As we cover kids sailing programs around the region, lest we not forget SYC’s longstanding, outstanding program. Operating from SYC on Portage Bay, its Optis, Lasers, Vanguard 15s and 420s are a common sight as one drives on the 520. For more information, check out the brochure.
Sailing Director Brian Ledbetter was eager to share the news that his team earned some well deserved recognition from US Sailing. Here’s the scoop:
On behalf of the Seattle Yacht Club, Angela Frost and Cameron Hoard accepted the Captain Joe Prosser Award for Excellence in Sailing Instruction at the 2017 U.S. Sailing National Symposium. Angela is the Sailing Programs Coordinator at Seattle Yacht Club, and Cameron is the Junior Race Team coach.
Cameron and his Optis
This award is given to an organization that has demonstrated Excellence in Sailing Instruction, and has made an exemplary contribution toward improving the quality and safety in the training or instruction of sailors.
Cameron Hoard and Angela Frost accepting the award.
In addition to the trophy, a $500 credit, also funded by U.S. Sailing’s Training Committee, will be awarded annually to the selected program for Instructor Training. The Captain Joe Prosser Award was created to recognize the life achievement of the Merchant Marine Academy’s first sailing master. Nominees for the award may be organizations which are either “for-profit” or “not-for-profit”; and may be engaged in sailing instruction on a part-time or full-time basis. Nominees shall embody the characteristics of honor, integrity, and a selfless dedication to the sport.
Congratulations to the Seattle Yacht Club and the Junior Sailing and Racing programs for winning this prestigious award.
Congratulations, gang. One of the encouraging things that I’m seeing is that not only are there several different programs to suit different sailing communities, these organizations often pitch in on regattas together to give the kids the best experience possible.
If your junior program has a story to tell, please send it my way.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
There may be some things that are more fun than packing up and heading across the country to race against a bunch of really skilled strangers, but not many. And if you get to do this when you’re young, it’s even better.
That’s what a bunch of Seattle area Laser sailors did this past month when they travelled to Clearwater, Florida for the Laser Midwinters East. The story is best told in pictures. What you don’t see is the moms who made it happen. As Erin Timms explains, “I will tell you that the kids had a ball! And Kara (Carlson) and I are exhausted after feeding 5 teenagers for 6 days!!!!!”
I’m hoping to follow the exploits of all our young sailors (and get their reports too) as they pursue championships, new friendships and fun. Not pictured here, but definitely representing Seattle, were Talia Toland and Hanne Weaver who both finished in the top ten in the Radial class. Results here.
Moms are great.
Lotta Lasers
Is that warm sand on they’re walking on at the Clearwater Community Sailing Center?
That looks suspiciously like homework
Drifting in Florida
Happy to be in Florida: Abbie Carlson (she was in a 4.7) Analucia Clarkson (Radial – Silver Fleet) Parker Carlson (4.7) Owen Timms (Radial – Gold Fleet) and Kit Stoll (silver fleet)
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
With the results now final, we get to talk about last Saturday’s Scatchet Head race, middle race of CYC’s Center Sound Series.
I don’t know about anybody else who was on the rail on Saturday’s beat back from Scatchet Head, but I was COLD. And WET. And HAPPY. Hey, it’s March and the East Coast is having a blizzard. I know the boys and girls in the Midwest are still many weeks away from launching.
Scatchet Head has tossed up some gnarly races the last few years, but this year things were a lot tamer. There was plenty of wind for a quick race.
A lot of theatrics occurred before the race. A J/105 split its chute while practicing before the start. Tahlequah was sorting out some new crew positions and was late to the start. On Grace we shrimped a chute while practicing, then started in the wrong start when there seemed to be a hiccup by the race committee, and barely made it back for our start when our jib stuck in the track. And, wouldn’t you know it, we ended up nailing our start just about perfectly. Yeah, we meant to do that.
The Race Committee also had some issues causing a fair amount of consternation in the fleet. Eventually, everyone got off, spinnakers flying, toward Whidbey Island. It’s not clear what happened in the starting sequence, but it had a lot of tacticians scratching their fuzzy hats. CYC race fleet captain Matt Wood reports the unspecified results issues have all been resolved.
Photos by Jan Anderson. Check them all out (yes, and buy some) at Jan’s Smugmug site.
The J/105 fleet enjoyed the run north.
Jam, jammin’
Green Flash
Different Drummer powering to another class win.
Kissing the mark.
Elusive with a clean looking rounding
Sachem heading for home.
Right off the start there were great puffs coming off Crown Hill all the way up to Edmonds. Those who braved going out of that great breeze on the east were rewarded late in the leg. Bill Buchan and Sachem seemed to be furthest west on the approach to the Scatchet Head Buoy. By the time the bulk of the fleet arrived at the mark, the flood was in full swing keeping helmsmen (and women!) on their toes during the rounding.
The beat home was a bit surreal. The misty rain was so thick at times land was virtually invisible. Those aft (or down below) with a chartplotter to play with could dial in, but on the rail it seemed we could have well been headed for the Arctic Circle. There were a couple big windshifts, and as long as you took advantage it was tactically a fairly straightforward leg. Perhaps the most surreal thing was the dead aircraft carrier USS Independence being eerily towed out of the Sound to her ultimate breakup, somewhere, sometime.
In the ORC class, Crossfire, Glory, Neptune’s Car and Smoke were all powered up downwind and just walked away upwind. Their elapsed times were just three hours and a bit, and it would be difficult to figure out how Crossfire could have sailed any better for the win. The J/160 Jam squeaked in on corrected time for a third behind Crossfire and Glory.
In the PHRF division, the small/slower boats had their day. John Cahill’s Gaucho was lights-out with the overall win. More Jubilee was second overall, leading the fleet of eight J/105s in the only one-design class. Here & Now was third. Elusive put in a strong performance in fourth overall and first in class, but the old IOR designs Sachem and Finale sure turned heads powering on the beat home.
In Bruce’s Brief before the race, he and his Expedition software dared predict elapsed times for several boats. Here’s how he did. Never quite satisfied, he went back to his computer and did some more number crunching to further confuse us frozen rail-sitters:
“If I take the recorded elapsed times and figure the speed around the course at 26.1 miles which I figured at 25.5 miles and then if add the time it would take to sail the extra .6 miles, my error for predicting elapsed time comes out pretty close. My error for Crossfire was 12.6 seconds or .1128% which would win just about every predicted log race in the universe.”
Bruce, you and Expedition should just go get a room.
Crossfire‘s Race
Lou Bianco’s Reichel/Pugh 55 may not quite be the biggest, but it’s certainly the “baddest,” racer in town. Step onboard, and you know it takes a lot of skill to point it in the right direction and keep it from hurting itself. Guys like Fritz Lanzinger, Nigel Barron and Brad Baker lead that effort.
Brad Baker, Crossfire‘s navigator these days, offers some insight into the race. And Rick Donahue passed along the winning GPS track. Here’s Brad:
“It was an interesting race from the perspective that it was very direct. For Crossfire the tides worked out very well. We were able to get down to the mark just after the tide changed to the flood, but other than that we had reasonably favorable currents for most the race up and back. The “direct” part has to do with shifts and timing of the shifts. Going down there was a large easterly component. We spent the majority off the time on starboard going at or very close to the mark, with maybe 15 minutes max on port. Coming back there ended up being a big shift to the west, so after maybe 10 or 15 minutes on port after rounding we tacked and did one big long starboard tack up the Sound.
Click to enlarge
You can see on the graphic what the boat speed was over the course. Pretty cool. Wind speed was about 10 knots at the start. The range in wind was 6 knots to 16 knots. We saw the max wind on the run near Edmonds and the least amount of wind right at the end of the race.
Yes, Crossfire is a scary fast boat and the crew does a very nice job of keeping her going. Lou Bianco and John Stanley did a nice job on the driving and Fritz deserves a lot of credit for his guru-like work.”
Grace
It was my first chance to sail with Andy and Jaimie Mack onboard their J/122 Grace, and it was a great experience. Despite our trials before the start, everyone on board kept their poise and we came away with a well earned class win. But it is the non-racing aspects of the program that are special to me.what was special to me.
Grace rounding the Scatchet Head buoy
Jaimie explained that a big part of buying Grace was that it was a great way to connect with all their Seattle area friends. They live on the Columbia River Gorge, but recognize the value of our sailing community. The second aspect is how they used the boat after the race. The dodger came back on the boat, the wet racing sails went off the boat, and they cruised the boat with their eight year old daughter to Port Madison to rendezvous with other boats. Race AND cruise, that’s cool.
Ace
Ace’s Scatchet Head track.
Fellow Laser sailor Mike Johnson was onboard the Farr 395 Ace in our class, a boat we kept a very close eye on. He was kind enough to send his track along and share it with all of us.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
Seattle’s Mount Baker Rowing and Sailing Center is one of Seattle’s many options for sailing lessons and a sailing team. And clearly the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department, sponsored by Mount Baker Boating Advisory Council, is intent on furthering the mission. With the recent hire of Kaitlyn van Nostrand as coach, the racing team will get a big boost. And another boost comes in the form of four new FJ dinghies, which are arriving today.
Kaitlyn Van Nostrand has been selected for the Youth Sailing Coach position at MBRSC. Kaitlyn has been a US Sailing Level 1 certified coach since 2004, and has coached juniors in Optimists, Lasers and 420’s.
At Hobart and William Smith Colleges, she was twice elected captain of the sailing team and MVP. She competed at five college sailing nationals and finished second place in the 2007 College Sailing Team Race Championships. She also raced Snipes, V15’s and E-Scows.
Kaitlyn moved to New Zealand in 2011 and coached Opti’s part time whilst obtaining her Master’s degree in International Business at the University of Auckland. She relocated to Seattle in 2016, coaching camps and the youth racing team at Sail Sand Point.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
While CYC tends to some Scatchet Head results discrepancies, let’s take a look at how Bruce did with his weather outlook for the race. For those of us out there it was darn accurate. And check this out, through the magic of a VPP (not sure which one) and his knowledge of weather and the Sound, (assuming the elapsed times are accurate) he came up with a predicted elapsed time of 3:01 for Crossfire (their elapsed time was actually 3:06) and 4:50 (elapsed time actually 4:58 for Madrugador). Pretty good, but room for improvement……
Here are some of Jan Anderson’s photos. More coming, including a report from onboard Crossfire, when we do the full race report.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
The word is out. The Trump administration wants to cut 93%, that’s right, 93% of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA budget) for restoration and monitoring of Puget Sound. (Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes also face such draconian measures). The details of this proposed budget, and the likelihood of it being enacted, are murky at best.
There’s a big “however” here. However, murkiness notwithstanding we sailors can take steps to save our Sound. We have to be ready to fight for our beautiful Salish Sea. It doesn’t take long to pollute. It does take a long time to clean it up. And sailors do know how to make noise. What we can do now is give our elected officials, particular those in support of the new administration, an earful.
Here’s the essence of it, assuming that the 93% cut regionally and 24% nationally is seriously proposed. It has nothing to do with a Washington immigrant feud with Trump, as has been suggested. It has everything to do with Trump and the Republicans trying to blow up the EPA. From their standpoint, why not? They deny global warming and have willfully forgotten what our waterways were like in 1970 and why the EPA was created in the first place. Furthermore, they believe that regulations have stifled our economy. So, why not get rid of the EPA?
And here’s a really fitting nugget: Environmental Education would be cut 94%. To my mind, those were some of the most effective dollars spent. Change people’s minds, and you change their behavior. My behavior has certainly changed as I’ve learned more about the environment.
They believe that protecting the environment is bad for business, though businesses seem to have managed. A model might be our boatyards. They’ve made changes to their business model, and many (though not all) have withstood the onslaught of dubious lawsuits. They’ve utilized new technologies and charged their customers a bit more with an explanation. And while there’s plenty of room for discussion about lawsuits, boatyards and bottom paints, there’s one undeniable fact. Boatyards have become cleaner.
This move is not about budget savings. All of Donald Trump’s proposals regarding infrastructure, walls, and military show that he’s not cutting “here” to make more money available “there.” It’s comically out of whack. If this were about trimming the budget, there’d be a serious proposal to cut a percentage and a mandate for each department to come up with well reasoned cuts.
No, this is about diminishing our country’s dedication to the environment. It’s about declaring that global warming doesn’t exist. It’s about putting business profits ahead of all else. It’s about a philosophy that regulation is bad and that the free market can and will take care of everything. The administration is willing to sacrifice the condition of Puget Sound and kick the cleanup can to our kids’ corners. I can’t even get my kids to pick up their own socks.
It’s about putting a guy like Scott Pruitt in charge who has been in the pocket of big business his entire career and fought the EPA tooth and nail. The Republicans have even introduced a bill to eliminate the EPA.
Apparently, the idea is that by gutting the EPA, businesses will become more profitable and somehow our lives will be enhanced. Since the economic recovery from the great recession began, businesses have been hoarding their profits, making the rich richer. There’s NO reason to think that “unburdening” them will make them more civically or environmentally minded.
And here’s the clincher, and it’s an economic one. A clean Sound makes money. A dirty Sound costs money. There are shellfish beds, salmon fisheries, sport fishing, and yes, recreational boating.
Trump and the current Republicans don’t see the dollar value of a clean environment or the expense of cleaning it up when it does get polluted. Excuse me, but they’re pooping on the hard work (sometimes not efficient or even misguided, but mostly highly valuable work) of Republicans, Democrats, Independents and ordinary citizens, since the early 1970s.
I’ve always thought that the greatest environmental gains were made through cooperative efforts. Sure, industry lobbying for its interests, and environmentalists lobbying for theirs, but the workable solution always seemed to lie somewhere between the two. And the EPA was an effective arbiter. Both sides have screamed and yelled that the EPA hasn’t been doing its job. I was splashing around southern Lake Michigan in 1970. I can say first hand that it has done its job.
The Trump administration has decided Puget Sound (and Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes) is not worth cleaning up and protecting. It’s up to all of us in Washington State to join together and fight for Puget Sound. And make no mistake, if the EPA is eviscerated, we will have to. Shellfish harvesters, sportfishermen, commercial, recreational, business organizations, private citizens, all of us, need to work together. Who knows, in this adversarial climate we might find some surprising alliances.
Oh, yeah, and about those salmon. Guess what eat salmon? Our Southern Resident orcas. They’re already on a dangerously thin diet.
While we have a profound history in Washington of dumping unspeakables in places like Commencement Bay and Lake Union, and damming up some of the most productive salmon runs in the world, we also have a history of learning from our mistakes and becoming champions for our environment. I hope and expect that as Trump’s government abdicates its responsibilities, we sailors can join other Washingtonians to stop the madness. At least here.
Stay tuned, because I’m going to weigh in on the No Discharge Zone (yes, it may be happening) and a proposed no-go zone around San Juan Island to protect those orcas.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
Saturday’s Blakely Rock Race, which kicked off CYC’s Center Sound Series, started off great but ended up with a lot of drifting and a shortened course course for the PHRFers (ORC boats managed the full course). Class winners needed two things, light air skills and persistence, with probably the greater emphasis on the latter.
As Bruce Hedrick predicted here on sailish.com, conditions were OK at the start (in fact better than the models suggested) with winds dropping the remainder of the day. The possibility of snow never materialized and much of the race was sailed in bright sunshine. (If you want to receive notification of this week’s Bruce’s Brief (and future weather posts), click here.
Kelly O’Neil’s former boat reQuest, was loaded with daffodils for the Blakely Rock rounding.
As the fleet rounded the Rock, daffodils were in ample supply as photographer and oh-so-loved sailing figure Kelly O’Neil was honored 13 years after her death.
A large percentage of the boats that started, finished. Class 1 (one cruising boat) Class 2 had no finishers, but every other class had at least three finishers. Results here. The biggest anomalies were Crossfire’s utter destruction of the ORC class (size matters when it comes to rig height on Puget Sound) and the corrected-time tie between Absolutely and Hamachi in Class 8.
The boat with the longest elapsed time for the day, Al Johnson’s Quest 30Charlotte, is worth a mention. About 15 months ago Johnson brought the boat in from Victoria, where she sailed as Koru. She replaced Johnson’s well loved Soverel 33 Pegasus with an eye toward an easier handled boat (hence safer) for he and his wife Jane. “I just retired and was 63 years old, and the Quest was a boat I could see sailing comfortably for the next 20 years.” In addition to an easier handled rig, the Quest has a more comfortable interior than the Soverel with headroom and a massive aft berth.
Al Johnson’s Quest 30 Charlotte was, like all other Quests, modfied from a twin to single-rudder configuration.
Johnson clearly loves his new boat and his retirement. And the Blakely Rock race was going well up until the Rock. “The Soverel was a light air rocket. Charlotte seems to go well in all condition.” Johnson’s been spending some time around Sail Sand Point helping initiate kids in the the ways of E Scow sailing, among other things, and is much appreciated around there.
Enjoy these photos from Jan Anderson. The rest of them can be seen and purchased here.
The big boats of the ORC division charged the line.
Daffodils in mid-flight.
The unmistakable Selchie chased by Ryan Helling’s Velella
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
I have a big problem with most sailing books and movies. There’s almost always a huge disconnect with how great sailing is and how its portrayal always falls woefully short. It seems the authors and directors feel the need to make sailing something other than it is to keep it interesting. Blasphemes!
So I wasn’t expecting much from Before the Wind (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016) by Jim Lynch. But hey, he was coming to speak at CYC-Seattle and I’d get a chance to meet the author and maybe get some inspiration for my own writing. Furthermore, he was a real Northwest sailor. So, I started to read the book and was about halfway through, enough to know the book was a really good read, by the time of the CYC engagement.
After having the great pleasure of chatting with Lynch, and finishing the book a couple weeks later, my faith in sailing as the best story setting, and my eagerness to tackle fiction, were restored. For any sailor in the Pacific Northwest, it’s a must read. For sailors elsewhere, it’s highly recommended. Hey, even the New York Times had nice things to say about it.
The story revolves around a Seattle boat designing and building family, one which could be mistaken for the Buchans, particularly if the reader is not paying close attention. It is definitely not the Buchans, though it’s safe to say that there are some Buchan elements to the story. (An almost superhuman ability to find wind, for example) At a reading a few months ago, Lynch saw Bill Buchan in the audience, and thought “Uh oh,” but Bill came up after and told Lynch he remembered selling Lynch’s father a boat back in the day.
This Johannssen family lures you into their world. Our hero Josh is a multi-skilled boatyard rat who’s more interested in helping out the characters at the local cheap marina than in making money or participating in the family business, which, incidentally, is headed for Davy Jones’ Locker. He’s got a brother who really wants to separate from the family, a dad who can’t quite grasp where life went wrong (or is going) and a mother who’s too smart for her own good and a sister who is special in many ways (that wind finding thing, for one) I wasn’t that thrilled with all the characters until the Swiftsure race.
Here’s where Lynch does a neat little course change. Where you would expect it to be all about the race, there come some serious family dynamics. I won’t say more, you’ll just have to read it for yourself. And in another twist, it doesn’t end with the end of the race.
As a racer I of course kept finding problems with the sailing part of things (they only sailed with 6 family members (one an old man) on a competitive 39-footer?), but as a writer I get it (any non-family members on board would have simply ruined it.) I would have liked to hear more about how they prepped the boat and crew for the race. And then there’s a handicap rating issue that never gets resolved, at least to my satisfaction. What rating issue ever does?
Lynch does a really good job of introducing the sport to his today’s non-sailing readers. In decades and centuries past, writers like Patrick O’Brien could get away with really detailed, esoteric descriptions of what goes on on a sailing ship. Lynch thankfully doesn’t go there, but he does make the non-sailor reach a little bit.
Jim Lynch
Even though Before the Wind’s story arc is structured around Swiftsure, I wouldn’t call it a book about racing. In fact, the racing seemed almost incidental much of the time and there was enough of the rest of the waterfront, especially the boatyard, to draw in cruisers as well.
Lynch’s fondness for that sailing world comes through. The Johannssens are just a family who love sailing, but stuck dealing with the vicissitudes of rich people and vagaries of the sport and even the winds that drive it. The story isn’t driven by ambition or money, it’s a people tale.
A really wonderful thread was the mother’s fascination with Albert Einstein’s sailing. For me it was refreshing to hear that Einstein found our little sport confounding at times. I never realized how much Einstein enjoyed sailing, but it makes sense.
As a reader you’ll probably pick one of the sailing characters to identify with and track. Within this family there are diverse enough personalities there are several to choose from. I went with the obvious choice; the narrator and central character Josh who spends a little too much time worrying about others and not enough helping himself. His quest for a soul mate in the modern online dating world is precious.
If you’re looking for a simple, raucous sailing tale, this is not it. It’s mostly about feelings and family, growing up and growing old.
And as a Salish Sea sailor, you’ll feel warm and cozy in the setting. Lynch doesn’t spend a lot of time in description, but for those of use here with moss behind our ears, it’s enough. There are also some very familiar places, even if they come with different names. A yard on the Ship Canal comes to mind, and West Bay Marina is unmistakable.
No spoiler alerts necessary. I won’t write about the ending of the story other than to say it’s satisfying. I know where my buddy Josh is headed. Moreover, Lynch showed me once again what an effective setting sailing is for people stories. But now I’ll have to track down his other books at the library and give them a read.
Chances are Lynch will come up with another sailing book at some point. During the Q and A at CYC he indicated his interests are elsewhere now. But if he’s anything like his characters, once that saltwater enters the bloodstream it’s really hard to get rid of.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
Moana was a very fun kids movie, with two real heroes and lots of sailing scenes. One thing that bothered me a little was that Moana herself was a pretty lame sailor until the demigod Maui gave her some lessons. Well, as it turns out in some of the earlier storyboards she was a darn good sailor. Not quite sure how the windsurfer/boat thing would have played out anywhere near to believable, but it would have been interesting to see a race in the movie. And perhaps have her teach a reluctant or fearful Maui how to sail.
This cut will be seen as an extra on the DVD version coming out soon.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
So, the America’s Cup guys just discovered that legs are stronger than arms? Well, there isn’t really anything new about it. The first time I heard it being done was on the 12-Meter Sverige in 1977. I’m liking that the idea keeps bubbling up. Of course the other AC teams are all saying “Oh, we thought about it and discarded it because of the mobility factor in maneuvers. We’ll see.
What I still don’t like is the fact that all that grinding, whether it be by biceps or quads, is only there to power up the hydraulics. Yeah, it’s all part of sailing, and the AC is all about doing what it takes to win. However, between the wings and foils and static cycling, there’s less and less “sailing” to the casual observer. The relation of what the grinders are actually doing to make the boat go is ever more remote. The wing comes in 1.5 degrees, the angle of attack of the foils is adjusted the tiniest bit and the boat accelerates from 22 to 24 knots. Maybe I’m a Luddite, but I just can’t get too excited about it.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
This award is given to an organization that has demonstrated Excellence in Sailing Instruction, and has made an exemplary contribution toward improving the quality and safety in the training or instruction of sailors.
