The Mad Sailor

I noticed the governor allocated 50 million dollars to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. That sounds great, but I’m betting he knew it wouldn’t get through the state legistature. First they cut it half then it just … disappeared … poof! Nice! When will Annapolis learn that Maryland IS the Chesapeake Bay. This state has a long history of blaming everyone else for the Bay’s problems. This year Maryland is limiting the crab harvest and declaring the crab industry a disaster so they can get money from Washington. It says (here) that this money will employ watermen to help clean up the bay. Hmmmm….that’s nice, but it still doesn’t address the storm runoff and waste treatment problems that plague Maryland. We just keep treating the symptom instead of the disease.

I had to get new flares for both boats last week. Orion has a new money making scheme that I do not appreciate at all. They now sell their flares in packs of four and advertise it as better than Coast Guard requirements. The requirement is three flares and in over 40 years of boating I’ve never used one. So buying four is, in my humble opinion, STUPID! Stop that Orion, bad boy, … bad, bad boy!

I’ve watched the bay degrade for over 30 years. The problem seems well understood, too many people, cars, houses. Storm runoff carries all kinds of polution right into the bay. The remedy is less understood. Engineers now create catchment areas to hold storm runoff instead of piping it straight to the bay and that helps, but it seems like too little too late.

What we need is a way to clean the bay itself. But how? Cleaning the whole bay would be a monsterous task. Recently I came across the oyster gardening project. Waterfront home owners can pay a fee to raise oysters and return them when mature to be dumped onto oyster beds on the bay. You can see the problem with this program, can’t you. It will never attract the numbers it needs to make much difference. And that seems to be just what has happened. The program is a good idea, but no where near big enough. We need to expand this program exponentually .

Let’s redesign the program. First we want to get ALL of the commercial property involved. The bay is lined with marinas perfectly designed to raise oysters. But how do you get the marinas involved? How about a tax rebate? A small, token rebate just for the marina owners trouble. It doesn’t have to be much, $10 or $20 per bag of oysters. Then lets give away the seed oysters and bags, free to a good home. Finally let the marinas and home owners keep their oysters. If they don’t want to be bothered with the maintenance they could sell their oyster rights to a waterman. Aquafarmers could expand their operations through agreements with marina owners and private waterfront owners around the bay.

I confess I haven’t spent much time or effort on this idea. The few people I talked with were very interested, but no one knows how to get past the politics. There are currently several interested organizations, all trying to save the oysters and the bay, all doing their own thing. No one seems to know how to get these diverse groups organized, and that’s what we need.

I’d like to see the governor use some of the fourtune in taxes he costs me every year to purchase the seed and bags. I’d like to see The Chesapeake Bay Foundation develope an educational program. Get the word out. Get people signed up for the program. I’d like to see the Oyster Recover program work with the watermen and property owners to monitor the health and abundance of the oysters. I’d like to see the program developed to maximize the oyster’s spawning. Imagine millions of oysters all over the bay, releasing baby oysters into the water, baby oysters that will end up on oyster beds. A small government investment could create a whole new aqua-culture industry, reseed the oyster beds and restore the oyster harvesting industry and oh by the way clean the Chesapeake Bay, improving the ecological health of the entire area.

Ok … so I’m not going to win the Virgin Earth Challenge. Bummer! I guess I should just tell you all what I think will work and let you run with it. So here goes…

What is this Global Warming (now in caps) all about. Is it the CO2, is it the sun, is it cosmic rays? No! it’s HEAT!! It doesn’t matter how the heat got here, we just need to lose it. How do we do that, you might ask? Well how about painting all the roads and all the parking lots in the world white? Instead of black top soaking up the sun’s light and converting it to heat we just send the light back into space. It’s simple to test. It’s simple to do.

There are other benefits too. It would reduce urban heating, a known problem. And if cities aren’t quite as hot on quite as many days, there would be fewer summer trips to the mountains and shores. Hmmmm, saving gas, that’s a good thing. White streets would be easier to light. We could dial down the city lighting. Save some electricity. City buildings would be a touch easier to cool, more savings! Walking around town on cooler streets would even mean less wear on our shoes. It just works so many ways and all we have to do is come up with an infrared transparent white coating for our streets and parking lots. We already have white coatings that we use all over that might work as is. Of course we’ll have to change the white road lines to something else. How about green? I like green. You know it might be easier to see a green line on a white background under an inch or two of snow. Yellow lines can stay yellow. That should be alright.

What do you think?

Green green it’s green they say …. hmm hmm hmm … Oh, Hello! Welcome aboard! I was just thinking about all this environmental religion slash global warming stuff. It seems like our elected officials at all levels of government are once again running off in all directions, blaming everyone else and just being ineffective as usual.

Do you know what I’d like to see? I’d like to see congress do something useful for a change. Instead of blaming global warming on SUV’s and setting impossible fuel milage for the manufactures try something different. How about fixing the traffic lights? Did you ever notice that your gas milage is worst in the city than it is on the highway? All that starting and stoping, idling at redlights, and traffic jams … uses up a lot of fuel. So isn’t it about time the government stepped forward and upgraded the lights. That technology hasn’t changed since World War II. To be fair they did try timing the lights with some success, but even that was never universally deployed. That’s ok, it wouldn’t work anyway. The traffic light system can be improved … alot! Don’t know how to do it? Give me … oh … 3 or 4 engineers and about a year. I know how to do it. I’ll give you a hint, think internet

And another thing! How about telecommuting? There’s an idea that just never got off the starting line. Why? Why should it? Where’s the incentive? Well, how about a tax break for companies that promote telecommuting? I don’t know, something like $20 a day for every employee every day that they work from home. That should help warm corporate america to the idea. Of course, it will never get through congress because they would lose money from corporate taxes and gas taxes. We just can’t have that.

Oh well, just a thought Green green, it’s green they say on the far side of the hill … la la la …

Didn’t hurt a bit ….. did it. Special thanks to the race committee that got off it’s butt, moved out to the Eastern Bay and shortened the race. I think I speak for everyone in saying, “Thank You!” The race won’t count towards high point because the average speed was below the limit, but, and this is a very big but, we got to finish a race. Almost everyone got to finish. And there was a winner! And everyone was happy at the party! And it was a great party!

Sunday was another story. We couldn’t get our of our own way and gave up and motored home. Why? Boys … especially Bingman, listen up! When there’s no wind take the start out to Eastern Bay. Starting in Miles River with no air is every bit as dumb as not shortening a race when there’s no air and almost as dumb as destroying ‘B’ fleet … Bingman. I gotta get my digs in where and when I can Even Escapade - way in the lead on Sunday - gave up before she even got out of the river.

Oh and a special thanks to my crew! You were great! You were why we got second on Saturday

Is global warming real? I don’t know! And neither does anyone else. I’ve listened to the arguments from both sides and neither has proven their case. The believers point to the “Hockey Stick” graph as proof of global warming. The non believers say they got the math wrong. Now as it turns out I know a bit about signal processing so I took a look at the problem. The raw data for the hockey stick came from temperature measurements, tree rings and ice cores. All of this data is dirty, suspect to say the least. So I created a dataset of pure temperature readings. I put in 100 years of “readings” with 20 degrees per day plus 20 degrees per year plus 2 degrees every 22 years (for sunspots) and .2 degrees over the entire 100 years for global warming. Guess what? I can’t make an instrument that can demodulate the .2 degree global warming data. It’s 40db below the “noise”. Now I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that I don’t know how to do it. This was from “clean” data. trying to do it from dirty data is an exercise in silliness. So I’m sceptical to say the least. Still, Greenland, Kilimanjaro, rising sea level …. something is happening.

Is global warming a problem? I don’t know! The believers say it’s the warmest it has been in 1000 years. So what! Has it ever been warmer? Nobody is saying. Why not? OK, I get it, some places will have a problem. If you are going to buy waterfront property, it better float. My heating bill should go down, but my air conditioning bill should go up. Good farmland will turn to desert, deserts will turn to oceans and new farmland will appear … somewhere. These are big changes, but don’t panic!

If it’s real and a problem, can I fix it? Nope! Not a snowball’s prayer in Hell! Here’s why. In the US there are now 300 million folks of the 6 billion folks world wide. Everyone, EVERYONE!, in this world wants to live the American dream and they are doing their best to do it. And if you don’t let them … forget about it. That means the world needs to find and burn 5 to 6 times the energy we are currently using. That won’t happen, will it? OK, then we have to become 5 to 6 times as efficient as we are now. Oops! That won’t happen either, will it? You know what’s left? We fight over what resources we have. I’m starting to feel better about not having kids.

And then! We are listening to the same folks that wrote the programs that predict next week’s weather. Last Sunday they said this Sunday will be 40 degrees. Today, Wednesday, it’s up to 54 degrees. And they’re not even trying to predict the wind. The media, just this week, apologized (in the weather guy’s name) for predicting a brutal hurricane season in 2006 that didn’t even happen. No one apologized for not predicting the 2005 season.

A final thought! Even if the believers are right about the temperature rising, are they right about carbon dioxide being the problem? I don’t know! That’s another one of those computer program thingys.

Frigid Digit marks the end of the season for us. We will sail on in the AYC Frost Bite series, but that will be in PHRF ‘A’. We don’t have a prayer in that fleet, but don’t get me started on that again.

Middle River is one of my favorite places to sail. The people are very friendly and it reminds me of so many places I have visited around the world. The sailing is usually great. Unfortunately it’s no longer well attended. Glenmar is a shadow of it’s past glory and it doesn’t draw boats from other clubs like it used to. So next year when you are tired of Oxford and St. Michaels add a Middle River regatta to your schedule. You’ll be glad you did.

They did it again! After a fine race on Saturday in 10-15 knots of wind. Sunday’s race was another “nobody finishes” race that didn’t have to be. We started in light wind and raced down the river at 4-5 knots speed-over-ground. Not bad for the conditions. But there was absolutely no wind on the bay and as we turned north at the mouth of the river we all came to a screeching halt. I took us back towards shore where I found 2-3 knots of boat speed. By the time the rest of my fleet realized what we were doing it was too late for them. It didn’t matter though. Around 2:45 we were 2 miles from the finish. We had to be there by 3:30 to make it a race and we were now only going 1 knot. OOPS! Won’t make it Once again the committe failed to shorten the course. So once again here is how to do it. And I am so tired of repeating myself!

Every turning mark should have a gate and committee on station. You go through the gate and the committee takes your time. If you still have air you keep racing. If the air has died the committee fires the gun, blows the horn and everybodygoes home happy. On those really weird days when the air dies between marks you get scored at your last mark. Any questions?

We need six races, I think, to qualify for high point on the chesapeake. We’ve raced eight this year and only 2 finished. Time for a change don’t you think?

I don’t believe it. I’m speachless (yea right)!! Last weekend was Annapolis Race Week, one of the top events on the bay. Unfortunately we missed Saturday’s sailing because we were still cleaning up from Friday’s hurricane. They got one race in. But Sunday we were out early and ready to race!

It was a very light air day so what does the race committee do? They drag us out to the middle of the bay where there is no prayer of getting any wind …. naturally! And we didn’t. We spent the day bobbing up and down and went home frustrated. Fleet 1, close into shore did, but we didn’t.

You’d think they would know better. Especially after the article I wrote on marinersguide.com. Every time I stop at the CBYRA office they ask me to take it down. But they just don’t learn. Monday, they did it again. Took us right out in the middle. We could see there was still wind where we were but the stupid committee had to find a place with absolutely no wind. So I motored past the race committee and withdrew. What I wanted to do is illegal So we went back to were the fleet was supposed to be and sailed around upwind, downwind, upwind again … We got enough wind to reach 6.5 knots and had some fun racing one of the charter schooners a bit. Looking back at the fleet as we sailed around was a pitiful sight, 60 something boats bobbing up and down, going nowhere. I see from the results that the fleet finally got enough wind to have one race. We were at the Boatyard having lunch before they finished. Fleet 1, down at Thomas Point Light didn’t! We could see them too. So sad! So stupid!
So here is another race committee rule I’d like to see: If the race committee doesn’t take the fleet close to shore when the air is too light to race they have to pay everybody’s bar bill!

While I’m trashing PHRF I would like to spread a little poison pen on race committees also. Last year there was an uproar over the Oxford race. Only a very few of the fastest boats were able to finish before the time limit expired. Most fleets had no finishing boats and the race committee did nothing to shorten the course. Therefore I’d like a new rule added:

When no boat from a class finishes a course and the race committee does nothing to shorten the course, the race committee must pick up the entire bar bill for that class

This is a tale of corruption, abuse of office and theft. You see PHRF on the Chesapeake has mysteriously changed the class splits. How did this happen? Why?

First I want you to read this article. Go ahead, read it! I’ll wait ….

Doesn’t that sound like a compassionate, thoughtful person. It’s not! It is the most mindless dribble I’ve ever heard! Let me explain the real workings of PHRF here on the Chesapeake. There are actually four perceived divisions of PHRF. There is ‘N’, non-spin. This is a mixed fleet of some of the oldest and best sailors around who are now taking a more relaxed attitude towards racing. It’s also a great training ground for new sailors.

Then we have the spinnaker classes, C/D, B and A. The ‘A’ fleet is the money fleet, bigger and faster boats, bigger egos, in many cases bigger budgets. The other fleets are filled with the boats Bingman was talking about. Working class sailors that can’t afford or simple don’t want the expense of new sails every year. We don’t get paid for this you know.

PHRF ‘B’ has been an especially active fleet. This is mostly the cruiser/racer class boats and the performance boats of a long long time ago. Bruce called my boat a performance boat. Well, maybe, twenty years ago, but it’s been a long time since a Santana 30/30 mounted a successful campaign around here. The best of this fleet tend to time their budget and crew training to come together for a year or two and dominate the fleet. Then it’s someone else’s turn. There are exceptions of course. There are some sailors that could beat you in bathtub with a bed sheet, but I think that’s true in every fleet.

Now up until this year PHRF ‘B’ included boats with ratings of 119-154. Years ago there was some small change to get all of the J-29’s into one fleet. Then is was undone. But otherwise it has remained stable for as long as I can remember. This year PHRF decides to change ‘B’ to 128-157 and create a new ‘A3′ fleet with ratings of 95-127. Why??? I asked Bruce about it and got a very unsatisfactory “smoke and mirrors” answer about balancing the number of boats in each fleet. I’ve heard from others that A2 was shrinking so it could be a good excuse to change things, but stealing the best boats from the healthiest fleet on the bay is not the answer. I can’t prove this, but I suspect that the J105 fleet, also healthy, is responsible for the squeeze on A2. These boats are about the same speed and cost, and there are enough to race one design. Good on them!

So why steal boats from ‘B’. The result is very VERY interesting. The old ‘A2′ fleet took ratings of 86-118. The new ‘A3′ class boats are rated 95-127. Now on the Chesapeake we often race in dying wind conditions and it’s fairly common knowledge that the faster boats in a fleet have a slight advantage in dying winds. Just as the slower boats have a slight advantage in a building wind. PHRF A3 fleet gains a bunch of slower boats to beat up on. But wait, Bruce doesn’t race PHRF, he races MORC - that’s what he told me. So guess what?! The 120-126 rated boats that he stole from ‘B’ are mostly MORC class boats. MORC is so small on the Chesapeake that they don’t have starts in many of the races we like to do. Is Bruce trying to beef up MORC at PHRF’s expense?

Just a minute. Bruce races MORC, what is he doing on the PHRF committee? You’ll love this. He is both chief handicapper for PHRF and captain of the MORC fleet. Stop right there!! Even if he is innocent, he can’t be both! That is such a perceived CONFLICT OF INTEREST!! Bruce! Step down! Oh yes one more jewel, Bruce was careful to tell me that this new change was voted in by the PHRF delegates, not the handicappers. Bruce, really, it’s very hard to tell the difference. In some cases they even have the same names.

I held off racing this year. Took some money away from the clubs that work so hard to host these events to see where my fleet went and how they were doing. Seems they are lost. I haven’t seen the guys I like to belly up to on the race course on the results sheets. ‘B’ fleet seems to be down too, not as many boats as before.

Is it just me? I don’t think so. Bruce was careful to tell me that the delegates - handicappers, whoever, asked the people that would be affected and there were few objections. I don’t know who was asked. No one asked me and there are plenty of objections now. So PHRF - put it back! Let my fleet go! And Bruce - resign. You can’t be both.

I apologize to the active and wonderful multihull fleet. I left you out of this discussion. I know you guys are out there too, but this is a monohull problem.

PHRF villafied in story and song. Just what does this little number mean anyway?

PHRF provides a handicap adjusted to 3 second increments. What does 3 seconds a mile mean. Well, around here beer can racing is usually a 1 mile windward/leeward course with 2 upwind legs and 2 downwind legs. Only 4 miles on the rumbline, but you don’t usually sail rumbline so it’s actually more like 6 miles. Your handicap is computed on the rumbline distance though. I think that’s a mistake, but it is what it is, right? So if you owe the next boat 3 seconds per mile on our typical course you owe a total of 12 seconds. You have to beat them by 12 seconds! How many boatlengths is that? At an average boat speed of 5 knots it would be 101 feet. For a 30 foot boat that’s only 3 boat lengths. Strange how that works out. For the usual beer can race the handicap is about 1 boat length per second. at 5 knots. Not going that fast? Then the distance is shorter. Only half way done? Then the distance is also 1/2.

Well, that all sounds simple enough. So what’s all the complaining about? It’s a fundamental problem, comparing apples and oranges. Boats perform differently in light air, heavy air, flat water, choppy water and big waves. You can’t reduce a boats performance potential to a single number. It’s not just a PHRF problem either. All handicap systems have the same problem. At least with PHRF your handicap can be adjusted locally to better fit average conditions. The question is, which is sweeter, apples or oranges I know of one boat around here that terrorizes her fleet in light air, but struggles in wind over 10-12 knots. I’ve seen boats that mostly live up to their rating and boats that can’t get close to their rating. Now we all know that it’s easier (and cheaper) to blame the rating than fix the problem. So if you’re having problems because of your rating it would probably serve you better to save up for new sails. Unless of course some lame-brain, know-it-all, smart-ass chief PHRF handicapper who also happens to be captain of the MORC fleet decides to destroy the best fleet on the bay by changing the fleet splits to favor his boat. But that will be the subject of my next rant

I’ve probably done this race twenty times since 1970 something. It’s a love/hate relationship. Every time I finish the race I swear I will never do it again, but the following year there I am again torturing my boat and crew one more time.

This year was different! We were in a triple Bermua high all week, no wind and record heat. Working on the boat Friday I soaked through three shirts. It was hot!! We motored out to the starting area thinking here we go again. Another race we won’t finish. Just before our start, wonder of wonders, the wind swung around to the north and picked up. Wouldn’t you know it, 12-18 knots out of the north all night! We surfed down to the Potomac at 10-11knots squealing like school girls!! What a ride!! The best … pronounced “BEST” race ever, anywhere, anytime, anyway!! We rolled into St Marys around 6:00am, just a little over 11 hours racing and my personal best on this boat.

Saturday was the usual party and diner. This crew is getting old so we all died by 10:00pm. Sunday morning we were up at 6:00am - Ok for getting old that part is easier - and heading back to Annapolis before 7:00am. What a difference a day makes! With the wind at less than 5 knots out of the south we motored all day. As we passed James Island I said a little prayer, “Hey! thanks for the trophy, but it would be nice if you could turn it up a notch. That did it! The wind picked up to 15+ knots again and we were off - surfing along at 6-8 knots. We made it back to Annapolis around midnight. So here I am a week later. I Guess I better wander down to the boat and start putting her away