Monthly Archives: June 2011

My Facebook Friend

I’ve never met her personal-like, but what’s not to “Like” in someone who sailed her 28-foot boat around the world, witnessed a lot of damage—to islands, coral, people—and then joined up with Oceans Watch to contribute her drop in the bucket about it. As I write, Donna Lange is someplace south of Andros Island, en [...]

Posted in Cruising Under Sail, Destinations, People & Profiles, Sailboats | Tagged | 2 Comments

Masters of Speed

Oracle Racing’s AC45 catamarans, blasting up and down San Francisco Bay, have inspired a torrent of breathless prose. But are they fast? Really? AC45 #4, skippered by Jimmy Spithill, and #5, skippered by Russell Coutts, have generally used the Golden Gate Bridge as a windward boundary for their race training, which places their turning point [...]

Posted in Destinations, Sailboat Racing | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Redefining “Dolly Ride”

I have to tell it to you backwards. It looked like this . . . But it went like this . . . 5) I’m hanging onto a strap on AC45 #4, the Oracle Racing cat skippered by Jimmy (“Everyone’s wearing helmets for a reason”) Spithill, and we’re making tracks toward a destination on San [...]

Posted in Destinations, Sailboat Racing | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Case Study

Monday’s SF Examiner piece on America’s Cup finance managed to be both fundamentally accurate and annoyingly alarmist, all at once. The opener captures all: SAN FRANCISCO SHORT OF CASH FOR PLANNING 2013 REGATTA America’s Cup organizers have netted only a fraction of the funds The City needs this year to plan the massive 2013 yacht [...]

Posted in Destinations, Sailboat Racing | 1 Comment

Yin and Yang

Now it’s real. Photo by Guilain Grenier And on the West Bay . . . Photo KL A new look for the Red & White . . . AND ON THE OTHER SIDE It’s like this. First I rowed a small boat. Then I sailed a small boat. Big boats, slow boats, fast boats. Around [...]

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Amazing

They came off the water frigid but thrilled, four high-school winners of a contest to design a student pavilion for an America’s Cup Village, four kids who got lucky enough to be in the way when America’s Cup Organizing Committee cofounder Peter Stoneberg offered to spice up the contest by taking the winners for a [...]

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Wages of Success
Wages of Stress

The radically-ambitious attempt to reinvent the world of America’s Cup sailing in a single event cycle is all-on. Still. All-on. With adjustments announced rather early PDT on June 1. (A considerably less-dramatic announcement than many “Amendment 8″ conjecturalists had conjectured.) In these adjustments I find nothing explosive, nothing that says we’re not going to get [...]

Posted in Sailboat Racing | 2 Comments