A Great Roll Tack Primer; Courtesy of Intercollegiate Sailors

The US Intercollegiate Nationals (Womens, Team Racing, Doublehanded) is taking place at Cascade Locks on the Columbia River, Oregon. One can get the feel of the skills, practice and athleticism of the current intercollegiate sailor in the following video featuring roll tack after roll tack after roll tack. Video taken at the Navy 2010 Trux Umsted Regatta.

Francois Vivier Classic Moth kit; More Pictures

Conception classique Moth voilier

Plans de Moth Classique

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Follow up to my previous posts on French designer Francois Vivier's Classic Moth kit linked here and here .

I present some pictures of the boat and kit construction lifted from his website. Again, for higher resolution, click on the picture.

Francois has cleverly incorporated building sawhorses into the side deck panels to assist in setting up.....



Upside down construction shot showing the attachment of the flat rocker panel.....



Multichine hull shape.....



And on the water.......

And here is Louis Pillon's side drawing of the Moth Grand-Largue.

It takes a whole island to stack this boat!

Very impressive clip of the Bahama A-class "Red Stripe" screaming into the finish. I can't count the number of people stacked on the boards but there's a bunch of them. Video taken at the Family Island regatta. Anybody with more information on the Bahama local classes, feel free to chime in.

Music Whenever: Iron and Wine "Boy With a Coin"

Time for some Flamenco!

Wait..... eyes don't trick me now!

I had one of those double take moments last Wednesday, 7:15 am, just after I crested the hill on Route 450, opposite the Naval Academy. Framed by the new Severn River bridge was one of the Navy 44 sloops, blue and gold spinnaker drawing beautifully in the early morning mist. As I stopped at the intersection, I could pick out five of the Navy 44 sloops spread out on the Severn River, fronting the Academy, all with their spinnakers up and drawing. But wait..... what was this?...... all five were furiously going backward under motor; the only way they could fly their spinnakers in the dead morning calm. Trying to keep one eye on the road, I digested such a bizarre sight. The conclusion.........obviously a photo op designed to take advantage of the ethereal early morning light. I wonder if those in the know will be able to pick out the stern wake in those photos?

The Len and Ray Show; Scow sailing and a Pirate Ship

Len Parker keeps me updated on his continuing adventures with his mate Ray (see the post about Len and Ray on the Norfolk Broads cruise here ). Ray, who is a genuine boatbuilder in the UK, got a job over the winter to build a landlocked pirate ship for the Blackgang Chine Amusement Park on the Isle of Wight (I think the previous Pirate ship was rotting away). As you can see, he built it using traditional boatbuilding techniques with genuine big bits of timber.

The frames going up..............

Picture taken when the terra firma-bound ship was more or less finished. Not sure what Ray did about rigging those masts.

And as for scow sailing...............

Between the two of them, they have amassed four scow Moths. Len and Ray took the older Imperium design wingless scow on a jaunt on NewTown Creek, Isle of Wight in early April. I'm amazed that those two were sailing in shorts and T-shirt, early April in England.

Ray with a bow on shot......................

Picture of Len taken from the side...................

Len and Ray's previous outing in the Imperium scow was reported on back in 2009.

SY Marie; Bad Ass Traditional Type Keeler

I suppose this is a trend we could chalk up to capitalistic excess, a byproduct of ballooning incomes of the rich while the middle class stalls. But, damn, these slew of new mega expensive, mega long sailboats are just so cool to watch on the water.

SY Marie, 180' traditional looking ketch (with modern underbody), launched in 2010, designed by Hoek, built by Vitters..... you could probably fit the entire North American Classic Moth fleet under one of those on deck lounges.

Watch SY Marie race the 2011 St. Barth's Bucket here . Sorry, embedding the video was disabled.

I featured another great video from the 2009 Bucket .