April 10, 2004

• Bite Me

  I‘ve been trying to convince my female friends to go on a cruising charter with me. Most say, “Okay,” kinda half-heartedly, as I probably do when they ask me how I feel about the latest TV shows they’re watching.

  So, I was really vindicated when my godsister calls me up out of the blue and tells me she went sailing with her brother’s friend, and loved it. I wanted to squeal, “I told you so! Didn’t I tell you so? Say it! I told you so!”

  What was really cool, was she said she’d lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for 6 years, and never saw the city from the ocean until last week. It gave her a totally new perspective on the place, to see it from the water like that.

  I like to see the sailing bug bite people, most especially my godsister.

  I like sailing with Matt. But one of the people on my sailing list wrote about a particularly harrowing experience she had with her husband, while sailing. He is an intelligent man, and so he likes to question things. Unfortunately, during a storm that cropped up, questioning his wife’s orders was not what was needed in order to get out of danger.

  As another woman said, “A boat is not a democracy.”

  I think that’s also really true of one’s life. And my Xanga site.

  
  

  From February’s “Sailing World” Picture by Stuart Streuli A crowded mark rounding for the Wavelength 24 class at the 2004 Sailing World St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta. This event, which was won by Matt Patterson, served as the class’s national championship for 2004. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–In staunch opposition to some rather dire forecasts, the final day of the Sailing World St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta Presented by Mount Gay Rum provided some spectacular sailing for the record fleet of 193 boats. The sun broke through with a vengeance just before 10 a.m., bringing with it a shifty and puffy westerly breeze that stretched the limits of many competitors and put more than a few rails and spinnakers in the water. One team that was happy to see the whitecaps developing on Tampa Bay was Quentin Strauss’ Melges 24 crew on Gill. “We got going today,” said helmsman Stuart Rix. “We like the wind.” Strauss and his team, who hail from Great Britain, have been using the U.S. southern Melges circuit to tune up for a summer of racing in Europe. “We had a bad start and had to go back on Day 1,” Rix added. “That’s what spoiled our regatta a bit.” But the Gill team rebounded over the weekend with a third and then three consecutive firsts to close out the regatta. It wasn’t enough to catch Doug Fisher of Sarasota, Fla., who had five top-four finishes and won the regatta with 12 points, but it’s certainly a good omen for the team as they head home. “We did some practicing before we came over and it really came down to our boathandling today,” said Rix. “It was puffy and very shifty. We suspected it to be so with the breeze coming off the land. I grew up on small lakes so I like the shifty stuff.” from http://www.sailingworld.com/article.jsp?ID=32726&typeID=403&catID=597

   

  • 2:31 pm
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