scott.projectsomewhere

Not much to report for the weekend past. Unfortunately this time of the year isn’t the windiest in Sydney.

Les, Luka and the Balmoral crowd rigged but didn’t sail. John, Matt and myself did get on the water from Woollahra eventually, then had 15 minutes of foiling in 2 hours.

Sunday wasn’t looking much better.

I pulled the pin on the Lion Island marathon early, instead heading down to the CYC for Atomic’s first race in the winter series. If it was going to be light, at least I could sit around on the water in the sun.

Anyway, we only just made our start time after the motor failed to start, and as we were crossing the sound John handed over the wheel and I got to steer for the rest of the race. Nice boat to steer, but not much feedback through the wheel. Thankfully there were no dramas, except for a few times when the keel button was missed through the tack and water started coming in over the side…

By the time we finished, a nice Southerly was blowing, so John and I again rushed over to Woollahra and blasted around for a couple of hours. Finally some reasonable conditions.

… and the job list keeps growing…

Garry, one of the old digger’s surfers, wrote a nice little poem for the memorial they held a couple of weeks ago…

A year has passed
since we saw you last
you know how time gets away
365 the number count
seems like yesterday
your memories they still linger on
sometimes its hard to say
things may have been different then
and you’d still be here today
like the ocean waves they come and go
and too the shifting sands
we hope the place your surfing now
keeps you in good hands
the people standing here today
our lives will move on
we stand here side by side knowing
your memory will live long
like the moon and the stars and glowing sun
they visit the ocean each day
for one man surfing the eternal wave
and thats our mate named RAY

An interesting email update from Peter on Dave and Iain’s European 49er campaign…

Dear All,

A quick update on the adventures of Dave and Goobie (D & G)

Hyeres finished pretty badly as all the days,bar the last , were light and the best they could do was a 12th. They finished in silver fleet but that was “deep” too. At least they know the problem….getting a fantastic start everytime. Miss that and it’s all over.

The last day ended up a nightmare. Gold Fleet did well with breezes 10 to 15 kts but Silver went out to a rapidly freshing situation with 25KTS+ and a huge chop. D & G did well off the start and were in the top 3 but then disaster struck. Climbinfg a steep chop bigger than the ones at Treasure Island San Franisco, they became airbourne then landed sideways. Goobie slammed into the mast and wedged himself between it and the lower stays. Operating like a robot he managed to get sailing but by then the official boat came past calling abandonment. Dave had to drop the main from in the water and they sailed back under jib. Goobie was away with the pixies as his head was badly concussed. Questions like “are we in front ?” kept coming so he was really badly affected.

On shore after examination he was admitted to hospital by ambulance and kept in overnight. His short term memory loss started at about 5 days but improved rapidly the next day. His brain scan was clear and he was not feeling sick so he was discharged. The French Fire Brigade made no charge for the ambulance which was great and the hospital was very professional and reasonable too.

To date Goobie has no recollection of the start of that race up until he woke up in hospital saying ” What happened ? Is Dave OK? ”

We fast tracked to Riva and were sailing the next day in waters David knows very well. Training has continued all week and this weekend they have just finished Day One of the Italian 49er Nationals. There are three good boats here from gold and silver fleets at Palma and Hyeres and the racing has been in 6-10 kts. Getting 4 great starts, D & G have scored 1, 2, 2, 4 and are in second place to ITA 75 by one point. The smiles on their faces are about 1 metre wide !
Italy and of course Riva are fantastic so the next 2 weeks are shaping up to be a great time.

Cheers to all.

Peter

News of the 18 footer Anzac regatta over in NZ has been pretty thin…

Briefly, what I’ve found out is:
Gotta Love It 7 finished 1st with a score of 1,8,1,1,5,1,1 and Club Marine finished 2nd on countback with 2,1,2,2,1,2,2.

The Kiwis on CT were 3rd, with SX and AppliancesOnline tied for 4th.

Club Marine was quick in the light winds, but when it blew 7 was very fast.

Not much else to report… other than a vague query on the SailingAnarchy forums about the loaded hog, bouncers, punches, paddywagons and surrendered passports.

But I know nothing about that…

Full results here

There’s been plenty of complaining around the place lately about the lack of coverage of the latest Louis Vuitton Cup racing.

I wonder when these guys will wake up and stream all the video feeds out over the web for the diehard fans to watch? Sure it mightn’t be good for the TV distribution deals… but when you can’t get it on tv what’s the alternative? It’s a bit disappointing that 7 years after the NZ cup, the Internet distribution has hardly evolved.

Anyway… if you know a way to stream it over the web, tell me.

Some guys who do seem to have their act together are Seamaster Sailing. Their podcast is a pretty slick production. It’s very Open60-shorthanded-blah-blah focussed, but still great to watch.

If only there were more people doing that sort of stuff.