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Gadgets / Sailing — No Comments
22
Jul 10

First RC Laser Regatta was Learning Experience for Three CYC Members

Below is an article that is being sent to the Canandaigua Yacht Club’s newsletter for consideration for use in the Aug. 1 edition.

A group of members have now purchased three RC (remote control) One Design Laser sailboats and there are two more to be ordered (this week, hopefully) and a couple of other people considering the purchase. Shortly, we’ll be joining the North American RC Laser Class Association and forming an official fleet on Canandaigua Lake and racing at CYC. The current leading name is the Canandaigua Yacht Club Remote Control Sailing Fleet (if the club will have us).

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On Sunday, July 18, three sailors from Canandaigua Yacht Club competed in a “first of its kind” (for CYC) Remote Control Regatta.

Remote Control Laser Sailing

Sailing RC Lasers at Canandaigua Yacht Club

Skippers Jack Bennett (#05), Bill Blevins (#254) and Nelson Habecker (#54) competed using remote control one design Laser sailboats in a series of round-the-buoy races.

Frank Sacco served as the PRO and his boat, Dr. Heeks also hosted spectators, Larry & Nella Neeck. The boat was also the mobile racing platform for the three skippers. The course was set just South of the mooring field and marks were attended by a spectator boat.

Three races were run, although the final race was shortened due to the number of large spectator boats crowding the course which unfortunately blocked the wind for the small competitor boats.

Bennett’s racer seemed to develop a mind of its own, and on multiple occasions did penalty circles for no apparent reason. Mark-set-and-spectator-boat driver Gary Schmidt was sent to rescue the wayward craft a few times throughout the afternoon.

Habecker’s craft was on course for the gun and a bullet in the first race, but at the last minute, the skipper decided to ride a wind shift directly into the beam of the Race Committee boat which left Blevins clear to overtake from behind and cross the finish line first.

Two other races were completed but the results are still under review for various reasons, and thus are still deemed unofficial.

Informal races are planned for Sunday afternoons at the South end of the CYC waterfront, sometime around 4 p.m., or whenever the crews and boats arrive and feel like sailing. Additional regattas will be announced in the future. For more information on joining in on the fun around this exciting sailing opportunity, contact club members Bill Blevins or Nelson Habecker.

If you are interested in obtaining a RC Laser Sailboat, visit http://www.sailrclaser.com. The boats are available as a ready-to-sail kit that includes the boat, 3 sails, transmitter and travel bag. All that is needed to sail are double A batteries. Setup time is about 5 minutes from the bag to the water!

Everyone is welcomed to participate (with a RC Laser or any other RC sailboat) or just come out as a spectator.

We’ll bet you haven’t seen racing like this before!

Rants / Sailing — No Comments
14
Jul 10

Racing By Myself on Canandaigua Lake

How can the only boat that starts a race end up in forth place?

I raced in Canandaigua Yacht Club’s 75th Anniversary History Regatta a few weeks ago, sailing my 2.4 Meter. The race was pretty neat. It took the fleet from the starting line in front of the club, down Canandaigua Lake and around marks that were set in front of all of the old locations of the yacht club in years past.

Canandaigua Yacht Club 75th Anniversary Race

View while sailing down Canandaigua Lake in my 2.4 Meter during the CYC 75th Anniversary Race.

Before the race, I reviewed the racing instructions. The document stated that we would have a windward start.

The morning of the race, I attended the skipper’s meeting. At the end of the meeting I asked the question about the starting line and if we were doing a typical start to windward. I was told, “Yes” we’ll be starting to windward with the first rounding mark “off of the mooring field in front of the club”.

Once I was out to the course, I watched the marks get set, the RC flags to go up, and then I noticed that most boats were tacking back and forth OCS (on course side) of the line.

I sailed around behind the committee boat, approaching on a starboard tack, hailed the PRO and asked about the starting line and if we were still going to windward at the gun.

“Windward start, round the pin and take a sharp left,” was the reply from the PRO or  ”Principle Race Officer”.

Cool.

With a minute to go to the start, I made my way on down towards the pin on a close starboard reach and waited. With 30 seconds to go, I was STILL the only boat behind the starting line and everyone else was on the course side coming right at me!

I’m not sure how many times I could have asked for clarification and in what other form I needed to check, so when the gun went off, I pinched up to a close-hauled course, crossed the line just after the signal, then reached off a hair and jibed around the pin end of the line, barely missing a couple of larger boats coming towards me in the opposite direction. At that point, I headed on down the lake behind everyone else.

No other boats started the race to windward, in the same direction as I did.

Everyone else reached across the line starting line in the OTHER direction, sailing on down the lake when the gun went off.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I managed to stay in about the middle of the pack of boats, not bad considering I probably have one of the slowest boats on the water and three legs of reaching isn’t my strongest point of sail.

I crossed the finish line between a couple of other cruisers and Ensigns and then decided – just to be safe – that I should round the committee boat and cross the line in the direction I started the race. After the technicalities were taken care of, I headed on in to shore for the after-race awards and party.

When I got to the clubhouse, I questioned the President of the club, who was on the committee boat for the start of the race, about the start. She said, “You were the only person who technically started the race.”

No one else had crossed the start line in the proper direction!

Awards were given out for all of the fleets. I was awarded the first in fleet for the cruisers. Then, surprisingly, my little 2.4 Mr had been calculated to be the first place boat overall – kewl!

Last night, (six weeks after the race) I got a call from the Vice Commodore. He let me know that the results had been disputed and I was being moved to 4th overall after the revision.

How can the only boat that started a race end up in forth place?

Internet / Media — No Comments
13
Jul 10

The New Definition of Literacy

This quote (below) was taken from Alfred Hermida’s MediaShift post which was adapted from a chapter appearing in The New Journalist: Roles, Skills, and Critical Thinking, a new textbook for journalism students:

“Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read and write. New literacies generally refer to new forms of literacy made possible by digital technologies, such as blogging, uploading photos or sharing videos. According to new literacies, media is collaborative, distributed, and participatory nature.”

Border Collies — No Comments
13
Jul 10

He Just Wants To Say “Hi!”

Tracy found a great article by Suzanne Clothier called ‘He Just Wants To Say “Hi!”‘ after we got home from an “observation” session with a dog trainer the other night with our border collies Tucker and Grace.

It is quite a long post, but I think every dog owner should read this article. Here the gist in one sentence from the author:

“My experience has been that it is owners of breeds considered non-aggressive that cause the most problems in dog-to-dog interactions simply by being unaware that their dog is rude.”

Gadgets — 2 Comments
20
Feb 10

TV Transplant Surgery Successful


I fixed the blue line problem on my LG Plasma HGTV today after replacing a circuit board, but now Dale Earnhardt Jr’s car is orange!

After removing all of the screws holding on the back cover of the set, It took a while to figure out the easiest way to get the to board I needed to replace and remove the fewest wires and other components as possible. I ended up removing all of the wires on the rear-most panel except for the power connector lines that were located on the bottom right.

The board swung freely so that I could get my tools and hands behind the left side.

Replacing the board wasn’t a big deal except for the little swing connectors on the two wire harnesses at the bottom. After I figured out how they worked, it was easy, but I did break both of the ones on the old board trying to figure out how to get the wires out. Basically, it the locks are on a hinge and swing up and down. When down, they pinch the wires in the correct place.

I put the whole thing together and the sound was great, but no picture. After sitting there a while thinking about all of the wires I unhooked, I remembered one that I forgot to put back in place. After removing the back of the TV again and connecting the wire, everything worked great.

NOTE: Dale Earnhardt Jr. is driving an orange car this weekend.

Fishing — No Comments
20
Jan 10

Beginner Fly Tying Class

Four of us started an eight-week beginner fly tying class at the local parks and recreation center here in Fairport, NY last night. We were told that we’d be learning the basics by tying “classic” patterns that “work in Western New York”.

I need patterns that work in Western New York!

Although I’ve tied flies for a while, I’ve never taken a formal class. I’ve read a lot of books, bought a lot of fur and feathers, watched a few instructional DVD’s, but mostly gained my knowledge to date watching videos on YouTube!

The class was educational, interesting, occasionally entertaining and most importantly fun to hang out with my fishing buddies.

I’ve already picked up a few tips (ie: hold on to your scissors while you are tying) and we completed two patterns – both steelhead jigs – tied on large hooks with molded heads.

Stay tuned for the whole series!

Chartreuse Marabou Steelhead Jig

Chartreuse Marabou Steelhead Jig

Brown Bleeding Bucktail Steelhead Jig

Brown Bleeding Bucktail Steelhead Jig

Fishing — No Comments
2
Dec 09

Fly fishing at Oak Orchard in Western, NY

Oak Orchard Creek, NY

I’m changing shirts! I always seem to have on this orange Filson moleskin!! I’m sure next time I’ll catch more fish with a black shirt.

This is Oak Orchard Creek in Western, NY, right below the point where the fish can’t go upstream any further – about 2.5 miles from Lake Ontario. (I don’t think they can scale this falls).

I didn’t catch anything but I hooked one and bent the #8 hook pretty good and I did cast at a nice brown and a 4-year-old rainbow (they call them steelheads here) but neither were hungry or I scared them off with the big 8 wt. and #2 hook on a 1x leader!!

Next time… smaller gear!!

I did see 3 steelhead caught on spin gear. They looked like 13-inchers and didn’t put up much of a fight for the guys reeling them in.

Beautiful day here with 53 degrees in December! Nice! Next trip will require steel studs on the boots I’m sure!

Personal / Photography — No Comments
1
Dec 09

No More Mowin’… ‘Cause It’s Snowin’

No more mowing... 'cause it's snowing.

Personal — 1 Comment
30
Nov 09

My Radio Flyer Wagon

1970's Radio Flyer Wagon

1970's Radio Flyer Wagon Parts

I’ve begun a project to rebuild my early 1970′s era Radio Flyer Wagon. Thus far, it has been photographed and disassembled. I haven’t been able to find an image of a Radio Flyer Wagon like this one online yet. I did find a similar wagon but the wheels were different. I was, and still am searching for a source to buy an original style stencil to repaint the logo. I may have to have a Radio Flyer stencil made here locally with someone cutting a pattern based on my photos. Stay tuned for followups as the project progresses.

Gadgets / Internet / Weather — No Comments
2
Oct 09

Weather in Fairport, NY

DW3513 Southern Hills, Fairport, NY

This morning, I finished the installation of a wireless personal weather station at my house.

I ordered the Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 Plus Wireless station from Ambient Weather.

The package that I chose included a WIFI router from Hautespot Networks and it connects wirelessly to my home network and sends data from the weather console in the house to the Web without the need to connect to a computer. Since I use Apple MacBooks (ie: laptops), I didn’t want to run a PC to constantly act as a server and send data to the Internet.

In order to separate the wind unit and the main weather station, I added an extra wireless transmitter to the package so that I could separate the two and locate both of them in different places. I also added a heater unit so that the rain collection unit won’t freeze in the winter time.

The anemometer is on a mouting pole on the apex of the roof and captures wind speed and direction. The wind data is send via a solar powered unit that sends a 2.4GHz wireless signal to a console in the house every second.

The main collection unit, the main part of the weather station, is mounted on a fence post in my back yard . It collects information on humidity, temperature, rainfall, rainfall rate, UV, Solar radiation and barometric pressure. These data points are sent from another solar powered 2.4GHz transmitter every second to the house where it then meets up with the anemometer data in the display console for display in the den.

The display console hooks to the wireless router and that sends information through my broadband connection to the Web.

The sites receiving and displaying the data are WeatherUnderground, WeatherBug, HamWeather and the CWOP network.

CWOP stands for Citizen Weather Observer Program and certain weather stations can feed that network data to be used to help with weather research by private, public and government institutions. I was assigned a station ID of DW3513.

Data sent to the CWOP program is analyzed and compared with nearby stations and the expected predictions for the area where a PWS is stores. Here is the page that shows the results of station DW3515.

Finally, there is a cool map called the WunderMap and also a full-screen real-time page from WeatherUnderground that is pretty cool too.

Flickr photos of the mounting locations and devices are posted as well.

Gadgets — 1 Comment
23
Sep 09

Live Weather from Fairport, NY

Gadgets / Internet — No Comments
31
Aug 09

RadarScope was worth the price

RadarScope from Base Velocity

RadarScope from Base Velocity

I paid $10 for RadarScope from Base Velocity for my iPhone via the Apple Store.

It is a very cool application, though I don’t understand all of the radars it accesses, but the basic radars are very useful. It has multiple detailed radar choices and the information is nearly real-time as far as I can tell when using it sailing and we see serious storm clouds brewing!

I’d say, “Yes”, RadarScope was worth the price and worthy of the “most expensive app I own” award.

What is the most expensive smartphone application you’ve purchased? What does it do? Do you think it was worth the price you paid?

Sailing — No Comments
5
Jun 09

Sunday Racing

You may need to get a free account at http://kattack.com to view these. It will be worth it.

When? Sunday May 31, 2009

Where? Canandaigua Yacht Club

Who? J-24′s Albatross (Blue boat) and Dr. Heeks (Red boat)

What? Sunday morning one-design racing!!

Here’s Race #1.

Race #2.

Race #3 (Note: Dr. Heeks veer off to Starboard on the first downwind leg. That was what sailors call a broach. Too bad there isn’t video or pixs!)

Fun was had by all.

Fishing — No Comments
30
Mar 09

Selene Dumaine tying without a vice

Internet — No Comments
24
Mar 09

2009 State Fair Web Sites

Internet — No Comments
5
Mar 09

Twitter Frenzy

Twitter Frenzy - The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Gadgets / Sailing — No Comments
16
Feb 09

Velocitek SpeedPuck Video

Video review of the Velocitek SpeedPuck posted to YouTube by Stern Scoop.

Internet / Work — No Comments
12
Feb 09

The Electronic Newspaper

Internet / Photography / Sailing — No Comments
9
Oct 08

Time Warner Cable “PhotoShow” live in Rochester

Time Warner has partnered with Roxio to use their PhotoShow program to allow the public to upload photos, create a slide show and then publish them on a local TV channel at no cost.

This free version also hosts the finished “show” for people like me to post to a blog like this test I that did today.

The site will also email the show to your friends and another option is to order the show on a DVD. Premium members (paying members) get additional slide show styles, borders, music, transitions, etc.

Neat. A few of my friends have already tried this out and I’ve received several invites to their shows on local Rochester channel 822. I had to try it out too.

Oh, don’t forget to click the button below the show above to turn on the groovy music (also free).

Sailing — No Comments
21
Aug 08

J-22 Worlds first day wrap-up

Before yesterday I couldn’t have said, “Well, I remember this one time when I was in a regatta that was so large that in one race we tied for 64th place with 42 other boats”.

Now I can tell that sailing story!

After waiting for the winds to build and settle in a somewhat straight direction, the race committee tried to get all of the 105 J-22′s heading towards the windward mark. A general recall and then a timing error on the second try delayed the race for 30 more minutes. We were in position to nail both of those starts on the pin end but that didn’t matter in the end.

The third try send all of the boats off without incident. We were one boat length behind a bunch of over-early boats that didn’t get caught and we were mid-line on the pin end side of the line.

After about 5 minutes, the wind went left and got lighter and we tacked to port and headed up the middle of the course. Wrong call!!

The middle went almost totally dead and we struggled with the steering and trimming in the light conditions finally making it to the top mark and then half-way down to the leeward mark before the breeze dropped to under 2 knots.

Finishing somewhere near the back of the fleet, we crossed after the time limit expired and joined company with a third of the fleet in the same predicament as us!

Race committee called it a day and then I had another “first” for my sailing career – being the 17th boat in an 18 boat tow line back to the harbor!

Today, the weather isn’t looking much better as far as sailing goes. Winds of 5-7 from the East (which means ‘no wind’ up here in New York). I hope we get another race in today.

Tonight, I’ll post photos and links to other blogs and report on what happens out on the water. Time to head to the boat!

Internet — 2 Comments
21
Jul 08

Startup Schwag #10

I finally caught up posting links last week and a new “bag” arrived today with a shirt from Plurk.com and other stuff from:

Armor Games – 500 game titles

Magnify – video for your site

Nimbuzz! – social IM and VoIP

PriceAdvance – comparison shopping site

Zilok – online rental marketplace

Sailing — 1 Comment
18
Jul 08

2008 2.4mR Canadian Championships

We’re heading around to the other side of “the lake” this morning, pulling one of our 2.4mR boats and visiting with friends in Toronto, Canada. I’m going to participate in the 2008 2.4 Meter Canadian Championships on Saturday and Sunday.

The National Yacht Club is hosting the event and sailing is off the shores of Toronto on Lake Ontario.

Today is boat rigging day and tune-up sailing with local Toronto sailors and those of us who shows up early.

I’ll be posting photos and updates in the evenings.

Internet — No Comments
17
Jul 08

Startup Schwag update

For months I’ve failed to blog about the stuff “in ze bag” that I receive from StartUp Schwag. Recent “bags” included things from:

Sailing — No Comments
4
Jul 08

Olympic sailors comment on Quindao Algae

Sailing — 2 Comments
17
Jun 08

2.4 Meter Racing Start Video

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