Tucker with his big Jolly Ball, originally uploaded by sailorbill.
Author Archives
16
Oct 08
Tucker and Grace Blevins (with Bill and Tracy)
Here is the link to the “Tucker and Grace” photo album on Flickr.
20
Aug 08
J-22 World Championships
I’ve never been in a race with 15+ OCS (on course side) boats and no general recall, but, I guess when there are 105 boats on the line, that isn’t many!!
Nelson, Mike and I went out yesterday and practiced with everyone. We had light and shifty winds and 3 foot seas, so there was a lot of bobbing up and down.
The winds died down to less than 5 knots right at race time after blowing all day from the North.
Not much fun for a practice race but probably the toughest sailing we’ll see for the rest of the week.
Today, for the first day of races we are supposed to see very light and shifting winds from SW changing to NE so we may not even get a race in.
Here is the boat I’m helming: “Changes in Attitude” #1378, Bow # 82
Here is the results page: http://myyc.org/result
More updates to follow!
14
Jul 08
Steely Dan Concert
We saw Steely Dan last Friday night at CMAC in Canandaigua, NY. Great show!!
9
Jul 08
Shopped in person, buying online
Yesterday, Tracy and I bought a new house in Fairport, NY. Over the past two years while we have been living up here, we’ve been saving money in case we needed to do upgrades to the house before we moved, rather than after we got settled in to the new place.
After the closing we drove over to Henrietta, NY with our checkbook in-hand and visited Lowes, Home Depot, Sears and Best Buy to buy a refrigerator, double oven and microwave. (We could have been talked into a cook-top stove too).
We spent at least four hours shopping.
Tracy had a folder with fliers, brochures and printouts from the computer of all of the items she had picked out. We walked the aisles and rows of appliances comparing items and cross-checking with all of Tracy’s paperwork, finding the things she wanted to buy.
We moved from store to store comparing sales offers and prices throughout the late afternoon and into the evening.
We ended up not making a purchase but not really because we didn’t find everything…
Not one store associate or salesperson offered any help. None of them said, “Hello”, and believe me, after that long in several stores, we saw at least ten employees in those sections doing “something”, though I’m not sure it was “work”. We weren’t the only shoppers in the sections either and only at Best Buy did I see one of them getting assistance.
At Sears, where I believe the sales associates are on commission, three of them were sitting on the washing machines across from where we were browsing!
When we got home, we went online to do more comparison with the data we picked up during our trip and we’re now ordering online and having everything shipped directly to the house.
3
Jul 08
Algae blooms at Olympic sailing venue
Quindao, China Algae Bloom at sailing site, originally uploaded to Flickr by beijingente.
China’s latest Olympics nightmare is a vast algae bloom that covers one third of the sea where the world’s best sailors are supposed to be competing in just over a month. Athletes call it “the blob”, “the carpet”, “the fairway”, and “the serious problem”.
30
Jun 08
2008 Flying Dutchman Cannonball Regatta
2008 Flying Dutchman Cannonball Regatta, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Flying Dutchmans sailing, with crew hiked out and approaching the windward mark on Saturday, June 28, the first day of the 2008 Cannonball Regatta held at the Canandaigua Yacht Club in New York.
25
Jun 08
Beautiful evening for sailing
Tracy sailing her 2.4 Meter, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Tuesday night after work, Tracy and I headed down for an evening on the water.
I plopped in the fishing boat while Tracy got her 2.4 Meter rigged.
We met at the lift and got her pointed towards the middle of Canandaigua Lake at about 6 p.m.
The winds were light and other than me, there weren’t many other powerboats out creating chop. We chased each other around for about two hours.
The wind dropped off as she approached the docks and she got to try out the “Praddle” for the last 200 yards. We met again at the dock and put the boats away.
It was a great evening for sailing and putting around in the powerboat.
There were 10 or so cruisers out reaching up and down the lake. You could see each crew straining as we (or they) passed by to get a look at the little sailboat being chased by a bright red powerboat.
The sun was setting as we packed up and headed out.
As we were leaving, vehicles pulling trailers full of Force 5 sailboats were pulling in to the camping area to prepare for the Force 5 US National Championships being held at Canandaigua Yacht Club later this week.
The restaurant and bar are apparently closed on Tuesday nights so we picked up carry-out pizza on the way home and pulled into the driveway at 9:30.
Perfect.
Tonight is the “GO Fleet” race series. “GO” stands for “Geneoa Only” (whisker poles aren’t even allowed) and I’ll be out there with the cruisers tooling around a triangle course a couple of times.
Tomorrow night we are meeting friends after work and taking out several of the club’s Sunfish sailboats and participating in the Thursday night Sunfish races. That should be a trip! I haven’t been on a Sunfish since I was in eighth grade sailing on Brandermill Lake in Chesterfield, VA.
Stay tuned, that should be a real story!
14
Jun 08
Mark LeBlanc Wins 2008 2.4 Meter USA Nationals
2008 2.4m USA Nationals champion Mark LeBlanc headed for a swim, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Mark LeBlanc (USA #137) edged out John Ruf (USA #88) to take the 2008 USA 2.4mR Open National Championship. Both sailors ended up with 21 points after 11 races. I wasn’t around when it was explained how the tiebreaker was decided but Mark took home the Overall regatta trophy, the US National Championship trophy and the US Disabled National Championship Trophy. (Mark was also thrown off the dock for a short swim by two of the coaches after the races on Friday.)
I ended up in 12 out of the 17 competitors. I had a horrible day on Friday because I couldn’t use my backstay so my main was as flat as a pancake and I couldn’t get moving upwind. I have some boat modifications on my list of to-do’s this week!
The regatta was a great time and everyone here was wonderfully helpful and friendly. Tracy has recovered from whatever bug she had during the week. We are heading over to the Noroton Yacht Club now to pick up the trailer and get the boats home.
Photos are posted on Flickr and you can get them by clicking here. They are probably at a quality level for reprinting small images using Flickr’s order form but if you want the high quality pics, just email me and I can send.
Again, a great week of sailing. Thanks Roger & Brit and everyone else involved! See you in Toronto next month!
12
Jun 08
Today is Race Day #2 for the 2.4 Meter US Nationals
Someone should tell Gene Hinkel that rudder pedals are for steering your feet!
11
Jun 08
2.4mR 2008 Nationals, Day 1
2.4mR 2008 Nationals, Day 1 (Photos by Bill Blevins)
Day #1 of the 2008 US 2.4 Meter National Championships is in the books! WHAT FUN!!
Winds were light and shifty. I mean, very shifty! One race took us upwind towards the yacht club and for the next race we headed up Long Island Sound towards New York City. The race committee did a great job.
Our first race was canceled due to a severe wind shift – so severe that I was in the back of the pack one minute and next to the mark in front of almost all of the boats the next! The race committee did the right thing and canceled that attempt and called it a “practice start”.
I finished 6th in the “real” first race. Straightforward race and I sailed pretty well. I caught a nice lift heading upwind near the left middle of the course on the second windward leg and sailed in front of a number of boats.
Races 2 and 3 weren’t so good for me.
I chose to avoid a port-tack boat at the start and I didn’t protest, instead, tacked away and jibed all the way around then got off the line several boat lengths behind the whole fleet in bad air. I did catch up for a bit, making the second boat to round the second windward mark, but my tactics fell apart on the final downwind leg and I finished in 15th.
Race 3, I tried to squeeze in on the RC end of the line and got taken up and over the line early and had to re-round the boat end. I never recovered from that one and ended up 16th.
Overall, I’m in 13th place after 3 races.
Tomorrow, I’ll work on my starts!
I’ve met lots of really nice and helpful people. Having a great time. Tracy is here, sick, but doing better.
More to report tomorrow and many more photos that I’ll post after I get home.
The low point leaders after the first day are John Ruf (7 points), Jerry Wendt (15), Burce Millar (15) and Peter Wilson (15) and Mark LeBlanc (16).
1
Jun 08
Sunday June 2 Race Track
Race on Sunday June 2, 2008 Track
I got out on the water very early today. Winds were great, blowing at 8-12 knots. I sailed for about and hour before the harbor gun, signaling the beginning of the racing sequence and my start in 45 minutes.
I noticed a problem steering to the right so I headed towards shore and lighter winds, luffed up and looked inside of the rear hatch. A guide for the backstay had popped two screws through the fiberglass on the deck and the backstay control line, over the rudder post, was dragging on the right side of the rudder control cable. Poor design, or poor choice of mounting points for that guide if you ask me. The fiberglass where that guide was mounted was as thin as any on the whole boat. With that much tension on the backstay control line, I think I’ll fiberglass in a small wooden block and re-attach the guide with screws into the wood. Hopefully, I’ll not need to drill and bolt up through the deck.
The race started at about 2 p.m. (they don’t use GPS time here) and then the nice winds over the past 90 minutes, or so, dropped almost immediately to 4-6 knots for my race – though race committee recorded results as a 7-11 knots or “3″ on the Beaufort scale although I never saw one whitecap. I guess it was probably 7 kts. for the first couple of minutes of the race when they wrote down the information for the afternoon.
I had a nice beat up to the first windward mark, then things slowed down – a lot – with two very light reach legs, a slow windward leg and a really slow downwind leg followed by a short and slow leg upwind to the finish.
The course was a triangle and then windward and leeward legs with an upwind mid-line finish. The flags posted by the RC didn’t signal the mid-line finish but they said on Sunday’s they don’t use the square with the red “M” so I sailed what everyone else did and being in the back of the finishers made that choice easy.
Canandaigua Lake so far has been light and puffy. I hope there is wind here in mid-summer!
Here are the stats from today’s track as recorded by my Velocitek SC-1:
Sunday Open Fleet Race June 2, 2008
Canandaigua Yacht Club
Canandaigua, NY
Total Race Distance Sailed : 6.534 Km / 4.06 Miles2.4mR #161 – Bill Blevins
Total Avg. Speed : 3.62 KnotsBest 2 second run = 5.27 Knots
Best 10 second run = 4.84 Knots
Best 60 second run = 4.59 KnotsBest 100 meter run = 4.68 Knots
Best 500 meter run = 4.18 Knots
Best 1000 meter = 4.04 Knots
I will link to the race results when they are posted. I think I came in 2nd.
1
Jun 08
View from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today
View from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Have you ever wondered what sailing downwind in light chop and 5 knot winds looks like from the cockpit of a 2.4 Meter?
30
May 08
“My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR” sticker
“My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR” sticker, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
The little round sticker on the back of my Skeeter ZX20 Bay fishing boat says, “My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR”.
26
May 08
Race Track Image from GPS Export
Bill & John’s Race Track, (Uploaded by Bill Blevins)
John Landry and I took out the two 2.4 Meter sailboats and we both ran SC-1′s for the race and I compiled the data to make the image of the course. Very light winds and you can tell from the tracks in the image that wind shifts were frequent.
26
May 08
Sunday Afternoon Race #1
Sunday afternoon Race #1, (Photo by Tracy Blevins)
Tracy took this photo of my little 2.4 Meter sailboat in front of two Catalina 25′s on the downhill leg of the first Sunday afternoon race of the season at Canandaigua Yacht Club . Very shifty and light winds allowed for practicing all points of sail on each of the legs of the triangle course. I did manage to get the gun but I haven’t seen the results yet for the handicaps. Fun!
25
May 08
Sailing Practice Track on May 24, 2008
Sailing Practice Track on May 24, 2008, (Google Earth)
This is the track export from the Velocitek SC-1 and viewed with Google Earth. With no place to go, it seems like I just sailed around in circled. The winds were very puffy and shifty and I’d say constant at 10 knots with gusts over 20 on occasion. This export function is new to me and this is the first time I’ve used this feature. Once the device is used in a race, the computer automatically will divide the tracks into separate races and then it can export data on each race in HTML. It shows things like wind direction and speed over periods of time from “best 10 second run” to “best 500 meter run” based on average speed. Still playing with this one. Stay tuned.
24
May 08
Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots
Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Gene Hinkle drove up from St. Petersburg, FL this week to deliver boats in Rochester for Canadian customers and today he stopped by the Canandaigua Yacht Club to place measurement marks on the hulls of our 2.4mR sailboats.
Gene is the official measurer for several international sailboat classes including Sonars and 2.4 Meters. He had to make due with a tape measure today since his new templates are over in Qingdao waiting for him to return before the 2008 Paralympic Games begin later this year.
Thanks a million Gene!
(P.S. – I’m glad you connected with Dave Troyer about “Krugerrand” too. That was cool!)
20
May 08
Still… “one of the prettiest boats on the Potomac”
I’m happy to report that “Sabrina”, our former 1966 Alberg 30 #158 is still actively sailing and racing under the helmsmanship of her new owner Dana Shafie and he is blogging about their sailing adventures. They hail out of the Washington Sailing Marina in Washington D.C.. Dana’s blog reports that Sabrina is still “one of the prettiest boats on the Potomac“.
I can’t argue with that!
17
May 08
CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training
CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training, (Photo by Bill Blevins).
Tracy and I attended a race committee volunteer training course this morning at the Canandaigua Yacht Club. It was pretty much like all of the other RCs we’ve worked with in the past except for a cool computerized horn system that automates the audible signals with the timing sequences. It has a nickname which is slipping my mind at the moment.
“Ollie”?
Maybe. I think it was “Ollie”.
14
May 08
Velocitek SC-1 and Mac OS X Leopard
I managed to get the Velocitek SC-1 working on my MacBook Pro running OS X version 10.5.2 after a whole lot of effort!
Parallels 3.0 running Windows XP wouldn’t work. I tried for several hours.
I did get the Windows OS to see the units via the USB ports using Parallels and the Velocitek Control Panel software did see each of them too but the firmware update only ran to about 85% before throwing an error. Many attempts either didn’t start because of an error or it only made it to 5% before quitting. Most didn’t even attempt to start without the error message popping up.
Here’s what worked.
Today I installed VMWare Fusion for OS X and reinstalled Windows XP.
Everything went smoothly until I got to the point of doing the firmware updates. The control panel software started throwing errors and that was if it could even get started (again)!
I tried and tried everything I could think of and here is what worked:
- Turn off the Velocitek Control Panel software
- Unplug the SC-1 from the computer
- Remove the batteries
- Put the batteries back in
- Plug the SC-1 back up to the computer
- Start the control panel software
- Run the firmware update
I did this twice with two units. Only in this specific order would the firmware upgrade work but I finally got it.
I was determined to make VMWare play nice with the SC-1′s and now I’m wondering if I just didn’t give Parallels enough trial and error effort.
Anyway… tonight, I used it to map my trip home from work (max speed was 32 knots).
Again though, when plugging in the unit, I had to remove the batteries, then put them back in before plugging in to the computer and starting the control panel software to download the track.
I’ll post again after the first use on the boat, possibly Saturday afternoon. I can’t wait!
9
May 08
The most boring YouTube video – ever
Don’t bother watching this video.
More gadgets!
I picked up an Oregon Scientific ATC2K waterproof video camera on Amazon.com and tested it on the way to work this morning.
Hopefully… I’ll post sailing video on Saturday if all goes well!!