New in 2021: Adopt a Weirdo Program

[Philpott]

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[Philpott]

From David Nabors, s/v Temerity, SHTP 2016

I sent my mom the Latitude 38 article with the "Buglighter" headline. She thinks I'm cool, not a bad crazy person. Oh well, I suppose she at least has to say so.

Our sport definitely attracts some people from the corners of personality parameter space. Webb Chiles, Bernard Moitessier? These are not normal people. But it is, as the French would say, all part of the charm. Some of us are hopeless impractical dreamers, some seek to conquer themselves and prove something, to someone, and some go full Ahab. Many are a mix.

To anyone who takes prickly offense at the mild self-deprecating humor of the buglighter sobriquet, I would hope they realize that such hypersensitivity perhaps indicates a level of neurosis that indicates they should fit right in.

First one to the Tree has to buy the drinks!

David

[Philpott]

From 2014, Brian Cline on s/v Maris, a Dana 24, crossing the finish line in Hanalei Bay. I don't know who took this photo: Probably Christine Weaver or Jonathan Gutoff. They're always at the finish.

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Am I the only one out here? Surely other people have something to write and post? This isn't a private forum, you know! Brian's boat may be small, but she is mighty. Those are handmade sails and he finished in a very respectable time.

[BobJ]

A log entry from the 2008 SHTP describes the Half Way Party package I opened during that race:

Ragtime!
2008.07.21
1725 I've been a bit occupied with racing a sailboat and haven't had a chance to post. During the past three days I've managed to break an autopilot drive unit, a whisker pole (twice on the same pole), nearly chafed through a spinnaker halyard making it unusable, busted a tie-down on the dodger, had computer problems and otherwise had a simply grand time, eh? ("Eh" is courtesy Haulback.)

Last night at 2030 I passed the half-way point (1,060 miles to go). I missed the turn into the Half Way Barge so no hot shower or Starbucks for me until Hanalei. But I had a great half-way party aboard, thanks to the big package prepared by Connie and the kids. Besides a crazy talking "Congratulations" card, there were four packages inside, labeled "Something to Wear at Your Party," "Something to Eat at Your Party," "Something to Do at Your Party" and "Something to Read if the Party Gets Dull." Connie's creativity is always bubbling just beneath the surface so I knew this would be good.

"Something to Wear" contained a pair of "party pants" and beer glass sunglasses. These might get modeled at a Hanalei Tree party. "Something to Eat" included brownies and half a box of my favorite selection of See's candies. The "half a box" means that each piece was sliced in two and half was removed. An enclosed note stated that I had to sail the other half of the race to get the remainder! "Something to Do" included a fishy paddle ball, harmonica and a small photo album.

Finally, "Something to Read if the Party Gets Dull" was a Motor Boating magazine. No doubt Connie anticipated that a true sailboater would never read such a thing - she had carefully glued the cover to the latest issue of "Mental Floss" magazine. So there you go!

It's still a bit early but if Ragtime! is any example, on-board calculators are whizzing with ETA calculations and PCR allowances, trying to see where each boat stands. It appears to me that (no surprise) Wildflower has a nearly insurmountable lead, Polar Bear is second, and Alchera and Ragtime! are neck-and-neck for third. But believe me, my brain is running on deep reserves and I could be off a bunch.
Best to all!
_____________________________

So you might say that Connie adopted a weirdo for the 2008 race. It was actually way before that.

.

[tiger beetle]

Am I the only one out here?

Hi Jackie -

Well, the SSS Forum is hardly the official anything about the race - and there's little information about the race on the race's page. So it's a bit tough as an outsider to work up interest in this race as there's been little shared information to the outside world.

Where are the skipper bios or pictures of the boats? The only information I find is the race entry list from jibset, that's a list of boats and doesn't bring in the people sailing them. So I don't know anything about the skippers other than I might personally know (e.g., Jim Quanci, Bill Stange). And I knew Jerry and Fred Huffman - wonderful people, Jerry made a great video of one of his Wilderness 40 TransPacs and my Dad knew Jerry - and brought home Jerry's video for us to watch. First time I had seen open ocean sailing by a singlehander, and I loved the noise the WFax SSB broadcast made - where in the world did that particular noise come from?

The 2021 race page mentions the race records, but that information is incorrect - Ray Thayer and Alex Merhan both updated Stan Honey's elapsed time record yet they're not mentioned. It's not clear from the race page if Stan's record is elapsed or corrected and I can not locate the results from those years. Hopefully they are not lost but merely not-linked-to byt the SSS. Without access to the prior races there's no history to this year's running.

I like that the race is a low-key run-what-you-own event with minimal publicity - but a little bit of publicity wouldn't hurt :)

- rob

[Rainbow]

Hi Jackie -

Well, the SSS Forum is hardly the official anything about the race - and there's little information about the race on the race's page. So it's a bit tough as an outsider to work up interest in this race as there's been little shared information to the outside world.

Where are the skipper bios or pictures of the boats? The only information I find is the race entry list from jibset, that's a list of boats and doesn't bring in the people sailing them. So I don't know anything about the skippers other than I might personally know (e.g., Jim Quanci, Bill Stange). And I knew Jerry and Fred Huffman - wonderful people, Jerry made a great video of one of his Wilderness 40 TransPacs and my Dad knew Jerry - and brought home Jerry's video for us to watch. First time I had seen open ocean sailing by a singlehander, and I loved the noise the WFax SSB broadcast made - where in the world did that particular noise come from?

The 2021 race page mentions the race records, but that information is incorrect - Ray Thayer and Alex Merhan both updated Stan Honey's elapsed time record yet they're not mentioned. It's not clear from the race page if Stan's record is elapsed or corrected and I can not locate the results from those years. Hopefully they are not lost but merely not-linked-to byt the SSS. Without access to the prior races there's no history to this year's running.

I like that the race is a low-key run-what-you-own event with minimal publicity - but a little bit of publicity wouldn't hurt :)

- rob

Hey Rob: go to sfbaysss.org, click on SHTP 2021, then scroll way down and click pages 2, 3 & 4 for skipper bio stuff.

[tiger beetle]

Hey Rob: go to sfbaysss.org, click on SHTP 2021, then scroll way down and click pages 2, 3 & 4 for skipper bio stuff.

Hi Cliff - thanks for the pointer, that worked. Odd to think of the web in terms of 'pages' that need to be advanced to see the entirety of the race's main site, that's not how web sites are designed or work. Wonder why there isn't a link to a separate page of 'Boats and Skippers' from the 2021 race index.html.

- rob

[Daydreamer]

Hi Cliff - thanks for the pointer, that worked. Odd to think of the web in terms of 'pages' that need to be advanced to see the entirety of the race's main site, that's not how web sites are designed or work. Wonder why there isn't a link to a separate page of 'Boats and Skippers' from the 2021 race index.html.

- rob

Well, I tried bashing the keyboard with a crescent wrench and that's what I came up with.
When you hire an auto mechanic to do this stuff, it's what you get!? :)
Just kidding!

Greg

[BobJ]

You. Rock. Greg.

I hope you can sail with us on Saturday.

[tiger beetle]

Well, I tries bashing the keyboard with a crescent wrench and that's what I came up with.
When you hire an auto mechanic to do this stuff, it's what you get!? :)

Greg

Hi Greg - you're doing a great job of trying to keep the web site up and running, you and I have played on it together a small bit. I would hope the rest of the club could bring on someone to run the site for the 2021 SSS race to Hanalei - that in and of itself is a significant time requirement.

I was under the impression that you didn't set up the current website, someone else had put that together a while back.

So nothing I mentioned was aimed at you, at all. And I quite liked the image of a crescent wrench meeting the keyboard!

- rob