The winning streak continued for Peter de Ridder and his Mean Machine boat. Fresh from yesterday's two victories, Mean Machine won Wednesday's coastal race, after having crossed the scoring gate ahead of the fleet. Still, with Quantum Racing and TAU Andalucia just a couple of points behind them, the Alicante Torphy is open for grabs. After a short-lived postponment ashore, the race committee had to go further to the south in order to find some stronger breeze. The starting gun was fired with just a half an hour delay and the 16 TP52 boats went off heading southeast towards the first mark. The right side of the course was the favorite one and Mean Machine, TAU Andalucia, Quantum and Artemis opted for it. In what was probably the worst tactical decision that cost them their leadership, Bribn decided to go furthest to the right, getting trapped in less pressure. Dean Barker tacked just twice in the first leg, resulting in a 14th place at the first windward mark. It was game over from that point for the then leader. Mean Machine rounded the top mark first, closely followed by Quantum. Peter de Ridder's boat was able to hold on to its lead while behind them, Artemis and TAU Andalucia were fighting with Quantum. After rounding the leeward gate the TP52 fleet started a long upwind race to the island of Tabarca. Again the right paid off and the four leading boats sailed well, aided by the breeze that had picked up, reaching 12 knots. There were hardly any changes in the order they crossed the first scoring gate. When the fleet went behind the scenic island, Mean Machine had a third consecutive win in the pocket. When the fleet reappeared and started a long downwind stretch to the "Butano" buoy nobody could expect what was about to happen. Half way through, the breeze started dropping and shifting noticeably and the problems sprang up for the tacticians. At the buoy, the race committee was signaling a 60 degree shift that would cause upheaval in the fleet. The dying breeze was nowhere to be found except as close as possible to the coastline, unless of course you were Caixa Galicia. While Mean Machine, TAU Andalucia, Artemis and Quantum racing almost entered Alicante's port in their search for the slightest puff, Caixa Galicia found more pressure as far as possible from it and managed to climb from 8th to finish 3rd. The rest of the fleet that chose to go in between stalled, especially Matador and AUDI Q8.  read more »

Valencia Sailing asked Davide Tagliapietra and Doug Schickler of Schickler-Tagliapietra to give their insight into the fleet of VO70's gathered in Alicante. Valencia Sailing: What are your impressions of the boats and the rule development? Schickler-Tagliapietra: Everybody knows the rule has become a much tighter design space. The boats are limited in displacement range, and keel weight is controlled independently. In the small range, the boats will probably all try to be at the light end, of course with the heaviest bulb possible. Using higher modulus fibre in the masts, and the very impressive carbon rigging will make a nice step forward in performance. Safety and reliability concerns have driven other new rules, especially in the keel area. Not all of the changes are founded on sound engineering, but the stakes are high for Volvo and the resulting boats are undeniably awesome. Valencia Sailing: There have been a lot of interpretations to this more refined rule, comments? Schickler-Tagliapietra: This keel weight rule has unfortunately led to a near "attack" on the interpretation process concerning the keel of one team. Even more unfortunate, VOR found itself in a position where it felt the best way forward was to amend the NOR so a boat without a valid certificate could start the race. They have tried to disarm the situation, but the precedent is troubling. Valencia Sailing: Any other interpretations of interest? Schickler-Tagliapietra: One about the use of a rotary keel actuator instead of rams. It's use was denied, but it stirs the imagination. There is an interpretation concerning the use of spray rails for lift, thus declaring it an appendage. The spray rails will trickle down to other long distance race yachts - a good development from IMOCA's and these boats. Valencia Sailing: Can you give us a summary of the boats and teams, from a designer's point of view?  read more »

Mallory Cup Mens Championship Quarterfinal Eliminations for the Sailing Association of Intermountain Lakes , May 24, 2008 , Elephant Butte Lake State Park , New Mexico (continued) Lessons Learned Summary of Lessons Learned In hindsight, race 1 should have been shortened before the last leg. We did learn that club members needed to learn more about the current rules for shortening and changing courses. One slight surprise discovery: I found some of the race equipment that had been needed on the finish boat when I was cleaning out and removing gear from the windward mark set boat (Buzz's dad's ski boat). Apparently, the items had been loaded into the boat when it was launched Thursday morning, but when we asked some people where the items were on Friday, the people we asked didn't know.  read more »

Shown above is a typical starting line for a small, mixed fleet of boats racing on handicaps. The orange pin buoy (buoy shown larger than to scale)is on the left end of the line and the committee boat, shown as green, is to the right. Each square represents 10 feet in this illustration.

The line is longer than the sum of the lengths of the boats, which allows more boats a chance of a good start, and reduces the risk of collision or fouling. The line should be relatively long when a variety of boats sizes and types, and crews of widely different experience levels are starting together. If the line is not square to the wind, it will give an advantage to boats starting at one end, but a longer line will still help to relieve congestion and the chance of collision. The line can be proportionately shorter for a large fleet of maneuverable one-design boats managed by expert crew.  read more »

We've carried the popular AnchorLift by Ironwood Pacific for some time and it has proven to be very popular with our cutomers who fish or boat on larger rivers and lakes. It is one of those products that is so simple, and works so well you wonder what you did before you found it.  read more »

Notice to all shipowners, fishing vessel owners, agents, shipmasters, passenger ship masters, skippers, fishermen, yachtsmen ans seafarers The Department of Transport wishes to advise that the Weather Buoy Network deployed a new generation Wavescan buoy, off the South West ...

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office has deployed a “smart buoy” in the Elizabeth River near downtown Norfolk to observe the river's changing conditions. The buoy, developed in partnership with the Nauticus museum, will be the southernmost buoy in NOAA's ...

Waterways Ireland wishes to advice all masters and users of the Shannon Navigation that the Black Starboard Hand Buoy in the vicinity of the overhead power cable immediately North of Banagher is missing. Master of vessels, particularly those with ...

The second day of Kurt Taulbee's Laser seminar in Clearwater was all about starting. I thought I had heard or read all there was to know about starting preparation and tactics, but Kurt's briefing before we went sailing touched on a couple of areas that I either had not heard before or had forgotten...

• best time to hold up the boat to weather
• some subtle differences between pin-favored and boat-favored starts.

As always the best part of the day was the actual drills...  read more »

As of 5:00 p.m. mdt Monday, March 17, 2008, Elephant Butte Lake has begun to receive enough spring runoff to offset water being released for irrigation.

Elephant Butte is at 4,338.54 feet above benchmark, with 485,767 acre feet of water.
It has rising about an inch and 1,300 a.f. in the past 24 hours, and risen a quarter inch and 255 a.f. in the past three days. Since the low point last October 25, the lake has risen 14.14 feet and 162,277 a.f. Long Point will become an island when the lake rises another few feet, perhaps in April.

Heron Lake remains covered in almost a foot of ice. It is at elevation 7,144.61 feet, with 197,790 acre feet, and is up an inch in the past three days. The Azotea Tunnel has been flowing at 73 to 78 cubic feet per second in the past 71 hours, with Willow Creek flowing at 91 to 315 c.f.s. The road to the marina is covered in eight inches of icy, crusty snow; even a four-wheel drive vehicle would probably need snow tires or chains to negotiate it, and part of the trail down to the marina is blocked by two feet of snow. But, the piers are mostly clear of snow.  read more »