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Thread: What I Saw

  1. #291
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    All this attention is a little unnerving, but I know you all like reading about boats so here's what I saw last Friday over on the City Front

    Mubadala United States Sail Grand Prix (GP) Friday March 25, 2022

    I have a new gig writing for the Bay & Delta Yachtsman, and the publisher sent me to the St Francis Yacht Club with a press pass. Me. With a press pass.

    I was totally clueless about what to do. For example, I wore sailing clothes. Yeah. What a rube, huh? Everybody was speaking Dutch and French and German and Australian. They were all wearing ... well, nicer clothes than me. I was wearing my Race Committee jacket from the 2016 SHTP. I love that jacket. I've almost worn it out I love it so much.

    Anyway, the St Francis is the place to go for good pastries and coffee. And the restrooms are nice, too. There is even mouth wash in the ladies' room. I don't know if there was mouth wash in the men's room. I didn't check.

    There were rows of hot desks looking out on the Bay. You don't know what a hot desk is? Well, that's because it's a secret language for Media. For media people like me a hot desk is one that has lots of extension cords (white, to match the leather seats) plugged into electrical outlets. So now you know. The outlets were for all the very expensive television cameras and camcorders and laptops and iphones. I only had my iphone. You can probably tell from the quality of the video.

    First we all listened to the representative of a television station interview The Rockstars of Sail GP. And they really were The Rockstars.

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    If you follow international sailing you know who they were.

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    They were very articulate about racing the foiling cats and enthusiastic about what it would take their teams to WIN the Mubadala Grand Prix competition. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with what most sailors do on the Bay, but everybody was very positive about the upcoming weekend.

    Everybody was quite nice. Specially the two Aussies. Here they are, Ben Glover on the right, and his colleague. Two excellent specimens of men from Down Under

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    Ben Glover is editor of the Wide World of Sports: https://wwos.nine.com.au/

    Neither fella had a business card. Business cards are so yesterday, you know? But I gave them one of mine, and Ben sent his article on to me. What a swell guy, huh?

    They knew what was going on, and it wasn't sailing. It was aerospace flying across the water. I had a really fun time. Here's my video.

    https://vimeo.com/694228603

    Then I went outside and smiled at Kendall, the nice woman who was in charge of the VIP shuttles. I don't think I was meant to be on the shuttle, because of my clothes and all, but I offered to sit in the furthest back part so no one objected. Everybody was very polite over at the St Francis.

    We were driven down the peninsula to India Basin, where there was a tech village for all the countries’ tents and temporary offices.

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    It was as big as a small European town and full of people dressed in clothes with the SailGP logo on them. Everybody seemed to know exactly what they were about. Pier 96 is one of south San Francisco’s loading areas for container ships.

    But back to arriving at the tech village in the VIP shuttle: There was an actual red carpet laid out for the VIPs. Like in the movies. As I said, I don’t think I was supposed to be there, but as David Nabors once said, “Wherever you go, there you are.” So I followed the red carpet into the welcome office, made of an all-glass shipping container. Inside there were lots of smiling people and also – Yes! An espresso machine! So I ordered up a latte with oat milk. Seriously. It was such a nice surprise.

    Then we went on a guided tour. At the end of every night the boats are dismasted and put away. Here’s a photo of the bright red crane used for just that purpose.

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  2. #292
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    Read Post #291 first

    I have a short video of the crane gently laying the sail down so a bedtime team can roll it into its own warehouse. It was impressive.

    Here are photos of three iterations of another part of the foiling cat (the wing frame?) being built from scratch out of carbon. Sort of like Steve Buckingham's boat construction, only bigger.

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    Then it was time to get back on the VIP shuttle to return to the City Front. So I did. There was a filmmaker in the middle seat, Gareth Kelly. He has made a film about the photographer Sharon Green. His company is called Bowline Films and he was quite nice and funny. He’s from the Lake District in England, which he described as “You know: Wordsworth? Beatrix Potter? That area”.

    Sharon Green was in the far backseat with me. She’s pretty and petite and has even shorter legs than me. You’ve seen her work. It’s called Extreme Photography. She also prints an Extreme Photography calendar. Those shots are very impressive and in exotic waters. I don’t know if she photographs singlehanders.

    After the tour we arrived back at the St Francis where they served the Media a hot lunch. This gig. I’m liking it. Then I headed over to the Golden Gate Yacht club, where there were RIBs with really big engines lined up at the guest dock. Those Golden Gate members, they are really good sports. They were all in GGYC jackets, reaching for lines and shoving the boats off the docks with smiles on their faces.

    Everybody was having a nice time. Golden Gate has always been very generous to the Singlehanded Sailing Society. Its race deck and clubhouse has been made available to the SSS for years for its most important races: The Three Bridge Fiasco, the biennial Long Pac and the Singlehanded Transpacific Race to Kauai.

    So I moseyed on down the dock to a really nice looking RIB with two 190 hp engines.

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    Ruben Davila, the driver, is from New Orleans so he knows how to be charming and welcoming. He was also in the US Navy, so he knew how to manage that big powerful boat.

    Ruben was waiting for some VIPs but they never showed up so he handed me a brand new pfd. Every boat had lots of brand new pfds. Molly Vandemoer, a past Olympic sailor and Director of the Peninsula Youth Sailing Foundation ran over and jumped in the boat. Our own home-grown Rockstar. Then we were off, banging off the waves in the Bay, which were getting bigger and bigger. It was so much fun!

    We bashed around on the water, watched some foiling cats, then came back in and collected five VIPS. We went out again and bashed around on the water some more, watched until the big cats were tired, then came back to the Golden Gate YC docks where those members caught our lines again and tied up the boats like sailors.

    Then I thanked the Golden Gate Yacht Club members, and Ruben and Molly. I went back to the St Francis, but really? There was nothing left for me to do there. So I drove home.
    Last edited by Philpott; 03-31-2022 at 12:03 PM.

  3. #293
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    Whew - it's currently blowing 28 kts at RYC with a 36 kt gust a bit ago. NOAA shows a 41 kt gust around the corner at Marina Bay and a 46 kt gust on the Benicia Bridge. That's almost as much wind as we had in the storm last October (up the page).

    It's garbage pick-up day and the empty bins are racing each other down Panorama Drive. The blue garbage bins are currently outpacing the brown recycling bins.
    .
    Last edited by BobJ; 04-11-2022 at 12:40 PM.

  4. #294
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobJ View Post
    The blue garbage bins are currently outpacing the brown recycling bins.
    In Oakland the brown bins are for trash and the blue bins are for recycling. This is probably why people don't move: It would be way too confusing.

    Here in Oakland there is a shouting match going on outside. After three years of not doing so, I just watched a meter person put parking tickets on car windshields up and down the street. My neighbor is very upset.

    Neighbors on the other side of my house just received notices on top of compost bins because strangers tossed in their doggie waste. It's a jungle out there. I need to get out on my boat.

  5. #295
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    Quote Originally Posted by Philpott View Post
    In Oakland the brown bins are for trash and the blue bins are for recycling...
    Uh-oh...

  6. #296
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    Quote Originally Posted by Philpott View Post
    In Oakland the brown bins are for trash and the blue bins are for recycling.
    Golly. In Menlo Park it was black for trash, blue for recycling, and green for compostables. Now in Borrego Springs they gave us a green bin for trash, with a big sticker saying TRASH ONLY. Blue for recycling. Composting? Fat chance. And what's weird is there's no option for anything smaller than a 96 gallon bin. We barely cover the bottom of the bin most weeks.

  7. #297
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    Don't know how many of you have been following Cliff Shaw s/v Rainbow? He has diverted to Honolulu, and is asking whether there are any SSSers thereabouts who can advise him regarding berthing.

  8. #298
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    Quote Originally Posted by Philpott View Post
    Don't know how many of you have been following Cliff Shaw s/v Rainbow? He has diverted to Honolulu, and is asking whether there are any SSSers thereabouts who can advise him regarding berthing.
    Lee Johnson called a few days ago and has friends in Hilo and info to share with Cliff. But neither of us know how to contact him at sea.

  9. #299
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    A few years ago when we were looking for Oahu marina options for PJ, about the only place that had openings was Ko Olina Marina north of Barbers Point. It’s not particularly convenient to marine services, but there is a Costco nearby.
    Tom P.

  10. #300
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    Not sure where the info regarding Cliff going to Hono came from. The only mention of diversion was to Hilo and that on his tracker 6 days ago. https://share.garmin.com/CliffordShaw Dentistry may be needed. Unless there are coms with RAINBOW, we are all mushrooms. RAINBOW currently 840 nm out of Hilo, which should be about 5 days ETA.
    Last edited by sleddog; 05-01-2022 at 06:32 AM.

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