2008 Goals (from the old board)

[BobJ]

Surfing Anvil

Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:14 am

There are a number of ways to approach the SHTP which is one of the best aspects of the race. Most competitors aim to sail this race with an eye toward winning. Some just want to complete it - the accomplishment of sailing 2,100 miles being enough of a return for their efforts. My view for 04 was to use the two years before the race to become a moderately competent bluewater sailor. Then, use the experience as preparation to keep on sailing. If there is one reason that I got the opportunity to sail my boat from SF to Auckland last year, it was because of the 04 SHTP.

My more famous competitor - Mr. Haulback - who came up with the perfect name for my boat did much the same thing but on a much grander scale. I hope that one day we will see a competitor do what a French single handed sailor did some years ago - pass the finish line and just keep on going.

[BobJ]

sleddog222

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:17 am

We go to sea in sieves, we do, in sieves we go to sea:
In spite of all our friends could say,
On a summer's morn, on a stormy day,
In sieves we go to sea!
And when our sieves turn round and round,
And every one cries 'You'll all be drowned!'
We call aloud, 'Our sieves ain't big, But we don't care an SSB.
We go to sea in sieves we do.

We sail away in sieves, we do, In sieves we sail so fast,
With only beautiful pea-green chutes tied with a snuffer by way of a sail,
To a small aluminum mast;
And every one said, who saw us go,
'O won't they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long.
And happen what may, it's extremely wrong
In a sieve to sail so fast!'

The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in;
So to keep us dry, we wrapped our feet in plotting sheets all folded neat,
And fastened them down with a pin.
And we pass the nights in our crockery-jars,
And each of us said, 'How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our sieves we spin!'

And all night long we sail away; and when the sun goes down,
we whistle and warble a moony song
To the humming of an autopilot gone wrong.
In the shade of the twins,
'O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in our sieves and crockery-jars.
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
To the shade of the Tree so cool.'

We sail across the Pacific, we do,
To an island all covered with trees.
And we bring an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And we've bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.

And in two years we all come back,
In two years or more,
And every one says, 'How round we've grown!
For we've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of Hanalei.
And we drink our health, and give a feast
With beer made of beautiful yeast;
And every one says, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a sieve,
To the Bay of Hanalei.

Our eyes are red, and our hands are blue,
And we go to sea in sieves.
____/)____/)_/)_____

[BobJ]

Alchera

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:22 pm

I love it. Can I have some of whatever you're taking?

[BobJ]

184 Phil

Location: San Mateo
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:00 am

Hey Mark,

Nice avatar, will you be wearing a blue blazer next ?

Phil
_________________
guess I better clean the bottom

[BobJ]

BobJ

Location: East Bay
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:06 am

Sled, that is fantastic! You have a gift my friend.

I'm moved to dig out the lyrics to a song transmitted over the SSB from about 38 by 133, during the return trip last Summer.
(The response from the audience was that I should keep my day job.)

Phil started the music-over-the-SSB thing - it was entirely his fault! Oh well, here we go:

(To the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"):

I just raced to Hawaii, all the way by myself.
Eating nothing but peanuts and Crackerjack,
Now I'm not sure if I'll ever get back!

For its reef, unreef and just fix stuff,
Lonely day after day.
Watching mile after mile on the old GPS
'til the Golden Gate.

[BobJ]

Surfing Anvil

Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:20 am

I take some comfort in the fact that you guys are sailing in the other hemisphere...

BTW, Auckland rocks sailing wise. The only two real defender candidates for the Americas Cup are both here. Oracle just lauched their new boat last week in Viaduct Harbor and is here practicing in the Hauraki Gulf for the next month or so. Emirates Team New Zealand took delivery of their new boat some months ago and has been dueling the number one and two boats for longer than any other syndicate. Both teams depart for Valencia sometime in late February.

Hopefully, the next Americas Cup will either be in Auckland or SF.

[BobJ]

Ergo

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:21 pm

Is the "avatar" that blue thing in the corner, and what's wrong with blazers? And oh yeah, it is Phil's fault. It's all Phil's fault.

Bill
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SSSTP06

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:52 am

Yeah, I chuckle every time is see Mark's Commodore Burgee when he posts. I'll have one buckle...until someone moves it and puts up a nice shot of Georgia I just got...(just kidding, Alan!)

Can't wait to see the new crop of Avatars...

Lucie

[BobJ]

sleddog222

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:17 am

We were cutter-rigged and rakish,
with long and lissome hulls,
And we flew the pretty colors of asymmetricals.
With staysails pulling mighty in the fore,
We sailed the Single Handed Transpac in alternate years of yore.

With a boom preventer amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We'd each a brace of feather jigs and a tether at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the golden mahi, and laid their fins aboard.

And flying fish filled the scuppers and squid dried beneath the pole,
And the varnish was all splattered with scales on the sole.
But we soon were washed and rinsed, as the squalls marched slowly by.
And tradewinds blew us foaming westward under popcorn in the sky.

O! Then it was while lying beneath the myriad night time stars,
We could hear the dolphins squeaking as they swam in from afar.
Then having trimmed the boat asleep, with little else to do,
We danced a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.

O! The slack key on the stereo and our slapping naked soles,
We danced a little jig and curtsied as she rolled!
Ah! the thirsty solo sailors and the radio pranks we played,
Would be told beneath the Tree at the ending of the day.

With the silver seas around us and the full moon overhead,
And the look-out gazing westward as his cigar was glowing red.
The cutters and their merry crews will be anchored not far away,
A little south of sunset in the Bay of the Hanalei.

~sleddog _______/)___/)_____

[BobJ]

sleddog222

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:22 pm

We dream of Tree of Hanalei, some days around the clock,
But haven't set a sail yet, as we work here at the dock.
And with every dream that stalks our mind, we swear we'll soon let go,
And watch the Farallones sink astern from the warmth of down below.

All spring, we’ve slaved aboard our sloops, doubted by knowing smiles,
And the autopilot still won't work, so now its got frequent flyer miles.
We’ve patched our rents, and plugged the vents, dogged hatch and porthole down.
Put rigging up and down the mast, and inspected her around.

Our wives have long since wrote us off, not a nickel more to spend.
They gave us twenty years of patience, Boys, and now they're at their end.
But dreams are hard to sink, just ask Dwight and Beetle and Lou.
Then our loves laughed with us and said we'd just have to go.

Now we're alone aboard our little ships in a gale off the coast.
And we worked like hell to reef our main before it went to toast.
And the groan we gave as it came down, it caused us to proclaim.
Halleluja! We'll get to Hanalei and that Tree that caused this pain.

We surf down Pacific rollers, a squall hot on our tail.
Have to get that spinny down, before it blows the sail.
But Roll Call's on the SSB, better check in very soon.
The General's talkin' to Sail A Vie, Boys, and singing a woeful tune.
The mast is down, the General says, but the jig is not yet done.
He'll jury up that sucker soon and continue on his run.

And you, to whom adversity has dealt a heavy blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go.
Though your rig may be be broken and race about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a boat, a love, a friend
Turn to like Ken and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain.
And like the Singlehanded Sailors, Rise Again!

~~~~~_/) ~~~ sleddog, in memory of Jim Tallet and Stan Rogers.

[BobJ]

BobJ

Location: East Bay
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:10 pm

Sled, who was Stan Rogers?

(And the part about our wives writing us off is too close to true!)
________________________________


AlanH
Site Admin

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:15 pm

I paid my hundred bucks at the Boat Show...I'm IN. #30.
_______________________________


Max

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 11:22 pm

(Since Sled hasn't answered ... is he Canadian? maybe he's insulted)

Bob, Stan Rogers was a much-loved Canadian folk singer. Died 5-10 years ago I think.

Max