Thursday, May 22, 2008

DEETROIT BAASKET BALL!!!

We stole a game in Boston! Boston has not won on the road once the entire playoffs, huge game for the Detroit pistons!!!
Chauncey, Rip, Rasheed, Tashaun, Antonio, and Rodney all played awesome.

The Ball Don't Lie click that numerous times to get the full effect

Favorite commercial at the moment definitely a lot of truth in it.. "there can only be one"

Went sailing again tried two new items in the control system of the boat. One worked the other was worthless, wind was light went in after confirming my expectations.

I have also finally started to force my self sailing with a msl13. I like my msl10 so much and have put in so much time with the ten it was like giving up a security blanket. The msl13 though has much more of a bottom end. Was able to pop out in pressure that would have been hard with the msl10.


Went sailing monday in really cold and strong gusty winds. Tried a different wand length and flex, boat was crap got fully dunked a bunch of times. 2mm wetsuit was not the right call and was borderline hypothermic by the time I made it in.


Thank you, to Toby Heppell and The Daily Sail for a nice article

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Global warming my butt

It is supposed to be getting closer to summer and I call BS! It has been cold but this morning takes the cake. 42 degrees f (5c) air temp and the water is still 38 degrees f (4c). I would love to watch chris try to adapt to here. I almost have the setup to the point where I can fully hike hard downwind without fear of going in the water. Small Bonus I guess, but I digress, I am certain the average temperature has been dropping by the week. I really am starting to wonder when the canal is going to freeze, this sucks!!

I was thinking a good gauge of how much sailing someone does is how many mainsheets you go through. I am on my sixth mainsheet since december. Chris what are you up to?


Little bit of Melges action this past weekend. I got to sail with Patrick Drummond, his cousin Brian Poppert, and our rockstar bow guy Bobby Cox.
Patrick and I have now won the Muskegon Melges event 6 out of 7 years and the one year we did not win we were not there. It was typical muskegon blowing the dogs of the chain, flat water and big shifts... AWESOME!!!
here are a couple pictures





Note the "technical denim and the old ass spray top" as todd jones called me out on. The race is on with him to see how much nikwax can be put on jeans to make them water proof.


In case you were wondering yes i went sailing. Oh yeah last thought, i got to chat with Toby Heppell of The Daily Sail for a while yesterday and should get a nice article to read out of it.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

One year later

Someone reminded me that it was exactly one year ago today that i sailed my moth for the first time. Hard to believe that it was only a year ago, feels like a lot longer.

So I am at Muskegon Yacht Club for their annual melges regatta. Patrick Drummond and I have won this event 5 out of the last 6 year. The year we did not win it we did not even come. 30 boats shifty breeze and big wind, the typical event here. Looks like mother nature is going to dish up the same again this year.


I will put up the videos again.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Woosa

Checking things off the preperation list. Got one of Phil O'niel's boats in the water and rig up almost ready to go sailing. Put a new bottom on her and Hullspeed on the foils, red bottom with black foils looks very nice to me, hopefully it will go as good as it looks. I guess that is the color scheme of my moth maybe that is why it feels so good.

Packing up to go do some lead assisted sailing in muskegon for the weekend, and go visit Phil's second boat which will get me half way to england.

The blog wars are bugging me and I just need to hard'n the f' up I have gotten enough friends asking about the videos that will put them back up at some point. The british form guide is about to land I can only imagine how that is going to go.....
I guess they are trying to motivate rohan to just sail, he is the world champ after all but i know how i would react to all the tounge and cheek stuff going his way.

woosa


Weekends are relaxing for most people, not I

wish it was monday

woosa


oh yeah sailed in the Yacht Club's beer can race yesterday have to figure out a better phrf number i guess. My first guess had me win corrected by 45 min. Though i did start 15 behind the spinaker boats and beat them by about 5 or 6 min.

Brownie if you are keeping track of my progress towards a Yachtie and not a moth sailor. The sailing days for the last 7 weeks
41 out of 49. I agree with you i should be sailing more.

woosa

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Heavy Metal





Well moved and lifted about 2000lbs of iron and steel yesterday. Could not have done it without the help of my dad and Patrick Drummond(strongest guy i know). We rolled the crates by putting pipes under the rails and lifted the mill 2 inches at a time with two little hydraulic bottle jacks.




I have to thank brownie, pommiebob, and dave lister. I don't know why i would have even put up videos of foiling tacks on the net. Go figure out how to tack by yourself without my video.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What is a Fack?

I don't know all of these slang terms that are either British(i think) or Australian.  I looked in Rohan's Aussie slang dictionary and it did not show, someone please explain.  They don't teach that stuff in my neighborhood, though you do learn when not to make eye contact with the 20 locals hanging on the corner while short cutting your way to the yacht club.  

Yesterday was an epic day on the Detroit river. Bear was in town and we must have gone around my short course for 3+ hours...  It is so much fun to entertain the dining room and bar by doing W/L that takes about 1:30 right in front of them. By my guesstimates that means we did around 80 tacks and 80 gybes each.  We even are starting to get an audience of Coast Guard, and other boaters hanging out in the middle of our race track watching.  

Well I guess I should go pick up my new CNC mill!!!!  through some screw ups at the manufacturer they gave me the biggest one at the price of middle one.    Anyone wanna come over and help me get 1,300 lbs of iron into the basement?? Amac will be so jealous if he gets to come for a visit some time.  I will be able to make anything my heart desires and it could be even out of titanium.  Scott if you wanna upgrade from alloy for your "love rings" we should talk.




Monday, May 12, 2008

What is a boro?

For those of you that read Chris's blog. I think he is making a habit of talking jibberish.  Here is my interpretation of a chris graham post.  "BORO!! downwind boatspeed camels, peaceout to the N**gas, i was drunk. " Add a couple spelling errors and voila!

I am not sure what boro is can someone enlighten me.   

sailing was sweet on sunday blowning 30 snapped a pushrod first time out.  Fixed it and went back out again.  Did 24 knots trying to go slow, probably should have sent it for a couple sec to see if i could have gotten the speed record but was fully just hanging on.  I was able to do a couple laps with no capsizes so I feel like gorge in the summer should be a piece of cake.




Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Cold water tacks

Been practicing my tacks and cold water technique a lot.  I think in the last 5 weeks there has been 6 days that i have not got moth sailing and most of those are due to melges sailing...

I had the pleasure of spending most of the last month with Meredith and Alan Block from BlockSail.  Over the last couple days I have had the pleasure of having the stay at my house.  Besides the two large oil spills on my drive way, and the total lack of sleep it was good to have some company.  Lucky we had two good days of light for sailing so Mer got pictures and Alan took video.  All of m tacks could have been better.  Going on a couple hours of sleep and sanding bondo all day does not seem to help with the boat handling...