Apparent Wind

This Old Hull Update

2013-01-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Soft decks are a very common problem with old Lasers. Over many years, the weight of the sailor in the middle of the deck leads to delamination of the sandwich structure. Instead of a tightly bonded sandwich of fiberglass – foam – fiberglass, the top layer loses the bond with the foam. This leaves the sailor supported by a 1/8” thick piece of fiberglass. The affected area widens over time with the repeated flexing of the soft deck.

Recently I have had two lasers suffering from this condition. Rather than attempt to cut a hole in the cockpit sidewall, and grind out and rebuild the sandwich construction, I elected to use the epoxy injection method described in Eric’s This Old Hull.

Unlike Eric, I had no confidence that I could maintain air pressure in the hull for 24 hours. I was using a pump designed to inflate water toys like ski tubes. The nozzle fit quite well into the transom drain hole, but I had no way to keep it there except tape. To control the pressure in the hull I taped over an inspection port and put small holes in the tape until the air pressure lifted the deck to flat, but no higher. I didn’t trust this crude pressure control system for more that 2 – 3 hours, which dictated a much faster process than Eric used.

Instead of a slow cure hardener (all West System products), I used a fast cure hardener. This meant I had to work a lot more rapidly. I got a helper to double the rate at which the holes could be injected with epoxy. I also used bigger holes, 1/8”, to get epoxy into the space faster. I used several batches of epoxy (4 pumps of resin and 4 pumps of hardener per batch) and between mixing and injecting, the two of us were still racing the clock to beat the set up time of the epoxy.

I was repairing two boats on both sides so I had four tries to perfect my process, and I tried to learn something each time. My primary concerns were making the process simple and straightforward and controlling things that affect the aesthetics of the finished product. I tried hard to hide the repairs and avoid the machine gun bullet holes look.

First, I used a 2” x 2” rectangular grid because it was much easier to lay out and I thought it looked a little less distracting to the eye than Eric’s 60 degree grid. On the first deck, I started by covering the entire area with masking tape and drawing on the tape. I then drilled the holes through the masking tape. Each time the depth stop on the drill bit hit the tape, it made a small tear in the tape. I learned later that this meant that some epoxy got on the deck, undermining the masking process. I also learned that until the tape comes off, you don’t really know how well it worked. TAKE IT OFF BEFORE THE EPOXY IS SO HARD IT CAN’T BE REMOVED.

Aesthetically, it is very important to keep excess epoxy off the deck. Much easier said than done. I spent more time on this than on the rest of the process.

As a result of what I learned on the first try, I resolved to drill the holes first and then apply the tape that protects the deck from epoxy overflow. I didn’t want to draw all over the deck, so I had to mask first, drill, remove the first tape and re-tape it. Half way through this I realized I could make a template for the holes and save a lot of time and trouble. This made a lot of sense with a second boat to fix. After drilling the holes, I taped the entire area with blue painters’ tape. I then punched holes in the tape. Just like Eric did, I clamped pieces of wood into place to keep the deck from arching upward when air pressure was applied.

Lessons learned for the second side:

Hanging chads from the tape can get stuck in the epoxy and leave little blue marks in the holes. Use standard masking tape.

When taking the tape off for a cleanup before the epoxy is cured, you have to work around the wood struts that hold the deck down. Plan carefully where the wood is located in relation to tape strips and holes.

Clean-up is a painstaking operation if you want a clean deck.

If you can catch the epoxy at the stage where it is still rubbery, but not rigid, you can used a razor blade scraper to remove excess. If there is a bump where a hole was filled, the scrapper cuts it off flush. This is the perfect way to get the holes completely filled and absolutely flat.

I learned another good lesson when I went to West Marine for more resin and hardener:

There is an additive for the epoxy which makes the color white. It turns out that mixing the slightly yellow resin/hardener solution with white additive yields an almost perfect color match for off white decks. When done well, the filled holes can be just about invisible.

Employing all the lessons learned so far, I advanced to side one of boat two. In the universe’s unrelenting desire for me to learn new things, a new problem arose. The process of putting epoxy in one hole, forcing the air out of the next hole until epoxy came out of that hole, broke down. With several of the holes, the air never stopped coming, and, in fact, was a steady stream of perceptibly moving air. As I injected epoxy into these holes, air bubbled through the epoxy until the epoxy settled and disappeared. There was a break somewhere between the pressurized hull and the bottom side of the sandwich. This was undermining the ability of the pressure inside the hull to push up the bottom half of the sandwich and make a tight seal. With no good solutions apparent, I had no choice but to keep filling the holes trying to fill as much of the void as possible. This used a lot more epoxy and made the clean-up that much more tedious. The next day the deck was firm, but a few holes still remained and had to be filled.

With some of the imperfections, I thought I would try gel coat to pretty up the filled holes. There are three pitfalls to this. It can be difficult to achieve a color match. It is difficult to apply one drop of gel coat and achieve a not concave, not convex, but flat finish. The scraper method of clean-up does not work at all. When the gel coat is rubbery, it all comes off in a ball, and when it is firmer, the blade can’t cut through it. Over all, I concluded that gel coat was more trouble than it was worth. (Gel coat is required to prevent breakdown of the epoxy from ultraviolet light. Because I keep my boats covered when not in use, I don’t think either I or the boat will live long enough for this to become a problem.)

Side two of boat two went smoothly. When all was said and done, both boats have rock solid decks (at the cost of a couple of pounds of weight gain) and cosmetically acceptable scars, some better looking than others.

Standard masking tape, white epoxy additive, and using a razor blade scraper at the right time are the keys to getting the best look.

The Business of Sailing vs. the Interests of Sailors

2013-01-02T13:54:00.000-05:00

I used to think that a winning business strategy was that doing what is best for the customers is what is best for the business. Win–win. The long term loyalty of customers will reap long term rewards for the bottom line of the business. I thought this worked particularly well in one-design sailing where customers bought new sails, spare parts, upgrades, and new boats, frequently replacing perfectly serviceable boats.

The strategy works well in the first one-design class I joined – Flying Scots. The builder makes an incredibly high quality durable product. Parts are always in stock and shipped immediately. Flying Scot Inc. brings spare parts to major regattas and sometimes delivers new boats there. The company owner runs seminars on setting up and tuning the boat for racing. There is no doubt that the company is doing everything it can to serve the customers, and there is no doubt that the customers love the company. There are no accusations that prices are unfair. The customers want to pay enough to keep the company profitable. The class association does everything it can to support the builder, and the builder tenaciously supports the one-design goals of the association. Even in the midst of a sluggish economy and an arguably overall decline in small boat sailing, it all works.

When I first got into Laser sailing, it seemed like it all worked there too. Vanguard was a strong builder, the class association was strong, serving both the builder and its members, and the sailors were among the most talented and enthusiastic in the world. I was in love again.

Vanguard is also the builder of 420s, the boats we use in high school sailing. When I began coaching, there were a few issues with the boats, but parts were readily available and the service network worked well.

Maybe I was just naive, or maybe things began to change. With Lasers, I found $500 sails turned into rags in a year or less. With 420s, I found myself doing lots of repairs, and usually the same things over and over again. The hull flexed to the point where keelsons cracked and tank/ hull joints separated or broke. I had to reinforce the back corners to prevent them from fracturing or even snapping off whenever there was contact with another boat. Autobailers leaked and/or cut the feet of sailors, and we removed them. The hull /deck joint routinely needed to be reinforced after collisions.

As a sailor, I try to be understanding about one-design sailing issues. Prices need to be high enough (or higher) to support the builder, and design shortcomings take a long time to correct. But now that Laser-Performance has taken over, there seem to be even more price, quality, and service issues. My list is anecdotal, but it seems like there are way too many anecdotes:

The overpricing of the Laser sail seems permanent, and the controversy over Intensity sails and fully class legal sails goes on

The Laser sail re-design has stalled

The Bruce Kirby struggle seems intractable

The only 2 brand new lasers I have seen this year both came missing many of the parts

I hear stories of difficulty getting Laser parts, Sunfish parts, and finding a class legal Sunfish sail

I have a friend who had difficulty finding a new Sunfish to buy

I note a lack of interest in improving the 420 design in general and rejection of MIT’s offer a few years ago to fund engineering for a new design in particular (MIT worked with Rondar to produce a much improved 420)

I see a number of people losing faith in LP and buying boats from up and coming Zim

I know sometimes business is hard and things go wrong, but is LP really trying to do a good job for us sailors? Do they still love me, or is this a one sided affair?

And then there is this news from college sailing…

Recently the ICSA (Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association) has sparked a major uproar in the way it has renewed its sponsorship agreement with Laser-Performance. As in the previous agreement, LP will supply new Lasers for both the men’s and women’s single-handed national championships. LP will also provide some media coverage support and some unspecified cash for the association and/or host venues. This may involve larger amounts of money than in the past, but the details are confidential, as is customary in this type of agreement. What is different in this eight year deal is a requirement that all double-handed national championships and semi-finals leading to those championships must be held in LP boats.

No one should expect a boat manufacturer to fund an event held in someone else’s boats. In the previous agreement, LP withheld cash from the host school if other boats were used. Schools paid a price for using another brand, but found ways to get sufficient support from other sources to host national events. Now, they are specifically prohibited from hosting these events.

On Sail1 Airwaves, you can read the written volleys in the controversy.

Okay, LP’s competition gets screwed. (There would have been no competition if LP had worked to improve the boats and respond to the expressed desires of the customers.) Maybe that’s just business, but what about the ultimate constituency, the sailors? This agreement is very tough on schools currently owning other brands of boats and on the sailors at those schools. It’s also hard to see how sailors are better off in the old, tired LP design when improved products are available from Zim and Rondar. In sailing’s most visible event, the America’s Cup, innovation is everything. But not in college sailing. The ICSA leaders are making an exclusive bargain that is good for business at the expense of many of the schools, sailors and coaches. Don’t take it personally, sailors. It’s strictly business.

Is it impossible to have a win–win relationship with a boat builder in this complicated world? More and more it looks like LP is pursuing a corporation-wins, who-cares-about-the-customers policy. Show me I’m wrong. Show me the love.

How Oily Are Your Sails?

2012-12-06T07:49:00.000-05:00

I have been buying Laser sails for years – about one per year. I never gave a thought about where they were made. There was no significant difference in geography between North sails made in Sri Lanka and Intensity sails made in China. They were both a continent and an ocean away. There is a big difference in price, but transportation is not a cause of any of that. What difference does transportation and burning oil make in this “attention Walmart shoppers” price-is-everything culture?

As I have been shopping for new sails for our high school 420 fleet, more options have become available. I have gotten quotes from several big name sail companies, who shall remain nameless, and it seems they all make their sails overseas. I learned that one doesn’t even have their corporate headquarters in this country or even on this continent. One local/national/international company makes some sails in the Caribbean, while the others use the same counties as above with the addition of Thailand. But I have also been in touch with one independent sailmaker who still runs a small shop and actually makes sails. He has found a niche in small, one design boats and appears to be doing quite well. He is the premier “go to” sailmaker for at least one class. He is not the cheapest option, but not the most expensive either.

While buying sails is a matter of service and value, maybe it is about some other things as well. I will leave the matter of big corporation versus small independent business for another time. But having this choice has gotten me thinking about the many miles of transportation and barrels of oil that go into our sails in particular and the globalized world in general. It seems crazy that shipping things around the world in the pursuit of cheap labor makes economic sense, but the evidence is clear. We sailors choose globalization.

So what if we burn a little bit of oil shipping things from Asia? It must be a small amount given that, from what I can glean from rates for shipping containers, it seems to cost only $3 - $5 to get a set of sails across the Pacific when they are shipped in volume. A bargain at double the price. Not much of a financial incentive to buy local.

But we are a little deeper into oil than that. First, our Dacron sails are made from oil. I don’t know how much oil, but every thread is synthetic, oil derived material.

Second, the manufacturing process involves more than a one way trip. Wondering just how long that trip was, I decided to trace the travel of the Dacron for just one of the corporate sailmakers quoting our sails. They proudly proclaim that they use only Challenge Dacron sailcloth manufactured in Vernon, Connecticut. Challenge proudly proclaims that they use IW70 Dacron thread made by Performance Fibers in North Carolina.

So let’s trace the journey - from making the thread in North Carolina to hoisting a sail in Boston. (I’m ignoring the travels of the oil from God knows where, to a refinery, to North Carolina.)

North Carolina to Connecticut – 650 miles

Connecticut to LA for shipping overseas – 2900 miles
LA to China – 7900 miles
Travel inside China - ?????
China to LA – 7900 miles
LA to Boston – 3000 miles

Total – 22,350 miles (just shy of a lap around the equator)

Am I crazy to think this is excessive?

Should we think about how much oil goes into our plastic boats? At least the plastic boats I have been using are made in nearby Rhode Island. It could be worse. There is a company that makes 420 hulls in China. Right now, Laser Performance is shipping Lasers from England while the Rhode Island factory is busy making Sunfish and 420s.

It seems likely that there is more oil involved in each of our sailboats than there is in the gasoline powered chase boat I use. I wonder how much gas has to be burned before it evens out.

So much for our romantic ideas about our environmentally friendly sport. Those days involved wooden boats and cotton sails, and very few of us want to go back there.

The Self-Imposed Agony of Defeat

2012-08-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

Remember the old TV sports show, Wide World of Sports? Its introductory catch-phrase was “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” What I remember most is the concurrence of the phrase “agony of defeat” and the video of a skier crashing through a fence on a missed landing from an enormous ski jump. I was convinced the guy broke several bones and/or suffered a debilitating head injury.

At this year’s Olympics, “the agony of defeat” took on a whole new meaning. Instead of describing a horrible failure in the execution of a sports skill, it better described the silver medalists’ reaction to the scoring and the podium presentations. The silver medalists accomplished amazing things and had spectacular performances, but one person in a world of 6,790,000,000 had a very slightly better performance. It was absolutely crushing.

For most of us, especially us very competitive folks, it is easy to understand the disappointment of getting so close to victory and then finishing second because of one small imperfection. For Chinese athletes, the emotions extend to letting down the entire country of 600,000,000 people and whole communist/capitalist system of government. (Are we still doing national medal counts because we are trying to prove that democracy is better than communism, or the other way around, or is it just nationalism?)

Personally, I quite naturally slip into thinking that there is one winner and everyone else is a loser. That makes me, and probably many of you, a loser almost all of the time. I am right at home feeling inadequate and unworthy. I relate to grumpy silver medal ~~winners~~ losers more than gold medal winners, and even more to devastated fourth place non-podium ~~Olympic Games participants~~ bigger losers …. I attribute my reaction to lack of affection and unconditional approval from my parents, and consider it a character defect – one more inadequacy. I had no idea that so many suffer from the same malady.

At the highest level of sport, it seems very competitive athletes can turn something they love and excel at into a miserable grind with a painful payoff. Just once I would like to hear an athlete say “I loved the four years of training” and the competition at the Olympics was “the most exhilarating experience of my life even though I didn’t win gold.” Instead they talk about all the grueling work and how bad they “want it.” For all but one, they are some of the world’s best examples of the Buddhist principle that “desire causes suffering.” Even for the one, there seems to be a lot of agony in victory.

So let’s CUT IT OUT! Playing sports is fun! Getting better at something is satisfying. Playing the game is a fascinating challenge in itself. Can’t that be enough? Get some perspective.

It’s therapeutic to say that, but saying and doing are different things. A week ago, I spent the afternoon racing my laser in about 17 knots of wind. I would have been comfortable in my radial, but the wind looked to be only 10 when we went out, so we all sailed full rigs. Most of us were totally overpowered. It was a hard day of racing, perhaps even miserable. Every upwind was a slow, painful, poorly sailed grind. Speed and positions were determined by sailor weight. The same guy (not me) was out front every time. I never even challenged him. Only grievous errors like terrible tacks and knots in mainsheets changed the finishing order of us lightweights. After about two-thirds of our usual sailing time, we had all had it.

Once on shore, I realized that it had never even occurred to me to enjoy all that wind by taking a few minutes to go off on a screaming planing reach just for fun. It hadn’t occurred to any of us. Our mindset was that racing and trying to win were everything, even when there was very little competition. I ended my day feeling like an exhausted, unsatisfied silver medalist.

Of course racing is fun and challenging and full of goodness. But some days, maybe sailing should just be this:

An Incomplete and Non-scientific Guide to Finding Yourself a Sailing Helmet Part 2- Selecting a Sailing Helmet

2012-08-07T10:32:00.000-04:00

In view of the colossal failure in manufacturer marketing of sailing helmets, I thought it might be helpful to those with some interest to share what I have learned about available helmets.

The world of helmets is surprisingly large. There seems to be a helmet for everything – biking, skiing, skateboarding, surfing, windsurfing, hockey, girls’ soccer, kayaking, whitewater rafting, and on and on. (By the way, when I was young, all of these things were done without helmets.)

As I started to look around at this multifaceted world, I was lucky to stumble onto some marketing from a kayak helmet manufacturer telling me that their foam padding is wonderful because it does not absorb water. Foam in other helmets turns into a sponge when wet, and sponges are neither good padding nor comfortable on the head. Ah ha! The helmet world is divided, and watersport helmet land is the place to look.

Every kind of helmet I looked at claimed it was rugged and safe. There is a standard certification, the CE 1385 international standard for headgear for whitewater sports, which indicates if a helmet is safe enough. They all seem to have it, but one should actually verify. Mostly I go by the pictures. If people wear a particular helmet to kayak over waterfalls or surf 40 foot waves, it is good enough for me. Also, my point of comparison for ruggedness and safety is the baseball hat I have been wearing – a pretty low standard.

Turns out helmet safety is closely related to how well the thing actually stays on the head during impacts. Helmets that move around aren’t so safe. One universal in this snug fit concept is that there needs to be support of the occipital lobe, the back of the head a little below the equator. There are two approaches to this. One is an adjustable strap and the other is a helmet that extends down behind the head a couple of inches further down than a baseball hat. The majority of kayak helmets use the first method. The bowling ball shaped helmets use the latter.

As a laser sailor, I have a very specific need for a low profile helmet. In any boat with a low boom, there is a tradeoff between seeking protection from a bump and making one’s head bigger and higher to more likely receive that bump. Minimal distance between the top of my head and the top of the helmet is imperative. This criterion eliminates many kayak helmets that otherwise appear to be durable and well designed. The biggest problem is that only a few models are called “low profile”, and even then, the term is undefined. You are left guessing from pictures that were never intended to show what you are looking for.

A helmet for sailing ought to be comfortable. It ought to be unobtrusive, lightweight, and not cause overheating or sweating. Many helmets have holes for ventilation. For those of us replacing a baseball hat with a helmet, the helmet should have a visor to keep sun out of the eyes. The internet can show us some of this but determining if a particular helmet is too hot or otherwise uncomfortable requires trying it on and testing it out.

And maybe it matters what the helmet looks like and how it affects our image. Let’s face it, sailors don’t want to appear dorky. Since sailing pros are definitely not dorky, I wanted to know what they are wearing. Part 1 of this blog post covers some of this. So, having determined some of the things a sailing helmet ought to be, I tried a few out.

Shred Ready “Sesh”. I bought this helmet for kids on my sailing team after a few concussions and weeks of missed sailing time. It’s a kayak helmet with applicable foam and safety certification. It is sold in sizes with an adjustable occipital strap to make it secure. It has no shims, so the fit is not quite perfect, but it is good enough. It’s lightweight and has a low profile. The protective foam is covered with a fabric that eliminates the clingy, somewhat sticky feeling of foam. There are small gaps in the lining that promote air/water flow through the 11 ventilation holes. It’s comfortable and unobtrusive to wear. In terms of image, it is a skateboard helmet (very round and no visor) adapted to watersports. Maybe that is a good look for kids. The price is great, $39, the least expensive helmet I considered.

Predator “Lee”. This kayak helmet looks like a baseball hat which is apparently a cool look in the adventure kayak world. Unfortunately, this helmet does not work at all for me. It is too narrow for my head and even with ample shims, it does not fit right. Although it was billed as a low profile design, it has a higher profile than any others I tried. It also feels a bit heavy compared to others. I had to send this one back. Price $129.

ProTec “Ace”. I tried this one on in a local REI store. They had a grand total of 1 in stock. Not a big seller. It is a spherical type with a tight fit all around. It is sold in several sizes and allows minor adjustments for sizing. The one I tried was a good fit. It is low profile and lightweight. It has 16 ventilation holes and seems like it would do the job. It does not have a visor of any kind, so it is not right for me, but it is the choice of Emeritus Team New Zealand. Price $45. A model with adjustable occipital strap is $65.

Gath “Gedi.” This is my current favorite, and I wear mine quite often. Gath helmets are spherical and come from the world of surfing. They seem to be the helmet of choice for surfing, windsurfing, and kiteboarding. They have the usual foam and safety certification. They come in several sizes, and the fit is quite snug with three interchangeable wrap around head band pieces to get a good fit. The “Gedi” weighs less than a pound and its cousin, the “Surf”, weighs even less. Gath prides itself on being low profile, and they are. I bought the “Gedi” model because it comes with a removable visor. It has vent holes at the top, but they are much smaller than those on the “Ace” or the “Sesh”. I was afraid the snug fitting foam headband and smaller vents would make it too hot, but it was surprisingly comfortable when I wore it in 90 degree weather. However, when the wind dropped below 5 MPH, it was hot – but isn’t every hat? I have since tried a sweat resistant headband under the helmet and this feels cooler. The “Gedi” also comes with plugs for the vents when used in cooler months and insertable ear protectors. Apparently surfers can burst eardrums in a fall, but I currently can’t get my laser to go fast enough to worry about that. In terms of image, I am aware that I am wearing the helmet of AC 45 sailors, but I’m not sure others realize how cool this makes me.

Shred Ready “Supper Scrappy.” Eric is trying out this model and seems to like it. It is a baseball hat style, but with a much smaller visor. In addition to the standard safety certification, Shred Ready uses a different foam that is even better at impact resistance. I was surprised to discover that it has as low a profile as any I have seen. It has an occipital strap and shims to get a good fit. Its baseball hat styling may be less jarring to those not used to seeing sailing helmets. It looks like another good choice.

Okay. I have done my best to market helmets that work for sailing, but I’m sure there are more helmets well suited to this purpose. If there are any manufacturers out there who want an honest opinion and perhaps my invaluable endorsement of their product, you are most welcome to send me a helmet to test drive.

"Respect" the line?

2012-08-02T17:19:00.002-04:00

Why can’t sailing instructions just say what they mean and mean what they say? If the sailors know what the race committee means to say, but they haven’t said what they mean, then what are the rules? What the RC means? Or what the Sailing Instructions say? Of course, it has to be what the Regatta’s SI’s say. But when the RC can’t say what they mean, it frequently follows that is the SI’s are confusing, incomplete, self-contradictory, or just nonsensical.

Case in point:

The Sailing Instructions at a recent regatta I attended describe the start and the finish lines and then add this sentence in bold typeface: “Before and After starting, Yachts shall respect the starting and finishing lines except when in the process of starting of finishing.” (Capitalizations are theirs.)

One of the course diagrams is the following:

I think this is all an attempt to say that the start/finish line is closed. “Closed” is a commonly used expression meaning that boats racing cannot cross it when heading from one mark of the course to the next mark of the course. Closed lines are used for two reasons. One is to make things easier for the scorer; when a boat crosses the line, write down the number; the boat is finished. (Of course when that boat crosses the line again, someone has to sort it all out.) The other is to minimize the interference of boats sailing in different fleets or on different legs of the same course.

Given that this instruction was written for a situation where up to 4 fleets would be on the same course, I think it is safe to say that there was an appropriate concern for interference between fleets. My opinion is that careful spacing of the starts and the use of courses that separate fleets are far more effective tools to accomplish the goal, but many also use a closed line as a tool. Even a closed line does not guarantee boats will not interfere with each other, but it should reduce it. (For the regatta in question, the RC very successfully spaced the starts so there was never anything remotely like interference in the vicinity of the start/finish line.)

Although the goal of minimal interference is noble, and the closed line is a tool for accomplishing the goal, the Sailing Instructions still need to say exactly what is intended and prevent any unforeseen consequences. Dick Rose does a great job of explaining all the possible unintended consequences and proposing sailing instruction wording to avoid them. Just for fun, let’s look carefully at what these particular Sailing Instructions say and the problems they could cause:

* * *

First, there are the problems with closed lines that Dick Rose points out.

e.g. A boat who believes she is OCS, but is not, and returns to the line has broken the rule. The line actually becomes an obstruction for sailors except at a start or finish. However, because safety is not involved, a boat cannot hail for room to tack at this obstruction, somewhat changing the RRS and possible racing tactics.

Then, “Before and after starting” means at all times except at the exact instant of starting. This includes sailing in the prestart, sailing the course after the start, and all the time before racing, after racing and in between races – virtually the entire day. Let’s just replace the phrase with “at all times.” By making this provision in force at all times, any boat that crosses the line while sailing around in between races should be disqualified. But in which race does the DSQ apply, the prior one or the next one? This prohibition could apply even if no races are currently in progress. Do they really mean this? Could I have protested every boat that did this? (I could have been the only boat left!) A boat protested for this would have no way to exonerate herself, because it is not a Part 2 rule.

Next, the word “respect” seems very peculiar, and I can’t recall seeing it used in a sailing context before. “Respect” is certainly not a term defined in the RRS, so standard dictionary definitions apply. The first definition in my Oxford dictionary (verb) is “regard with deference, esteem or honor.” Should we salute the line? The second and closer definition is “avoiding interfering with, harming, degrading, insulting, injuring or interrupting.” Okay, it looks like non-interference is the point. But must we respect the line, not the boats? Is it supposed to mean “don’t cross the line” or “don’t interfere with starters and finishers?” If the intent is the first, why not just use the word ”cross”, instead of respect, like everyone else does? If the intent is the latter, the rules become very problematic. Would avoiding a starter or finisher override the RRS? Imagine a starboard boat having to keep clear of a port boat. Do they really mean this?

And the pièce de résistance is the combination of this peculiar wording with the course diagram above. The diagram shows the second windward leg passing through the starting line in direct contradiction to what I think was intended. This could have mattered in our regatta. In one race, the first place boat informed the second place boat that the line was closed. Both went around the line. I was in third, didn’t hear and went right through the line. Had I been disqualified, which I wasn’t, could I claim that I sailed the course as diagrammed and the other boats failed to do so, resulting in their disqualification and my reinstatement?

* * *

In the regatta having these SI’s, I sailed over the start line …… I was not disqualified. Why? Was it because I saluted the line as I went through it or because I didn’t interfere with any starter or finishers? Perhaps the use of the word “respect” was a clever way to leave the line open except when there could be interference with starters or finishers. Probably it was because the RC was not keeping a close eye out for enforcing the rule at times when a closed line was completely unnecessary. Why would the RC even think about it with boats spread out all over the course and no one interfering with anyone else? Seems to me that selective enforcement, which creates a fundamental problem with any rule, could be a frequent result.

In general, I hate the whole idea of a closed line. As we see here and in the Dick Rose article, it is difficult to write the SI’s to say what needs to be said. It is too easy to create a rules disaster that may have no good resolution, and so it is too easy to cause selective enforcement.

I don’t like the idea of adding an obstruction in the middle of the race course. Usually it forces an early commitment to picking one side or the other, not allowing the sailors to play shifts and puffs for a certain period of the race.

And I think it is unnecessary. It is the least effective of the available tools in preventing fleet interference. Timing the starts correctly works very well. If the RC makes a mistake, it can always abandon a starting sequence and start a new one when traffic clears. Using courses that separate fleets also works extremely well. Trapezoid courses and box shaped courses have separate windward- leeward legs so fleets do not run into each other. My yacht club is using these course with great success; never any interference.

But if you insist on a closed line, for heaven’s sake, please write the Sailing Instructions properly and communicate clearly with the sailors.

yarg

Regatta Scoring and Tiebreakers

2012-07-29T11:34:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I sailed in a small local regatta with two of my regular sailing buddies, Judy (the Center of Effort blogger) and Eric (Apparent Wind author). We are all about the same skill level and usually take turns beating the other. We all went to Cabarete last January for some coaching, and we all hoped to somehow make a quantum leap in our performance this year. Until last weekend, there were no leaps.

Then on Saturday, Judy leapt. Her speed downwind was blowing me away, and she was clearly the fastest sailor in the regatta off the wind. Center of Effort has recently featured interviews and advice on downwind sailing from two of the country’s top laser sailors, Clay Johnson and Ben Richardson. I read the blogs, but so far, no leaping on my part. Judy must be a better reader than I, because she has figured out how to transform words into boat speed.

She beat me by one or two places five out of seven times on the weekend. The last race on Saturday was out of character with all the others. I was lucky enough to win the start, get to the first mark with a lead, and hang on downwind, beating a “clearly better sailor” who won all of the other races. Judy, who had finished second in all of the previous four races, worked the boat a little too hard downwind, capsized, and finished 6^th.

With a 5 point spread in one race our scores suddenly became close. Judy wasn’t worried because she thought she could throw out the bad race. I clung to hope by recalling that the sailing instructions had said that all races would be counted. None of us could find our copy of the sailing instructions, but we were all clear that Judy had beaten us on the day by either scoring system. The only question was by how much. The next morning we checked the interim results, and sure enough, there was a throw-out. I didn’t know whether to doubt my reading skills or doubt the race committee who demonstrated problems with their scoring in previous years.

In my competitive spirit, I told myself all I needed to do the second day was beat her every time and hope there were a lot of races. It turned out there were only two races on Sunday. I beat her in the first race by two places and she beat me in the second by what seemed like ¼ mile, but only one place. I congratulated Judy on her second place finish in the regatta. (The “clearly better sailor” had first place locked up.) I was both happy for her and envious in terms of her substantial improvement in sailing skills.

I didn’t stay for the awards. Last year, it was a two hour wait. Judy didn’t stay either and apparently, there were no awards. Judy watched the internet for final results and on Friday, they were finally published. There in black and white, the results declared that Judy finished third and I finished second. Say what?????? How could that be? For five days (and to this day), we all agreed Judy had sailed a great regatta and had beaten all except the superstar who won 6 of 7 races.

It was as if the Russian figure skating judge had given me an obviously biased perfect score that vaulted me to an undeserved silver medal. I’m sure we all looked for some giant mistake in recording one of the races, but they were all correct. But, unlike the interim results, all races were counted in the final scoring – no throw-outs. The results for second were a tie between me and Judy, and according to the RRS tiebreaking system, I won the tie.

This was disconcerting in two ways. The first was that, with the exclusion of throw-outs, the rules of the game seemed to change after the fact, and the second was that it is unusual and perhaps unfair that one sailor can beat another 5 of 7 times and lose.

For a race committee to say one thing, do another, and then go back to the first option is unusual (fortunately for me) and gives the appearance that they make up the rules as they go along. Also, in this case, the scoring system seems arbitrary. We sail the races, and then someone makes up scores.

The rules in one sense ARE arbitrary. I coach high school sailing and have some familiarity with college sailing, and each of these have somewhat different methods of keeping score and different methods of breaking ties.

The first difference is the inclusion or exclusion of throw-outs. RRS has them, high school and college sailing don’t. (RRS also allows for no throw-outs if stated in the sailing instructions.) More often than not, throw-outs do not alter the regatta finishes, but sometimes they do.

The next difference is the varying tiebreaker hierarchies.

RRS tiebreakers

1. Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

2. Score of last race

College tiebreakers

1. Head to head

2. Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

3. Score of last race

High School tiebreakers

1. Head to head

2. Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

3. For first place, there must be a sail-off. For all other places, the tie remains.

Thankfully, most of the finishing places in a regatta are determined on the water and remain the same regardless of the scoring system used. Beyond that, it would be nice if we could all agree how to score close racing, but we can’t. Different rules will declare different winners.

RRS has no place at all for head to head results, but they are the first tiebreaker for high school and college. With no throw outs, head to head seems like a just, clear and decisive way to pick a winner, but when there are throw-outs, there are fewer head to head races and perhaps it is not so clear.

It was very clear in our regatta last weekend. The outcome of the battle between Judy and me was determined by rules more than better sailing.

RRS with throw-out – Judy wins by 2 points

College Rules – Judy wins head to head 5-2

High School rules – Judy wins head to head 5-2

RRS with no throw-out – I win it in a tiebreaker with one first and one second to her four seconds

This doesn’t feel like winning.

I can’t even think about high point scoring (AC 45 fleet racing), the high point percentage system, the Cox Sprague scoring system, and the low point bonus point system.

Then there is the Olympic scoring system which shortens the last race (medal race) and counts it double. The result of the last race is also the tiebreaker. In a ten boat medal race, the winner would get two points and the last place finisher would get 20 and not be able to throw it out. Consider an18 point swing when Anna Tunnicliff won gold with a regatta total of only 37 points. A gold medal winner could conceivably lose more races head to head, have fewer first place finishes, and win the gold medal based mostly on this one race. The gold medal winner will be famous, and his/her life will change forever. The silver medal winner will likely think about scoring systems.

An Incomplete and Non-Scientific Guide to Finding Yourself a Sailing Helmet

2012-07-25T15:56:00.000-04:00

Part 1- Where is the Marketing?

Isn’t one of the cornerstones of America culture a rampant commercialism- the need to sell stuff to people, all kinds of stuff, whether they need it or not, whether they have the money to buy it or not? Why then, when I truly feel I need something, is no one trying to sell it to me? Someone is dropping the ball here.

I have been yearning to buy sailing helmet. Tillerman says helmets are cool. They make a superior sailing hat. Volvo ocean racers wear them. AC 45 crews all have to wear them. Kids, at the insistence of their parents, wear them to minimize concussions from forceful, unintended contact with a rapidly moving boat part. There are lots of good reasons.

It’s about time someone started marketing sailing helmets. I’m not asking that anyone actually give a lot of thought to designing, or redesigning, a helmet just for sailing. That’s a lot to ask. Caveat Emptor for the consumers. But can’t someone just rebrand the helmets they already have and sell them to sailors? Sailors are curious, if not eager, for information about helmets as they see helmeted sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race and the AC 45’s series. I’m no expert in marketing, but it seems to me that helmet manufacturers have an unprecedented opportunity to promote themselves as “the” sailing helmet. They need to point out why a sailing helmet is the most urgently needed piece of gear we don’t already own and suggest that their product will best fill that particular void in our sailing experience, making us feel warm and fuzzy all over. And they need to convince us that helmets are cool.

At first blush, it might seem difficult to advocate the need for a helmet without suggesting that sailing is a dangerous sport, but any good marketer should be able to spin “dangerous” into “exciting and adventurous.” Any exciting and adventurous sport requires gear, and who wouldn’t want all the great gear that goes with it?

Good marketing associates gear with professionals and their accomplishments. With the latest wave of prominent sailors wearing helmets, how hard would it be to sell us the same headgear our heroes use? If the pros use helmets, then I want a helmet too! One would think the manufacturers would at least utilize pictures of these sailing elites sporting their products. Gath is the only one I have seen do this. They have a video of Oracle wearing their hats. (Unfortunately, Oracle has since switched to using a Red Bull advertisement on a Bern helmet.)

The Volvo Ocean Race and the America’s Cup 45 races provide lots of marketing images for manufacturers to use. Let me help some of the companies who are not helping themselves. Gath and ProTec seem to be the most popular, but many manufactures are represented. My apologies for any mistakes in my attempt to play Name that Helmet.

Volvo Ocean Racer wearing a Gath Retractable Full Visor Helmet

Emeritus Team New Zealand with 3 Protec "Ace" helmets and one Predator "Lee" helmet

Oracle with 5 Gath "Surf" helmets and one ProTec "Ace" helmet

Nathan Otteridge of Team Korea with a Gath "Surf Convertible" helmet

Lune Rosa skipper with a Sweet Strutter helmet

Close up of a ProTec "Ace" sometimes used by Oracle

Oracle's new Red Bull helmets by Bern

Artemis AC Team wearing hard to find POC "Receptor Bug" helmets

So, where is the marketing? Isn’t anyone proud that the best sailors in the world use their helmets?

If the professional racer/ helmet connection is not enough, what about the beautiful bodies connection? If scantily dressed supermodels wore helmets while sailing off exotic beaches, wouldn’t you be more inclined to use one?

yarg

Hard Hats

2012-06-04T13:16:00.000-04:00

Is sailing crawling along the path of becoming a helmet sport?

Many of us have an immediate, perhaps visceral, negative reaction to the idea that sailing has risks significant enough to warrant the wearing of helmets. We who have been sailing helmetless for thirty years have a natural suspicion about the idea. Have we been living on the edge of danger for all these years, and have we been oblivious to the inherent risks of our sport? Or, are we just close minded about new ways of thinking?

“Concuss”, to injure by concussion, is now a common word in the vocabulary of high school sailors on my team. When I was a kid in a bike accident that I can’t recall and that accounted for a whole week I don’t remember, I “got” a concussion. Nothing concussed me, and I did not concuss myself. There were no verbs. No connection between an action and a result.

Now, probably as a result of new findings about America’s favorite gladiator-like sport, football, everyone knows a lot about concussions and the acts of “concussing”. As a coach, I’m annually required to earn a certificate from CDCI showing that I am knowledgeable about concussions and their treatments. I must file a report of every clonk on the head received by one of my students.

On my team, we had one sailor concuss himself in the fall and two skippers concuss their crews in the spring. Two years ago, we had a full “call the paramedics and go to the hospital” concussion. In all cases, kids were out of school for a while and out of sailing for weeks. The first concussed student returned wearing a snowboarding helmet. It turns out that people are more susceptible to long term injury with each successive concussion and especially susceptible to injury if a new concussion occurs before the first is totally healed. Concerns over this are now so significant that I bought a helmet for returning concussed sailors to wear for at least a week after they resume sailing. And over the last few years, I have seen a few kids in high level events sporting helmets. They were all kinds of helmets - snowboarding helmets, bicycle helmets, hockey helmets, and skateboard helmets. I bought a kayak helmet, figuring that a watersport helmet would be a better idea.

I have no idea what type it is, but I think this red one is the coolest.

See Tillerman’s collection of other cool helmets.

I remained suspicious that pilot error accounted for our team’s injuries, and that proficient sailors have miniscule risk of injury. Then there was the day at Cabarete when the wind completely died but the waves remained at 4 to 6 feet. I repeatedly failed to duck as I bobbed in the waves and my boom jumped to and fro. I took several shots to the side of the head. I was shocked that I experienced concussion symptoms the next morning and had to skip a day of sailing. Pilot error again, but this time I was the pilot.

And then there is the Lynn Shore incident. Her very serious clonk may have been pilot error, but not hers, and it may have just been a result of a congested racing situation where all the sailors involved were very competent.

Combining the availability of a helmet and substantial anecdotal evidence that helmets might be helpful, I thought I would try one out. My initial assumptions were that the helmet would be too hot, generally uncomfortable, make it harder to get under the boom while tacking, and look silly. (My wife says I look silly in all hats, so not much to lose there.) The first try was a solo session in wind of 7 – 12 MPH. The helmet was quite comfy in all respects. Because of the chin strap and good fit, it stayed in place – a nice change from the baseball hat that I fidget with and sometimes have to rescue after a blow off. Surprisingly, although the helmet had no bill, it protruded just enough to close the gap above my sunglasses and keep out glare. And my tacks were no worse or concussive than usual.

Yesterday, I raced wearing the helmet in wind of 12 – 20MPH. Comfy again. I even tested it with an inadvertent, but quite substantial shot from the boom. (Pilot error remains a problem.) The clonk hurt a little even with the helmet, but I would have seen stars without it.

I’m still concerned that I can’t look like a cool Laser sailor if I wear a helmet. I will look like a nervous novice or an old guy afraid to die on his Laser. My friends won’t think more or less of me one way or the other, but my old, sun faded baseball hat and snappy sailing attire might be fooling some strangers into thinking I look like a decent sailor.

All things considered, I don’t want to decide if sailing is sufficiently dangerous to be a helmet sport. (Let everyone decide for themselves.) I just want a good hat – one that is comfortable, stays on my head, keeps out the sun, and sheds some rain. I’m surprised that helmets seem to be pretty good hats by this definition. As long as they are good hats in all other respects except appearance, they will become more popular. We will evolve our definitions of “cool” and helmets will be designed to look more “cool.” Maybe we will individualize them like skateboarders do. The sport will gradually become safer even without many of us making a philosophical commitment to safety.

It’s pretty “cool” that the right hat can mitigate the consequences of pilot error, so if I going to wear a hat, it might be a hard one.

Connecting the Lulls

2012-04-25T11:33:00.000-04:00

I watched my team have some very frustrating races in a fleet racing regatta on Saturday. The wind built through the day from about 5 knots to 14 knots, but conditions remained shifty and puffy all day. Everyone had some trouble with the shifts, finding themselves on the wrong side of them way too often, but the best teams seemed to do a good job of finding the puffs. Sailing in the puffs was routinely 10% faster and occasionally 50% faster than sailing in the lulls. Although it was difficult to stay in a puff for very long, even downwind, those who connected the puffs the best were consistently ahead of those who didn’t.

As I watched our best skipper and crew have two uncharacteristically bad races, I wondered how they could be in the wrong place at the wrong time so often. We’ve all had races like that, but twice in a row? – particularly after 4 solid races at the top of the fleet. Like most bad races, they began with a poor start. With as little as two feet to as much as a whole boat length off the line at the gun, there was a guarantee of sailing in dirty air for the first minute or two. With few opportunities to find clear air, our sailors were stuck in disturbed air until those ahead eked out bigger leads or got a puff and took off.

I always try to be optimistic about eventually getting clear air, but the truth is there is always a lot of work to do after giving the others a head start. Fortunately, in lake sailing, the shifts and puffs provide opportunities to gain back the distance lost with a poor start. Unfortunately, those ahead have the best chance to get those shifts and puffs first. I’m not sure what our sailors were thinking, but they seemed to forget the concept of “connecting the puffs.” Even the mid-fleet boats were getting some of the puffs while our team seemed to remain in the lighter spots. At one point, a mid-fleet boat capsized in a big puff, righted the boat, and remained ahead of our team.

I do not always keep my cool in these instances, and in our post-race debriefing, I told the kids they “did a remarkable job of connecting the lulls.” I added, “With all the puffs out there, it’s hard to believe you avoided so many of them.” They thought I was mean. I thought I failed to give the needed encouragement in a difficult situation. I could have at least offered the cliché, “Keep your head out of the boat,” but all concerned were just too disappointed to think clearly.

How did it all go wrong? With a little time to reflect, I think connecting the lulls was caused by a combination of impatience and confusing lulls with headers. When other boats were sailing higher and faster in the puffs, it was hard to accept that their puffs might soon subside or their wind might shift and remember that the best we could do was sail to the next puff within our own reach. The lull started to feel like a header (a boat going slowly can’t point as high as a boat going faster), so there was an irresistible temptation to tack. That subsequent tack in the lull was very laborious and after completing it, the sailors found themselves still going low and slow. Having completely lost sight of finding a puff, they thought, “It must be another header!” and they desperately tacked again. Instead of sailing through the lull toward more wind, they ended up spending needless time in the lull. With a little patience and clarity, they might have spotted the next puff and sailed toward it. Instead, by doing a couple of lengthy tacks in the lull, they insured that the only puff they would get would be one that found them. The puffs did not find them.

yarg

Varsity Letters in Sailing

2012-04-05T09:47:00.001-04:00

Since sailing became a varsity sport, I get to deal with the absolutely silly notion of varsity letters. It’s just so high school. One more thing to establish bragging rights over others. One more thing for the college resumé. One of the benefits of being a grown up is that I shouldn’t have to play high school anymore. One of my grown up skills is avoidance of uncomfortable situations, so on our sailing team we just award varsity letters to everyone.

At best, I think about it like awarding Super Bowl rings to everyone associated with the team - everyone contributes in some way to the success of the team. Making distinctions between degrees of accomplishment or degrees of value to the team seems more often to create bad feelings of inadequacy than good feelings of achievement. The kids at the top of the pecking order or depth chart know where they are and do not need a varsity letter to feel a sense of accomplishment. The kids not at the top need encouragement and focus on continued improvement, and do not need an awards banquet that ignores or minimizes them in front of their friends. They’re teenagers for God’s sake. Are there any people more vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy than teenagers?

Aside from that sentiment, I can't come up with criteria that are really fair. First, the different levels are fluid on our team. Rather than have a so-called varsity sailor sit on the bench for a varsity event, I prefer to give him/her sailing time at the JV level. (We hold both varsity and JV head to head meets at the same time.) Some kids sail mostly in JV meets, but do a couple of varsity ones. Does one varsity event make a varsity sailor? If not one, how many? For those who decide to be crews, the pairing up with skippers is more a matter of personalities than skill. Some pair with a steady varsity skipper and get to sail in varsity events regularly. Others pair up with a lesser skipper, but the chemistry makes the skipper much better than he or she would otherwise be. The pairing does not necessarily represent meaningful differences in skill or overall value to the team, especially when considering the long term. Some freshmen decide to be skippers and almost always sail JV all year. They are usually more accomplished sailors than the crews who might be sailing in varsity events, but I want them to have that year as a skipper because in their overall development, that extra year at the helm can make a lot of difference by senior year. For skippers who do events at both levels, who sails at what level depends mostly on the overall talent level of the team, not on the skills of an individual sailor. We currently have 11 skippers and crews who would have been among the top 4 on the team five years ago.

Our mission as sailing coaches is to help the kids improve their skills and learn about the hard work and sportsmanship associated with sports. If varsity letters are supposed to be a measure of accomplishment, they miss the mark on every important thing we are doing. The harm in that is that it sends the wrong message to the kids. When the measurement is useless, give everyone a prize. The kids who are stars throughout their high school career are great, but a kid who progresses from just learning how to sail as a freshman to the number one or two sailor on the team by senior year is the bigger success story. Similarly, the kid who matures into a leader on his team is achieving one of the big picture goals of high school sports, even if he is not the best sailor. Varsity letters and the lack thereof have nothing to do with the important stuff. It’s just so high school.

yarg

Washing my Teacup

2012-01-10T16:45:00.001-05:00

I went to a friend’s house for dinner and was asked “What have you been doing this winter?” “Not much, but I’m going sailing in Cabarete in about a week.” The subject changed. I was grateful for no further embarrassing exploration of my doing nothing.

Later I wondered if “not much” was really true. On the face of it, it is, but I have managed to keep comfortably busy. Yesterday, it became a little clearer as I was working on yet another basement project – the third of the nothing period. The first was a rehab and rebuild of the high school sailing team equipment – 2 damaged hulls, 6 centerboards and 12 rudders. Grind, apply cloth & epoxy, sand, gel coat, polish; repeat as necessary. The next project was the refinishing of all the mahogany on the yacht club’s 13’ Boston Whaler – sand and varnish, sand and varnish, sand and varnish…. Now, I’m down to an even less significant nothing. I’m refinishing the handles of all the garden tools. My wife laughs – “Who does that? What’s wrong with them?” “They’re rough. They need refinishing.”

Is that it? Has the winter really been that boring and mundane? Well, there has also been the excitement of dealing with lawyers and financial people in the settlement of my little brother’s estate. This included the selling of his good-neighborhood house which received no maintenance for two decades. The “vulture” buying it cheap – no stealing it – has been the most likable, most efficient, most honest person in the whole process. In addition, there has been the out-of-the-blue final settlement of a 12 year old law suit from my last century business. The lawyer’s fee is more than the cost of the settlement, which is not money, but just some more legal work. And finally, there has been my work on something truly worthwhile – compiling all my high school sailing educational material to put it on our web site for reference. In doing so, I discovered more stuff to be written and illustrated – about 150 diagrams worth. PowerPoint is wonderful, but my back is killing me from sitting at the computer for a few weeks.

So yesterday, as I was sanding and varnishing shovel and rake handles (why do I have so many shovels and rakes?) , I was thinking that this was the best nothing I’ve done all winter. I was listening to my music (as if we own it now-a-days), mostly from the 70’s and no longer cool, and marveling at the degree of unimportance I had sunk to. Who does this? Who cares about shovel handles? Who tries to perfect varnishing techniques on shovel handles? Who even uses shovels in the age of hired landscapers and processed food? I won’t even use most of these tools….. Yet, I love knowing that those handles will be good for another 10 years – and then they can be refinished again.

I’m doing my own humble, unenlightened version of the Zen monk washing his teacup. I am remembering the wisdom of the Tao – by doing nothing, all things are done. I’m glad the shovel handles will be shiny and smooth and that no one cares.

But now I’ve gone and written this, and suddenly it all feels like it’s more something and less nothing. Will I ever get to the least little bit of enlightenment?!

21st Century Chalk Talks in High School Sailing

2011-09-21T11:38:00.001-04:00

When there is no longer enough time in the sailing day to teach sailing in the preferred format, what is the best alternative? Can you take a little time from each part of the universally accepted “best practices” structure – direct instruction (chalk talks), rigging, sailing, de-rigging, and debriefing – and make it work? Call me skeptical, but after years of trying, I don’t think I can make kids rig or de-rig noticeably faster. I also don’t think I can take much time from my 5 – 10 minute debrief. If I could explain any of the things I cover in chalk talks any quicker, I would have done it by now. That leaves shortening the sailing time…. Really? To shorten the sailing time significantly seems tantamount to giving up on the idea of a quality program.

How did I get into this mess? A little background……..

I have been coaching high school sailing for a number of years now and have always enjoyed the freedom to structure our schedule of practices and events in whatever way seems to work best. There has always been a need to strike a balance between how much time (and fun) we are allowed to have sailing and the academic and other demands of students’ schedules. Until now, the coaches, students and parents have been able to work out a schedule that works well for the overwhelming majority of those involved. No more.

Now, the principal has imposed limits on the amount of time devoted to sports. Two years ago, he and a certain faction of the school community succeeded in changing the schedule of the school day, pushing the start and finish times almost an hour later. The idea is that the late schedule may be more in sync with natural teenage circadian rhythms (sleep cycles), thus getting them more sleep. Dinner time has not changed in most households, so after school time has been the part of the day that has been truncated. While those involved in sports could see the writing on the wall and voiced their concerns, the late start faction promised cooperation in making things work. Turns out, year one worked well enough for sports programs shortened by 0 - 20 minutes but other after school/before sports activities were hit harder. In year two, the pendulum (axe) is swinging the other way and time for sports is getting cut even more, with the same mandatory time constraints being imposed across the board for all sports. Doesn’t matter what happens to the sports programs. Doesn’t matter how the kids feel about it.

Why does modern life so often come down to choices between the lesser of evils?

After thinking carefully about the specifics of our program and our collection of kids, my approach is to eliminate the standard chalk talk from our standard sailing day. That should allow the other parts of the day to remain intact. But I can’t really live without the content covered in the talks, so I have to provide it in a variety of other ways.

The first thing I have done is explain the schedule restrictions, and my adjustments to them, to the team, and ask for their cooperation in reducing the usual chaos that comes from dealing with a group of 30 teenagers. In lieu of daily verbal explanations to the group, boat assignments and the day’s activities are posted before practice begins. Three minutes after report time, boat and crew assignments are adjusted for any unexpected absentees. There is no more waiting for late comers, and those who are tardy may lose their boat or crew or both.

Sailors are expected to handle rigging and getting out on the water on their own. Boats are assigned to the same skipper every day and hardware issues are dealt with after the previous day’s practice, not during rigging time. Freeing myself from the boat mechanic role allows me to communicate with individual sailors about the drills or other special concerns. We do this as we rig.

We are lucky that we have a good balance between skippers who were on the team last year and new freshman (most with some sailing experience) who can crew for them. Experienced skippers give me confidence that each boat can be handled with enough skill to ensure safety in all but the most severe conditions. The experienced skippers can also serve as teachers and mentors for their freshmen crews. Another advantage of veteran skippers is that they have done most of our drills before and therefore require little or no explanation.

For teaching new skills, I have two options. On days with no wind or too much wind and there is little or no sailing time, I will do a long chalk talk. Hopefully kids can connect that talk to the sailing despite the separation in time and space. The other option is to communicate electronically with whatever material I can produce or find. So far I have used Youtube videos, US Sailing videos, documents scanned from books and other paper handouts, sailing websites, original text, original Powerpoints, and photos. I would love to use some of the CD ROM and DVD material I personally use in a classroom setting, but I think there are copyright laws to discourage this. I also haven’t quite mastered the technology required to do it. I feel like I’m teaching at Phoenix University.

I have several first impressions of this methodology. I am very impressed that the kids have embraced the demand for more personal responsibility. Tardiness has all but vanished and they have been very good at advance notification of absences. (It seems that telling them they absolutely cannot practice before a certain time causes them to show up early and start rigging.) Kids are doing a better job of taking care of their boats and fixing things before they break. I have relinquished the job of crowd controller and cat herder and focus far more on giving individual attention to those who follow all the instructions and work at developing the skills. The vast majority of the kids are taking advantage of this.

On the other hand, I still worry that the freshmen are not getting enough basic instruction. This methodology would never work with a preponderance of new sailors. I worry that many people do not absorb the material as well when presented this way. I worry that questions aren’t being asked. I worry that some may simply ignore the electronic presentations and therefore, that I have little sense of what they know and don’t know. And lastly, I worry that the “go go, hurry up” version of sailing reduces the social connections between sailors.

Much of the time we used to “waste” was spent making friends, and that, after all, is what keeps most of us sailing.

yarg

Sailing as a Spectator Sport

2011-07-01T14:55:00.006-04:00

Like many avid sailors, I would love to see sailing become a more popular (probably too strong a word) spectator sport.

As a high school coach, I get to watch a lot of races from the water, but that is an opportunity limited to a few, and very limited by your position near or on the course and freedom to move around. I was on a spectator boat at the America’s Cup (back in the 80’s when it was in Newport, RI) and saw very little of the race. I was on a mark boat at the Laser Olympic trials and saw lots of windward mark roundings and nothing else. In coaching team racing, I am usually on the start boat or the finish boat, and from either perspective, I miss some of the action. It seems that short of having access to a helicopter, competitive sailing is usually just too hard to see to get a real sense of the overall sport.

Non-sailors compare watching sailing to watching paint dry…

(This is actually gel coat, which might be more interesting than standard paint. Is it going to cover? Will the sprayer spit all over the work or coat it evenly? Did I put in enough catalyst to make it dry or will it stay sticky forever? Fascinating, once you get into it! Sort of like sailing?)

The Extreme 40 racing series is trying to change all that. They have come to Boston this the Fourth of July weekend for Act IV of their series, and in my view, they are making it work. How?

Fast boats – 40 foot catamarans that can really fly – at least one pontoon at a time.
Large boats – visible from a considerable distance away.
Differentiation between boats – unique and colorful graphics on the sails.
Possibility of crashes – who doesn’t like a good NASCAR wreck?
Expert sailors – much scrambling around and perfect spinnaker sets every time.
Short races and many of them – about 20 minutes apiece – 43 races in five days at their last stop.
Knowledgable and entertaining play by play commentary over a loudspeaker – identifying the players, explaining the courses and sailing tactics, and generating crowd enthusiasm.
And the really critical factor, stadium viewing – the race is as close to shore as possible and bleacher seating is available. You can finally see the whole race, not just a couple of boats for a small part of the course!

Yesterday at Fan Pier, the wind was up and down and very shifty. (Being close to shore probably ensures this some degree even if the wind isn’t shifty in general.) For catamarans that can go from zero to full speed in about five boat lengths but can find themselves practically in irons during an almost perfect tack, being in the wind is everything. Consequently, the racing is very exciting with surprising and dramatic changes in position. Even with world class sailors in shifty conditions, it is nearly impossible to be consistently in the front. In consecutive races, there was a lot of movement from first to nearly last and vice versa.

I’ve seen a couple other instances and venues where it all works as a spectator sport. The world team race championship held on the shores of Newport a few years ago was similarly great viewing and exciting racing. Events held at MIT are close to shore on the Charles River and the roof deck of the boat house provides just enough height to see the entire race. Although I’ve never been there, the Hinman team race event in England reportedly provides stadium sailing better than anywhere else and draws crowds that pack the grandstands year in and year out.

Newport Team Racing Championship

Charles River Regatta

For me, all of these examples make sailing more viewer friendly than the highly touted America’s Cup which is progressively becoming more about politics, technical feats, and money than sailing. Maybe the new graphics with NFL style yellow lines on the field will help next time around. Like most other sailors, I will be watching the televised drama, but in comparison to attending the Extreme 40 racing, the viewing portion of the spectacle will be like watching gel coat dry.

yarg

Race Courses - Thinking Outside the Box

2011-06-23T16:01:00.000-04:00

Last January, I took over as Chairman of the Race Committee at my local club. I had been vigorously proposing changes in racing (or supporting those proposed by others) for the last four years and had encountered considerable friction among club racers along the way. A few changes were made, but the process felt like dragging blocks of stone up the Pharaoh’s ramps. Imagine my surprise this year when not only was my offer to become chairman accepted, but others greased the wheels for moving new ideas along.

I was told that I was a good candidate to help reinvigorate our increasingly anemic local racing (a problem shared by many, many local clubs these days). I was told I was able “to think outside the box.”

A short digression:

I have always found the overused phrase “thinking outside the box” irritating. Usually is it used to talk about thinking which moves from a small box to another box only slightly larger. Most people seldom go further than that.

Really creative people say, “What box?” For them, thinking and boxes have nothing to do with each other. I wish I were more like them. When it comes to sailboat racing courses however, the best I can do is to take some things from different boxes and put them together in a larger box. Sounds like a job in the shipping department to me. It may seem pretty pedestrian, but where would the world be if we couldn’t move boxes around?

One of our RC tasks was to find a way to make two divergent groups of racers happy when all fleets sail together on Sundays. The sloop rigged boats like our tried and true, traditional format of two 40 minute races in an afternoon. The Laser sailors come from backgrounds of high school / college racing and frostbiting where the pace is quicker, courses are shorter, and five or more races are run in a day. Sunfish sailors also prefer shorter courses and more races.

At our lake, we don’t have a large enough sailing area or enough manpower and power boats to run separate courses simultaneously, but a major goal was to get away from the “separate, but equal” feeling that the fleets were developing. Our challenge was how to run two completely different kinds of racing using the same marks and the same committee boat.

I offered two solutions that passed for “thinking outside the box.” The first was a trapezoid course which I lifted from a box labeled “standard practices for Laser regattas.” My original contribution was merely to suggest a more rectangular trapezoid and a finish line using the same RC boat used for the start line.

The standard trapezoid course works best for two fleets of similar speed having races of more or less equal duration. The first fleet sails the outer loop while the second fleet sails a windward-leeward-windward on the right side (inner loop) before reaching to the marks on the left and then sailing a leeward and reach to the finish. But with a little creative misunderstanding of the standard course, I looked at the diagram and saw a long course by sailing the traditional outer loop and a shorter windward-leeward course using only the marks on the right side of the course. This seems to solve our long course-short course issue, and separates the fleets for much of the time. We have not tried this yet, but I have high hopes.

The second solution was to take the trapezoid and just make it into a box. By putting the marks on the corners and a start-finish line in the middle of the right side, the windward-leeward course on the right could have a more desirable upwind finish. A little more fleet interference was possible, but both fleets get the upwind finish that they seem to prefer. Placing the start and finish lines on opposite sides of the committee boat reduces the interference significantly. (This idea came directly from a couple of other boxes I’ve seen along the way.)

We used this box course a couple of weekends ago, and it was a big hit. The sloop rigged boats were as satisfied as usual with their course, and the separation between fleets was so successful that we Laser sailors felt like we were the only fleet sailing. And, unlike Sundays in previous years, we got in many more than the two standard races.

So, what is working so far is not so much thinking OUTSIDE the box, but thinking OF the box. For multi-fleet racing, placing one windward-leeward box next to another windward-leeward box opens up many possibilities. Similarly, an additional re-labeled starting line box adjacent to and mirror imaged from the first (using the same committee boat) can separate traffic and allow starting fleets with less waiting time. Just rearranging familiar boxes presents many different opportunities. It’s not terribly creative, but sailing isn’t rocket science. It turns out that boxes are very useful in the shipping department!

yarg

Book Review – Into My Father’s Wake by Eric Best

2011-04-23T09:33:00.000-04:00

I somehow appear on an email list of book reviewers and was asked to review this book. For those of you who prefer brevity: “Great Book!”

For those of you with a little more time for detail, here goes:

Into My Father’s Wake, by Eric Best, is the story of a 5000 mile solo journey from San Francisco to Hawaii, round trip, aboard a 47’ ketch. But it is no simple sailing adventure. If it were, the reader might agree with Best’s father’s devastating response to the idea of writing it, “Why would anyone want to read a book about sailing alone to Hawaii and back. Lots of people sail to Hawaii.” Instead, Best follows the advice from an ironically non-literary and non-sailing source, a Hawaiian business man: “Give a chronological story of your fears. Ask yourself the most personal questions and try to answer them. People will listen to that.”

So Into My Father’s Wake is also a personal story. It is about the anxieties of an insufficiently experienced sailor who struggles with a lonely and sometimes overwhelming sea voyage. As the title suggests, it is also about the author’s hate/love relationship with his abusive father. It depicts a loving relationship with a young daughter, and it describes Best’s attempts to understand himself through psychotherapy. It bemoans writing aspirations that have been undermined by Best’s father. It touches on failed marriages. It reviews the effects of alcoholism on human behavior. It deals with solitude. And in the end, it reveals how coming to terms with the vast, indifferent, and all powerful ocean helps Best begin to come to terms with his father and most everything else.

Although it is a rich and complex book, the basic organization is quite straightforward. The chronological story of the sailing trip is the backbone that supports everything else. Episodes from his personal life are revealed in non-linear bits and pieces as they are remembered, pondered, and re-experienced by a solo sailor. The reader puts together enough details to understand the plot of the personal stories while more importantly sharing the author’s emotional experience of them. The approach is at times confusing or challenging to the reader, but upon reflection, it is a remarkably insightful and truthful depiction of how events are processed and reprocessed, particularly when we have a good amount of time to be alone with our thoughts.

The sound narrative structure that successfully integrates the broad range of subject matter in this book is evidence of a sophisticated and skilled writer. My false first impression from the title (and the fact that I was asked to review this book on a sailing blog) was that it would be a mixture of adventure and pop psychology told by a non-professional author wannabe. Boy, was that wrong! Only a few pages in, I was blown away by a literary and linguistic sophistication that I don’t seem to find lately. (Turns out Best went to Stanford Writer’s school and was a career journalist.) I don’t know if the rich, descriptive, and often poetic language in this book works for all readers nowadays, but it certainly works for me. A sample:

Nothing had ever seemed more vast and irrevocable to me than to be in the ocean at night, alone with her sounds and concealed intentions. Some ancient balance of flesh and water and electricity, deep legacies of evolution, would absorb signals unknown to science. To sail across vast ocean reaches would be to rearrange myself from the inside and realign to the universe.

Another of the book’s outstanding qualities aside from the richness of language, is the way it depicts a relentless undercurrent of uncertainty. I think this feeling is more universal than we care to admit and represents a part of us that is not comfortable to examine. Though he is ultimately a successful solo sailor, Best honestly and eloquently reveals his fear of massive freighters in the night, potentially unmanageable weather, irreparable boat breakdowns, and inadequate navigational skills that leave him frequently not knowing where he is. Similarly, he grapples with perceived personal inadequacies, his search for understanding through psychotherapy, the lasting impact of his father on his character, and most importantly, his own contradictory feelings toward his father.

As a story of the effects of an abusive parent, this is a powerful one. The gradual resurfacing of fragmented remembrances is a model for the way the dysfunctional relationship infuses the personality of Best and weaves its way into many aspects of his life. Despite a long pattern of evening alcoholic rages and regular beatings with a rubber hose, Best maintains an unbreakable bond with the man who taught him to sail and love sailing. But it is a severely damaged relationship with conflicts that seemingly cannot be resolved. Without time alone in the ocean, Best says he could not have come to this realization:

A child cannot reconcile violence at the hands of one who is supposed to love him, and whom he loves without condition….It cannot make sense to the child unless he is deserving of the violence and the pain an the anger behind it. How could that be?

Understanding the contradictions does not resolve them. Only a process of forgiveness and a Zen-like acceptance of things as they are, begun in the middle of the Pacific, help Best acknowledge his father as a flawed man driven by his own demons to commit despicable acts.

One of the best things that can be said about a book is that the reader finds meaningful personal connections or insights in it. In that respect, this book is completely successful with this reader. Many of us carry baggage and insecurities similar to Best’s in some way, and his struggles mirror some of our own. Best’s candidness and his insight challenge us to be as honest with our own issues. Many of us also identify with his search for the path that leads to letting go. At the mercy of an endless, almighty ocean, Eric Best begins to find his way.

Nothing 1000 Tacks Can’t Fix

2011-03-28T07:59:00.000-04:00

I recently returned from a terrific four day Laser sailing clinic at Sailfit in Clearwater, Florida. I went with four of my regular sailing buddies, and all of us agree that we had a great time and learned a ton about laser sailing. It’s hard to say what the best parts of it were, but here is a list of choices:
• Small class of 6 people
• Entire group at more or less the same skill level
• How-to instruction from a bone fide expert and great teacher, Kurt Taulbee
• Individual, on the water coaching, one skill at a time
• Coaching to match our skill level and needs
• Video tape review of our sailing showing what we do well and what we do poorly
• Instruction on fitness and nutrition from another bona fide expert, Meka Taulbee
• Expert answers to every question we could think of
• Camaraderie with sailing buddies
• Warm water
• Escape from New England weather

Like many adult sailors and racers, I have attended my share of sailing seminars, heard one to two hour talks on the nuances of sailing a specific type of boat, and purchased a bookshelf of books and videos from experts and champions. Also like most adult racers, I have raced regularly, but practiced infrequently. I have sailed in some big regattas, trying to pick up tips and tricks from the experts, but I have not had any real coaching since the first “how to sail” lessons.

It’s amazing how much different getting some real coaching, especially from an expert, is from trying to improve sailing skills in the other ways. It is one thing to watch the champion on a video tape, but quite another to do what he does. Monkey see, monkey do has its limits. How do you know if you are doing what the champion did? Most of us can be pretty sure we’re not doing all of it, but what parts are we doing right and what parts are we doing wrong? What do we have to change? Kurt at Sailfit was great at sorting that out, and he has saved me years in trying to figure those things out myself.

I think he did the same things for all the other members of the group as well. His individualized feedback identified different strengths and weakness for each of us as we went through various skills. We each surprised ourselves a little in some of the things we did well. One of us could stand on the side deck and sail the Laser like an experienced surfer. The rest of us - not so good at that. Two others loved blind tacking. The rest - not so good at that. One could comfortably sail down wind, healed 45 degrees to windward right at the point of capsize. The rest looked more like old geezers. The process also revealed for each of us tendencies toward our own particular set of bad habits. We came away with individual lists of things to work on and Kurt’s voice in our heads telling us what we need to do to complete each skill better.

The last thing I came away with is Kurt’s response to fixing a bad habit or developing a new technique – “It’s nothing 1000 tacks can’t fix.” I don’t know if this line sticks with me because it appeals to a Midwestern hard work ethic or because it appeals to a high school coach who blows whistles through seemingly endless tacking drills. Whatever the reason, I know he’s right. But it begs the question “Are we willing to do the 1000 tacks?” Most sailors never really do them. We tend to read books and watch videos and “understand” it in our heads, but never really train our bodies to automatically execute the skills. We are also smart enough to realize that after the 1000 tacks, there are 1000 gybes, 1000 mark roundings (I suppose that’s really 1000 upwind and 1000 downwind), and 1000 starts (2000 in my case). Who’s got the time? It’s enough to make me really tired. Maybe 500 tacks are enough. Maybe 250. Oh god, I need a beer!

As soon as the weather is warmer and the wind is right and I have the time and……….., I’m going out and start those 1000 tacks. No, really. I’m going to try.

Spring Time in New England

2011-03-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

After waiting a week for the ice to thaw, this was the first day on the water for our high school sailing team. It's been a long snowy winter, but Spring is finally here!

Scooped!

2011-03-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

I know I have been very, very remiss in writing for this blog, but finally when there is something good to write about, I am scooped by Tillerman! It’s not so much that he said what I have to say, but that he used the photo at the center of my story. The photo is from last week’s Sailfit seminar which I attended. It was posted on the Sailfit facebook page, but incorrectly attributed to Jody …… There is no need to name the actual sailor, but he is one of the group of five friends from New England who attended the seminar.

Aside from the obvious entertainment value, the whole episode has an important lesson to teach about sailing.

The question is how to sail a laser without actually being in it. One possibility is to just fall off and let the boat sail itself. I’m sure that it takes remarkable skill to trim the sails and adjust the steering just right to keep the boat sailing after abandoning ship, but the better it is done, the longer the swim to ever get back together with the boat again.

A second possibility as one departs the boat is holding onto the mainsheet. The primary virtue of this approach is to stay in touch with the boat until it capsizes. (But, maybe there is another possibility. I wonder if it is possible to adjust the amount of body drag to achieve correct sail trim and keep the boat upright and going. Any volunteers to try this out?) Anyway…… this seems to be the preferred method so long as one holds on with the hands and does not wrap the line around arms, legs, or torso, which could cause some serious problems.

The third, but not very desirable method is holding onto the tiller extension. This seems to have been tried many times, and is apparently the best way to break a high performance carbon fiber tiller. Aluminum tillers don’t fare much better, except that they allow the sailor to stay connected to his boat. Holding onto the tiller extension was the method employed in the photo. It had two immediate results. The boat capsized (eventually) and the aluminum tiller looked like this:

This Old Hull – Laser Deck Repair with Air Pressure

2011-02-04T04:01:00.001-05:00

Somewhat housebound after yet another New England snowstorm this winter, I’ve had the chance to work on my 23 year-old Laser hull with decks adjacent to the cockpit so soft and sagging that they seemed to be structurally unsound. My good friend and fellow Laser enthusiast, Yarg, told me that the problem might be delamination of the fiberglass-foam sandwich deck structure. Pictured below is a piece of the 1/2” thick deck material which I had cut out for an access port some years ago in order to repair a cracked mast step tube.

Inspecting the underside of the deck, using a mirror, and an existing access port next to the centerboard revealed what appeared to be perfectly intact fiberglass. However, pushing on the deck seemed to suggest an airspace as the upper deck surface made a crunching sound when it touched the rough foam surface below. My findings probing through a 1/16th inch test hole were consistent with the delamination theory as well. Perhaps the deck might be repaired by injecting epoxy into the space between the layers, but without easy access to the inside of the hull, clamping the two sides together would be problematic. Pushing from the top only would leave a seriously sagging deck. The answer appeared to be pressurizing the hull with an electric air mattress pump.

I began the repair by cautiously connecting an electric air mattress pump to the stern drain hole applying just enough pressure to cause the sagging deck to rise. Too much pressure, causing the hull to explode, would be counterproductive. Drilling holes in the tubing reduced the air pressure as necessary. After covering the deck with masking tape, I drilled an array of 1/16th inch holes into the soft areas of the deck using a hexagonal pattern, 2 inch hole to hole spacing, and 3/8th inch depth. The hand drill had a stop using a piece of dowel to prevent drilling too deep. Five 1x2s clamped across the deck prevented the deck from rising above its normal flat position when the air pressure was applied.

West Marine extra slow curing epoxy allowed enough time for me to inject all the holes before it thickened. I injected the epoxy using a West Marine syringe with a tapered nozzle that fit snugly into the 1/16th inch holes. I loaded the syringe by removing the plunger and pouring in the epoxy. It takes way too long to try to suck it into the syringe. I injected one syringe-full (about ½ ounce or 15 ml) into only 1/3 of the holes which worked out to holes with a 4 inch spacing pattern. The other 2/3 of the holes allowed for excess epoxy and air to escape. The average epoxy thickness was about 2.2 mm or 3/32th inch. It was comforting to see the excess epoxy and air bubbles flow out of almost every hole when the air pressure was turned on indicating that the epoxy had spread out well. I injected some extra epoxy into any hole that was not oozing.

After leaving the air pressure on for 24 hours (praying the pump wouldn’t conk out before the epoxy hardened) the deck appeared to be quite solid. A few of the holes were leaking air, so the pressure was turned off, and the leaking holes were sealed by injecting a little more epoxy. By the way, pressurizing the hull is a good way to find other leaks as well. Running my hand under the joint between the deck and the hull revealed a previously unknown large leak near the bow with air blowing out. I’ll do a search for smaller leaks at some point. The final step for the deck project was to apply some Gel Coat repair material to the 1/16th inch holes.

The soft, sagging deck is now flat and solid, but will it be good for another 23 years (or even 23 minutes of sailing in rough conditions)? Time will tell.

Eric

It’s Time to Ban Single Use Plastic Water Bottles

2011-01-24T11:45:00.000-05:00

College sailing has banned single use water bottles from its events. Real rules against it! Sailors must drink from re-useable bottles and hosts must provide a source of water to refill those bottles.

The New England Scholastic Sailing Association (high school sailing) has approved the same policy on a voluntary basis.

Host schools and coaches are tired of finding bottles in their sailing waters, tired of picking up the empties after an event, and tired of disposing of the mountain of trash. The bottles are frequently discarded without recycling the plastic.

My first reaction to this information was totally selfish. How will addressing this inconvenience me? I take along bottled water when I sail and buy cases of it for high school regattas. My sailing facility does not have a readily available source of clean drinking water to provide to regatta participants. Is it really a big enough problem to warrant new efforts from me?

Upon looking into it, it IS a big enough problem. In fact, it’s big enough that I’m ashamed I haven’t changed my ways before now.

Some bottled water facts:

• 60,000,000 plastic water bottles are discarded EVERY DAY in America.

• Only 23% (highest estimate I’ve found) of plastic water bottles are recycled. The rest end up in landfills or worse, where they can leach chemicals into the ground water.

• It takes ½ cup of oil to manufacture and transport each bottle.

• It requires 3 times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill it.

• In producing each bottle, the CO2 released into the atmosphere would fill 12 balloons.

• Bottled water costs between 200 to 10,000 times as much as tap water.

• Virtually every independent study on bottled water shows some contamination from bacteria and/or synthetic chemicals.

• Many of the leading brands are not mountain spring water, but merely tap water that has been run through filters.

A simple alternative is tap water in reusable plastic, aluminum, or stainless steel bottles. Reusable metal bottles can be bought for as little as $4 each when purchased in bulk. Plastic bottles are even cheaper.

If water quality is the issue, it should be comforting to know that the safety of tap water is more regulated than the safety of bottled water. Other quality issues depend on a comparison of specific bottled products to specific tap water sources. When necessary, filters are available to upgrade the chemical and mineral purity, odor, and taste of tap water. We can almost always find a suitable tap water source.

When you think about it, you have to admit that re-usable bottles and tap water, especially when filtered, would work in almost every situation where we commonly drink bottled water. It’s hard to rationalize the need for wasteful production and distribution processes and the harmful environmental consequences of single use water bottles.

We have two fundamental choices. As the saying goes, we become part of the solution or we are part of the problem.

Every time we refill a bottle, we reduce the number of new bottles by one, and we take a step in the right direction. 59,999,999 bottles on the heap. Our reuse might encourage a friend to do the same. 59,999,998 bottles on the heap. College sailors are doing their part, and now, so are many high school sailors. 59, 998,000 bottles on the heap.

Here’s a visual representation of the rate at which plastic bottles are discarded.

The internet offers lots of information of the subject. Here are some sites and videos that make the point in 13 minutes or less.

Back2tap.com website with a 9 minute video reviewing the problems with bottled water - http://www.youtube.com/v/FjyLABrtmqA&hl=en&fs=1&autoplay=1

http://Storyofstuff.org/bottled water/ - offers an entertaining 10 minute video explaining the life cycle of single use bottles with an anti-bottled water industry tone.

Penn and Teller have a 13 minute entertaining video debunking the perceived quality of bottled water - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc

A short tap water vs. bottled water discussion - http://www.wimp.com/bottledwater/

The Path to FAIRNESS

2011-01-17T15:31:00.001-05:00

The recent talk on Tillerman’s blog and discussion on the Laser Forum mark another milestone down a new road for laser sailing and perhaps a new understanding of the term “one design.” The old laser map to FAIRNESS directed us down one of two over priced toll roads (New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway), but the sailors’ free market, global positioning systems have recalculated and shown us another road. The new road is getting a lot of traffic, perhaps most of it, but there seems to be a question about whether both the old and the new are headed to the same FAIRNESS. One FAIRNESS is in the state of supplier to customer relationships, and the other is in the state of competitor to competitor relationships. I believe that they are sister cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Boston and Cambridge.
I contend that both roads will lead you to fairness among competitors. Despite the highway confusion, I think laser sailing is as fair and equal as any sailing, except for the influence of those damn #@*&^% mommy boats. I also think that the free market is more effective than the class rules in keeping it that way.

I don’t mean to promote a free market like some damn #@*&^% Republican politician with tunnel vision. Instead, I mean to encourage equity in the context of a little guy vs. big guy, David vs. Goliath story.

When it comes to sails, Big Laser has used its monopolistic position to exploit its customers for a long time now. They sell a lousy product (mediocre, at best) for a ridiculously high price, a combination of planned obsolescence and authoritarian pricing that would make any damn #@*&^% super-capitalist proud. To the customers, it seems like extortion. To Big Laser, it may just be making a living and keeping the wheels of business turning. After all, they are sailors and boat builders, not damn #@*&^% Wall Street bankers. I like to think that they did not anticipate that the requirement to use overly-expensive sails would come to undermine the universally acclaimed goal of fairness. BUT IT HAS. Many sailors can not or will not spend what it takes to keep up with those who have unlimited budgets. Do the class rules help even the playing field? Not so far.

Thankfully, the free market has allowed a young upstart like Jim Meyers at Intensity sails to jump in, make a living for himself, and fulfill a need in the marketplace. (Cue America the Beautiful in a medley with the Chinese national anthem – that’s where the sails are actually made.) From my talks with Jim, I understand his business to be mostly a response to overpriced products he finds in the market, most notably the class legal Laser sail. By giving us more bang for our buck, he is leading us to FAIRNESS in the state of supplier to customer relationships. He is giving us the same product for one third the price, complete with prompt and friendly service.

But is it really the same product? It sure seems to be. Jim says it is as close to the North sail as possible. (The North cloth is proprietary, so he uses the closest product he can find, which seems to be slightly more durable.) Sailors don’t seem to be finding any competitive differences. Although Intensity makes no claims about this, it seems to me that with its sails, we maintain FAIRNESS in the state of competitor to competitor relationships.

For several years now, more and more Intensity sails have been used for local club racing - to the chagrin of Big Laser (as I discussed last year). Tillerman reports that Cedar Point has altered their sailing instructions to include them. I did the same for our local regatta three years ago. In the two places I sail most frequently, there are far more Intensity sails on the water than North sails. I suspect that in the fleet as a whole in our local club there are at least five Intensity sails for each North sail. I wonder what percentage of North sail owners also have an Intensity sail or two.

The market is shouting its approval of equal or better products at lower prices. And the shout is increasing in intensity. (Pun intended.) Intensity sails will be seen more and more at bigger regattas. Is anyone going to complain that those of us in the middle (I wish) to the back of the pack are using them? Will we be asked to leave? (So far, I have been non-confrontational and have used my North sail at Regattas, even though I might do better with a newer Intensity.) Does anyone really think that the $180 sail has an advantage over the $563 sail? I think the only advantage is a new sail versus an old sail. If we could buy sails for $180, everyone would be more likely to have a new sail, and therefore a more level playing field. The rules say buying a $180 sail instead of a $563 sail is cheating, but common sense and the marketplace know that FAIRNESS is not the operative concept here.

The consternation over all this will continue to go on for a number of years, but the market forces will eventually win out in some way. The Intensity Laser class will thrive at the local and regional level, and we’ll all have fun and FAIR sailing. Big Laser will have to decide if it wants a separate class for world class and Olympic sailors or whether it should make some compromises to keep it all together. Assuming that those who make the rules and set the prices want to keep it all together, why are taking so long to do something about it?

Cooler Than Ollie

2010-11-09T13:12:00.003-05:00

It is common knowledge that the Ollie box has been one of the great innovations in small boat sailing. It is a waterproof automatic timing and horn system for starting races. It can be programmed with up to three different sequences, selectable from inside the box. It has made life easier for many, many race committees and kept timing precise for the racers. It is unquestionably a great invention!

But as clever and useful as the Ollie box is, my good friend and fellow laser sailor, Eric, wondered if there might be a way to have an automated system that we could use in our informal racing where no race committee boat or race committee person is present. Could there be an alternative to rabbit starts that would help us all hone our time and distance judgment in starting? Could we just float an Ollie box and have one of the racers initiate the sequence?

Ollie boxes are expensive and fairly heavy, and one would sink like a stone if given the chance. It didn’t take much thought to realize that any flotation scheme risked losing the Ollie if something went wrong. It was particularly worrisome that it would not be our Ollie box at the bottom of the lake, it would be our Yacht club’s. Eric decided to start from scratch and develop another floating automated starting system that could be operated by a passing racer. Here is his description of his ingenious and low cost solution.

The device is built into a medium-sized picnic cooler which is about 10 inches wide so that it can be transported in a Laser cockpit. A 5 lb. barbell is used as an anchor attached with a 50 ft. line to a cleat on the forward end of the cooler. Excess line is wrapped around the cooler handle so the scope can be adjusted according to the water depth. The cover is secured and sealed by good old duct tape.

There are just two control switches, “Start” and “Abort,” which are doorbell buttons mounted on the aft end of the cooler. There is no separate power switch. The unit turns on when the start button is pressed, and automatically powers down at the end of the start sequence or when “Abort” is pressed.

A standard 3-minute dinghy starting sequence is used beginning with 5 short warning beeps and ending with a 5-second countdown to the long start blast. The short tones are ¼ second long with ¼ second spacing. Long tones are 1 second with ½ second spacing. The final start blast is 2 seconds long.

The sound source is a waterproof piezoelectric marine horn which has been likened to the sound of a dying duck. It is not terribly loud, but on the other hand, it does not destroy the eardrums of the sailor starting at the “boat” end of the line.

The electronics are housed in a small waterproof plastic box (in case the outer duct tape seal fails). The power is supplied by 8 D-cell batteries mounted to the floor of the cooler so they also serve as ballast along with two 4 lb barbells. The calculated battery capacity is about 2,400 starts, so battery life is really just limited by shelf life. Three empty 2 liter soft drink bottles are included in the enclosure for emergency flotation.

The electronics consist of a small microprocessor board (ARMite single board controller, Coridium Network Control Systems) with a few extra solid state components added to interface with the buttons and horn, along with some circuitry for the auto power-down. The software is just a small (about 170 line) program written in BASIC.

Overall, the system works pretty well, although I am sure there are improvements that could be made. Naturally, we have to use the honor system when it comes to being over early at the start. Maybe someone can come up with a paintball system to mark a boat that is OCS.

Yarg

Gumption

2010-10-27T18:51:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday was the final day on the fall sailing season for the high school team I coach. Actually Thursday was the last official day, but four of them wanted to drive two hours to get in one last day and one last regatta. You gotta love those people who can’t get enough of the things they are passionate about and respond to each last time or last day with a plea for “just one more.”

Maybe a coach shouldn’t be happy after his team finishes seventh in an eight boat regatta, but after silencing the Vince Lombardi voice in my head, it occurred to me I was proud of my very young freshman and sophomore sailors who thought nothing of going head to head with the best varsity junior and seniors from other schools. It took me a while to really pinpoint why I was so proud of them, but out of the blue, despite years since I have heard, read, or spoken the word, the perfect word came to me – gumption. Gumption is a word that seems to be out of fashion, but it sounds great and is enthusiastically positive without being syrupy or trite.

Dictionaries offer many definitions for gumption – initiative, resourcefulness, courage, spunk, guts, common sense – but the definition I like best comes from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

“A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.”

It took gumption just to get to this regatta. When the event was first discussed, it was explained that it was two hours away, that the school would not provide transportation, that the school prohibited the coach from driving students in his own car, and that kids therefore had to provide their own transportation. None of the varsity skippers was prepared to hurdle those obstacles, but the future star freshman, and head gumption-eer immediately responded with “I’ll go. My mom will drive.”
“Has she agreed to that?”
“Not yet, but she will.”
The very talented out of town sophomore who sails with us, but is usually prohibited from competing in official school competitions, said he “would clear his schedule” for some outside competition. The freshman’s regular crew, our team captain, responded with her usual “I have no life outside sailing; I’m available.” And a few days later the volunteer for everything sophomore who always wants to go “even if I’m not sailing” offered to crew. The plan was hatched. We committed to the regatta.

It took a little more gumption to stick to that commitment after a series of setbacks. Future star freshman sprained her ankle the weekend before the regatta. She couldn’t sail all week, but swore she would heal enough and tape up the ankle sufficiently to sail on Saturday. On Wednesday the very talented (best kid on our team) out of town kid thanked me for a great season and said he now had a family obligation on regatta day. A call for a volunteer replacement elicited only one sophomore who was a crew and not a skipper. The only solution was to elevate the volunteer for everything sophomore from crew to skipper, and although he just started to drive the boat this year, and is about ninth on our depth chart, he was our man. None of the kids thought of any of this as an obstacle; it was just an adjustment in the plan.

When it came to the racing, there were six races in the A fleet for future star freshman and her crew, and six races in B fleet for volunteer for everything sophomore and his crew. In the first five races, future star freshman was averaging sixth place out of eight and volunteer for everything sophomore was averaging seventh. But in the final race for each, things started to fall into place. Future star freshman advanced from sixth at the windward mark to first on the last leg and then lost one boat to finish second. Volunteer for everything sophomore put together a good first leg to be fourth at the windward mark and gained one boat to finish third.

In our own gumption based scoring system, we threw out the first five races, counted only the last race in each fleet, and won the regatta by one point.

My sailors impressed themselves with what they accomplished in those final races, but they really impressed me with the gumption that it took to get them that opportunity for success.

As I think about it, maybe one of the things I like most about sailing is the gumption of the sailors. High schoolers are frequently willing to risk repeated capsizing and challenge themselves to sail in strong wind that the coaches know they can’t handle. Blue water sailors, long distance ocean racers, and solo single handed round the world racers all possess incredible knowledge and skill, but they are all the more admirable because of the gumption they demonstrate in pursuing their challenges.

And a final shout out goes to a couple of my friends who had the gumption to fly to England, compete with world class sailors, push the limits of their aging (and in one case, sick) bodies, and test the limits of their small boat sailing abilities in overpowering wind and massive waves. You have my admiration.

Autobailers- Part Two

2010-10-23T15:05:00.010-04:00

Removal and replacement with a watertight plate

For a very long time, leaking autobailers had been my nemesis as I battled to keep all 12 of our high school sailing team’s well used 420’s fully functional. This year, it was time to abandon our duct tape solution (actually better tape than duct tape, but just tape nonetheless) and move on to a real solution. Several ideas occurred to us, but each seemed both expensive and flawed in one way or another.

Replacing the autobailers would be expensive ($62 each x 12), and they would quickly fail again with the boats exposed to our very sandy environment and the care left in the hands of multiple, careless, high school students.
Fiberglass work to plug the holes after removing the autobailers would be tricky and time consuming, especially given the very thin hulls on 420’s. A quality fiberglass repair of a 3” by 5” hole also takes expertise I don’t have.
A friend offered to weld the old autobailers shut, but after discovering the gaskets inside, he determined they would melt into a gooey mess that was not compatible with welding.
A stainless steel plate bolted to the hull with the same bolts used by the removed autobailer would seem to work nicely. I couldn’t find anything like this sold commercially, and I worried that having them made would get almost as expensive as buying new autobailers. When I examined an old bailer I had removed, discovering that the bottom of the bailer was not flat, but a pan shape, I became totally discouraged about the cost of having such a piece custom made.

What we (mostly a former sailing team member, now a college graduate) finally came up with was a way to reuse pieces of the old autobailer to make a waterproof plate. The 420 autobailers are constructed from three separate pieces of stainless steel and a couple of gaskets. The chute that drops to let out water is sandwiched between two frames. Our solution was to replace the chute and its gaskets with a solid piece of hardened West System epoxy resin that would span the hole and bond to both frames of stainless steel with a water-tight seal. We tried it out on our boats during the summer, and we have been sailing for six weeks this fall with no leaks.

Here is what the process looks like:

First, we remove the autobailers and separate the three pieces, the two frames and the chute. They are fastened together with six copper rivets that need to be drilled out.

Drilling Out the Autobailer Rivits

Autobailer with Rivits and Lever Removed

After the pieces are separated, the chute and its gaskets are discarded.

Next, the top and bottom frames are tightly bolted together. Then, they are temporarily bolted to a piece of wood that will serve as the bottom form when we pour in the resin later. Wax paper must be inserted between the wood and the frames to prevent adhesion of resin to the wood.

Frames Ready to Receive Fluid Resin

The resin is two part West System epoxy with High Density 404 Adhesive Filler mixed to a thick, but pour-able, consistency. It is just poured into the frames, making sure all the corners are filled. (We waited 24 hours before removing the assembly, but the resin sets up in about an hour.)

Pouring Resin into Metal Frames

The final step is removing the new pieces from the temporary molding board and inserting them into the boats to plug the holes where the autobailers were removed.

Finished Autobailer Replacement Plate

All the old silicone or 5200 needs to be removed from the fiberglass on the boat before installing the new piece, and this is the most time consuming and tedious part of the process. When installing the new piece, all the old nuts and bolts are used. Working simultaneously from both the top and the bottom of the boat takes two people and is a little awkward. Careful attention needs to be paid to craftsmanship when the new sealant is installed. (We screwed this up on a couple of boats and had to reseal them.) We used marine silicone sealant which lasts for a long time, but had we been 100% sure this whole approach was going to work, we might have used 5200 for a permanent bond.

View of 420 Hull with Autobailer Plug Installed

Has anyone else come up with another way to eliminate autobailers that they would like to share? Other comments on autobailers?

Yarg