Header Photo: ACA Canoe and the Sebago Cup from Bonnie K.

In the Wild, Wild West ethics of the bloggosphere, if you see a photo from another blogger, go ahead and lift it for your own blog. And, that's just what I did. The previous header photo was by Bonnie K over at Frogma, a photo-blogger that covers all things NYC including the goings on at her beloved Watersports club, the Sebago Canoe Club. The photo is of the Sebago Cup, a somewhat long-distance jaunt for small sailboats, held mid-September that takes the fleet around Jamaica Bay. I think Bonnie K. took this photo looking aft while racing her Sunfish. The ACA (American Canoe Association one-design lateen rig) sailing canoe astern is Jim Luton, someone I crossed paths with when I was sailing International Canoes. He was a prolific tinkerer and a boat builder, who somehow got diverted from the open sailing canoes and now, it appears, is back. At the turn of the century I was the American Canoe Association Sailing Chairman for two years and attended the open sailing Canoe National Championships and so have a warm affection for this small band of sailing enthusiasts. Over the years I've owned two ACA sailing canoe hulls that never made it through as complete projects and now have been moved on to other owners. The Sebago Canoe Club and the ACA open sailing canoes are worthy of future posts but you can view some photos of ACA canoes sailing at MASCF that I have previously posted.

South Gippsland Yacht Club - Australian Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta

ICWDR

It doesn't take long when perusing this blog to catch on that the blogmeister sails a Classic Moth and that he also tends to feature those regattas that highlight the diversity and/or the history of dinghy sailing. Click on the following Earwigoagin links for regattas like the WOOD regatta, CBMM's Small Boat Festival, the Archipelago Rally, and the Bosham SC Classic Revival - UK. South Gippsland YC, southeast of Melbourne, held probably the first Australian Regatta featuring the great Australian wooden dinghies from yore. Here (was) a great video - Oops! I guess this longish video was a pre-production version, not meant for general viewing on the Net-Toobs and has now been taken down. Not to worry. There is a very good slide show of the regatta and also a video short of the GoPro view of father/daughter sailing on the double plank VeeJay..

Some class logos I recognize; JB for the Uffa Fox 19' Jollyboat, the Circle R of the Rainbow scow, also there is the M logo on the red sails of the regular Mirror dinghy as well as M logo with the halo of the Mirror Miracle, the Bell of the GP 14, the Heron of the Heron class, the red ball of the Fireball, the Butterfly logo of the Moth and the three bars of the Contender class. I've also been promised some pics from the regatta which I'll post when I receive them.

The slide show: (Oops again! they've now made the slide show so I can't embed. Jeez this is a moving target!) Click here for the slide show:

Click here to go to Drifts Media GoPro of VeeJay sailing

Another Quadcopter Sailing Video - English Winter Start

Quadcopter - Drone - whatever you want to call it - it's still cool to watch sailing videos taken from up high. A winter sailing series race start from Lymington Town Sailing Club with the typical melange of English sailing dinghies reaching out towards the Solent.



LTSC Winter Dinghy Series 2014 from Group LPB on Vimeo.

Valentine's Video

My wife wonders what I do on the computer all the time. Some of it is finding a cutesy but well done video that I can bookmark for today. This one tells the shopworn story of a true love connection that keeps missing despite great effort (but misguided) by the protagonist (until the end - isn't that the way it always works out in the movies). It's an old story but this video does it with some incredible animation.

Nothing Says I Love you like a Ham!

Love ya, Jeanie.


Love in the Time of Advertising from Love in the Time of Advertising on Vimeo.

Look! A Pretty Rainbow!

I know this French fellow thinks videoing a pretty rainbow out in the ocean would captivate the viewer. (To heck with the rainbow! I'm just sitting, slack-jawed in front of my computer watching this trimaran go on it's merry way.)

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Video removed from Vimeo.

Header Photo: Two Young Gents Righting a Turtled Butterfly Scow

Just getting round to posting about my last header photo. It is of the initial stages of righting a turtled Butterfly scow. This high quality photo was of a series taken by Ryan Young of the Grand Rapids Express. More of his photos of the 2013 Junior Butterfly Nationals can be found by clicking here. (A tip-of-the-hat to reader Marc who pointed me to the current location of the pictures.)

Anyone who races a tippy singlehanded dinghy has been in this situation, standing on a completely overturned hull, yanking on the daggerboard. It is a slow, slow recovery, sometimes ending with you riding the daggerboard underwater and righting the boat again. Turtling is generally not conducive to a high finishing position.

The 12' Butterfly is arguably America's most popular scow with it's greatest numbers found in and around Michigan (though there are fleets in Denver, Colorado and Dallas, Texas). My good friend Len Dolhert, who has raced an assortment of high performance craft, races a Butterly in Denver and says they are "very simple and very tactical". He enjoys racing them.

Master Laser sailor and blogger Doug Peckover was the 2013 Butterfly Singlehanded Champion and, as always, completely dissects the racing in this post.

Butterfly racers seem to span the ages from the very young to the very old and everyone in between. Here is a testimonial YouTube on the Butterfly from some of the Dallas Fleet members.

Oops! My rudder broke off and I'm only 300 km. from shore!

I have never been an offshore racer or even sailor, I have no desire to spend days out of sight of land - I would turn into a worry-wart, imagining all sort of dire dangers. So I have to tip my hat to the courage and pluck of these offshore folks when things go wrong. The Capetown to Rio fleet this year got hit hard just after they left Capetown. The Dudley Dix designed Black Cat broke their rudder about 300 km. out of Capetown and had a helluva time before making it back to a South African port. Their harrowing story is told below on video. (Dudley Dix was also the skipper, he operates his prolific design business out of Virginia Beach. I have posted a picture of him sailing his Paper Jet design at the Wooden Boat regatta out of Rock Hall, Maryland)



Black Cat tell their story. from Steve Searle on Vimeo.