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So I realize that this post is about a year late, but I have been sitting on the experience trying to come to terms with my dismal performance… Since winning the NOOD I finally feel I have the energy to post what I wrote shortly after the July 10-12th 2008 Western Nationals.    Please Enjoy…

There are currently 6.6 billion people living on this planet living in 245 countries.  Let’s assume that maybe 50 countries have enough sailboats/water/beer money to scrape together any type of national one design sailing regatta, and that at most a serious sailing nation like New Zealand might host at max 100 national one design regattas.  Let’s average it out and say that on average there are 20 designs represented in 50 countries so there may be 1000 National Regattas held world wide each year.  If we take yet another leap of faith and assume that on average there are maybe 50 boats at each national event then at most there are 50,000 people each year who get to claim that they skippered a sailboat in a national one design regatta.  That is 0.0008% of the world population or 1 in 132 thousand.  A 2005 article in Livescience.com calculates the odds of being killed by lightning at 1 in 84 thousand.  So in any given year your average human on the planet is about 50% more likely to be killed by lightning than sail their own boat in a national event.  This year I was one of the very, very few who have had the pleasure to experience this rare gift when I took Limpet to the San Juan 21 Western Nationals in Coos Bay Oregon.   Continue Reading »

Well the time came to see if project PAY would pay off at the Seattle NOODs.  Last year I was dead last in the working sails boats at the NOOD never placing better than 5th in a 10 boat fleet over 10 races despite the fact that I flew spinnaker all three days.  In 2009 due to very light and shifty winds we only got 4 starts and my over the line results were 8,4,4,4 in a 15 boat fleet.  However, this year I didn’t fly the spinnaker and the folks at the NOOD scored the 5 working sails boats separately from the  10 spinnaker boats, so in my class I finised 1,1,1,1, and came home the 2009 first overall winner for the SJ21 Working Sails class.  I guess it pays to PAY! Continue Reading »

The second step in project “Perfection Attained Yachting” a.k.a Project PAY cost me a bit more than phase one as it involved ordering a beautiful set of new Doyle sails from Mark Weinheimer of NC.  Truth be told the $1200+ I spent on new sails from Mark was not far from the $1700 I spent to buy Limpet in the first place.  But pulling the crisp new Dacron out of the box and seeing Limpet’s sail numbers almost made me cry… how far I have come from the days of black duct tape numbers on Clark sails from 1974.  Continue Reading »

Ok… It is time to face facts.  Sailboat racing is not exactly compatible with the insane schedule of a young family and a career in technology.  In a few years I can drag my kids along as crew, but it has become as clear as the reflection in the Americas cup that for the time being I need to seriously pull back on my commitment to racing if I wish to keep my family and sanity intact.  So if I am only going to go to the occasional race/regatta I want to make sure to make the absolute most of every single opportunity.  Thus I have undertaken project “Perfection Attained Yachting” a.k.a Project PAY.  Which will entail making Limpet absolutely perfect for the few short days/hours I can reasonably commit to sailing.  Project PAY won’t be cheap… oh wait I have a San Juan 21… Maybe it will be after all.  Continue Reading »

I have always bruised easily.  When I played football in school I took a certain pride in the monstrous blooms of crimson and purple which would spread across my body like so many bubonic jellyfish pulsing just below the surface of my skin.  It didn’t take long to realize that the body will always heal itself… the bruises people can’t see are much, much harder to handle.  In my first race of 2009 I managed to give myself a few of each.

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The Repair season that is.  As usual Limpet has a list of issues longer than January in Juneau.  Owning a classic yacht is a labor of love with joyous returns for every minute invested.  .  .  or at least that’s what I have been told, I really wouldn’t know.  Owning an old SJ21 is an endless forced march to escape the forces time seeking to reduce your boat to a pile of rubble.  Continue Reading »

I never had training wheels on my bike as a kid.  I went strait from a tricycle to a two wheeler with a little courage, quite a few scraped knees, and my dad spending hours running up and down Creso lane holding the back of my seat.  At some point he let go and I was just riding on my own.  I don’t know how I was doing it… I just was.  Something happened, and the same things which had always seemed to end with me in a crying heap on the asphalt, were now allowing me to cruise along with the wind in my hair and a smile on my face.  I felt a very similar feeling on Fleet #1s last race this Saturday, when Chris handed me the helm of Wooglin, and we were able to win the race by our largest victory of the day.  I’m not sure how it happened, it just did.

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I know that it has been quite some time between postings here on LimpetRacing.  It is not from lack of amazing experiences I have had this summer.  I had a couple great cruising adventures with Limpet, and attended the San Juan Western Nationals in Coos Bay Oregon.  I will undoubtedly get together some belated posts on those outings in future weeks.  One of the major insights from my experience at Nationals is that I clearly suck as a sailboat racer.  My traditional back 1/3 finishes in Fleet #1 races translated into near dead last finishes with the increased competition of Nationals.  Luckily I went to Evergreen where I learned one of life’s most valuable lessons… “You can learn anything. . . if you know how to learn.”  The first step in learning you ask?  Get a good teacher. 

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On the second day of NOODs I was the last boat on the water and the first into the marina.  The delicate balance of managing family obligations and campaigning a sailboat tipped in favor of the family, and I missed the last two starts of the day.  Despite that Saturday was a beautiful day and it was great to get out even if it was just for a few starts.  I had Dave Coons with me and we challenged ourselves to once again fly the spinnaker despite the freshening breeze from the south. Continue Reading »

The National Offshore & One Design Regatta (NOOD) made its first ever date in Seattle this past weekend for three of the most beautiful days of sailing this city has experienced in a long time.  Even better was the fact that the San Juan 21s managed to bring 10 boats making our class one of the more respectable showings of the regatta.  Another great addition was an agreement from fleet #1 working sails boats that we could fly spinnakers and still get scored as working sails for seasons points standings.  So I rigged Limpet up with some donated cleats from Chris Popich, and some donated lines from my boss Jim, and headed out to fly my spinnaker for the first time ever. 

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