33rd america’s cup: sailors or astronauts?

for those of you that might not be following sailing quite as closely, the 33rd America’s Cup race is scheduled for this week (actually was supposed to start Monday, but was postponed due to light winds).  historically, this has been considered to be one of the premier sailing events (and the oldest active trophy sport, see the wiki here), but the 33rd America’s Cup has this year been bogged down by the political bickering between the 2 sides, or more specifically, between the 2 ba-ga-zillionaires that a fronting the money in what seems to be a battle of the egos. (I won’t get into too many of the boring political details… just trust me.  if you’re really curious, just Google it.)  this year’s race pits the Swiss (Alinghi), as the defender’s of the cup, against the USA (BMW Oracle), who are challenging for the cup.  the boat’s themselves are amazing displays of what gobs of money can provide – they are both multi-hulls (Alinghi has 2 hulls, BMW Oracle has 3 hulls), and can sail at speeds 2 to 3 times faster than the speed of the wind.  here’s a nice shot of the 2 boats waiting to race Monday morning:

here’s a couple sites to check out for plenty more information:

• http://www.americascup.com/en/index.html (main website)
• http://bmworacleracing.com/en/index.html (USA/BMW Oracle main site)
• http://www.alinghi.com/en/ (Alinghi main site)
• http://bmworacleracingblog.blogspot.com/ (USA/BMW Oracle blog)
• http://www.cupinfo.com/ (tons of info on the racing)
• http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ (more info on the racing)

plus, this year, there are several options available to view the racing online (some live, some replay – since the racing is in Valencia, I’d have to get up at 4am to watch live… probably not gonna happen!) viewing options, from scuttlebutt:

Yes, the time of day is a strain in North America. Thank goodness the authors of the Deed of Gift called for a day in between each scheduled race day. Consecutive all nighters could get rough. They truly were gentlemen. Not sure if the commentator line-up will be the same all the time, but here are the links to go to:

- Jobson/Smyth: http://www.ESPN360.com
- Montgomery/Lewis/Green: http://www.americascup.com
- Tasker/Lester/Williams: http://www.livestream.com/bmworacleracing

oh yeah, back to the post title “sailors or astronauts”: BMW Oracle posted a great video of what it feels like to be sailing on their boat… here’s how he described it:

Team founder Larry Ellison has compared this campaign to a space mission, and listening to this video, you might see why. Take a look.

6 weeks of winter

well, it’s Groundhog’s Day, and the fat little vermin Punxsutawney Phil has spoken:

• six more weeks of winter.
• six more weeks of cold snowy weather.
• six more weeks until I can go sailing.

my only consolation on a day like this: it brings back memories of Bill Murray (a favorite – after all, he is my sailing inspiration, remember?), in the movie named for today: Groundhog Day (link to wiki). see the wiki link for the basic plot, if you haven’t seen the movie (and if you haven’t… you should!).

here’s a great clip from the movie:

Bing!

GoPro video camera

I’ve seen multiple videos of sailors using one of the GoPro video cameras, and I’m not going to lie – I think I might just want one!

obviously, this is WAY down at the bottom on my parts list, as there are many, many other upgrades that would be nice for my sunfish that will have higher priority, but it’d still be fun to have and get some videos.

Sunfish sailing with the GoPro

fun hogs has this nice video with a Gopro mounted on the mast of his sailing canoe

• Opelu Sailin’ (I really like this one!… maybe it’s his background music selection?)

outrigger sailing canoes has 2 nice videos with a GoPro mounted on his Ulua (a sailing canoe):

• Ulua with onboard gopro
• Ulua with masthead gopro

GoProSailing does some Laser frost-biting

maggie sings

a while back, I posted a helmet cam video from a Sunfish race that was put together by dayton colie. he also has this great video he released where he is sailing in a race with his young daughter, maggie.

I think the video is fantastic – it shows a great relationship between father and daughter as they enjoy a nice day sailing the Sunfish, singing silly songs with made-up words to each other. dayton tries to work in a little sailing instruction as well, to plant the seeds for a future Sunfish sailor, I would imagine.  and what better way for a child to learn to sail than to spend that time with a parent?  it inspires me to make sure I get my boys out on the water with me as much as I can in the coming years, especially while they are still young and thrilled by more than anything to just spend time with their dad.

this is how dayton describes it himself:

During the last downwind leg we start singing, and I’m reminded of how fun sailing is when you take it a notch down from being ultra competitive. Making sure she’s having a good time is priority number one – because she’s six, and the fun is what makes people fall in love with sailing.

let me know what you think.

my2fish word cloud

I saw a Wordle cloud over at tugster, where he just posted his 1,000th post!

I played around a bit with the site, and came up with one for my2fish: