SAIL.SailMagazine

Frostbite sailing is a cherished institution wherever there is winter weather, a body of water, and diehard sailors. So cherished, apparently, that a film-maker called Thurston Smith (why, oh why, couldn't his last name be Howell?) saw fit to make a documentary about it.

Sure, it's a limited audience. But for anyone who is part of that audience it looks like a pretty cool project. Here's the trailer:

Written by Ben Ellison on Mar 5, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

Scuttlebutt has published more from the surprisingly informative interview with Artemis honcho Paul Cayard (scroll down to find Part 2 if you have already read Part 1), and he digs even deeper into foiling, and the tradeoffs between losing displacemnt downwind and adding drag to your boards upwind.

This is the classic sort of America's Cup discussion, which could easily involve more than a few head fakes, so it's hard to know whether to take it all as gospel. But it's still pretty interesting, in a Kremlin-ology sort of way.

Here's a taste (but read the whole thing): 

With the focus on full foiling, it is important to recognize there are wind crossovers that impact the equation. If the winds are too light to fully foil, then the excessive drag caused by the foiling blades will be a big problem. While July and August are windy months on the Bay, September can offer a wider range of wind strength. The foiling package that works in the Louis Vuitton Cup (July 7 - Aug 31) may not work in the America's Cup (Sept 7-23).

So far no team has been able to fully foil upwind. We see it when reaching and running, but not closed hauled, and I don't think we will see it in this America's Cup. But remember, even if the boats are not fully foiling upwind, they are still foiling to a less degree. A good estimation is that about half of the boat's displacement is getting lifted when sailing upwind.

Meanwhile, here's Team New Zealand showing what it all means out on the water, and showing how the whole foiling thing is done, in a video shot by some non-spies (i.e, a couple of guys out for a fun day on the water). Note: the breeze was 12 knots.

This is what happens to the freezer when we plug into shore power for a few weeks. That’s the freezer—the fridge looks the same. We thawed them both out yesterday so they’ll hopefully work better when we get underway again. Our freezer is so ridiculously large and deep that we’ve filled the bottom half with big bottles of water. Our permanent ice box.

I really dislike cleaning this boat. There are just way too many nooks and crannies. This morning I spent ninety minutes washing it and when Ali got back with the kids she stepped aboard, looked around, and asked, “Did you clean the boat?”

–Sigh–

Okay, so I missed half of the dodger, and that half had a big pile of bird shit on it, but come on—did I clean the boat.

After the washdown I single-handed the boat a hundred yards to the fuel dock. Yep, you know what this means—time to go. Ali and the kids were off on their morning adventure and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t briefly consider filling up and sailing right out into the Pacific, but instead I returned to the dock, and in a couple of days we’ll all set sail again together.

I saw a terrible movie on an airplane once, which featured John Travolta, Tim Allen, and William H. Macy playing suburban dads who rode Harley-Davidsons on weekends. They'd made up matching leather jackets.  One day they were pulled over at a bend in the road when a real motorcycle gang rode by - about fifty of them - real meth dealing, bar fighting rebels. Once of the suburban dads said, "There they go, boys. That's the real deal."

Wow. In the world of Americas Cup racing you hardly ever hear straight talk about what's happening, especially after major setbacks. So kudos to Paul Cayard for giving Scuttlebutt's Craig Leweck an EXTREMELY (at least in AC terms) candid update on how wrong Artemis got the foiling issue, how much catching up Artemis has to do, and how they are going about it. 

Here's a taste:

Sailing against Oracle was a full-scale verification that we needed to make some pretty big changes, and that's what we are doing. We are taking it on. The good news is that we learned this in February and not in July. So we have some time to react. But we need to commit more to foiling.

When discussing foiling, it is important to understand that it is not black and white. It is a spectrum, and what we are really saying when we say 'foiling' is that we are reducing displacement of the boat. The lifting occurs through the foils on the rudder and the daggerboard design. On a spectrum between zero and the full weight of the boat, a fully foiling boat is lifting the full weight of the boat.

Our boat had J boards, and while they lift a percentage of our displacement, they do not lift all of it. The game of foiling is trading off the drag associated with the boards. The fully foiling boats use L boards, but both the surface area of these boards, and the tightness of the L board angle, create more drag than the J board. However, they also cause more lift.

So each team's design tools predicted what the cost of the drag would be, and what the benefit of the lift would be, and it is fair to say that we got it wrong. So now we are reacting. Our team has come together, and is fully committed to tackling this issue full on. 

There's lots more, and you can read the full thing here. It's a must-read on how the teams have been thinking

Ali was on the bus with Ouest today when a gringo guy said to her, “You must have just gotten here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re so white,” he replied indicating both her and Ouest.

“No, we’ve been here a while.”

“You must stay inside.”

“We actually live on a sailboat.”

Sometimes you are not just sharing the lineup with other humans. Would you stay so cool, when you look a bit like the seals the orcas are chasing?

I witnessed two moments of beauty at the awards lunch for the sailor of the year awards, AKA the ceremonials for US Sailing’s Rolex U.S. Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year.

Chagos, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is paradise for cruisers. Except for a giant US air base (which is on another island, which you're not allowed to go near, so you never even know it's there) the entire archipelago is uninhabited. Some cruisers marvel at the tropical idyll. Some snorkel and fish. Some play beach volleyball. Me? I take pictures of crabs.

The Daddy is, of course, the coconut crab. Stepping on one of these on the way to your dinghy in the dark will make an impression. Once one mistook my leg for a tree and started to climb me:

The internet age just keeps getting better. One of the hottest trends in the wired world is Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which allow anyone, anywhere with an internet connection to learn from the world's greatest professors.

Happily, that trend has (sort of) come to the world of sailboat racing, in the form of a series of tactics videos produced by Steve Hunt, a capable sailor and professional coach. The series uses the SailX online racing platform to work through key racing tactics (more about SailX here). 

They are especially useful if you are a SailX addict (and why aren't you?). But there are lots of insights that can help any racer on the course.

Here's the first one:

And here is number 2: 

Ali was taking Ouest out for her picnic today and asked where she wanted to go eat. “Aguafall.” Yeah, we call it a waterfall and she calls it an aguafall (though actually it is just a water fountain). Some of the Spanglish she invents is pretty unique but it makes us realize just how much she is soaking it all in. Both kids understand pretty much anything we say to them in Spanish.