SAIL.SailMagazine

All right, so that thinga-ma-bob was indeed a tachometer sending unit. When I removed it the brittle sealed wires immediately broke off, so there wasn’t much work to be done in trying to fix it. I’ve seen this thing all along and always just assumed it was an oil pressure gauge or something along those lines, so never gave it much thought. Always figured a tach would have to come off the alternator. Anyway, I’ll order up a new one and hey, who knows, by next season I may actually know what RPMs I’m running at. For now I’m just going to throttle it back a bit.

Stability, fundamentally, is what prevents a boat from being turned over and capsized. Whether you are a cruiser or a racer, it is a desirable characteristic. A boat's shape, particularly its transverse hull form, has an enormous impact on how stable it is. This so-called "form stability" is one of the primary reasons you should be interested in the shape of a boat's hull.

I've got a vault filling up with good stuff, and the weekend transition day is a good day to start watching.

First up, a teaser for the Global Ocean Race 2014-2015. Who knows if it will really happen, who knows how many boats will show up if it does. But here's what they have in store:

And how about another beautiful kitesurfer, doing her thing, since that seems to be such a popular genre:

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean from Manuela Jungo on Vimeo.

And finally, we should take note of the fact that the fabulous Francis Joyon just broke the East-West

What the sea takes deep it does not usually give up. Unless you are Jeff Bezos, and you can't think of enough useful things to do with all that Amazon money piled up around you.

In which case you decide you want to spend millions of dollars recovering the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket engines that propelled Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Here's the triumphant Announcement from Bezos (or, more likely, an overwrought Amazon PR staffer):

Written by Ben Ellison on Mar 20, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub

Well, of course they are not. But it is unusual to see them screwing up. Here's the New Zealand Herald:

Team New Zealand have damaged their wingsail - a hi-tech and expensive piece of machinery - in a dramatic launch incident in the Viaduct this afternoon.

The incident occurred as the team were preparing to fit their wingsail to the platform of AC72 catamaran in gusty conditions. The 40m wing-sail needs to lifted into place by a crane - an extremely delicate process at the best of times.

A Team New Zealand spokesperson said as they were hoisting the sail, a big gust of wind blew across the the Viaduct, picking up the sail. The leading edge of the hard sail is understood to have clipped the side of the main building of Emirates Team New Zealand's base, ripping the skin and causing some rig damage.

Repeairs should take just a few days, and Oracle remains the champion when it comes to trashing a wing sail. But still. I definitely would not want to have been the guy explaining what happened to Grant Dalton.

Bonus link: ETNZ's Glenn Ashby talking about what it is like to trim the wing sail.

Update: ETNZ's wing is back in action, and a chastened shore team says "lesson learned." (video after the jump).

One of the more common questions I get about life aboard is, "How do you make it all fit?"  That's easy.  Step one: prioritize.  We follow a simple space allocation formula on Papillon.  I'll draw you a pie chart.

By: Mia

You will see it everywhere; the magazines are covered in tips how to get your boat ready for the spring.  Check your rig and mast if you had it out during the winter, check all running rigging, how is the engine doing after a winter in hibernation, any new leaks that need to be fixed? 

They seem to be getting the hang of it, but I doubt very much they are anywhere near as smooth as Emirates Team New Zealand. 

Still, nice to kow there might be a real race.

A big part of the allure and thrill of the sea is its capacity to form up into massive walls of water that reduce humans to awestruck little players on a stage of overwhelming scale.  

Just watch this mesmerizing homage to a mega-day at Teahupoo (via), and see if you can avoid both cringing and feeling a sense of wonder that these surfers even dare to ride:

BIGGEST TEAHUPOO EVER from UnFuzzy on Vimeo.

And then move onto this scene of humans facing a big sea in an entirely different context (via). Instead of whimpering, they are giddy with the excitement of it. That says it all.

We keep meaning to walk around town—get out and do something productive. But day after day Lowe wakes up from his nap and Ouest says, “I want to go swimming. Be a mermaid.” So off to the beach we go. Then we plan on going out for tacos for dinner, but by the time we get home from the beach we’re all sun-baked, tired, and ready to call it a night—so instead of tacos Ali whips up grilled cheese sandwiches and mounds of fruit. We eat, bathe, and go to bed. It’s incredible sometimes how quickly a day can disappear with these two around.

What does it cost to cruise? What's a reasonable amount to budget for a sail around the world? Is X amount enough to live comfortably on a sailboat? It doesn't matter how you word this question, we've heard them all a hundred times.

Well before Ali and I ever started cruising we kept track of our expenses. Closely. We have always been the type of people who would notice when there was a new ninety-nine cent charge on the electricity bill and then call to complain about it. Nothing irks us like getting pinched for a buck or two or five without our consent. And hey, knowing where your money goes should be the number one financial goal of everybody out there anyway. When people ask us how we afford to live the life we do our answer is rarely about how we make our money, and instead centers on knowing exactly how we spend our money. Making money is the easy part—most of us have been doing that since we were tweens—it's the spending money that causes problems.

The picture above is of the stern gallery of the HMS Implacable, on display at the UK National Maritime Musuem. It is all that is left of a ship of the line that was first launched by the French in 1800, and scuttled by the British in 1949, following WWII. Here's the Old Salt Blog:

She was originally the French Navy’s Téméraire-class ship of the line Duguay-Trouin, launched in 1800.  The Duguay-Trouin fought in and survived the Battle of Trafalgar, only to be captured by the British in the Battle of Cape Ortegal and renamed Implacable.  When scuttled in 1949,  HMS Implacable was the second oldest ship of the Navy after HMS Victory. There were major protests against her disposal, but given the post-War austerity, the British government decided against the cost of her restoration. In 1947 the British government had offered her to the French, who also declined the offer based on restoration costs.  The Implacable’s figurehead and stern galleries were removed prior to scuttling and are on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, while her capstan is on display at the maritime museum at Rochefort. The protests over the scuttling of HMS Implacable are believed to have contributed to the British government’s decision to preserve the clipper ship Cutty Sark.

At the time, I am sure, the scuttling made economic sense. But as you watch the video below it is hard not to feel sad at the sight of a majestic piece of history--the source no doubt of many stories of bravery, cowardice, sacrifice, and triumph--sinking beneath the waves.

It ia always moving to see a ship die. It is especially so when the ship has seen so much,  and it is being deliberately sent to the bottom.

Written by Ben Ellison on Mar 18, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub