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What's new in the sailing world
- Thread starter One-Off
- Start date
These days now we consider "Watermen" to be dudebrahs who cross over between surfing, SUP and Foiling.
Back in the day around here it was crossing over between surfing and sailing. Being able to hold your own in the water on a daily basis on a surfboard but also being able to step up and crew on a sailboat on a weekly basis.
Santa Cruz has one of the best sailing scenes in the world. If you were a newbie back in the day, all it took to get started was to show up in the summer with a six pack of some really good beer on Wednesday nights. The beercan races. Walk around and you would find yourself a spot on some local boat. And a lot of the local boats happened to be fast boats.
Put your time in.
Learn.
Before long you would be getting phone calls from boat owners a couple days ahead to show up and crew.
A bunch of the old school West Side guys like Dewoorken, Huges, Cary bought their own boats and did the sailing thing on a shoestring budget. We learned even more trying to do the maintenance work ourselves, keeping their boats in the water.
To me, this is what constitutes a Waterman. Not standing on some kind of foam aircraft carrier, holding an oar.
Back in the day around here it was crossing over between surfing and sailing. Being able to hold your own in the water on a daily basis on a surfboard but also being able to step up and crew on a sailboat on a weekly basis.
Santa Cruz has one of the best sailing scenes in the world. If you were a newbie back in the day, all it took to get started was to show up in the summer with a six pack of some really good beer on Wednesday nights. The beercan races. Walk around and you would find yourself a spot on some local boat. And a lot of the local boats happened to be fast boats.
Put your time in.
Learn.
Before long you would be getting phone calls from boat owners a couple days ahead to show up and crew.
A bunch of the old school West Side guys like Dewoorken, Huges, Cary bought their own boats and did the sailing thing on a shoestring budget. We learned even more trying to do the maintenance work ourselves, keeping their boats in the water.
To me, this is what constitutes a Waterman. Not standing on some kind of foam aircraft carrier, holding an oar.
I wonder how automated that boat is so he can sail it single handedly. Computerized sail handling? My uncle had a 47 foot cruising sailboat and he spent a lot of money making the boat be able to sail single handedly with almost no effort. Granted he was only sailing it between Annapolis and southern New England but he could do it alone or with my father along to take turns on watch well into old age. He sold it just shy of his 80th birthday.
Bill Lee is the man! He pretty much created what sailing is today. My favorite quote off his is - "I prefer the sensation of going fast to the sensation of receiving a trophy." Back in the late 70's there was the IOR rule and designers were designing boats to get a good rating instead of designing boats that would go fast. He invented the ULDB and now all race boats are ULDB.
All the boats I posted are monohulls. I understand your reservations about the America's Cup boat, the races nowadays being all inshore races (last AC in any kind of sea was back in Fremantle), but still, you gotta appreciate sailboats that are doing 30-40 knots.
I just wanted to share this with the sailing folks of erbb. This is kind of the sailing equivalent of a Desert Point Go Pro video, an experience sailors dream of having. Any one who's sailed will know the feeling, if albeit in a lesser way...
Kailua bay in the 70s and 80s was filled with Hobies hauling ass.
sailing was a huge part of life for most surfers. Seems that died down
sailing was a huge part of life for most surfers. Seems that died down
Hobie, Phil Edwards, Grubby Clark, Joey Cabell, Micky Munoz were all sailors...probably a lot of others I don't know about. I had a chance to meet Mr. Clark, Munoz and Ohil Edwards while working for Dennis Choate.
We do the Wednesday night races in Texas. Lots of smaller j24s etc but a few larger boats.
Still trying to find a boat to let me crew on the harvest moon regatta which is from Galveston to Corpus Christi (~250 miles)
Raced in a regatta two years back and had a lot of fun, that sh!t is exhausting.
Still trying to find a boat to let me crew on the harvest moon regatta which is from Galveston to Corpus Christi (~250 miles)
Raced in a regatta two years back and had a lot of fun, that sh!t is exhausting.
one of my favorite memories from growing up is of my dad & I surfing on his Hobie 18...into the beach, across shoals into the inlet, open ocean...didn’t matter. I distinctly remember one late summer sail where we launched from the beach through waves that were maybe 1 foot, but when we got out to sea a bit, all the sudden we were dropping into these huge swells...the only time I ever reflexively leaned back on the drop on that boat. Good times.
The Fastest Monohull Sailboat In The World
The fastest monohull sailboat in the world is a needle-nosed ocean racer called V.O.60. It was designed by Bruce Farr, and is capable of 36 knots. That's 41.4 mph.
www.popularmechanics.com
Did that off of Point Loma on a 57 footer after half the fleet got turned around in a San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race in '99 or so. We ripped our main about 3pm, turned around in the south wind and flew back into the harbor. Pretty awesome.
Fucking awesome. Going downwind in heavy air and big waves is up there in the thrill dept with surfing big gnarly waves and skiing deep powder.
I used to be a bow man. Possibly the most time in my life, being scared was on a sailboat. Way more than surfing. The chips are down on a boat. If you can't do what you need to do when you need to do it, really bad things happen.There is no 2nd chance.
Jybing a spinnaker pole. Got clocked in the head once so hard when somebody let go of a topping lift line in the cockpit, You are in a boat. The rigging is straining. A huge load on every particle. Flying downwind. The sea state. You are going so fast the bow buries into the back of a wave in front of the boat. Everything loads up. Then the bow lifts/punches through and the whole boat starts surfing down into the trough of the wave. Then the bow buries into the back of the next wave...
I used to work the bow on the boats I raced on because I'm skinny and light. I raced on small boats, so end to end gybing. I had a mishap once, like you because someone back in the cockpit wasn't paying attention. I was holding the pole overhead trying to clip the new guy and someone didn't ease the topping lift enough, the boat rolled and the next thing I know I'm hanging onto the pole suspended over the water like a high wire act. The bad part was when the boat rolled back the other way and it was like- look out mast, here I come!
That's why I like the idea of the sprit boats. Watch this gybe (at 2:00 minutes) on a boat you posted previously. Looks so easy, but I bet there was some pretty furious grinding going on...
I watch that program sometimes. Something about the narration at the beginning always reminds me of the news program on an international airline flight. Speaking of flight...
