, now for unfinished business; the final tally of the boat naming exercise called forth in the last post before Earwigoagin went on hiatus (I hate to name it a contest because it really wasn't). There was some real humdingers. I liked the weirdness of the Captcha - computer generated - names but, and this is only my personal preference, my two favorites were:

1. Bilious from Tillerman - which sounds sort of nautical (derived from "billowing" as in "billowing" sails) unless you know the definition of bilious.
2. Seaboob from O'Docker - which has the odd characteristic of sounding dumb and naughty and nautical, all at the same time.

Below is the table of all the boat names listed in alphabetical order, followed by their contributor. Tillerman leads the way in entries, as would be expected for, as a shark is drawn to blood, Tillerman pounces on all things related to word play. O'Docker, My2Fish and Baydog end up with about an equal number of multiple boat-names. And to fill it out there is a smattering of individual contributors. Thanks to all the entrants! If anyone out in the digital morass decides to name their boat "Elopygu", please let me know.

.	Aerious	Tillerman
.	Aileron	Tillerman
.	Automat	My2Fish
.	Avocado	My2Fish
.	Bazooka	Tillerman
.	Beastie	O'Docker
.	Beefily	My2Fish
.	Beguine	O'Docker
.	Bilious	Tillerman
.	Boobies	Tillerman
.	Bootees	Tillerman
.	Ciriole	Tillerman
.	Elopygu	O'Docker
.	Emotion	Baydog
.	Fatuous	Tillerman
.	Hideous	Tillerman
.	IBluByU	O'Docker
.	Iceboat	Tillerman
.	Karaoke	O'Docker
.	Leonara	IOWlen
.	Manatee	Tillerman
.	Meatier	Tillerman
.	MyInuit	Baydog
.	Nauseas	Tillerman
.	OBanana	My2Fish
.	Oceanic	Boat Insurance
.	OohLaLa	George A
.	OWoisme	O'Docker
.	QuePasa	O'Docker
.	Ravioli	Baydog
.	Scoobie	IOWlen
.	Seaboob	O'Docker
.	SoNauti	Baydog
.	Sunapee	Tillerman
.	Teatime	Tillerman
.	Ualimes	My2Fish
.	Ukulele	My2Fish
.	Vacuous	O'Docker
.	Wearier	Tillerman
.	Wipeout	Tillerman
.	YokoOno	My2Fish
.	Youtube	Tillerman

Tillerman and O'Docker have reminded me in the comments section that the following words were also submitted; Alabama, Arizona, Arugula, Indiana, and Romaine.