Thursday, July 31, 2008

ACup Debacle


Well, the NY Appellate Court really screwed the pooch on this one. While the 90' multi-hull DOG beast matchup wasn't what I wanted, I was hopeful that it would at least restore order to the Cup. How they deemed "having" to be ambiguous and then used 2003 as precedent without considering the previous 150 years is beyond my brain. I have defended and followed this process as much as the actual racing, but even I am tiring of the event.

J-24 Sailing tonight. Hopefully will have good news tomarrow.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Good News

The good news Sunday evening was that Tim Woodhouse (pictured after winning the Ida Lewis Distance Race last year) owner of Hood Sails and the high performance racing machine Rumours finally came home from the hospital after round one of his bout with Cancer. We knew Tim wasn't quite himself all spring and summer, but his bout with Leukemia came quickly and suddenly. Sailing one week, in the hospital the next. This was the first time that I had a good friend who was seriously sick, and it is an odd situation because you want to know how they are doing without bothering their family. The crew of Rumours tried to keep each other informed and we got the first good news beginning of last week when his high fever finally broke.

We kept Rumours going for a few weeks, hoping Tim would make a quick return, but put her to bed two weeks ago. Sounds like it is time to wake her out of her slumber and go sailing this Tuesday as Tim wants to get back out on the water. We have arranged for a RIB to follow just in case and I look forward to seeing Uncle Woody back in his element although I am sure he won't be quite the same. All in all, this news made my weekend.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mistresses

I spent most of Saturday grinding the gelcoat off the deck of the 49er that I and a couple of buddies have inherited. After an itchy sat night I headed up to meet Toby to remove the boom off Alana, the 6 metre I have been sailing on.

Hopefully Visions will forgive me for cheating on her, but it is in a different area code, so I think I am in the clear.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Top Gun


So I sent in my sailing resume to Atlantis Foul Weather Gear today. Made me realize just how much sailing I get to do and what a wide variety of boats it is on. Lets hope they pick me to try out their kit. I really could use some medium weight stuff and my offshore and light-weight stuff is starting to show some wear as well.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Links

Thought I would link to some of the web articles out there involving Visions:

First few are from our friend Ben Ellison at Panbo, a great marine electronics website that I have become fairly involved with, including a tutorial on Saildocs:

Saildocs Tutorial
SatPhone
AIS
Fishing
Marion-Bermuda 2007

Boat Info:
CW Paine Brochure
Morris Yachts
Yachting Magazine Article

Christening


I have been meaning to start a blog for the boat for some time now. This will probably be a bit of a personal blog for now, but I will try to get Bill, Jo, & maybe Zak to post occasionally, or at least I will post from the boat when joining them in August. In the mean time I will try to find time to post about some of the projects we have been working on in the last year including the New Spin/Whisker pole, Expedition and the NMEA network upgrade, the shaft brake repair, an upcoming wifi install and anything else I can think of.

Welcome to our blog, please let me know what you think

--Gram