Deja Vu...not in a good way

This past weekend was a miserable one to be on land. It was wet, drippy, cold and miserable. I was at Camille's swim meet doing everything I could to keep her warm and swimmable. That said, it's good to be a sailor and have decent foul weather gear for such occasions.

Most of the time as a parent you're catering to your swimmer because they're getting in and out of the pool and getting very cold. The team has a canopy that I always arrive early to get Camille a spot right in the middle of. So, many times I'm huddled on the edge of the canopy, forcing her to eat and wear warmer clothes.

And that's what brings me to sailing. I'd been paying attention to her safety and comfort for about 5-10 minutes and hadn't paid any attention to the outside world. Once I was done, I stood up, stretched my legs and stepped out of the canopy to look around. At that moment, I saw the rain again and felt the cold and was wearing foul weather gear and my first thought was, "oh crap, not this again."

And it felt EXACTLY like coming on watch at midnight, stepping out of the companionway in full foulies and that initial blast of "crap it's raining again." You know you're about to have 4 hours of relative misery and there is nothing you can do other than grab the wheel and hope to steer some fun waves to make up for it.

Of course at a swim meet you don't have that balancing factor of getting to sail. So I went to get a coffee instead.

Leaving the coffee generation

I'm doing it again.  Last time I was teased mercilessly for being a girlie-man, scared to drink coffee on the open ocean.  But that's the life of the blogger, exposing yourself to the public (in a legal way) for the betterment of all.

So, as of this month I've cut my coffee consumption down to 2 small cups a day -- one at the club and one at the office.  I figure it's easier to kick a habit if your addiction is to something that doesn't taste good.  Then, starting in March, just the club coffee, and then in April....kablooie, no more coffee.

I do have a good reason for this.  Sponsorship.  I didn't get sponsored by a coffee company for the second straight Pacific Cup.  I tried to get Leslie's Coffee to sponsor me in 2008, even taking this picture at the halfway point on spec.  But it didn't pan out and now I go to sea sponsorless and coffeeless once again.

X marks the spot

If they don't want people to hit it, don't put an X on it, I say.  The Golden Gate Yacht Club is basiclly begging people to hit that thing, making it bright yellow, big and marked with an X.  We on Valis are nothing if not rule followers.  That's me in the yellow hat looking back to make sure we hit it but, alas, not this time.  I'll get it for sure next year with a bit more practice under my belt.

Lowering the boom

Lowering the boom is some sort of sailing related term that the rest of the world uses to mean "bringing the pain."  I think.  For some reason I thought it just made a good title for this post even though 1) I don't know what it means, and 2) we're not lowering our boom in this photo.  If anything we're raising our pole but I was worried what kind of search engine traffic that would bring.

Photo courtesy of Erik Simonson of H2oshots

This is Valis sailing wing and wing down to Red Rock during the Three Bridge Fiasco.  You know, just after the mouse incident.  You can obviously tell we are sailing fast by the rip-roaring rooster tail of a wake we're leaving.  That's why we're qualified to cross most of the Ocean, our improvisational sail trim techniques.

349 boats behind the Eight Ball

I really really like this article and thought it would be good to link to it here:  349 boats behind the Eight Ball. 

I called Scott Easom, skipper of Eight Ball, this morning to discuss his win in the Three Bridge Fiasco and was amazed by the humility that he was showing for some incredibly good decisions.  He put a lot of them to luck but that doesn't explain why he keeps winning these races.  Of course it's a good idea to get out to the wind and into the favorable current before everyone else but how does he do it more consistently than the rest of the fleet.  I felt like a smarter sailor just by talking to him for 10 minutes.

Check out the bottom on Eight Ball in this Kimball Livingston article.  That thing is shiny and spotless.  I think that Scott was being modest even in discussing his boat prep and that was the only area where any pride even showed through.  That boat is ready to sail and sail fast.

He was the talk of Sailing Anarchy this morning and deserved to be...one hell of a race.

The ubiquitous topsider

I can't stand Sperry Topsiders.  It's not that they are bad boat shoes, on the contrary, they are excellent on the boat.  Otherwise, why would so many sailors wear them?

And that's the problem, many many sailors do wear them and not just to sail in.  They wear them everywhere like the red badge of sailinginess.  I was at a party a couple of years ago when a guy comes in late.  I knew he was a sailor and asked if he was going out that weekend and we chatted sailing for a minute until somebody found this interesting and asked him if he was a sailor.  He didn't say, "yes I love sailing", he said, "yes, can't you tell?  I'm wearing a West Marine jacket and topsiders."  Kind of upitty-like.  Kind of in the way that makes people really hate sailors. 

And I knew he hadn't sailed that day nor was he planning on sailing that night.  He was wearing this gear to identify himself as a sailor so people would ask about his manly sailing exploits.  It was at that moment that I began to hate topsiders; I just can't hold him against waterproof jackets, they just make sense.  Full disclosure: I wore topsiders in high school as a fashion statement, but what the hell, I was in high school and didn't know any better.

I can't hold this guy against a brand of shoe forever but for the purpose of Tillerman's Writing Project du Jour, my hatred is real.  For the moment.