Mini Sisters, Part 2

Came across minis #126 and #146 in Genoa. Saw them on the train ride, and could only take this picture.

Mini Sisters

Came across not just one, but four  different minitransats in Loano.

#600 is the prettiest of them all. The cabin has windows! I didn't think it was even possible to fit a window someplace, but clearly it's totally doable. And it would be a welcome addition to Guizmo. I might get this done.

The cabin top is also higher in #600, so much so that I would be able to stand up properly inside #600. In Guizmo, my head hits the ceiling and I need to hunch over slightly, which gets tiring after a while.

This boat lacks a canting keel, so the inside looks very roomy, but the downside is that (a) it has no canting keel, and (b) the boom is much higher than it needs to be.

# 408 looks like it's a nice Pogo. This is a boat produced in "series," that is, they come out of a mold and are industrially produced in batches.

#538 also looked nice. Note high cabin top and hatch, which are nice features, but also note lack of canards and canting keel.

All these boats have a rotating spinnaker pole that's about 2m or so. Guizmo's spinnaker pole is a whopping 3.20 meters. I'll have to check the regulations to figure out why there is a difference; for now, I just get to boast about its length.

How Other People Sail, Part 5

Despite the low aspect ratio sails, the chunky hull, and heavy wood, this boat has a certain charm to it.

I want this well-designed cover for the automatically retracting pasarella. Or rather, I would, if I had a pasarella of any kind, let alone one that could automatically retract.

How Other People Sail, Part 4

Lights under the boat and lemon trees for the transom. I generally find powerboats gauche, but this particular boat kind of looked okay. I think it's because the kind of person who carries three lemon trees everywhere they go and gives them prime real estate on their boat has to be nice. Either that, or they're really afraid of scurvy. Well, I'm hoping it's the former.

Holy See or Holy Sea?

Saw this off of Antibes. Initially, I thought that that cool triskelion was the Vatican ensign, which made me wonder if the Pope had ever taken a vacation. And who, besides the Pope, could register a boat in the Holy See?

Does the Pope own a boat? Why or why not?

It turns out that the ensign belongs to the Isle of Man. The same questions hold for the Isle of Man as well. A little looking around indicates that the Isle of Man is a haven for "offshore banking," which is really a euphemism for money laundering. Also, the island has a number of real space travel companies. Weird mix.

B-5, You Sank My Battleship

Came across a bunch of military vessels on this journey. These two are particularly striking.

The first is a vessel that, when I was growing up, was the coolest destroyer ever devised, with the best weapon systems. This was before AEGIS, the American on-ship communication system, which is reportedly way better than anything else, but is in reality probably just an overhyped, poorly coordinated piece of software. Anyhow, it was sad to see this French destroyer turning into a rust bucket.

Once upon a time, this used to be the best of its class

The second is a vessel that was anchored off of Cannes. It's probably a transport or a destroyer tender, or maybe a submarine tender. I don't know where the French are sending their materiel -- not sure where, at the moment, the Frenchies are busy being ineffective and later surrendering -- but I suspect the most likely destination is Libya.

Where is the French tender #41 destined for?

The odd thing is that, any undergrad who has taken a course on computer vision can design an unjammable rocket that can autonomously find, lock onto, and destroy such ships. A Soekris board, a cheap webcam, and a simple kernel method for detecting corners is sufficient to aim at this poorly concealed boat. Surface ships are all essentially sitting ducks for any enterprising individual with a tiny amount of know-how. The American navy conducted war games to test its readiness against asymmetric threats, that is, threats from small groups of determined people with few resources. Instead of playing war games according to a pre-set scenario, kind of like a modern day version of the Moros y Cristianos festivals in Spain where the Moros are destined to lose every year, they brought in a retired admiral to head the asymmetric attackers. They would carry out his orders (say, "deliver message by bike messenger") in the field, during peace time (e.g. using a courier in this case), and use the actual success rate in the war game simulations. Within about a week, the admiral had destroyed or disabled all the surface ships of the once-famous Sixth Fleet, using small zodiacs, suicide attacks, light couriers, mopeds, motorcycles, fishing boats and RPGs. It was so embarrassing for the US Navy that they had to stop the games, resurrect their sunken boats, and change the rules on the admiral. Surface ships are passe. They have no chance of staying afloat in a real conflict against a determined force. So taking these pics felt like photographing endangered species.

Evening Sail in Bay of Pollenca

Went out for for an evening sail with Pere Antoni and Javier in the Bay of Pollenca on Per Antonio's X-99. Dinner of sobrasado (Mallorcan pork sausage, one of the many awesome culinary inventions from this island) with honey followed by pasta.

Looking back on Pto Pollenca on a calm evening.

A boat with a proper galley

Javier and Pere Antoni

The Regatta

Amador

Pablo

Guizmo was painted yesterday and needs to dry out. So no launch today; I cannot even climb into Guizmo as I would have to touch the paint and that would ruin it. Two local sailors, Amador and Pablo, invited me to race with them on their 38-footer in a regatta off of Alcudia (next bay over from Pollenca), as they were short-handed. I had nothing to do and had not yet been to Alcudia, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity.




Amador is a pro sailor who has done 3 transatlantic crossings, one of them solo. Pablo operates a large hotel in Alcudia and has crossed the Atlantic with Amador. It was great to sail with people who know what they're doing and speak good English to boot.

Pto Pollenca Bay, calm in the morning

The sail out to Alcudia was in very choppy seas. I had to go down to the cabin to get clothing and equipment, and ended up getting very queasy for half the voyage. I was beginning to question whether I was ready to embark on the Med crossing with Guizmo, but apparently everyone else, including Per Antonio in his boat and Amador and Pablo on ours, were also affected. Luckily, I kept my breakfast down and managed to do things around the boat, but I had major tunnel-vision and felt pretty awful. The panorama below, although unintentional, accurately reflects how I felt and saw the world.

Alcudia Bay, after a wavy, bumpy passage

Once we got to Alcudia, we pulled into port and had lunch at the yacht club, followed, of course, by a siesta. The siesta fixed me up and I felt great for the rest of the afternoon, throughout the regatta.

View at the pier in front of the Alcudia yacht club

Amador's very young girlfriend and a friend of hers joined us as well. They didn't speak English, weren't involved in sailing at all and just hung out on the rail. I told them that this is known in the US as being "railmeat," whose Spanish translation, "carnetas de barca," seemed to amuse them.

It turns out that most Spanish sailing terms are exactly identical in Italian and Turkish. Pasarella, foc and iskota are the few that I can remember right now, but for the most part, I was able to follow fairly easily even when Amador and Pablo spoke to each other in Catalan. The one new term I learned is "tangon," which means "spinnaker pole" and apparently has other uses in slang as well.

After a double up-and-down course with two well-executed spinnaker sets, we crossed the finish line in fourth or fifth position, practically side by side with another boat. On corrected time, we were fourth, so we did not get a trophy or a mention at the award ceremony. But the award ceremony had open-buffet Spanish food accompanied by a giant vat of mojito, so no complaints.