The Water Playground called Hawaii; Paddling Racing and Canoe Surfing

Since Joe over at the blog Horses Mouth has taken a two week break, I'm going to take advantage of his absence and tread partially in his territory, that being surfing videos. This video does feature some surfing but, it is not a surfing video. No wizards on surfboards here. This video features the Hawaiian outrigger canoe; both the paddling and sailing type. There are two parts; the first part about the training and then the competition in an ocean race by the LiveStrong team, paddling a 6 man outrigger canoe (Hawaii's state team sport is outrigger canoe paddling), the second part of the video features sailing and paddling outrigger canoes playing in the surf zone.

Absolutely fascinating..........

molo sail and canoe surf from Anders Carlson on Vimeo.

Music is "All You Deliver" Jose Gonzalez; "Storm" Jose Gonzalez.

Music Whenever: Rockin' Sydney "My Toot Toot"

This video ain't much, the lyrics ain't much...... but the music, ah, the music.....you just can't beat some toe tapping zydeco.

Finn Followup

I'm a sucker for sailing videos where Olympic sailing team members, at the top of their game, make very difficult sailing maneuvers look easy. I posted a video not long ago featuring a 49er tacking duel.

Here's a video of a gybe mark of a very breezy race of the 2009 Finn Gold Cup with the two leaders nonchalantly gybing (Finns have very long booms that love to dig into the briny and upset the whole program with any slight misstep from the skipper).

Just a walk in the park (yeah, right!)............

DC-10 dinghy

Some of you may have noticed that I've been switching up my header photo. The current photo gracing the header of this blog is of a DC-10 sailing dinghy sailing at the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival at St. Michaels.


The same lady owner of the DC-10 has shown up every year I've attended and I've been very impressed with the DC-10 design as a very capable small singlehander for almost anybody. Although the DC-10 was designed specifically to be home built, the DC-10 hasn't achieved any great level of popularity. I have read that it is used as a frostbite dinghy out of Falmouth Massachusetts.

Messing About in Boats magazine wrote about the DC-10 in a 1993 issue, back when I subscribed to MAIB and other boating and sailing mags (I don't subscribe to magazines now because I'm a pack rat and my wife is much happier, and life becomes easier, when I don't leave little piles of magazines in every room of the house). Articles in MAIB cast a wide ranging net over the boating scene and I recommend looking into subscribing if your interest in boating is similarly broad brush.

The one page article on the DC-10 as excerpted from the January 15, 1993 issue of Messing About in Boats...................


The address of the designer, Douglas Cooper, listed in the article is probably not correct and I'm not sure if plans are still offered. I will do some research on the designer

Another Big Guy Singlehander; The Finn Dinghy

On one of my posts about the Big Guy singlehander, "Noodle" intimated in a comment that I was ignoring the Finn dinghy; the Finn dinghy being the most popular of the big guy singlehanders. How can you argue when 283 Finns showed up for the 2011 Worlds Master Championship in Punta Ala Italy!

That being said, how are these oldsters with their creaky knees and aching backs able to get under such a low boom. I owned and raced a Finn (a glass Newport that had a wood deck..... Rob Andre did the conversion) for a short while when I was in my 20's. On my first sail, my elbow got a right smart whack when I left it too high in a jibe. On tacks, you really did have to fold yourself on the floor to get under the boom. After finishing down the fleet at the U.S Nationals in Sayville NY, I realized that I was too small for the boat and, quite frankly, the Laser seemed more lively offwind.

But, there is not a better singlehander in light air than the Finn. The large cockpit makes for pleasant light air lounging compared to the contortions of the poor Laser sailor draped over the daggerboard trunk. The large sail area and finer hull shape means the Finn doesn't need much air to tramp along quite nicely in soft breezes. The Finn would be my top choice if I was just day sailing on a lake in light air (I would have to keep the Finn on the beach for the Finn is not a light dinghy to launch and retrieve). The question is, can you find one?.... demand is such that there are not too many used Finns popping up.

Here's a great video of the Geezer Finn fleet racing out of Encinal YC, California, tucked up into Oakland Inner Harbor and well away from the big breezes of San Francisco Bay. They all seem quite enamored of the Finn and not at all fazed over dealing with such a low boom..........

Northern California Finn Club Regatta at EYC from Moon Rabbit Studios on Vimeo.

Music Whenever: Collective Soul "Shine"

A great acoustic version.

International Canoe; Let's go to the Video Tape

Time to wrap up the International Canoe posts for a while with a video of a German sailing an older International Canoe. In fact, this IC looks suspiciously identical to the King Ferry glass hull/wood deck IC's that Steve Clark was building in 1981 and the IC "No Eyes" I raced in the 1980's.

This video gives the viewer the true sense that, once you get out on the sliding seat, there's nothing static about sailing these craft.

Couple of things to point out;

1. The dangly rope led to the outboard end of the sliding seat is the jib sheet. It allows the jib to be adjusted while you're hiking at the end of the seat.
2. The German owner hikes the IC the same way I used to hike, wrapping my ankles and shins around the bottom edge of the sliding seat. Most IC sailors don't do that, they hike off a hiking strap that spans the middle of the seat from one end to the other.
3. He's got a very funky mainsheet arrangement. Most mainsheets just attach to the back end of the seat carriage with a cleat on the back or the forward beam of the seat carriage.