Watch out for biomass in the water

You know when you're driving on the freeway on a dark night and you hear that distinctive "bump bump bump bump" like you just ran over something? That sucks. It's bad for your suspension, sometimes chips your paint, and the poor thing getting run over rarely enjoys it.

When sailing, sometimes you bump a whale, but mostly it's just driftwood and clorox bottles. The dolphins and sea lions and halibut tend to stay out of your way.


But for this year's Three Bridge Fiasco, we are competing with biomass, lots of biomass, that might not be able to stay out of our way. The USCG sent a representative to the skipper's meeting last night to warn us that their is going to be a concurrent open water swim in the same stretch of water at the same time as our race. 30 swimmers with about 20 support boats that are supposed to stay in between them and us.

It really shouldn't be too hard; in all probability they are going to hug the shoreline even more than we need to. But to complicate matters, there are over 360 boats entered this year and I'm pretty sure we're all going CCW directly into the teeth of the open water race.

And swimmers are hard to spot despite their neon caps. Wetsuits are roughly the color of bay water. And only their pink heads stick out of the water. Look at that picture above. Now try to picture yourself in a 44' boat blasting along at a knot or two trying to see the pink cap.

This could get tricky.

Me? I love swimmers. I am one and my daughter is one. I'm going to be d@mned careful of these guys. Might even threaten one of the little boats with VALIS' anchor if they try to get too close. But, it sure is going to be crowded out there.

America's Cup is selling sex

Ponder that image above for a moment. It's the new AC45, the one design catamaran that will be used by America's Cup teams in the America's Cup World Series (ACWS).

The picture is a screen grab of the boat out on its second test sail in Auckland, cruising along at seemingly supersonic speeds in 25 knots of wind. Looks like it's handling it pretty well. Nice shape on the wing, well trimmed genoa, beautiful graphics.

Erk, wait, the graphics. What is that on the jib? Is it the America's Cup trophy? Or a slightly abstract graphic of a busty woman? Before you think it's just me seeing this, take a look at this painting by my favorite contemporary painter, Stvnski:

Notice the similarities to a nude by renowned maximilist artist Stvnski? I'm not just seeing things. This is not just a freakin' cigar people! The America's Cup is selling sex.

Not that they shouldn't. One of the worries in the sailing world is that we don't attract enough fans, racers, participants, groupies, etc. Well, abstract pictures of naked ladies on the freakin' headsail will solve that problem in a New York minute.

Crowdsourcing yachting strategies

Being a bad ass ocean going sailor, I often rely on others for the hard work like figuring out where Hawaii is or the best recipe for Mahi Mahi Tacos. But on those rare occasions when I'm sailing within the cozy confines of our natural ampitheater in a doublehanded race, strategy advice gets severely limited to me and the other guy in the boat.

In the case of VALIS, it helps that the other guy in the boat is absurdly smart and has all sorts of electric electronics that make our circumnavigation of the natural ampitheater easier. But still, I'm expected to have some sort of input or an opinion or something beyond "hey, let's trim in that jib a bit."

This is even further compounded by my offer to go to the skipper's meeting to save the other guy in the boat a drive down to Alameda. (Quick side note: the Oakland Yacht Club is not in Oakland and the San Francisco Yacht Club is not in San Francisco, who else finds this annoying?) So, I'm going to be listening to the always intense lecture on strategically navigating the Bay based on what we know at that moment 60 hours before the start of the race. And be expected to have opinions come race-time.

Since I'm just not that smart, I'm crowdsourcing to my ever-shrinking blog audience. Which way should VALIS go? Clockwise or counterclockwise? Here's what we know:

1. the currents will look like this:



2. Our start time is 10:18:18 AM

3. VALIS is a big boat and has a deadly anchor on the bow.

Please vote on direction in the poll to the right of this post.

Three Bridge Fiasco 2011

And so it starts again. Another season of sailing. And it all begins with: clockwise or counterclockwise.

Quick admission, I haven't sailed since the day I stepped off the boat in Kaneohe. Not once. And that's my big struggle with the Three Bridge Fiasco -- clockwise or counterclockwise? Which frickin' way do you turn the winches again? It has been a while.

I'll do some research before the start. I have this vague recollection that VALIS has two speed winches which might solve my problem; it's entirely possible that both directions work. And then there's the electric winches that you just press buttons for. But still, it's a lot to remember.

For this 3BF, I'll just start clockwise and see what happens.