(NECN: Hyannisport, Mass.) - It was a day at the shore designed to send a message. Ted Kennedy has no plans to slow down. Senator Kennedy and his wife, Vicki, went sailing Wednesday afternoon, just one day after it was announced that he has a brain tumor. On a picture perfect day for a sail, [...]

Laser sailors are good people. You can lend a Laser sailor your boat, your car, or even your wife, and expect to get them back in hardly any worse condition than they were before.

But even so... I wouldn't just leave all my Laser gear on my boat overnight at a regatta in plain view. Someone might decide that they just had to take my mast top section to replace the one they broke today. Someone might think that some of my lines needed to be transferred to a more deserving home. Someone might forget to bring their buoyancy aid the next day and assume that it would be OK to "borrow" mine for the day. Etc. Etc.

Of course Laser sailors are good people. But there's no point in putting temptation in their way.

So if I'm at a multi-day regatta I have two choices. Take everything off my boat every night and pack it away in my car or the hotel room; or put a top cover on the boat to cover all my goodies from prying eyes and hope that this will persuade those "good people" Laser sailors to look for easier pickings elsewhere.  read more »

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 Telefnica boats have returned to their Alicante bases following 8 days of sailing to complete the 2,000-mile qualifier, a requirement laid down by the Race organisers. Its been a great baptism of fire for the boats and the crews, and its turned out to be a great test for us, commented a satisfied Bouwe Bekking after reaching Alicante. Weve had eight days of offshore sailing, with both of the boats sailing out to the Gibraltar Straits. From thereon Telefnica blue and Telefnica black headed towards the Southeast of the island of Madeira, and just before reaching it they set course for Gibraltar again, and then finally back to the Telefnica team base in the Port of Alicante. Besides the last 3 days of the qualifier, the boats sailed together throughout, in a thrilling one-on-one. Over this qualifying leg, the Telefnica crews have come across an array of conditions; from almost zero knots to 35 knots (around 65 km/hr), storms, rain, hail, sun, fog in actual fact, the very best conditions for testing out the performance of the both boats in a variety of situations.  read more »

I've always enjoyed navigation whether on land hiking up hills or on the water, checking marks and setting a course to a distant over the horizon destination.

And its a lot more fun to use numerous cues from the world around than just taping in lat / long into the GPS.  read more »

[Source: Team Origin] Well the goal at the first meeting to frame the concept of what the New "Speedboat"was going to be, and its objectives was always quite clearly defined as to a line honors win in the 2008 Newport Bermuda race, at just after 8 am this morning local Time we cruised across the line enabling us to tick that goal off, a 250 mile beat in between 7 and 10 knots of wind meant that the record was long gone, but as I mentioned yesterday the time to be able to test and play around with different modes upwind has been priceless.  read more »

UK based yacht racing organisation Global Yacht Racing are entering the RORC Madeira Race in August 2008 and are looking for crew to join the team. The race is a new challenge on the UK sailing scene and comprises 2600 nautical miles of tough racing across the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay and sailing south down the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal to Madeira and back. This looks set to be the yacht racing challenge of the year for non-professional sailors. (PRWeb Feb 21, 2008)
Read the full story at http://prweb.com/releases/2008/02/prweb709383.htm

[Source: World Match Racing Tour] Anticipation runs high today for tomorrows start of the Brasil Sailing Cup in Vitoria, Brazil, the first event of nine of the 2008 World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) season. As with all WMRT events, an impressive slate of 12 skippers and their crews representing Americas Cup teams, top-ranked positions on the ISAF Match Race Ranking List, and up-and-coming aspirants who have won qualifying events are all poised for battling each other for their share of WMRT ranking points and a piece of the US$150,000 prize money purse. Were very excited for the start of tomorrows racing, said Justino Sa Machado, Event Director of the Brasil Sailing Cup.  read more »

Round the world yacht race skipper Bob Beggs is on course for the start of the toughest sailing challenge left – a polar circumnavigation of the North American continent, and transit of the North West Passage from Atlantic to ...

Tillerman's planning on giving not just one but the top five best sailing inventions, which naturally got me wondering what mine would be. Of course the best ever is the triangular sail, so that leaves just four to find.  read more »

Posted by: dawesboat  read more »