Alex Mineev

Relax

2012-02-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

I maxed at 23mph yesterday in barely-planing conditions. I know the theory and I can sail. What's missing is fluid grace.
I am too stiff, too scared, too worried. I overgrip, oversteer and over compensate. I waste too much energy.
My next goal, alongside with jibing, is finding the smooth groove. Long distance is not possible when energy is applied so inefficiently.

Yesterday sailed first time in Oak Bay. Nice place, feels really non-exposed on southerlies and there are predictably shallow beaches with sandy bottom on both sides of the bay. According to locals, if sailing further south from the channel, there are no significant tidal currents. Good spot for learning. I'll be back there soon.

A good article on Formula Windsurfing: http://www.windsurfingtour.com/?p=4993

In the moment

2012-02-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

One of the best descriptions of living "in the moment". This guy knows what he is talking about. Simply beautiful. And, hey, even he is bugged by the demons :) So cool to find touching similarities with the great ones...

And here the older guy is talking about managing complexities :)

Naish Indy

2012-02-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

Tried out the mighty Naish Indy 7.6 yesterday. I sailed on Lk Sammamish in light and puffy conditions, perfect to learn a bit the character of the sail. What a pleasure. Stable and fast power machine. I planed, tacked and jibed in what used be the "boring" wind range: 5-12kt. Now I think I'm all set for the summer vacation on Hood Canal where breeze comes in at 10-15kt every afternoon :)

No wind

2012-02-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

Blasting across the lake on my jetski helped a bit to shave the edge off cravings, but not for long...
Forecast is lightwind shit for days ahead. Gorge blows, but it's too cold and too far.
Spend my days cranking elliptical and drooling over smartphones.
Yes, the dinasaur inside of me is gone with the Laser, now I need a phone that can show wind sensors...
How not to be depressed when phone I want is not yet on the market and wind I want is not in the forecast?
Where is my vodka?

Naish rigging guides

2012-01-27T22:05:00.000-08:00

I've managed to dig out few links to some of Naish "how to" rigging videos:
- Cammed sail: http://www.naish.tv/rigcam_800.html
- Non-cammed sail: http://www.naish.tv/rignocam_800.html
- Naish Stealth: http://www.naish.tv/stealth_800.html

More videos from Naish TV:
- "Tune your waveboard": http://www.naish.tv/naishwaveboards_800.html
- Freeride: http://www.naish.tv/freeride_800.html
- Gorge 2007: http://www.naish.tv/gorge_800.html
- Backyards: http://www.naish.tv/backyards_800.html

Straps

2012-01-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

I waited for quite a while to write this post. Today I passed another milestone - the straps.
I had a fantastic session at Magnuson. Flew couple times across the lake well powered on 5.7.
And, most importantly, I did it in straps. I managed to get in, get out and in again without spinning upwind on each tack. I even managed to fall off planing in a lull and get back on planing with the next gust without getting out of straps :)

I worked on this skill for the last two months. Not exactly a "skill per day" as I did brag before :) Too many pieces had to come together for straps to happen.

So, here are my notes, fresh from the head of a novice, who I think will quickly forget how tricky the learning was.

Using a large sail in slightly overpowered conditions is the way to go. It allows planing in lighter winds with less chop. Lighter winds also mean planing at lower speed which takes a notch of the fear factor and allows focusing on the foot work. Large sail also feels more stable reducing the fear of catapulting. I clearly have more success with 6.6 than with 5.7, and planing with 4.7 is such a wild ride that I don't even think of anything else but holding for dear life.
Sailing with front foot in the strap is an intermediate step. It gives a chance to feel the strap and focus on re-positioning back foot further back while keeping the board flat. Eventually back foot gets very close to the back strap which is "almost success".
It seems impossible to get even into the front strap if board is not planing. Tail sinks and/or board spins upwind or starts tail-walking. Good flat planing is a prerequisite to straps when learning. I guess for experts it's Ok to get into straps before planing, but not for novices.
Holding boom further aft helps with fighting upwind spinout. Althought it also feels catapult-prone. For some reason it feels that non-planing balance point on the boom is couple inches forward of the planing-in-straps point. I learned moving hands back loading front hand for a while until the board gets planing and I get into straps (then front hand automatically gets offloaded).
The first two-three sessions provided enough experience to be able to play the sequence in my mind. Visualization helps. If I could sail four times a week, I wouldn't need to visualize. But the reality is I can sail once a week. I can do visualization many times a day.
There are two stable modes - slogging non-planing sheeted out and planing in straps sheeted in. Sailing thru the transition is quite unbalanced. Problem with learning straps is that I spend a lot of time inside the transition. Once the skill is acquired, the transition becomes very quick and the whole business of getting into straps does not seem as difficult any more.
Back strap is the hardest. Footing it happens by the feel. It is impossible to watch my foot as it messes up the balance the moment I take my eyes off the horizon. The sequence is to slide back foot until it hits the strap. It is important to not put the foot over the strap, just touch its edge. Then, one assertive move puts the foot into the strap. This has to be tried few times to learn the move. Unfortunately the first few tries will end up with spinning upwind, just keep doing it. The goal is to learn the move. The first successfull move into the strap will be a reason to celebrate :)

Catapults
My catapults happen when I am slogging almost planing. Sail is super loaded and I am pressing hard on my front foot. In this state two bad things can happen - board hits a wave and slows down or a gust hits the sail. In both cases if I am caught off-guard I lose balance and start falling forward. First, the key here is anticipation. If I see the gust or I see the chop I can compensate and not fall. Second, the fall usually starts slowly (or time perception slows in the beginning). If I spend this first moment startled, a bad fall and a nose-job follow. The right thing to do is to try correcting the trajectory with either sheeting in to miss the nose to the lee or sheeting out to fall upwind. Usually sheeting in is the way to go as it is more predictable.

Of love and hate

2012-01-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

I love the first snow of the season. It makes air crispy and brings a wonderful change to the scenery. Trees and roofs become white. A snowman shows up in the backyard. Kids get an extra day or two off school. Two-wheel-drives rest abandoned at the base of the hill and fancy Subarus lay in various positions ditched along roads.I also love it because in Seattle snow is mostly produced by the convergence zone, which means it's localized to a few spots. If it snows heavily at home and thermometer is at 32, all I need to do is drive south into a brilliant sunshine and balmy 42f air.

I hate convergence zone. It hangs over the lake where I sail and it eats wind. Sometimes it moves back and forth tens of miles wiping all the fun on its way. And when it comes it shuts the wind abruptly, from 25 to 0 in ten minutes. Then it pisses rain or snow on one's head and stays up above making faces and sending 1 mph puffs from random directions every 15 minutes. That poor one would see its edge just couple miles away and would struggle balancing his dead sail over 2-foot swells coming from the edge.

This Saturday I left home wrapped into thick snowfall. I drove south 20 miles to see 18kt winds and a promise of blue skies. Couple other fellows joined me. We thought we outsmarted the CZ. The moment we hit the water, clouds rolled in and wind shut off and switched 180 degrees. But we could see the edge just above, so we went out hoping CZ will go away..., and slogged and slogged and slogged. And of course there was swell. We all knew where it was coming from, but it was kind of too late to drive another couple miles south. Half an our later we bailed, and just set on the shore waiting. First, sun came out. It got much warmer and lifted our spirits. Then a beautiful steady puff of 15-17kt filled the channel. We could see it approaching and jumped on boards just in time to swallow all of it. It was wonderful - flying effortlessly over flat water and sinking in January sunshine! It lasted for an hour or so until CZ came back and screwed the wind again.
When I came back home it was still snowing. Kids in the neighbourhood were playing with snowballs. Magic.

Itchy

2012-01-12T17:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't sailed for two weeks, dealing with bouts of withdrawal syndrome. Wind gods are playing their usual game giving away all the good stuff like wind and sunshine in the middle of the week and teasing with the frontal winds, but only for a couple of hours super-early Saturday morning (when I can't get myself out of bed). For the rest of the weekend it's going to be calm and snow. Not fair!

Meanwhile, folks who managed to strike a deal with work gods are having fun and getting themselves in trouble: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/NW-WINDTALK/message/33293

461 miles of FUN. Thank you and Good-bye Laser!

2012-01-08T12:44:00.001-08:00

First time I sailed Laser was somewhere around 1988. First time I raced it was probably 1992.
1994 was a start of a long period outside of sailing, I was busy with university, work, moving to US, getting married, then more work, then climbing.
In 2005, I decided to get back to sailing. I thought I was an old man suitable for keelboats, so I enlisted as a crew on J24.
Seattle had (and still has) an excellent, very competitive J24 fleet. I raced on Tuesday nights and some weekend regattas for two seasons.
I even had a chance to helm in a few races (thank you Brian!), where we did well. I helmed Friday nights and we won the series.
At this point I started thinking about getting a more consistent access to the helm, and the obvious way was to own a boat.
J24 frightened me, specifically the 5 people crew part. If I was to run the boat I'd have to manage a pool of 10 folks in order to have more or less stable crew of 5. We'd all depend on each other. No, J24 wasn't an option.

Then I stumbled across Seattle Laser Fleet web site, learned that there is a group of Lasers racing weekly on Puget Sound. So, in the summer of 2007 I got myself a Laser. I took my wife with me on the first sail. There wasn't much wind and we had to palm-paddle on the way back :)
In the summer of 2008 I introduced myself to the mighty Gorge. And I sailed my first Blowout. I guess this was the turning point when I realized that I had more fun with distance sailing than with racing around rubber balloons. Somewhere around that time I also watched Blackburn's DVD about crossing Bass Strait, very influential. In the autumn of 2008 I sailed end-to-end Lake Washington. Loved it. In 2009 I raced and did long distance. In 2010 I did more long distance and way less racing, even though my racing results hit the all time high. In 2011 I quit CYC club, stopped racing and spent all time available (not much given two kids) on serious long distance projects. Heck, I even bought a jet ski to serve as a last-chance rescue gear and trained a buddy from work how to ride it. We took it once to the Gorge for Cascade Locks - Dalles project, but didn't use it (winds were much lighter than expected).
I also departed from "one rig" mantra and started playing with various smaller Laser rigs employing the idea that sail size must match conditions. The last time I sailed Laser was with 4.7 in strong winds between Rowena and Doug's Beach. Those who sail in the Gorge know that Lasers aren't common in that area. It's the domain of windsurfers and kiters due to winds and swells. That last time while flying screaming reaches and jumping off waves I realized that what I did actually felt like abusing the boat. I found myself at a crossroad.

The path I chose was windsurfing and it proved to be lots of fun and I now am committed to it. At first I wasn't sure if windsurfing will stick, so I kept the Laser. But now there is no doubt. I think Laser is designed to race, not to sit in my garage. I let it go today. They say there are two happy moments in the life of a boater - the moment he buys his boat and the moment he sells it. My second moment is a mix of light sadness and joy of freedom and excitement. I had an exceptionally good run with my Laser. We've been together thru a fair share of brilliant moments and hairy situations. It never bailed on me. Thank you my friend! I hope you race well with your new owner!

Here is the list of adventures:
Lake Washington, 20 miles
Bainbridge Island, 32 miles
Hood Canal, 53 miles
Lake Crescent, 28 miles
Blake Island, 27 miles
Vashon Island, 41 miles
Marrowstone Island, 29 miles
Cascade Locks - Viento (one and two), 12 miles
Keystone - Tacoma, 68 miles
Cascade Locks - Hood River - Cascade Locks, 41 miles
Lake Ozette, 17 miles
Port Angeles - Port Townsend, 33 miles
Rowena - Dalles - Rowena, 20 miles
Cascade Locks - Dalles, 40 miles

As for me - I've opened a new chapter and thoroughly enjoying it. There is definitely a continuation to the list above in the cards!

Windy

2011-12-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

...ACTIVE WEATHER FOR WESTERN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK...
A SERIES OF VIGOROUS FRONTAL SYSTEMS WILL MOVE THROUGH WESTERNWASHINGTON DURING THE UPCOMING WEEK.

:)))

I've sailed three days back to back. I feel dizzy and I am not sure if it's abrasion from sailing or results of the booze exposure. Doesn't matter, I plan to keep doing both for the rest of the holidays.
Yesterday, the Christmas Day, Santa spilled a bunch of gradient with 40kt winds on Lake Washington. I didn't dare going out at 40kt, but still managed to get some good time after it died down a bit. Day before, I sailed from Edmonds in 20kt. I was clearly overpowered with 6.6 and one an unsuccessfull waterstart resulted in the rig flying away. When landed (or watered?) 10 feet away, rig configured itself perfectly to drift downwind without digging the sail. I managed to catch up with it, but were it blowing harder...? This and the recent Christmas Rescue (not me) on the lake - I am definitely carrying Spot next time...

Connecting the dots

2011-12-05T12:33:00.001-08:00

The storm mentioned in the previous post brought me a few seconds of strapped planing. It also brought a broken nose to my board (I love to catapult), which took almost two weeks to fix.Since then I switched to dry suit and opened up sailing in the Sound (Flagler, Kayak Point and Shilshole).Caught my first wave yesterday :) a typical Laser-style surfing downwind in under-planing conditions... at some point I forgot that I was on the board and that I had to be cautious - I felt a wave coming from the back, unhooked, turned down, pumped and surfed! I was quite surprised as it happened automatically. The body of reflexes made the move without a warning! :) I wonder what else is there in the box? In addition to the wave accident, on a few occasions I found myself sailing in the zone I mentioned before. The only difference with the Laser zone would be that falling off the edges quite literally means falling :) vs just losing the groove.
Allah birsa, my next vacation will be on Maui with HST learning carving jibes.
Life is good!

Potent Stuff

2011-11-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

It's coming! It's coming! :)This weekend. What a perfect timing :) Oh, what a wonderful busket of gifts: gale, coastal flood, high wind, special hazardous weather, small craft advisory...

Imponderability

2011-10-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

There is this eerie state of weightlessness that happens when board gets on a plane and everything is balanced. All the tension from the sail suddenly goes away and the board feels like it's gliding on buttery silk. Body hangs off the harness and naturally leans back as pulling force disappears. The whole universe turns to the bliss of effortless perfection. This is the moment when a solid fix, a 'space shot' gets delivered to my brain and boy I got seriously hooked :)
I feel I progress with every session. I guess it's because I am still at the base of the curve where any visible improvement isn't hard to achieve. Base or not does not matter as long as I get the fix or two and come back barely able to lift the rig. I feel like a kid dealing with a friendly Santa Claus handling gifts from a bottomless sack :)

Laser for sale

2011-10-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to admit - board sailing is the purest form I've ever enjoyed. It is as far from Laser sailing as Laser from keel boats. As for racing,... there is racing too, but it's not the ultimate purpose that casts iron shadow over everything involved.I love the fact that there are rigs and boards for each wind and for each kind of water. Strong winds aren't enemy any more. Piece. There is no capsizing either :) Actually windsurfing is drier.At my current level it would take weeks of mundane work to learn a new skill on Laser, it takes a day per skill on board - fun factor is off-scale :) Long distance projects are on hold for now. In fact it is the reason I am not really selling the Laser. As my skills continue progressing during the winter I plan trying various configurations to pick the ones that suite well for long distance. Then will make the final call.

Maiden flight

2011-08-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yey - I sailed to the mid-channel and back on a shortboard for the first time, waterstarting on both tacks in 18kt. 4 sessions from zero to freedom tastes Full Sail Dubbel sweet :) Next goal is harness and carving jibes.
And it's only half of the goodness - Katya has spent two days picking up windsurfing and looks like she is progressing well.
All 6 of us are going for three days to the Gorge this weekend.
Life is good :)

cranking

2011-08-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Sailed out of the tadpool for the first time on a 5.0 sail, long board and 12kt winds. Managed to beach start a short board on both tacks and ass-dragged with varying success (yey! I can sail shortboard a little). I've seen folks doing water starts, but I am clearly at least one full session away from the skill. Time is ticking and summer is slipping. I might just get a used long board and keep training in Seattle. I hoped to grow to solid short board stage, but given the constraints I am happy with any progress, and there is some. Playing with the short board though have put things in perspective - there is a loong way ahead and the curve is steep, as expected.

On the other hand, Seattle Laser folks are doing great all summer. This season turned out to be way more interesting than any of last four I raced with them. Level of organization and enthusiasm are definitely peaking. Organized practices, on the water coaching and recent solid results at the worlds show quantum leap improvements. And I am missing it all...
Well, I got to stick to the plan. Someday I'll be back.

A-junkies

2011-08-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

Learning it again

2011-08-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Tacks and gybes. Got pretty comfortable with the beginner equipment in 20kt gusts. Logged at least 6 hours of continuous sailing. Everything hurts. Not bad for the second time (first time was on Kauai about 5 years ago). Next session is shortboard and water starts, hopefully this weekend.
Absolute intimacy with the wind. Many things getting clear wrt Laser handling. The best investment of time I've done in years.

crossroads

2011-08-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've finally assembled an ultimate fun Laser setup. I've tested it, it works as expected. I know its range and limits. I can forget about the technical issues and focus on using the hell out of it in pretty much any conditions.
It's perfect... and it's dead. I want something else.
Last time when I was driving to Rowena with 4.7 in the trunk, I had a sudden urge to turn left at Hood River and rent a windsurf. When I was screaming by the windsurfers near Doug's, it felt weird. It was fast and fun, but those guys were flying faster. They were jumping into the air, while I was swallowing gallons of Columbia River spray.
I am still going after long distance. But I want a faster setup. Something newer than the 40yo design. Two options are on my mind. Moth or windsurf.
Both would take about a year to master. Both are fast, both have their own issues. Windsurf gives slightly more freedom - it should be possible to launch pretty much anywhere. Don't need a road to be close to a beach. Laser in this sense is very restrictive as it requires a ramp or a beach near the road. Windsurf should have faster rig-up time than moth. But moth is so cool... :)
Other options are not - D-one and RS-100 are heavy - I can't carry them on my hands to a launch site.
Still, I don't yet have enough courage to ditch Laser. There is still something attractive in its awkwardness. And it feels more seaworthy then the other two.
I guess I am going to venture into windsurfs for the rest of the season. Let's see where it takes me.

4.7

2011-07-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

Even though Rowena and Doug's Beach sensors reported nothing above 25, I think it was gusting above 30. I tried the 4.7 and it was a blast!
The first big surprise was upwind - I expected it would be easier, but I didn't expect how much faster the boat would go. The speed was proportional to the wind, no matter how much it was blowing. I am used to the slow struggle in above 20kt, the literally beating upwind... with 4.7 nothing like this. Laser was flying!
Screaming reaches were just exquisite. It was definitely the fastest I've ever planed on the Laser. The rudder tie down was undoing itself every 5 minutes, which never happened before. And... not a single capsize. Executing the turn was piece of cake compared to the full rig, and even if the turn wasn't accurate I had enough weight to recover a flip (which happened may be twice out of dozens and dozens of gybes).
The only slight disappointment was straight downwind. The whole thing felt soggy. Not enough power to climb up the wave if you get stuck. Which was good as it required smarter steering. In the end I figured the timing and pattern and was able to find gaps between waves for fast transitions.
Now, it's all good, but it feels a touch uneasy, kind of cheating. First of all, no one is allowed to have so much fun with no strings attached (such as the terror of gybes and the beating) on a Laser. And then 4.7 is for kids, right? Is it legal for an adult to have fun with 4.7? :)

Good things do happen or common sense is a singleton

2011-07-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

This is probably the first entry related to work on this blog. This blog is about my selfish pursuit of selfish hobbies. Long, long time ago my work was my hobby. Since then it degraded to a mere enabler of other hobbies. But something happened today. Well, it was brewing for a while recently, but today it reached the tipping point when it's changing quality and unambiguously becoming a hobby again. Twelve years ago, still in Russia, I stopped working one some interesting stuff related to knowledge representation and AI. I had to, because the field wasn't ready, it was impossible to sell and hard to get money from. Then I moved across the world pursuing a related dream, which of course got shot down for the same reasons few months after the move. Since then, as I charted my path thru the maze of designing mundane consumer crap, I could see weak sparkles and foggy reflections of the thing. I knew it wasn't dead, but I wasn't sure if it'd come back in my life time. Well, I have met it today. Face to face. It's here. It's fragile and infinitely beautiful. It might splinter again, nothing is definite. But I am absolutely sure it's not going far away. In fact, I am sure it'll get implemented rather soon. The question now is not whether the field is ready, but who exactly is going to nail it first. So, GAME ON!

Zhik hurts

2011-07-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Pads are good for a few hours of mark chasing, but would definitely hurt on a long walk along the beach :) Gross

Cascade Locks - Dalles

2011-07-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

7:58:49 in light wind (5-15kt) against strong current.
It was a loong sail. Conditions were not quite as I imagined. I was hoping for ideal 15-25, but it's hard to get exactly what you want. Still, having put stake in the ground, there is nothing to complain about :) At least I didn't have to walk the beach like it happened three weeks ago in the Strait.
So here is how the day unfolded.
Eric and I left Seattle few minutes past 4am. Eric with the jet ski followed me with the Laser. We arrived at Cascade Locks few minutes before 9am and I launched at 10am sailing thru the crowd of 29ers and I14s. There was a group of Laser folks nested at the south corner of the beach, but I was rushing to start, so I didn't have a chance to stop for a chat.
During the first half an hour wind was picking up, then it stabilized at about 12kt and stayed this way thruout the day, give or take few knots. 12kt downwind is actually more strenuous on a Laser then something like 20 as you have to literally push the boat thru the waves. The game reduced to the continuous solving of the multi-criteria optimization: should I sail in middle where there was more wind and more current or closer to the shore where there was less of both. And if it's a shore, then which one, and will there be enough wind to transition to another shore when conditions change. It took me about two hours to get to Viento, which was twice slower than normal. But it was still early in the day and I kept thinking it would crank up. Never happened.
Then somewhere near Hood River I came across a dude swimming by his windsurf, waving and yelling and looking a bit distressed. After 10 minutes of sailing around him and shouting thru the flapping sail I finally got what he wanted - he run out of wind and couldn't waterstart. I had to drag him out to the middle of the channel.
The wind hole between Koberg beach and Mosier was the worst. Past Mosier wind returned to 12-15kt and it got bearable again. Eric, the guardian angel, was feeding readings from wind sensors ahead over the VHF and none of them were very encouraging. It was getting late and I was worried that I might not get enough wind to fight the current upriver of Doug's beach - and then it would truly suck. Getting three quarters of the way to bail within a stone's throw... :) Well, wind backed and picked up after Doug's, so the last part was fresh and fast.
Eric and I celebrated with couple beers, which was super nice. Then was long shuttling to CL and back, with a stop at Full Sail.
But the day wasn't over yet :) On the way back one of the tires on the jet ski trailer blew up! We were lucky that it happened half a mile from exit 21. So we pulled in, I tried switching hitches to let Eric go with the Laser, however lights on the Laser trailer didn't work with Eric's truck... We checked into a motel. Luckily again I was able to fix the tire next morning, I also got a spare wheel this time :) We ended up with nearly a 24 hour day on Sunday.
Special thanks go to Temira for providing valuable insights into weather conditions and local knowledge of the Gorge.

Rowena - Dalles - Rowena

2011-07-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sailed the ending segment. Wild, wild place...
I am gaining confidence. I think it's time to send the Double Damned route.
My kamikaze kit from Intensity is on the way, should arrive on Tuesday.
Sunday looks 17-20, suitable for full rig, so I might do it before the kit arrives.

Nisqually icecliff

2011-06-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

An example of objective danger. Shot from Muir snowfield about 1000ft below Camp Muir.

Эй, ухнем! (Port Angeles to Port Townsend)

2011-06-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

It'd be funny if it wasn't a bit sad :) Wind shut off on the last quarter adding an interesting flavor to the enterprise. Damn, this is as far from Laser racing as it can be. Kind of an achievement, in the domain of utter lunacy. Well, at least I've learned that pumping gives about 2.7kt speed whereas palm rowing peaks at 3.1kt.

I have to do it again, do it right.

Some Laser porn

2011-06-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

It blows good in Latvia :)
Westport would be like this, but it's spoiled with overprotective coasties...

Current state

2011-06-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Oh I am so back to the normal summer head bugs.
My plan to sail double damned is slipping. For couple reasons.
First one is I failed to get 20 hours of training. I am on my way, but not quite there yet. Second is Columbia River is at flood level and current is so strong, especially in the constricted areas. Given that I have to sail it on the light day, I expect there would be spots where I am not sure I'll win the current. And time is ticking. My belay buddy, Eric, can do it up to the end of the second week of June - the next window is July, and July is when the furnace gets really cranking significantly reducing chances of "light" days.
Now I am sitting home, earning my points as a family man. And, man, this is hard. It's sunny and breezy on the Sound today, but not really that breezy. I could go, loosing the points for the day, but would it worth it? May be I should instead spend tomorrow afternoon in Port Angeles chasing the ever fickle 15-25kt forecast. May be...

Back in the office

2011-05-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Columbia River is wild nowadays. It's at the flood level with really strong current adding an extra pinch of spice to the usual recipe. Hard to believe, but I found a better spot for sailing than Cascade Locks. And Doug's Beach is not that scary after all :)

Russian Pilots

2011-05-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Speaking of falls and deathrolls.
Couple days ago Russian air force pilots took off from an airport near Moscow to transfer an old TU-154 to a factory where it was supposed to be serviced. It's unknown how old was the machine, but it's known it sat still in the airoport for 11 years. Seconds after takeoff half of the controls shut down. Yet, they managed to land this thing...

taken from http://newsru.com/russia/03may2011/geroi.html

The weakest link

2011-03-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

There is one common thing with skiing and sailing outside of the comfort zone. When pushing it hard, the weakest link that breaks first is usually the mind. It's rarely muscles or motor skills. Most of the falls and capsizes happen when mind gives in to the pressure of fear and commands the fall or the capsize to escape the pressure, to get back into the comfort zone.
Tapping into vivid memories of the crazy blow-out race last year, I clearly remember the moment when I gave up a well balanced boat and let it spin and flip. My mind was overfilled with fear and excitement beyond the point where it could handle. I suspect that if I kept dealing mentally, I wouldn't flip.

So, is it possible to train the mind and push further away the snapping moment? How much further?

Gem Lake

2011-03-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

After a week of storms, many feet of fresh snow and two days of extreme avalanche danger, I seized the first weather window to ski up to Gem lake at Snoqualmie Pass. 6 hours up, 2 back. I expected to move faster, but breaking trail alone above Snow Lake was a slow process. I evaporated 6 pounds of sugar, fat and water. Skiing back was fantastic. I need to learn faster transitions.
Here is another gem:

Ambient beauty

2011-02-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

Skiing opens up another rich perspective on water. In the climbing days it used to be simple: I was scared of avalanches and I hated deep snow. There were three kinds of white matter: ice, firn and stuff that required postholing. Now with skiing I am even more scared of avalanches, but the snow... being the direct objective and source of pleasure, skiing unveils slightest variations. Old familiar terrain, that I used to measure how quickly I can move thru, now serves pleasure within it. It's like with fractals, you don't have to go far to get more - just stop and look inside to enjoy a kind of infinity.

New year. New toys. Old me.

2011-02-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting how different a perception could be of a mundane shot like the one above. Out of context the image tells nothing. In the context it is a view from the first point that I haven't hiked or climbed. I've finally started backcountry skiing :) Well, technically I've used skis on few trips dating back to years ago, however it's not about gear or looks. Today for the first time I felt like skiing and loved it.
So, randonees is the new toy and here is the old me just about to fire down

As a side note, I am all busy preparing for the project in the Gorge this summer. There are three major pieces in the puzzle that I control to some extent - mental, boat skills, time; and there is one I don't - luck. We'll see how it all works out.

Gorge links

2011-01-28T22:11:00.000-08:00

The map with spot names and locations.

The links to Gorge-FAQ and Top 20 on this page give details on launching spots and conditions:
http://www.rowenashores.com/ws-links.htm

Shows more sensors than iWindsurf:
http://www.windonthewater.com/

Publicly available weather data:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDLS/2010/5/1/DailyHistory.html?MR=1
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDLS/2010/5/1/DailyHistory.html?format=1

Local forecast and lots of info:
http://thegorgeismygym.com/

Cruising the Columbia River
http://w3.gorge.net/casiera/columbia.htm

Perfect xmas

2010-12-24T23:29:00.000-08:00

Opened up ice season this Friday. I asked Katya to belay me as my birthday gift and she did :)

Ice was fantastic!

Paradise calling

2010-12-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

View from the webcam this morning.
Time to wake up and unpack my tools, rope and cold weather gear. The real cold weather gear, not the drysuit :)
Another shot from the area. There is a few hundred feet drop to Nisqually Glacier just behind the trees.

Черти мозга

2010-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

С демонами ничего невозможно поделать. От них невозможно избавиться, с ними невозможно договориться. Их, вероятно, можно пропробовать описать, да и только. Вывести на свет :) Но описания, будучи просто моделями, ничего не меняют.

- The "locked future" demon. Проявляется на стадии ожидания, когда дата уже не загорами, но ещё и не совсем близко. Этот демон травит ощущением вязкой неизбежности. Часто, но не всегда, работает в паре со "sweet alternatives" демоном.

- The "sweet alternatives" demon. Близкий товарищ "locked future" демона, проявляется на той же стадии. Наполняет душу тоской по тому чем можно было бы заняться вместо запланированного дела. Приводит красочные картины всевозможных альтернатив. Поднимает из глубин сознания теплые сентименты в пользу чего-нибудь такого что прежде не всплывало месяцами или даже годами. Основная задача - доказать что запланированное дело совсем не стоит упущенных возможностей.

- Демон плохой погоды. Родственник "sweet alternatives". Как правило материализуется из прогнозов и моделей на кануне даты. Хотя может и проявиться на несколько дней раньше, например когда накрывает крупная система способная продержаться неделю. Этот демон самый продуктивный из всех так как предлагает простую и надёжную причину для поднятия лапок. Все остальные демоны приводят косвенные причины, а этот даёт прямой повод.

- The "boredom demon". Подготовитель. Изводит душу помахивая знаменами пустоты и бесцельности уходящей жизни. Нагнетает потенциальную энергию у которой нет выхода, потому что якобы нет цели.

- Демон опасной неуместности. Живет выше линии деревьев. Вне всяких сомнений является прямым продолжением инстинкта самосохранения. Часто появляется на крыльях шторма когда лезешь где-нибудь среди льда и холодных скал при полном отсутствии каких-либо признаков жизни вокруг. Создает гнетущее ощущение неуместности пребывания в среде. "Ни что живое здесь не уместно. Здесь только камни и лед. Снег и солнце. Лавины и камнепады."

- Демон худшего исхода. Пожалуй самый интенсивный из всех. Приходит после принятия решения и назначения даты. Без предупреждения вторгается в сознание показывая сочную картинку какой-нибудь катастрофы с личным участием. Сломанную мачту на пути океанского лайнера. Замедленную съёмку падения обоих в связке в трещину на спуске. Отрыв снежной доски на которой стоишь или срыв карниза в глубоком кулуаре. Ветер в 40 узлов в Проливе на фоне неприступных скал. Все сюжеты не лишены возможности. В некоторых есть путь с спасению, в большинстве - нет.

- Демон аппатии кануна. Судя по всему живет в рюкзаке который нужно собирать в ночь перед отправлением. Обволакивает размытой усталостью и мешает думать. Невыносимо тянет в сон при виде разбросанных кошек, балаклав и ледобуров. Приводит к тому что сборы затягиваются до полуночи и отнимает драгоценные два часа сна.

Busted in Westport

2010-11-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I thought they gonna jail me. They commanded a ship to get my sorrow ass back. She escorted me to the ramp and I expected to be handcuffed right there for an unathorized attempt to sail to Japan.
- Sir, what's your intention?
- Hmm, to surf some fun out of the swell.
- Do you see this flashing sign "bar restriction to 40ft length" by the ramp? Do you know what it means?
- I thought it was a promise of a good swell. That's why I came here.
- Can I see your id?
Send that thing to chase me? Distract 5 men of service from something important and burn a ton of diesel? I felt embarrassed for causing the trouble. The seas were gentle, generated by an approaching moderate system scheduled to arrive a day later. Wind was medium-rare, but stable. Fog lifted couple hours ago. Ebb was changing to weak flood in about an hour. What's to worry about?
I have to say the folks were very respectful and patiently explained again and again that under no curcumstances thay would let anything shorter than 40ft sailing out in anything bigger than 6ft seas. Even a 40ft support boat won't help. Oregon and Washington states (but not California or East Coast) have this special kind of "bar restriction" controled by USCG. I asked if there were any other options for sailing 12ft seas on a Laser and the answer was Willapa Bay, "because we can't launch our boats there and cross the bars, hence we don't enforce". Yeah, sure, thanks! :)
So I ended up decorated with the boarding report and the warning:

Note that according to the report the warning is due to the lack of a whistle :)

Westport

2010-11-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

North jetty currents model: COUPLING OF WAVE AND CIRCULATION NUMERICAL MODELS AT
GRAYS HARBOR ENTRANCE, WASHINGTON, USA

Pt Wilson and thereabout

2010-11-12T11:22:00.000-08:00

I mentioned before the boolean character of winds in the Admiralty inlet. Yesterday I witnessed another example of it. I took my kids on a roadtrip to check out ramps and just get a feel of the place between Pt Wilson and Diamond Point. The first stop (and the most fun) was in Port Townsend where we scouted beautiful Fort Worden park and the Pt Wilson itself. When we arrived, the sun broke thru just above us which made for some fantastic light and dramatic background of dark blue stormy clouds around:

Looking towards Fort Flagler from the same spot:

Wind was blowing solid 25 gusting above 30. I mentally measured myself sailing in this conditions and it felt Ok-ish. Yeh, just a touch below kamikaze :) Water however was relatively calm as there was no current. I bet in 3kt of flood current the picture would've looked much more intense.
When I got home I checked winds at the point and it turns out that 90 minutes before we've been there and 90 minutes after it was calm!

The ramp in the park looked tight. Launching and landing on a Laser in heavy conditions would be very tricky here. It might actually be easier to use the open sandy beach nearby.

After Pt Wilson we drove west towards Discovery Bay and Diamond Point. The ramp at North Beach looked rudimentary and was permanently blocked. Cape George with its landing spot was occupied by the private "colony" who apparently won't allow public access. Beckett Point looked really exposed and the entire beach was not accessible to general public. A quick stop at Gardiner ramp prooved it to be the best looking spot in the area. Our last stop was at Diamon Point, where we found a tiny unprotected ramp:

I always wondered if the is a ramp on the west side of Hood Canal Bridge, and here is the answer:

Ozette

2010-11-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

I am still not sure if I did it more because of the road trip or the sailing itself. The drive to the west coast was fantastic. I sailed a ferry across the Sound under crescent moon, then greeted sun in Port Angeles before diving into the endless fog... I was worried about wind, but I had enough. Just enough to finish only 11 minutes after sunset. Felt like one step closer towards the open. I heard roaring Pacific from the lake pretty much all the time. The mist that rolled over later in the day smelled ocean. Grand solitude. Good times.

54, 89, 98, 29

2010-10-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

start

3rd at fleet championship

2010-10-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was quite hesitant about racing this weekend. Alternative was to go wander somewhere in the high lands with my daughter. I played both in my mind for a while trying to decide what appealed more and in the end concluded that racing was probably more reasonable as it was the last big regatta of the season.
Forecast was for medium-light air on Saturday and nothing for Sunday. All models agreed on this and it ended up being spot on.
Saturday greeted with 10-15kt northerly with full hiking conditions in three races, which I won (there were 5 races total). All were won on downwinds - there were waves and I surfed with great pleasure. Upwind was Ok, not stellar, but Ok. I guess fitness investment started paying off.
Sunday was piece of shit. I think we raced under a developing convergence zone with 2-5kt winds oscillating like crazy in direction and strength. Add Stars, 5o5 and J24s with spinnakers on the same course and the whole thing becomes too tacktical for my taste. I ended up getting one 3rd in the second race and other two were deep. I was still fast downwind, but not fast enough to gain. Upwind in many cases was Ok-ish again, except one case when in the last race wind almost shut off at the finish and I just couldn't make it go. I was falling low and slow. My focus on strong wind sailing this summer is definitely firing back :)

That's me ^^^ pushing the boom out.

Blow out and back

2010-09-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

2:46:41 out (including the time to deal with camera and a couple phone calls)
5 hours back
Good day in the Gorge. It was a one continuous race with no rest stops. Clean. Alpine style :)

PA to PT attempt 2

2010-08-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Spent 6 hours on glass waiting for 15-25 to happen. It sort of did. The breeze came in the moment I reached the ramp bailing at 4pm. And even then it was a far cry to 15. More like 8.
Well, another day.

Beauty

2010-08-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Keystone - Tacoma

2010-08-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

68 miles in 12 hours.

I was quite worked up Thursday afternoon because of the cancelled PA to PT sail. I even bailed from the Thursday racing at the club - just couldn't do it with my mind burning in frustration. I had to do something to fix it. I recalled the forecast for Puget Sound a day ago was for 10-20 northerly. I checked it again and it improved to 15-25 for the entire Sound plus the small craft advisory! Something you would rarely see this time of year. In a short time I convinced myself that it was worth trying to get the 100-miler done - Keystone to Olympia. I've sailed most parts of it - around Vashon, Marrostone and Blake islands. The only white spot was south Sound between Tacoma and Olympia, but it wouldn't have been a problem. I called Lei and asked him if he was game for dropping me at Keystone and passing the car with the trailer to my wife. He was in, and Katya was also in on the condition that it would be my last big sail this season. I agreed. I would've agreed to anything at that point :)
The plan was to take the earliest ferry to Clinton and get on the water at 7am. Then I would have about 14 hours of sailable light. If I managed to average 7-8kt - I would do it to Olympia. Currents also seemed favorable - ebb in the beginning and then strong flood by the time I get to the Narrows.
Early morning unfolded as planned. I launched few minutes past 7am in the nice 10kt northerly. Beautiful sunrise, wide vistas, dolphins and another sailboat going roughly in the same direction made me feel really good :)

Not for long though. Ebb current started slowing me down way more than I expected. Many times I was planing off huge standing waves (hi Gorge!) and GPS would show 4-5kt ground speed. This fight continued for the first 4 hours of the trip. Instead of making 7-8kt average I was doing 5.

When I entered central Sound I needed 10kt avg to compensate. It was still real if wind picked up to the promised "small craft advisory". It didn't. In fact I had few very light spots and my avg was hovering around and below 5kt. On the traverse of Shilshole it became clear I wouldn't get to Olympia. So I decided to at least reach Tacoma. I had enough time, given the wind won't die on me. I also had flood current helping me a bit. Not much though. Not as much as it damaged my avg in the narrows of the north Sound... On the traverse of Alki wind almost died to zero. Then picked up at 5-10kt. In these conditions I decided to avoid Colvos. If I got stuck there till the next ebb, no way would I be able to outsail the current. And that'd be really bad in the end of the day as there weren't any good exit ramps to the north of Vashon... So I sailed east of Vashon, which added few miles of the extra distance. Interestingly, the traverse of Maury Island was windy and fast! Same wind conditions as when I sailed around Vashon few months ago. I reached at 13kt and it felt fantastic! While supplies lasted. At the southern tip of Maury wind shut off to a solid zero. There I was - within a mile from the ramp with no wind and the current about to switch and carry me back. A rather unpleasant position I should say :) I tried pumping, but my legs were made of wood, so I didn't make much progress. After 30 minutes of slowly cooking wind shifted to southerly and I finally got to the ramp.
I was relieved, but not very happy. Olympia would've been gold, Tacoma was only silver. Still, an interesting day on the water :)

Mental

2010-08-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've aborted a well prepared Port Angeles to Port Townsend attempt this morning. Each abort like this comes with huge mental pressure. The pressure of making the decision. One way or another. The pressure of the fear of succumbing to the demons of fear. The pressure of the fear of making the gung-ho mistake. The excruciating impossibility to come to a single clear reason behind the decision. The inevitable aftermath of frustration and disgust. Have I learned anything? Don't know...
Time is running out. Days are getting shorter and colder. Do I still have a chance to find the window this year?

Я попал на ТВ :)

2010-08-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

Пара роликов из Columbia River Gorge.
Оба ролика сняты во время первого (и последнего в этом году) этапа легендарной гонки Gorge Blowout. Второй этап был отменен из-за ураганного ветра. Несколько человек потеряли мачты, другие просто потеряли контроль и были спасены катерами сопровождения. Около половины стартовавших не смогли финишировать. Начало выглядит весьма заурядно, но к концу становится видна откровенная бойня. Первый ролик снят с катера сопровождения. Мои пять секунд начинаются с 1:21

Второй ролик снят с камеры установленой на лодке Марка Холмана. Там меня видно на заднем плане в 5:05

Войти в открытую дверь

2010-08-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

Я наконец-то попал в тройку лидеров закончив летнюю серию четвергов вторым. Разница всего одно очко от первого по результатам 18-ти гонок... В прошлом году я топтался у двери финишировав 4-м в летней и осенней сериях с минимальным отставанием по очкам от 3-го.
Посмотрим как лягут карты этой осенью.

Gorge 2010, day 4

2010-07-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

Wind picked up around midnight. I couldn't sleep. I felt frustrated and excited at the same time. I knew it would be blowing above normal, but still tried to keep myself from making any decisions yet. Morning was cool and windy. It was blowing about 20 at 7am. Weird hump-shaped clouds of metallic color appeared over the gorge. NOAA forecast was for 15-25 sustained with gusts up to 38. WRAMS 1km suggested two nuclear blasts - one just behind Viento, another around Swell City:

The thought of bailing on the entire thing started creeping in. On the other hand I mused that if I could sail it down, I should be able to sail it back up. "If you can downclimb it, you certainly can climb it" sort of thing. Met Tracy U. and Doug H. at Char Burger. Tracy said he was on the fence. By the time I finished breakfast the portion of river visible from the restaurant was filled with white caps. I decided to cancel the sail-back and followed to the Indian camp to let Tom know. When I arrived at the beach the race committee was already there making up their minds on the day. At first lots of people were on the fence as well, but one by one got convinced by each other it was probably doable and started rigging. Few reefed their sails. So did I - put one wrap. At 10am committee postponed the race until 11.30am. As I was driving from Hood River after delivering my trailer, I noticed cloud line had moved from Cascade Locks to about Viento, and the strongest winds were right under the line. At times wind seemed reasonable, however once in a while gust would bend trees along the highway with such a violence that would send shivers down my back. At 11.30 Bill S. arrived and reported that the river upstream looked windy, but doable - may be high twenties gusting to low thirties...

Everyone sheepishly agreed and the start was scheduled at noon.
Reefed sail looked like a big ugly mistake. It was marginally smaller, but the shape was distorted and it was very full on port tack. Anyways, it was too late to change anything so I decided to stick with it and try my luck. We started in about 15kt gusting 20 and sailed probably half way to Viento in this wind. Guys with unreefed rigs went ahead making half mile distance from me. On the traverse of Home Valley it started gusting 25. I've seen couple full rigs flipped and I caught up with them. They then went ahead again. In few minutes 25 became a norm and it was gusting 30. More unreefed guys ahead were falling left and right and I started having hopes of eventually catching up with the leaders. About 3 miles to Viento it started gusting way above 30. I sailed slightly by the lee. I could handle gusts on flat spots, but wavy patches made me go submarine few times. It was really hard to maneuver around high and short standing waves... My hand holding the sheet hurted from exhaustion. I could hear crackling sounds coming from the rig on each puff or when I was pushing a wave. 2 miles to Viento wind picked up couple more notches. All of the unreefed rigs had capsized few times by that time. I caught up with them. Now if I could only stay in control of that distorted 'reefed' spinnaker... Which I did up until it started blowing water off the wave tops. Things got a bit hairy at this point. I looked back to see the carnage behind me, I looked around to see the same carnage in the leading group. Then finally there was the gust that spinned me and I flipped. It was quite an effort to right the boat and I found bearing off was not a very reliable option. I was about one mile from the finish line at Viento. I tried flagging my sail and sailing at a big angle downwind on one gybe, then do the same thing on another gybe. I was planing with the sail flagging... until the boom would dig into water, which meant immediate flip. In few gybes I was aiming at the finish line, but current dragged me 30 yards too high and I was too close to the shore to attempt tacking onto another gybe. I pulled up my board and just drifted these 30 yards to the finish line. Quite an interesting way to finish I would say :) Bill was in similar situation and he attempted to gybe and flipped and got his mast stuck in the silt. Took him almost 20 minutes to get unstuck. After I finished I saw one guy losing his mast at the finish. He wasn't even gybing, it just snapped...
Winds at Cascade Locks during the day show some above normal gusts, but visually it was very light compared to conditions near Viento:

Then there was a long evacuation procedure from Viento beach. Amazingly I didn't get as much damage to the boat as I thought I would... Others weren't so lucky. Most of the boats were pulled onto the rocky beach bottom down. I pulled mine on two logs deck down. One guy abandoned his boat somewhere near Washington side. Boat was recovered later with insignificant damage.
Wild wild stuff :)
I wish I could go back and do it again! Too bad race committee will be overly cautious from now on...

Gorge 2010, day 3

2010-07-21T23:53:00.000-07:00

First thing in the morning I walked down to the indian camp here in Cascade Locks and made an arrangement with native american Tom to escort me tomorrow on the Hood River to Cascade Locks leg. Final call will be tomorrow at 10.
The last day of clinic brought another interesting advice. Screaming reaches should see a really small amount of board under water. Tried it. Makes boat steer lighter on puffs and at the same time dangerously heeling windward the moment the puff stops. Makes sense, need more practice.

Gorge 2010, day 2

2010-07-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Long morning lecture again and rather short first session. Then almost 3 hours on shore. The second session was long downwind and then upwind. I won one downwind section and was looking good on the last upwind section. Two valuable advices from the coach for upwind:
1. Provide constant load on the boat. This was my main mantra while beating thru transition zones between gusts where wind is confused and jerky. Inside the gusts it worked naturally.
2. Hi-tracking mode, aka "bow down". Forget Steve Cockerill. Sit mid/back cockpit and accept the weather helm. Avoid pushing the tiller - keep it the middle to windward side. The theory is in this case both dagger board and rudder provide lift. If helm is neutral, rudder has no lift, so the only lifting surface is the dagger.
Another good windy day:

May be Hood River to Cascade Locks would still be doable. Will see.

Gorge 2010, day 1

2010-07-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

It was a long day. First - a long, focused drive. I was trying to catchup with time. I left Seattle late because the day before was also very long and I had to get some good sleep. Then there was a long lecture on the shore. It was blowing and it was chilly and it was sunny. We had two sailing sessions. First one was short. Second was dramatic..., and rather short for me and few other folks. Tracy broke his mast. A lady had hard time leaving the shore. Few got back because of fatigue. I almost killed a guy in a spectacular gybing crash. Winds at the local airport were gusting to above 30kt, which seems to match the experience:

Not sure if sailing Hood River to Cascade Locks is a good idea.

Port Angeles, found it!

2010-07-10T00:36:00.000-07:00

Had an absolutely fantastic session today sailing from Boat Heaven ramp in Port Angeles! Forecast was for 15-25 and then changed to 25-35kt westerly with small craft advisory and gale watch in effect - pretty scary, but inside the bay wind never got above 20-25kt. The facility was clean and ramp was very friendy, launching was a breeze :) This was my first time sailing in above 20kt since Vashon, so I tended to be conservative, at least in the beginning. And yet, yet, planing on flat water in 25kt puffs was mindblowingly pleasant! Air was in mid-60f and I wore my winter outfit which made me quite cozy. I can hardy relay the feeling with words. Everything was perfect and beyond. The shape of sail upwind with leech flapping - I could see for the first time how the sail actually got depowered and I accelerated on gusts instead of dropping altitude. On downwinds I didn't bother easing outhaul, but eased vang and downhaul. With each gust the mast would bend forward, boom would come up a bit and the entire sail would lean up and forward like a white petal taking me flying. I gybed a doze times - not a single capsize! :)
The air above water was hazy with salt and added a touch of mysterious mood juxtaposed against pure blue sky and snowy peaks of Hurricane Ridge to the south.
After about 90 minutes of bliss I noticed a 200 yards tall fogwall enveloping Ediz Hook. I wasn't sure if it would move towards me or stay there, but decided to play safe and get off the water. The fogwall stayed over the Hook entire time while I was derigging and having IPA at the bar. Later I asked local fisherman if it's normal and he confirmed that fogwall like this usually stays behind the Hook. Something to remeber for the next time.
After I got off the water, I visited local pub right near the ramp where I had IPA and a burger - a perfect end of a perfect day :)

Next week I am going to the Gorge for some wind, but in August I am definitly coming back to Port Angeles!

View of Port Angeles and Ediz Hook from the Hurricane Ridge:

Приобщение

2010-06-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

Я помню себя на яхте примерно с четырех лет. У отца была крейсерская "тешка" которую позднее переделали в гоночный вариант. Ходили по Волге, часто на пару дней до Голубого Залива. Так что начинал я как крейсерщик :)
Соне стукнуло пять, теперь её очередь начинать. Ну заодно и Катина :) Крейсерской яхты нет, зато есть Hunter 140 в Sail Sand Point. Устойчивый и простой швертбот. Вооружается за 3 минуты и стоит прямо на слипе у воды. Благодать. Что может быть лучше чем смыться с работы в 3 и в 5 уже рассекать по озеру в вечернем солнце и свежем бризе?

Lasering in Sequim Bay

2010-06-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

I am in the quest of finding a reliably windy place. Seattle summer is usually pretty boring as it occasionally sees northerly breeze up to 15kt, but other than that it's crap. One option it to go down to the Gorge. But Gorge is 200+ miles away. Hardly a one-day adventure. All I can do this summer is one-days. So I need a place closer with at least 20kt winds. And, it seems such a place exists - its our Washington "super Gorge", the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Very often when winds at Shilshole are around 10kt or less, the Strait has small craft advisory hanging over its eastern part. Given that the Strait is just 50 miles away - it seems to be an obvious deal!
So far I've found three more or less suitable places for launching along the eastern Strait - ramp on Gardiner beach at Discovery Bay, John Wayne Marina at Sequim Bay and Boat Heaven in Port Angeles.
Today I had a chance to sail Sequim Bay. John Wayne Marina is a really sweet place with an awesome ramp and a fresh water hose to wash the boat after sailing. Parking lot by the ramp was mostly empty giving lots of place to rig the boat. The forecast was for 10-20kt NW and the day was overcast, not exactly the conditions for the hurricane breeze, but perfect for exploring the spot. My plan was to try sailing out of the bay and get the feel of conditions.
After I launched I started sailing toward the narrow passage leading out of the bay. Turns out, because the passage is so narrow and shallow, the currents are very strong. And on top of that, the passage is shadowed by high cliffs from north which disrupt the NW wind. I had to give up on my first attempt as I couldn't get past the wind shadow against the current. So I sailed downwind into the bay quite disappointed. Then I decided to try again, this time staying closer to the Travis spit and it worked well. After I got out I sailed in the direction of Dungeness Spit for half an hour and back. Wind was about 10-15kt and very shifty. Water was choppy and there weren't really any ocean-style waves...
Overall impression - an Ok place, but not stellar. Tricky navigation and potentially bad currents: I can't imagine getting back into the bay on ebb if wind shuts off... Not sure it's worth driving 50 miles and taking ferry along the way.

Rudder is redundant

2010-06-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

I sailed my first practice yesterday since Fyodor was born. A minor accomplishment :)
It was a relatively short lap on lake Washington in light southerly air. I didn't have any specific goals, just wanted to spend some time on the water and reestablish the routine. While tuning upwind with light-to-none vang I noticed that my tacks went easier than usual. In fact I managed to pull off few really good ones which looked on video much comparable to the ones from the Cabarete Laser Handling DVD.
After I sailed to the east raise of 520 bridge I decided to sail west around the bridge and then go back. The windward side of the bridge was quite choppy because of reflected waves. I was reaching, which isn't my happiest course, I seem to have trouble finding that stable spot of neutral rudder when reaching. The spot is there, it's just not stable - boat passes thru it and I can't stick to it or anywhere near it. I wanted to solve this issue for a long time but for some reason never bothered doing it, probably because reaching was not that common in regattas I sailed. So, what's the best way to debug the issue? Sail with hands-off-rudder. I tied my tiller with the end of my sheet to let it run a foot in each direction and ... tried steering-by-heeling. It was wild for few minutes and then I found the groove. Balance still wasn't a sticky point, but at least I managed to scale down the range of course change to within 60 degrees and less. Generally there were two things that threw boat out of groove - waves and gusts. Gust would heel to leeward and make bow turn to windward. It was a bit surprising that once the bow starts arcing to windward, no reasonable amount of windward heel would make it turn to the lee. Not until boat luffs and I heel it almost 45 degrees to windward. The only way to mitigate is to preventively heel to windward at the first sign of a gust and steer to the lee, to the broad reach which has a stable groove. Then ride the gust in the groove on the broad reach and come up after it. Quite logical.
The second issue, waves, was actually quite easy. Each wave would turn boat to windward and then to leeward as it passes under. So not much needed to be done, just acceptance of the wave-induced course variation. I guess I overreacted at first and ended up knocking boat completely off course by trying to compensate for wave-induced course changes. Shouldn't - just relax and watch for gusts.
Half way back I was running in 1 foot wind waves and I got so accustomed to the tillerless steering that I started working waves and doing by-the-lee-and-back transitions. Turns out the course I would sail with the tiller in my hand would be the same and I think I wouldn't be any faster! I should try sailing without tiller next time I race in similar conditions :)
The last few hundred yards I sailed upwind which also had stable groove. So the only unstable mode was proper reaching.
In the end I think I sailed about 6 miles tiller-free in 5-8kt of wind. Felt like magic :)

Fyodor

2010-06-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

2010-05-27T17:33:00.001-07:00

Whidbey 3 - reckless relapse

2010-05-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

28.6 miles in 7 hours 11 minutes, NW winds of 2-12kt
I had to finish this project, check it off the list and forget about this damned place. My schedule allowed entire Saturday for sailing with Sunday closed. On Friday night pretty much all wind models were pessimistic for central Sound and showed NW flow from the Strait at 5-15kt during the day and 15-25 around 6pm. Well, in all my previous tries I’ve seen that 5-15kt southerly never materialized into anything sailable. This time though it was northerly and it was backed up by a promise of 15-25kt in the evening. Something to count on… So, full of grim determination I left for Keystone, pretty late – about 11am. I figured that if I start at 2pm and wind stays 10kt I’ll need about 5 hours to make 25 miles which leaves 90 minutes of daylight for a marginal safety buffer.
When I arrived to Keystone it looked absolutely brilliant lit with sunshine and filled with the forecasted NW breeze over flat water and no current swirls. I had a quick chat with a park ranger who didn’t want me parked near the ramp as the place was reserved for cars with boat trailers only :) I had to walk her to my Laser to prove my qualification for the spot. Then sheriff stopped by and we talked about how easy was to launch the Laser and where I was going (I told him around Marrowstone). Nice guys. Anyways, despite the reasonable conditions and high hopes I took my headlamp and extra batteries for GPS. Just in case. I left at 2pm sharp.
I decided to traverse the island clockwise. If breeze picked up at promised 25kt in the evening, clockwise direction would provide upwind beating in closed waters south of Port Townsend and fast reach on the last leg vs. counter-clockwise giving a 10+ miles upwind from the southern tip of Marrowstone to Keystone – not the fastest option. As I sailed south from Keystone wind started dissipating.

By the time I crossed the shipping lane and was sailing by the island wind dropped to 5-less knots and I was making 4, then 3 then 2kt VMG. I still pressed on in full racing mode trying to connect gentle patches of pressure rolling off Marrowstone meadows. Math was terrible. If you go 6kt against current of 2kt, you go one third slower, if you go 4kt – it’s twice slower. If you go 2kt you are infinitely slower. At some point VMG was negative and I almost aborted but then moved left to the next wind spot and got it going. At 5.20pm I was still east of the island, however I saw the southern tip oh so close and knew as soon as I round it north-bound current would be on my side pushing me against air. I made a bet – if I didn’t reach some reasonable wind within 20 minutes (5.40pm) I’d turn back and call it a day. Recklessly dumb bet. In 22 minutes I reached a steady flow of 10kt and proceeded around the island into the Oak Bay. I wanted to get this sail done. I double-checked sunset time – 8.34pm, this gave me reasonable light till 9pm, then some marginal ambient till 9.15 and then I’d have to use headlamp. I also had huge and busy shipping lane to cross and this must be done in daylight. Problem was, suddenly everything became very tight with no margins. Wind had to be no less than 10kt and I had to make VMG no less than 4.5kt in order to cross the lane in any kind of light. And I didn’t check my headlamp – a surprise left for future. Oak Bay went well. Breeze was 8-10kt and I was flying over flat water. Didn’t see much current though. As I got closer to the bridge between the mainland and the island, wind started dying again. The lesser the wind – the more the tension was skewing my mind. I started scoping nearby beaches (beautiful beaches by the way) thinking if I could weather a night if I had to, then I saw a marina (Port Hardlock?) and decided this would be another good option for a bivy. Bivy however was one fuck of an ugly possibility, something I didn’t want to do. Port Townsend Bay greeted me with flat water and weak breeze at first. As I moved north along the bay the breeze began slowly building up to 5kt, 8tk and finally 12kt.
At 7.20pm I had 8+ miles direct to go. This was the moment when I finally accepted I’d have to sail in dark. As I accepted I imagined reaching in 12kt and it seemed doable. The tension eased and went away for a while. The sun was still yellow and warm. I focused on covering as much distance as possible while I could go as fast as possible. I had to cross the lane. If I crossed the lane and there was some wind left – I’d be fine.
Tension returned when I saw a police boat roaming Fort Flagler installations. The boat slowly turned towards me and followed me for a few minutes. Last thing I wanted was to stop and waste precious minutes explaining my story. And then result of this discussion would be highly unpredictable if they learned I was heading into Admiralty Inlet just before the sunset. So I hiked flat and tried to look as brick-faced macho as possible. It seemed to help – they stayed behind eventually.
40 minutes before sunset I saw Keystone still 8 miles away. I also saw the lane and at first it looked empty. I prayed hard for wind to stay and no ships crossing my way. As I got closer to the lane I saw a north-bound stadium-sized ship few miles south and in few minutes a south-bound stadium-sized ship appeared on the horizon coming from the Strait. South-bound ship pointed directly at me and was 3-4 miles away, so this one wasn’t a problem as I would move off her away in no time. The north-bound one though was tricky. I was moving at 6-8kt and our projected paths crossed and it wasn’t clear if I could cross ahead. I decided to play it safe and headed south-east to cross behind. I didn’t have to turn because she was moving really fast, but I wanted to show her my intention to cross behind. All these calculations and maneuvers were happening in a bloody red afterglow of the sunset.
As I crossed the wake of the north-bound ship, at least a mile behind her, I felt a touch of relief. I was within two miles of the ramp and wind was steady and there was enough light to keep me going fast. Recalling crazy currents from the previous two attempts, I decided to shoot a ballistic trajectory again accounting for the west-bound current and possibly calm winds near the shore instead of going straight to the ramp. When I was one mile from the ramp I reached for the headlamp, put it on and… it didn’t light up! Again, I didn’t want wasting time figuring out what was wrong, so I put it back and sailed on. Ambient light was good enough. Current wasn’t there, I ended up overshooting quarter a mile and tacked back and sailed along the shore towards the ramp. When I was sneaking around the reef and into the tiny harbor, the ferry that was about to leave the harbor turned on its projector and gave me a long horn. I was embarrassed. I had to have flashlight lighting up my sail! I guess I looked like a startled idiot caught in a spotlight. I tacked and eased the sail to show the ferry I didn’t intend to cross her.
Well, when I finally got to the ramp I saw a familiar face. It was the friendly sheriff I met this morning (or early afternoon?). He was about to lock the gate and said he was a bit worried about my whereabouts. I told him winds were a bit lighter than expected so I was late…

Quite a day, huh?

Lessons
Headlamp. I suspect that it turned on by itself in my cramped pocket and run batteries out during the day. But still, I made principal decision based on having the lamp earlier in the day and then continued making decisions that depended on this single piece of equipment and never bothered to check if it works.
Shipping Lanes. No way I’m crossing these things again anywhere near darkness without support boat. I have to solve the support boat issue from now on.

P.S. When I was driving home around midnight it clicked with absolute clarity that I am doing climbs again. Specifically the locked gate thing. How many times have I been locked at Longmire when driving back from Paradise late in the night? :) Yep, I came back to where I started from. To where I wanted get away from and never come back. This isn’t sane and I am back at it. And the worst of all, I am hooked. I tried racing this Thursday. Three times I got to the finish line 3rd and once 4th only because the guy who finished 3rd asked me to let him thru. I actually wasn’t finishing, I was simply sailing past the finish mark on the outer side. Nope. Racing doesn’t compare. Not even close. Total relapse.

Next winter destination

2010-05-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

Clay Johnson training in Mexico

Whidbey 2 - boolean winds

2010-04-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

Who says sailing is not spectator-friendly? Well, may be the kind of stupid looping around marks with over-complicated rules is not much fun to watch, agreed. But the other kind, when sailor is sweating cold terror trying to outpump the current and make ballistic trajectory hit a tiny beach on a tiny tip of land - this kind of sailing, sailing for life, attracts spectators. And spectators cheer - they love drama!
This place, between Keystone and Port Townsend, is a cursed place of boolean winds. It's either blowing 35 or it's dead calm. Transitions are short and violent. I had a chance to taste it recently, specifically the transition to dead calm. I went out for the Marrowstone Island in what looked like a solid 10kt of wind and it shut off in half an hour. Just after I crossed the swirls and entered the main river of flood. Never in my life did I pump so hard for so long. I had to get back to land before the current switched to ebb. I probably did 100 rolling tacks as they seemed to be more efficient than just pumping. Good practice :) In many aspects.

Whidbey

2010-04-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

Bailed from sailing around Marrowstone Island off Whidbey's Admiralty Head. I expected it to be a relatively easy stroll in 10-15kt. Yet when I arrived at the ramp wind was dead and current amazingly strong. After watching local ferry landing and calculating my chances of similar maneuver under no wind I decided to go try few other spots on the island. I started with Penn Cove. Ramp didn't even touch the water at low tide:

Then I checked out Oak Harbor. There ramp reached the water, but it was so dirty... I decided wading thru inches thick sticky silt didn't worth it:

The last stop before leaving the island was Freeland where I saw the same dirty shallow stuff.
Lasering off Whidbey now looks like an interesting puzzle to solve.

Vashon Island - check

2010-04-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

40.5 miles in 6 hours 30 minutes, avg speed 6.2mph, max speed 14.7mph.
Conditions: northerly at 10-20mph with gusts up to 30mph on the traverse of Maury Island.

Spent last two weekends on this project. Week ago was too cold for my taste, so I bailed. Most of this week models looked grim for the weekend as it looked like convergence zone will setup after a cold front passed on Thrusday/Friday. Then on Friday it looked like high pressure ridge would give some northerly and cold temps on Saturday and yield confused winds on Sunday. So I braced meself for a cold but brilliant Saturday sail. When I arrived to the ramp at Point Defiance Park in the morning it was blowing 35 and water was white in the Colvos and East Passages. Definitely no go.
I felt dissappointed and relieved at the same time that I didn't have to sail in the cold. Late night models suddenly improved from confused variables to stable northerly 10-20mph, which indeed materialized today.

I would divide the sail in four parts - upwind leg inside Colvos Passage, downwind leg to Point Robinson, steep reach along the Maury and soggy reach of the last couple miles to the ramp.

Upwind was long 15.5 miles of pleasant beat in champagne conditions at 7-15kt of wind. As I was progressively getting tired I had to increase rest periods. I started with the ratio 3:1 (fast mode 15min : rest mode 5min) and ended with 1:2 (fm-5min:r-10min). Last couple miles I suffered from some tension in the back which I mitigated by sailing standing on windward knee. Even running tired it was still fun as I was playing game of guessing windshifts and currents - having GPS onboard proves to be entertaining.

The downwind towards Point Robinson was in 10-17kt and almost flat seas. Man, I felt stiff in the beginning. I dropped the vang as usual for some lee-to-windward play but it felt so insecure that I had to take the vang back, workout my knees and feet for half an hour and only then inch by inch let vang off again. Two months away from the boat and 15 miles upwind made me clumsy... I'd overcome stiffness to a certain degree, but there is certainly a long way to my former dexterity. Something to work on.

The reach after Point Robinson was blistering fast. Strong puffs of 25-28kt that were falling down from the Maury bluffs called for some cautious sailing and helped me get 14.5mph max ground speed going against the ebb current. I wasn't sure if the growing winds were caused by a weather change or had orographic nature, so it was a little bit unnerving and fun fun fun,... while supplies lasted.

Speed variance upwind (miles 0 to 21) was much smaller than downwind (miles 21 to 31). Even though waves were less or about 2ft I surfed them and speed difference was about 3mph between riding a wave and a transition. Four miles from 31 to 35 show the crazy puff rodeo with according variance of 5-10mph.

Somewhere around the southern tip of Maury puffs dissipated, and the rest of the way was uneventful slog in ambient winds of 5-10kt.

I have few ideas of what's next. Turns out there is a reasonable ramp in La Push, plus USCG unit based in the same harbor. Very tempting. Then there is an option of sailing from Olympia to Tacoma or Shilshole, or further North :) Yet another option is to solve the mistery of night sailing and put at least 4 hours under the belt. Will see.

Blake Island. Patient's patience.

2010-03-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

After 3 failed attempts it finally did go - 27.5 miles in 9h 40m roundtrip.
So the 2010 season is open now :)
I started 10am and was back few minutes after sunset at 7.40pm. It was a sunny day with variable winds up to 5kt (yellow arrow). Meaning no wind.

Although forecast promised 8-13mph of southerly, the sea surface was glassy most of the time. And yet, yet, somehow the air was constantly moving - I could feel it on my face. I was never actually standing still. I also managed to time tidal currents so that I rode tide all the way to the island and rode ebb all the way back.

There was a big keel boat race that started at Shilshole pretty much the same time as I did and I sailed in quite a crowd for the first few miles. Having dozens of boats spread ahead helped a bit as they revealed wind spots and holes. I even caught up with few of them on the traverse of West Point. There wind clocked to a really tricky westerly that was touching surface in horizontal lanes perpendicular to the wind. I hooked one of such lanes and advanced quarter mile ahead of bigger boats just 50 yards to my lee. Then my lane dissipated and one of the boats to the lee hooked another wind lane and run away rather quickly. I finally separated with the fleet on the traverse of Restoration Point, all of them were sailing towards Tacoma.
I test-drove my new Delorme GPS, 4th that I tried to use on Laser (others were Garmin 60CSx, Garmin 76 and Lowrance H20c), and I should say I was totally happy with it. It’s not perfect, but it’s way ahead of all the previous units (well, may be 60CSx is comparable). Having this little instrument provided sufficient amount of entertainment during doldrums (I could see that I was still moving with the current) and during puffs when I raced against the ground speed. I was constantly trying various trims and it’s amazing how much speed difference a good trim makes - 20%! Finally I had something to race against! :))

I knew I was pushing luck with 30 miles trip in glassy air, so I was mentally prepared to sail last few miles after sunset (I wonder how many Laser sailors carry headlamp with them, I did) . In the hindsight I am not sure it’s a good idea on the Sound - not that I can’t handle the boat, the problem is commercial and ferry traffic. These things run fast and I don’t think they can see me clearly or at all on their radars. I can see them, but I need a bit more than 0.5kt of wind to move away.
Anyways, as I was approaching West Point in the evening, three keel sailboats turned towards me to ask if I need a tow to Shilshole. For some reason I felt embarrassed saying no thanks. I had to finish what I started and I couldn’t tell them to ignore me up until they came close. I thought if I started yelling or waving hands I would look even more disturbing :) Thanks guys! Sorry for the trouble… I might need your help some day :)
There was an exciting moment right at the end of the trip. As I as was approaching Shilshole I noticed that GPS direction vector and my bow pointed in different directions. I was carried North by the current much faster than I was moving East against water. When I noticed this I was close to shore and still had time to try counteracting by pointing straight East or SE. I had one chance. If I failed to reach the ramp, the current would carry me North past the ramp and I would end up drifting in space until the current shifted or wind picked up. Fun :) It all worked out well and I caught a downdrift just by the ramp that gave me enough pressure to maneuver and get off the water.
Physically I didn’t feel tired or exhausted. However I felt mentally tense at times as no wind was very unnerving when I was sitting on the Laser in the middle of Puget Sound. All my previous sails were in moderate to strong winds, so this one was unusual. I am still processing it.

Next goal is Vashon. Then I plan to get 20 hours of continuous sailing with at least 4 hours in complete darkness. I think I will do it on the Washington Lake as it doesn’t see much traffic. These 20 hours, if I can do them, should give me a taste of Chelan.

How to waste a weekend

2010-03-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

1. Spend week_minus_1 loading tons of food somewhere in subtropics laying on a beach and dreaming of snow peaks and sea vasts at home.

2. Spend first half of the week_minus_0 working out and second half loading carbs and watching forecasts. Dream of sailing 30 miles on Saturday and climbing cool shit on Sunday. Or may be spending second day honeydoing at home - it's gonna feel good after the sail, right?

3. Forecast looks promising for sailing. Thursday evening pack your car with sailing crap so that there was no chance of early morning bail on Saturday. Yeah yeah, a little tribute to demons and a little trick against them.

3. Late Friday get a mail from a friend offering to climb something fun on Sunday. Droop with triple force over the forecast and various weather models to see temps plummeting, clouds gathering, cold winds blowing and rain raining (just after a cold front) on Saturday. Think a bit and allow a thought of moving the sail to Sunday because of latest development. Also note that Sunday looks warmer with confused winds. Auto-assume winds would de-confuse themselves, somehow.
Reply to the friend telling him that you car is packed for sailing and you are all set for the water, but don't have any decisions yet (here the tiny little orange demon-detecting bell should start ringing).

4. Wakeup to a grim morning, push thru morning cereal and coffee up until you see winds of 30kt on iwindsurf.com and open the garage door to taste 38f. Fuck sailing, the trick doesn't work below 50f. Hugs and kisses to victorious demons. Drink beer or two right away to seal failure. Go drool over models again to see more and more signs of low winds on Sunday. Do the model drill 100 times during the day and still hope for things to improve. Miserably fail to abandon sailing plans and fail to write to the friend for a climb.

5. Wake up early Sunday morning to no winds. Go back to sleep. Wake up again to more no winds. Shieeet. Realize the bouquet of personal idiocy. Drink the last beer immediately to seal the enlightment. Remove all the stuff from the car. Declare failure. Secretly go watch conditions at this one spot on Whidbey Island which normally has good winds when Seattle is calm. Blowing 25! Too much for the temp anyways and things are unloaded and failure already declared. Procrastinate couple hours, then open the garage door. It's warm outside! Much warmer than yesterday. Go back and check winds on Whidbey - 15kt! Could have been perfect! But it's too late now. Reflex. Not the first time. Take it easy. Think of writing this post, next day. Instead of work. Yeah

Comfort capsule

2010-03-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

One full week in all-inclusive Crown Paradise resort, Cancun.
Impressions.

Insanely saturated colors of water, sand and sky. Gray-and-green-fasted Seattle brains were feasting on the local gammas.

Lots of food. Lots of booze. But not many options.
Clean. Unreally clean - didn't see a single fly even though place packed hundreds of people doing usual things - eating drinking crapping.

Reasonable gym. I didn't expect much and I hadn't got much, but still, good enough to earn some calorie deficit lavishly fulfilled in a bottomless food dispenser hundred feet away :) I actually thoroughly enjoyed the rhythm of eat - workout - swim - sleep - eat - workout ... Few times I managed to pack 2 cycles into a single day :) Perfect.

Sailing. Cancun as I'd seen it felt such a terrible waste! Each day was blowing 10-20 kt with air temp in the 80es and there was not a single sail on the water. Part of the resort deal was boat rent, but they won't rent anything with a sail in winds above 10kt. Waste and disappointment.
I only had one chance to get a Hobie Cat early in the trip and after that winds were above 10kt and the only option was sea kayaks:

Snorkeling. Not anywhere near the resort beach. The beach is open sand and incoming swell makes water a tiny bit murky. Water is cleaner further away, but it's too deep there for snorkeling. Xel-Ha is the place and Isla Mujeres is even better.

1005

2010-02-26T23:57:00.000-08:00

kcal in 45 minutes - personal record. Recent Hood adventure have certainly increased my red cell count!
Off to Mexico for a week. Hope there is sun, wind and no sharks :)

26 hours

2010-02-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

Oleg and I climbed Cooper Spur in a single push. The initial plan was to climb the spur and descend Sunshine route, however weather corrected the descent option. Here is the quote of trip report I filed on cascadeclimbers.com:

12.10am wake up, coffee
3.00am redbull, pack on, hike off
3.05 damn ice on the trail
4.00 hoar frost sparkles brighter than stars above, feels like in fairy tale, beautiful night!
5.30 Tilly Jane Cabin - barking dogs inside, altimeter is wrong 300ft
6.10 coming out of woods, first taste of winds
6.40 first light, windy freezing, reached the rock shelter, all clothes on
7.00 sunrise, beautiful mountain, going goes well, a bit less wind
8.00 sun on, high winds on the upper mountain
8.30 calibrate altimiter at 8500ft
9.00 short rest, breakfast and crampons/harnesses on at about 9000
9.30 exposure to Elliot, not so steep, not so windy yet, just pressing up
10.00 10000ft, ropeup, start simulclimbing
10.30 slow progress because of simulclimbing, excellent climbing on steep snow, windy!
10.50 got into cadence, sorted out technical issues, but now getting tired, altemiter shows 10500, I suspect its wrong again
11.00 windy and freezing, a bit tired but still moving good
11.20 got used to slopes and it's cold, peeling ice off eyelids, decided to keep only one piece of pro at a time, this speeds up the progress
11.50 last slope before the summit, blowing like hell, hypothermic, altimeter is again off 300ft - SUUNTO you made a piece of crap!
12.00 summit - step over the edge off the route - from hell to heaven - no wind and warm on the other side!
12.10 I think I saw 20 or so climbers following us on cooper - Oleg doesn't see any, I am clearly tripping. Gatorade is below 32 but still liquid, painful to drink. I am shivering even though it is warm.
12.35 Ok, bailing from Sunshine descent - too windy, let's go south side.
13.00 where the fuck is perly gates?
13.30 where is the main summit, PG should be right under it. Everything looks steep and all the tracks are going up. Where are all the people who supposed to climb from south? I see three climbers but Oleg says these are just rocks.
14.00 looked at all the options - all tracks are going up. only one option seems to have more tracks than the rest, we ruled it out because it seemed exposed to falling rime ice. I see climbing monkey - I see it's moving up on steep ice few hundred yards away. Too embarrassed to tell Oleg about it - I know it's in my head.
14.30 Oleg suggests we have to get out of here, I belay him on the option with lots of tracks and rime ice - see if there is a way out.
15.00 the option goes easy, unrope
15.30 we are off the steep part and coming to the devils kitchen
4.00 rest at the devils kitchen, trying to call Mara to "rescue" us off the timberline lodge (our car is on the north side)
4.30 on the traverse of Steel Cliffs - cellphone picks up we make calls.
5.30 sunset, beautiful
5.40 hurricane resumes at the top of the lift
6.30 still going down, freezing cold, 45mph gusts, I see red flashes and sparkles in my left eye (wind is blowing from my left)
6.40 my toes feel like someone fries them with a lighter
6.50 loosing it because of painful toes, take off crampons, Oleg is walking ahead choosing the path, I can't keep up with him, I slip on ice and fall every three minutes, still better without crampons because toes don't hurt that much
7.00 reached the lodge, standing outside waiting for Oleg to take off crampons, people sitting behind the window, drinking booze and eating steaming hot food. Oleg can't take off his crampons - lashes are frozen. All doors on our side are closed - we can't get inside. FF...
7.05 descending to the visitor center, I have hard time keeping upright on the frozen trenches. The final piece is 30ft down to the road over the snow bank just above the cars.
7.10pm It's over! sitting on the bench in the climbers' corner, waiting for pick up. Life is so goood! :))

Sunrise on lower Cooper Spur

8500ft

Breakfast

Winds on the upper mountain

Oleg, midway up the Cooper Spur route

Me just below the steep part on cooper

Cooper Spur at its best

Redface

100ft below the summit

Looking down the Cooper Spur route from the summit

Summit shot

Rime ice

Iron man, Steel Cliffs

Note that the time line is skewed. I somehow lost memories of the 3 intense hours inside the ropeup moment and the summit. Well, I haven't exactly lost them, it just feels as if the time was flowing slower.
After Mara picked us up we drove to the north side to pick my car, then back to Oleg's (and Mara's) place and then I drove home to Seattle. I arrived past 2am which makes the whole day of 26 hours. A record for me. Out of these 26 hours Oleg and I rested at most 2 hours total, including a quick dinner after the climb. Now that's a proof that I can sail non-stop for at least 20 hours. Just enough to make it barely possible to do Chelan :)

In the zone

2010-02-13T22:03:00.000-08:00

Failed trying to sail Blake Island from Shilshole this Saturday. With forecast of southerly 15kt things looked quite bright, on paper :) However reality was the well established piss-hole over the area with rain and no wind.
This is how convergence zone looks like on the water:

But hey, on the way back I was able to consistently chain a bunch of rolltacks without falling off :) There is always something positive :)

12 часов

2010-02-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

Посмотрел Аватар. Впечатляющий фильм. Очень гармоничная история в отличном исполнении. Идея природы действующей как единый организм и возвращающей удар передана просто замечательно. Было очень необычно наблюдать сказку которая не набивает оскомину. Я, пожалуй, до сих пор под впечатлением.

Некий дядька прошёл 130 миль за 45 часов на утлом швертботе. Пусть не в один рывок, но тем не менее! Попробую завтра сделать Blake Island, если карты лягут :)

BMW Oracle славно набили морду мудакам из Швейцарии. Обосрались правда на старте, но всё равно привезли три километра отрыва на финише. Молодцы :)

Вот такие новости за последние 12 часов.

2009, 2010

2010-02-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

2009
Focus: straight line speed, strong wind performance.
Priority: racing, long distance.

Racing results
CYC Thursdays Spring: 8th (23 races)
CYC Thursdays Summer: 4th (24 races, 1 point behind 3rd)
CYC Thursdays Fall: 4th (10 races, 3 points behind 3rd)
D6 Championship: 17th (8 races)
Gorge Blowout: 6th (2 races)
Pacific Coast Championship: 20th (12 races)
Columbia Gorge OD: 2nd (8 races)
Bellingham Bay ODR: 4th (7 races, sharing points with 3rd)

Long distance
Bainbridge Island 32 miles
Cascade Locks to Hood River 2x20 miles
Hood Canal 53 miles
Lake Crescent 20 miles

2010
Focus: endurance, starts, tacks/gybes, strong wind performance.
Priority: long distance. Fuck racing (starts only), may be next year.
Plans:
- Hood River / Cascade Locks bridge to bridge roundtrip.
- Lake Chelan roundtrip.
- Segments of Strait of Juan de Fuca, ideally the whole thing.

Long distance - Australian way

2010-02-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

This video clip is currently up on a bunch of websites and blogs, so I am joining the crowd :)
30-35 knots wind is pretty serious! Usually it's hard to see the intensity from the on-board camera, however this clip certainly stands out. I am envious :)

Hello world II

2010-02-03T17:39:00.001-08:00

I've completed moving my blog from live spaces to blogger.com
So, hello world!, again :)

I started the process after reaching the point of desperation a week ago. It seems like Microsoft runs spaces for appearances' sake - just to have something against the competition, not for the sake of its users. Something vital is missing there. First of all - it's quite restricted. Thus it's impossible to deviate from the general appearance or develop a workaround if something is missing. There is also this typical Microsoft attitude towards user's content - they think they own it and they think they known better then me what I want. Now and again I see how the html source of my blog entries (the html tags) is being modified to comply with unknown standards. It's called code crapification. Periodic rewrites applied to some of the sources do result in bloated html where older tags are wrapped into newer tags undoing or redoing what older ones did. WTF? And the structure of index and navigation pages around the blog - WTF? I myself get lost on my blog if I dare to use any of the navigation/archival features.
Although I committed to the move I still had few moments of hesitation along the way. Primarily because some things on spaces are done better than here. Among them would be default styles, themes and gadgets. However, because blogger allows tinkering with templates, I was able to get what I want (or close to it). My old perfect weather gadget is a loss :( But hey, I might create a good one myself someday :)

Anyways, after Adobe Lightroom, blogger.com now is the second thing I use that's created 'outside the house'. I sense the trend :)

Mt Ellinor

2010-02-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

What an awesome little peak! I hiked it this weekend and had lots of fun. The mountain is located just above Lake Cushman in Olympic NP. The route has four distinct sections: it starts with a trail climbing steep forested ridge, then trail becomes flat and veers right thru a bunch of cozy little meadows, then it hits a steep avy chute leading to a tiny plateau just below the summit, and from the plateau it make the last short rise to the summit itself.
summit plateau
Elgain from the upper trailhead is about 2500ft in a bit over 2 miles. On the summit I saw few tent platforms cut in the snow. Summit was supposed to have good 360 views, however all I got were mist and sky. Except one time when it broke and I could make a quick shot of Lake Cushman.
Cushman thru the clouds
On the way back I had an option of glissading about 1000ft on my bottom, which I chose not to do. Not a big fan of ass-sliding :) I glissaded on my feet a hundred yards or so on moderate sections.
The whole hike leaves impression of a toy-climb where every single bit of a normal climb is present in a smaller scale and topped with a cute summit :) I should do it again with Sonya one of these weekends with good weather :)

Cabarete: traveler’s notes

2010-01-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

Seattle – Cabarete
It seems not many people fly from Pacific Northwest to Dominican Republic. There are no direct flights. And most of itinerary options have either relays of 1 hours or less or some really long relays. I flew Seattle – New York – Santiago and Santiago – Miami – Chicago – Seattle. Flight there seemed really easy, even though it was a red-eye. Flight back was tough, and with mixup and delays it ended up being 26 hours door-to-door.
Customs and passport control on the way in were easy. I filled couple forms while on the airplane and paid $USD cash for the tourist card at the STI airport.

Santiago – Cabarete
To get to Cabarete I arranged a taxi with Laser Training Center. The driver met me right at the airport. He didn’t speak English, but knew well what was expected. The road takes about 2 hours and goes thru some rural areas across a mountain ridge and some rolling hills before it drops to the shore. I guess one can get a real feel of the local culture and life during the drive. Driving was a bit crazy at times. My driver stopped once to pickup a bottle of beer in a roadside shop, he finished the bottle while we were climbing up the mountain road. I didn’t see any police except one blockpost up high on the ridge. There were couple guys with automatic guns checking cars, they didn’t look into our car because it was a taxi (as I was explained). The area was beautiful:

Few times I’ve seen this kind of eco-friendly transport parked on the curb:

Sadly, there were lots of spots with garbage dumped along the road and on the nearby hills :( - no pictures of that.

Cabarete
Is a relatively small village organized around a single big street going parallel to the beach.

There are few passages that descend from the main street to the beach. Some of these passages go thru restaurants, some are basically "shops on the street":

Most of the hotels and restaurants on the beach side of the road are expensive, at least as expensive as in US. A regular meal consisting of a burger, fries and a bottle of beer would cost about 20 $USD. Eateries on the other side of the street tend to be much cheaper. There was even a Chinese place:

Water in the ocean was very clean and warm.

The beach was relatively clean too. Businesses comb the sand on their lots many times a day, so these spots are clean. However abandoned places in between have garbage. I think it wouldn’t be a problem in dry weather, however during my visit we had rain 7 days out of 9, and when it rained – it really rained there and all the merky stuff from the main road streamed down on to the beach. So I had some pesky mental issues with this dirt and couldn’t convince myself to walk in flip-flops – ended up wearing hiking boots most of the time. Locals though seem Ok in flip-flops or bare-foot. But they are sturdy – I am not.

Nightlife was relatively rich. Most of the places along the beach were open late. Lots of prostitutes on the street and guys walking on the beach selling stuff. Any stuff., I mean any. Bargaining was expected. I managed to drop the price of a little souvenir 4 times and still felt it was a bit overpriced.
I found a couple stores where I could buy some Gatorade, yogurt, bread and cheap (but very good) local rum. There were also at least a couple drug stores with sunscreen and all the usual stuff. Reasonably good local cigars go at 4-5 $USD, Cuban cigars go at 10-13 $USD. Everyone accepts $USD but at times some traders will use a bit unfavorable exchange rate.
Cabarete taxi – a guy on a smelly bike. There are dozens and dozens of them on the main street any time of day.

They will whisk you around the village for 1 $USD (as I was told). Never tried one.

Kaoba
The hotel I lived in was rather ascetic. It was clean and nice, but it wasn’t dry in all the rain we had.

I think this place would be totally awesome if it wasn’t raining like hell. Everything (including fresh towels and sheets on the bed) was damp most of the time. But well, at 35 $USD a night for this little bungalow I am in no position to complain :)

Cabarete tuning guide

2010-01-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

This is the tuning guide from the clinic. I've modified it slightly based on my own observations and those videos of Olympic hot shots we've seen during debriefs.

Upwind	Light	Medium	Strong
Vang	Chop: less than b2b, allow boom go up to 30cm. Flat: b2b.	b2b	More than b2b.
Cunningham	Eased.	Remove the diagonal crease.	Hard on.
Outhaul	20cm deep at the boom.	15cm deep at the boom.	5-10cm deep at the boom.
Mainsheet	10-30cm between blocks.	b2b	Play between b2b and 1m.
Body position	Forward by the daggerboard.	Just behind the cleat.	Up to 15cm behind the cleat.
Trim	5-10 degrees leeward heel.	Up to 5 degrees leeward heel.	Flat.
Tips	Keep well forward.	Keep heel constant.	Burst hike on top of a wave to bear off and speed up.

Notes:
Hi mode: less vang, less cunningham.
Lo mode: more vang, more cunningham.

Reach	Light	Medium	Strong
Vang	Just enough to bend the mast slightly flattening the entry.	Set the leech slightly twisted matching the top and bottom telltales.	Loose to keep the boom above water and shed off excess power.
Cunningham	Eased.	Eased.	On when overpowered.
Outhaul	15cm	20cm	10-15cm
Mainsheet	Trim to leeward telltales.	Trim to both telltales.	Trim to leeward telltales.
Daggerboard	20-25cm	20-25cm	20-25cm
Body position	Forward by the daggerboard.	Back when boat accelerates, forward when slows down.	Back.
Trim	5-10 degrees leeward heel.	Up to 5 degrees leeward heel.	Flat.
Tips	Keep well forward.	Keep heel constant.	Head up a bit on lows and down on gusts.

Downwind	Light	Medium	Strong
Vang	Loose to allow leech twist up to 30cm. 2’ tighter when sailing broad reach.	Loose to allow leech twist 30cm.	Mode 1: Loose enough to allow leech twist around 30cm. Mode 2: Tighter than 30cm twist. See outhaul/mainsheet settings to match the mode.
Cunningham	Eased.	Eased.	Eased.
Outhaul	Up to 25cm.	Up to 20cm.	Mode 1: same as on upwind. Mode 2: up to 15cm. See vang/mainsheet settings to match the mode.
Mainsheet	Boom at 90-110 degrees.	No further than 90 degrees.	Mode 1: 75 degrees or less. Model 2: 75-85 degrees. See vang/outhaul settings to match the mode.
Daggerboard	Up to 20cm.	Up to 20cm.	Up to 20cm.
Body position	Forward by the daggerboard.	Back when boat accelerates, forward when slows down.	Back.
Trim	10-20 degrees windward heel.	Up to 10 degrees windward heel.	Flat.
Tips	Keep well forward sailing more than 50% by the lee.	Surf the waves when can. If can’t speed up – don’t change course.	Straight to the mark.

Notes:
Mode 1 gives bigger twist allowing sailing angles without much mainsheet trimming.
Mode 2 gives spinnaker-like sail suitable for sailing fast in more or less one direction (Mark Bethwaite mode).
Having full sail and lots of twist overpowers too much.

Caribbean vacation

2010-01-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Sonya's rendition of Cabarete sailing :)

Day 0, arrival

Day 1, clinic
Sailed outside the reef. N wind 5-10kt, NE swell, N chop, sunny. Very shifty (20-30 degrees) and shifts are well timed at 4-5 minutes. Practiced upwind/downwind speed. I was fast downwind. Upwind though was mixed. If I could tune into the waves – I was fast, otherwise I was falling down and back.

Day 2, clinic
Sailed outside the reef. N wind at 3-8kt for couple hours, then 14-17kt. NE swell, N chop, cloudy with rain at times. When started blowing shifts seemed to abate. In the hindsight I think it’s just the shift cycle that increased from 4-5 minutes to 10-15 minutes, but the shifts remained. Practiced upwind/downwind speed. I felt better than on day 1 in the light wind, but when breeze came I couldn’t keep up upwind again.

Day 3 and 4, clinic
Sailed inside the reef. NE wind 8-10kt, ENE swell 2-3m high, NE chop, rain. There was noticeably strong current, especially at the weather mark located in the mouth of the bay between the reefs (yellow line):

The current caused a lot of mark overstanding on starboard tack, even though everybody was warned :) In general, on the course above, it paid going right on the upwind as the right side had less chop and then tack below layline to ride the current. Downwind I think going downwind-sailors right was also paying, but not so obviously. I once managed to catch a huge wave and zip past the fleet including Raul Aguayo to be the first at the downwind mark.

Day 5, rest day

Day 6, 8th Caribbean Laser Midwinter
E wind 5-12kt, swell from N + swell from E, huge waves 3-5m may be more sometimes, rain.

We only had 1 and 1/2 races. On the second race I had about 28 minutes long upwind and then the race got cancelled soon after I rounded the weather mark. Overall we spent at least two hours of pure wait time. Later we figured out the cause – E current was so strong that committee boat couldn’t anchor properly and was drifting most of the time. This was the reason for the 28 minutes beat in the second race – committee boat drifted to almost double the upwind leg. Downwind I was neutral to may be slightly faster than neighbors.

This shot is from day 7.
Conditions were somewhat similar, except probably the wave size.

Upwind all depended on tuning into the wave cadence. When I did I was fast, in fact much faster than neighbors. I think I was really well tuned most of the time except may be first couple minutes right after the start in the first race. Second race beat was particularly awesome as the course was skewed with one long port tack which I sailed fast and was looking to round the mark at least in top 10 very close to the rest of the leaders. In the first race sea (left side) was winning on the upwinds due to puffs coming from that side.

Day 7, 8th Caribbean Laser Midwinter
E wind 8-14kt, medium NEE swell 2-3m, cloudy.

1st race. Had a reasonable start but could not tune into waves for a few minutes loosing lots of boats. When I finally tuned I caught up a lot on the first upwind. I was making more gain in upwinds than downwinds.
2nd race. Had a bad start but tacked away quickly. Tuned into the cadence from the very beginning, so I was fast upwind. The race was short (one loop) and I had a great downwind as well. I managed to stay in cadence on the broad reach and pumped gently with waves gaining quickly on the leaders. I guess I was moving so fast that I attracted jury boat that following me for a while. By the leeward mark I caught up with Raul Aguayo and Ari Barshi, rounded in 3rd place between them and ahead of Ari only to loose Ari on the last 50 yards of a very tight reach. My sail was too full and I was confused and couldn’t figure out how to surf on the tight reach, so Ari rolled over me and passed in 4 or 5 waves. Damn it! Still the best race though :)
3rd race. Ok start, then decided to play the middle and lost a huge shift on the right. Followed to the right side and lost another huge shift on the left. First upwind was disaster. The rest of the race was all the catch up game which I played more or less well being fast and staying close to neighbors. Finished 10th which was a good result.
During the day shifts played big role, however guys who went right (shore) after start then played upper-rightish middle to the weather mark seemed to be ahead most of the time. The right side might have some current reliefe, however it was not so obvious day before. Probably because day 1 race course was positioned more to South.

Day 8, 8th Caribbean Laser Midwinter
”Typical Cabarete” E wind 16-18kt, NEE swell 2-3m, mostly sunny.

We had 3 races this day and all of them were similar – I had mediocre starts and then huge losses on the first upwinds due to large scale shifts that I regularly missed. Wind was stronger than the days before and I was overpowered, so I focused more on sailing flat and fast than watching after shifts and neighbors. Playing shifts and leaning right (shore) side was the name of the game and I failed at both.

It was a bit hard to find an efficient way to hike and trim on waves, however I think managed to get faster by the end of the day. Another nasty bugger during upwinds was the plug in the cockpit that was autoclosing each time I flopped from a huge wave and then the cockpit would fill in quickly and I would notice it by feeling soggy on the helm. Usually it was too late and I’d already lost everything I gained from the previous time I opened the plug… Sailing with cockpit full of water was extremely slow. Downwind runs were Ok, not stellar though. I guess I clung to safe mode too much. However at times I would catch up and pass a cluster of boats.

I think the best move right after rounding the weather mark was to separate from the other boats. Each time I started in a cluster I stayed in that cluster all the way to the leeward mark. Almost each time I separated, just enough to get others out of the focus, I gained and passed boats. I wonder if it’s just mental or there are wind-shadow/course restriction reasons to this. Might be both. Anyway, separating 5-7 boatlengths at the beginning of a long downwind seemed to be safe, so it might have been a good tactic.

Day 9, flight back
It was 26 hours door-to-door for me. First, long drive to Santiago. Then relay in Miami with customs and one particularly rude officer. Then long relay in Chicago, where I had an adventure-by-stupidity: mixed the American Airlines flight with Alaska Airlines. Both are “AA” in the schedule, both have almost the same gate and both leave at approximately the same time! So when the crowd lined up to board a flight to Seattle I joined and was told that airplane was not ready and the flight was delayed two hours. Ok, I thought, I’ll go have some food. Then in two hours when I tried to board again I was told it was Alaska flight, and my American left an hour ago. Wow! So I asked if I could board Alaska, after few phone calls they agreed to take me in :) Turns out there was an Alaskan guy who flew American hour ago instead of me, so companies were even and allowed me to board! It was great, but all the way to Seattle I was brutally anxious about my baggage and my tiller/extension (the condition known as “tiller separation anxiety” described here). I was sure that because I didn’t board my American flight, they would offload and destroy my baggage in Chicago assuming I was a terrorist and my tube with tiller was likely filled with dynamite. However when I arrived in Seattle, my baggage was there! What a relief :)
So, I have couple questions to TSA: 1. how come my baggage was allowed to fly without me? 2. how come my baggage was not destroyed after sitting unattended for at least an hour in Seattle? Anyways, it’s all good and no losses on my side :))

Conclusion
My regatta result is 10th sharing same score as 9th (again!). I am moderately pleased with the result. Although the goal of surviving the “typical Cabarete” was not attained – there was no typical Cabarete this time. Winds were light to medium except the last day, and even then I was not in the survival mode. I didn’t capsize once.

From Paradise to Paradise?

2010-01-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

Leaving this Friday for the clinic and the 8th Caribbean Laser Midwinter Regatta.
Literally from Paradise to Paradise :) Will see how these compare!

New Year on Rainier

2010-01-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

During the New Year holidays Katya and I wanted to go out of the city for a few days to enjoy some x-country skiing and hiking. My recent successful venture to the summit of Lane Peak suggested that Rainier might be a good idea and we booked a room for two nights in the National Park Inn in Longmire. The plan was to ski Stevens Canyon Road to the Reflection Lake on day 1, do some sledging and snow-caving at Paradise on day 2 and hike up to the Panorama Point on day 3. Well, we executed according to the plan with the only thing not cooperating – the weather. Weather sucked all three days. It was raining, snowing and blowing. I hoped that Sonya will get a chance to experience some beautiful balmy alpine settings, but instead she had to cope with blizzards and her crazy parents :) I must say she did really well and enjoyed everything on her plate since day 2.

Day 1
Arrived at Narada Falls in the afternoon and hiked up to the Stevens Canyon Road with skis on my back. Up on the road some open spots were quite windy and I had difficulties explaining Sonya why skiing was called fun and generaly considered recreation. The crux of the trip was the place where road bent East. Here Sonya had ultimately lost any confidence in the sanity of the enterprise asked for a rest stop, to reconsider options :)

Somehow we managed to push thru the bend and get into a sheltered area where the world suddenly became wonderful and skiing easy. At this point it was obvious that all three of us won’t get to Reflection Lakes in time and Katya split off to run fast to the lakes and then gave me a chance to do the same. As we turned back the going thru the crux was easier :) We reached the trail to the parking lot just the moment it got completely dark. Sonya was happy to put her new flash light to use while running down a snowy path in the forest (see the video).
We had a well deserved dinner at the inn and went to bed early that night.

Day 2
Woke up pretty late. Grey clouds were drizzling behind the window and the gate was closed. We went down for a complementary breakfast in the restaurant. For some reason serving the meal took extraordinary long time (something like 40 minutes), but the quality of the food was good. By the time we finished all morning chores the gate got open and we ventured up the road towards Paradise. Paradise met us with snowfall, big snow banks and wind. We grabbed our sled, snowshoes, thermos and some other stuff and hiked a short distance to the playground area. There were two sledging tracks - a big one for adults with a well organized slow moving line and the other smaller one for little kids. The smaller one was pretty chaotic, yet it had no line which was a deciding factor. Sledging was fun and it was the first time when Sonya did it on her own. She liked it so much that in the end she was eager to carry her sled up herself :)

After playing for a couple hours we went into the newly built visitor center for a lunch. The new building was very beautiful and even had some nice carpets and leather furniture on the first floor (I wonder how long it will last). After lunch we started the second half of the program for the day - snowshoeing and digging a snow cave. The idea was to walk off trail while looking for a good place to dig. Finding a deep pocket of snow didn't take long and withing 15 minutes I was at work, while Sonya and Katya watched the process. After half an hour they got bored as I digged deeper into the snow taking all the action with me, so they wandered around in the trees.

According to Sonya she enjoyed snowshoes much more than skies. In about an hour the cave was ready and I invited girls inside. While brewing tea on my little stove I explained that staying in a cave was more comfortable than in a tent.

I recalled how I had to dig in for a night couple times high up on the mountain in different trips few years ago. Good old times :)

After the "4 o'clock tea in the cave" was over we packed and left for the car. That evening we decided to drive down to the entrance of the park and have a dinner in the Copper Creek restaurant that Oleg and I spotted in 2007. The place was still there and food was awesome. It was also served much quicker than at the Park Inn, highly recommend it :)

Day3
Woke up early knowing that breakfast would take lots of time. Quick look outside provided fainted view of lower snowfields on Rainier, quite a progress! Upper mountain was still closed, but it wasn't raining and there was no wind. Encouraged by seemingly improving weather we rushed thru breakfast and packing and left for Paradise couple hours earlier than the day before. But when we reached Paradise some grey blue clouds rolled in and though air was calm, visibility was low. Anyways, we stuck to the plan and started hiking up the packed trail towards Panorama Point. Going was easy but boring, escially for Sonya. We've been stopping every 15 minutes for a small shot of chocolate which revived spirits a bit, but of course didn't last long :)

Lo and behold we were under the steep slope around 6400ft that leads to the pan point. The main trail was skirting leftish, away from the usual winter route that follows the steep chute to the right. The weather got a bit worse with some wind and snow blowing around and pretty much no visibility. We started climbing the steep trail, Katya and Sonya in snowshoes. As it always goes with snowshoes, even moderately steep terrain feels a bit insecure as they tend to float while kicking steps is more natural. So Katya blew the whistle "screw you guys I am going home" pretty soon. Whilst for Sonya it was more like a game and she adopted to the terrain really well by dropping on all four at times :) Really fun to watch :) We found a big rock outcrop 20ft above the trail and decided it would be out turning point. Sonya climbed first, me following. There we found a good flat pocket for some rest and another mini chocolate shot with hot tea from thermos. Here is our "summit shot":

Way back was easy and fast, as usual. Especially for Sonya who slid most of the steep part on her bottom (see video). When we got back to the car and I took off my outer shell it was completely damp, in fact everything was damp after three days of playing in the snow :) Driving down I felt a bit melancholic as I didn't want to leave or go to work next day. The excitement of the upcoming trip to Cabarete and all the todo's surrounding it finally downed on me after I managed escaping thoughts of it for so long. We had another awesome dinner at Copper Creek and then finally left for Seattle.
We'll be back, for sure :)

Fly Couloir, Lane Peak

2009-12-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

Lane Peak is a little summit in the vicinity of Mt Rainier. It has three snow/ice couloirs on the north side forming the N shape. I’ve climbed this peak couple times before (zipper/fly, lovers lane/zipper) with different partners. This time I decided to solo the easiest couloir, The Fly (rightmost on the picture).

The hardest part of the climb was fighting the demons at 5am. I hate my mind. It cooperated with them so well this time by bringing out dozens of reasons to bail and vividly showcasing lots and lots of things that could go wrong. During the first hour of the day I recalled why I stopped climbing and I also recalled that it wasn’t actually my idea. It’s the fcking mind with its demons. Ultimate survival instrument, hah? Anyways, I almost gave in and bailed, but in the end I somehow tricked the bunch and got into the car and left for the climb at about 6.30am. Interestingly, the demons vanished the first time I saw Rainier that morning. And the closer I was to the mountain, the eager I was to start moving up the slope, to feel the crampons bite into ice, to smell the snow and frozen rock…

I arrived at Narada Falls at 9.20am and left the car 20 minutes later. It was really windy and radio forecasted 40mph easterly – something I blissfully overlooked the night before (fck you demons, you didn’t get this piece to use against me). Just before leaving the car I took a 10 minute power nap, felt very nice :) The only guy I met this morning (except the ranger at the entrance) was a little fox. Same as I saw year ago at Paradise.

Within an hour I reached the base of the peak, found a protected spot and put on crampons. Man I didn’t wear these things for two years. I snapped them on and started moving up the frozen avi debris.

It felt terrific! Blue skies, wind and snow powder in the air, firm crust holding points and the axe nicely and no one around. Not many things can compete with this.

The upper part of the Fly couloir turned out to be surprisingly steepish and spicy. If the lower part was mostly 35-40⁰ snice (hard snow/ice),

the step

the upper was 40-45⁰ sometimes loaded with waist-deep snow under half-foot of windblown deck. Something to worry about. The steepest part was 10ft high 50⁰ step – it was exposed but had good snow on top of good ice. I felt a bit tense doing it with one axe, but it was so much fun.

The couloir ended with two exits, both looking beautiful.

I picked the left one and stopped to make a short video of the couloir and surrounding peaks.

Descending traverse from the notch brought me to the east side of the upper Lane which had a few snow ramps leading to the summit. The ramps didn’t look steep from below, however the upper 40 feet felt like 50⁰ when I climbed. 50⁰ snice plus 40+mph gusts on the top made it quite exciting :) I was literally clinging hard to a tiny snow arête at the very top with at least hundred feet drops on both sides.
summit

windy!

After couple summit shots I downclimbed carefully face into slope following the steps I kicked on the way up.

Lane Peak shadow

Waves of long forgotten joy dawned on me when I took off crampons and lunched with dates and almonds sitting on my backpack.

Simple pure joy of being up there alone in warm sun looking at icy peaks nearby and Adams and St Helens on the horizon… and feeling presence of the Big Hill behind my back… The rest of the way back was an easy walk down and then up to the Stevens Canyon Road. Traditional junk food and Red Bull at the gas station in Ashford :) I am in no rush. The next goal is Pyramid.

Honored Barn Raiser

2009-12-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

http://cgra.org/clubhouse%20honor%20wall.htm
feels good :)
Hopefully I’ll have enough time next summer to go get meself some Gorge again :)

Lake Barclay

2009-12-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

Few years ago I could not imagine a reason that would make me go for a 4 miles 400ft elgain hike in the woods. Yet I’ve walked to Lake Barclay this Saturday and had lots of fun with my daughter who is 4 and a half and the hike fits her well. It was a bit chilly and the main goal was to see how she would cope with cold and a relatively long walk. She did really well. Another goal was to figure out gaps in her outfit and it also went well – heading to REI sometime this week :)

We are just exiting a week-long stretch of cold and dry weather, so there isn’t any snow in lower mountains, but there is lots of ice in all possible forms – icy creeks, hoar frost on leafs and on the ground and quite a few icicles growing off fallen trees and rocks along the trail. The lake itself is also frozen and because there is no snow the ice surface is clean and dark blue. We were first to hit the trail and had most of day the whole thing to ourselves. Only on the way back we met couple hikers running up to the lake.

It was a nice day in the mountains :)

ice waves in the slow and frozen creek

taking a rest on the way in

Formidable Mt Baring, it has an easy route on the other side.

ice on the lake

I took a stove and a quart of water, so we had hot tea with a little pine paw to bring the “mountain” touch to the taste

a sheet of very clean ice stretching above the shore, it made a funny “pop” sound if one would step on it (which we did alot :)

lots of hoar frost in various weird places

hoar frost growing off the green leafs

close up of the ice crystals

I just looked thru archives on my old website and found few pictures of my first hike to the lake in 2003. As far as I remember we got lost after crossing the bridge and did not get to the lake – ended up wandering around looking for the buried trail and then turned back :) Hey Sonya and I found the lake this time!

Sunset on Mt Si

2009-12-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

It’s cold and clear in Seattle (a rare combination), so I decided to hike and catch a sunset on Mt Si:

view east

a sunset scene

view west

According to my HRM the roundtrip took about 3000cal, probably a lie, but still interesting given that HRM was somewhat in agreement with non-HRM calorie measurements on my elliptical. Another interesting fact is that my stable heart rate while hiking up fast is 15% lower than the one I keep while working out on the elliptical. Would be interesting to measure HR during sailing upwind in 15+ knots.

I hiked up to the haystack, but did not venture climbing it. It was very slippery and didn’t worth a fall. Hm… I am yet to climb the haystack in winter conditions. May be next time when there is more ice and snow on it so I could use tools and crampons.

Well, I guess it’s time to unpack my randonee gear and get some groomed skiing done, or may be West Side Road again? ;)

Вячеслав Васильевич Тихонов

2009-12-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

February 8, 1928 - December 4, 2009

небалбес

2009-12-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

Соня вчера читая букварь или что-то подобное:
"Балбес - плохое слово! У нас мама не балбес, я не балбес, и даже папа не балбес!"
Недотянул.

Lake Crescent

2009-11-29T16:12:00.000-08:00

19.8 miles inside 4 hours.

Throughout many trips to Olympic National Park, each time driving by this beautiful lake I thought of stopping some day for a picnic or a hike along the shore. Last time though being in the specific mind setup I decided on a better way of experiencing the lake :)

This Thanksgiving was a long stretch of free-of-work days. I had enough time to recoup from work and entertain my family to the point where they were actively willing me to disappear for a day :) So I seized the opportunity.

I didn’t do much prep like I did for Hood Canal, it felt that just locating a ramp on a satellite image was sufficient. I took off 6am this morning, road including ferry took about 4 hours and by 10am I arrived at the ramp:

On the way to the lake I was worried about wind as it was a drifter on the Sound and dead calm along the road, but the wind was there when I arrived. I hit the water at 11am and first sailed the western half of the lake. It stands perpendicular to the general southerly wind direction so pressure was unstable from 0 to about 12 knots with puffs dropping from high above and wind shifting 90 degrees from south-westerly to north-westerly. Winds were wacky but it was still lots of fun as I could see puffs moving thru the water from far away and in about an hour of sailing I learned to reliably predict direction of the wind inside each puff. I also refreshed my autotack skills and had a good practice of reshaping the sail from 3 knots wind to 12 knots and back. The north-eastern part turned out to be quite windy (about 15-18kt) and had lots of sunshine. This was clearly the most joyful section as the lake expanded and shifts abated. I spent about an hour sailing in “Champaign” conditions first planing big angles downwind on flat water and then beating back to the ramp soaking views of the peaks around me, scent of snow from the highlands and warm sun reflecting in turquoise water. Back at the ramp by 3.10pm.

GPS track

There it was. Like in old good days of living weekends in Cascades. Same schedule, same feel, same sky and same mountains :) Little dinghy instead of crampons being the only insignificant difference :) Am I back to what I was? :)) Ah what a twist

Anyways, I packed up just after the sunset and was finally ready to go with the last light:

Looking back at the lake:

Couple shots from the ferry that night:
Moon above the Sound
Wave

Failed to bail :)

2009-11-19T16:07:00.000-08:00

During last couple winters I adopted the known rule of 100 - if sum of water and air temperature is less than 100f I don't go out. Given that water temp in Puget Sound is around 50f I typically avoid sailing in less than 50f air. Last Sunday was the first weekend of frostbiting in Seattle and I failed to follow the rule. Well, it was a Pineapple Express weekend which was forecasted to arrive Sunday afternoon and bring temps to above 50f, however it never got above 48 during the day and it was raining and blowing 20+ knots. Still I managed to get two hours of filtered fun under my belt :) And I was able to hold my altitude on someone's hip in all the cases except the one when Jay leebowed me too close and was pointing really high on his Radial (is it a property of Radial?).

Two things caught my attention that day.
The first is a bug (?) in forecast terminology - how come High temp is lower than Low temp:

The second thing was wacky winds. I live on the northern end of Washington lake which goes parallel to Puget Sound and is about 5 miles east of it. All Sunday morning wind readings on the lake were showing calm while Puget Sound had 20-30mph winds. I can imagine such difference can happen around a big standalone cloud, but it was a typical NW rainy day with uniformly gray skies. Anyways, after looking from my window on still trees I could not believe it was blowing hard on the Sound which helped my talk myself into breaking the rule and give it a go. And of course it was nasty and blowing when I arrived at the ramp, but it was too late - I'd already committed :)

Anyways, this coming weekend is Turkey Bowl and forecast is windy and below 45f. So I wonder what kind of trick would help me break the rule again.

And watching our NW weather colors never gets boring:

Laser Masters Pre-Worlds Training Camp with Mark Bethwaite, Cascade Locks 08/2009

2009-11-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

1. Cut the corners

According to Mark upwind plan contains two major parts: deciding which side of the course is favorable and then sailing that side with maximum efficiency. “Cut the corners” is about efficient execution of the second part. The analogy is drawn with a guy that wants to cross Manhattan diagonally from SW to NE. He has two options – either walk x blocks N then turn E and walk another x blocks to the destination or he can turn E after the first block, then turn N at another cross etc. The idea is that if the guy chooses the complex path between the blocks he can cross the road diagonally once in a while. And each time he does that he gains on the guy walking XbyX. Mapping back to sailing – blocks are puffs and crossing road diagonally is leveraging shifts produced by the puffs.
The idea of using shifts is as old as sailing yet the model gives a clear picture of
a. puffs and shifts are always there and
b. sailing shifts between the puffs gives more opportunities than banging the corner.

2. Gaining on shifts rather than squeezing last 5% of speed

Mark suggests that working shifts gives order of magnitude more gain than sailing for speed only. Sailing shifts requires focusing outside of the boat hence it is not possible to keep speed at 100%. So there is a tradeoff – it’s Ok to look out and move at 95% speed loosing one boat length in couple minutes if you spot the shit that would give 5 boat lengths gain.
Not that it makes sense to completely ignore trim and waveworking, but the last 5% of speed are exponentially more expensive focus-wise than previous 95%. So going at 95% and watching after shifts is faster than going 100% watching tell-tails.

3. Marked controls facilitate fast and reliable switch between upwind and downwind

The rationale here is that upwind fine-tuning happens before start and may be during first upwind and is usually expensive. It makes sense to memorize the settings precisely at windward mark and restore them precisely at the downwind mark thus saving lots of time. I personally had an issue of feel vs presets with regard to sail trimming during the camp. I prefer to not let myself fall into the trap of digitized-memorized settings as wind is never the same and sail is never the same – my theory is to build up intuition based on the form of the sail rather than the numbers. I however start agreeing with Mark. It should be possible to trim the sail form according to conditions pre-start and than use these numbers as a reference during the race. The benefit of instantaneous snapping into the right settings at the marks is obvious.

Mark used interesting technique to mark the lines – he would use needle to thread white thin braid, then cut 1/4’’ ends and fluff them out. The fluff stays on the line really well and does not cause problems with cleats.

4. Noticeably full sail on downwind with no sharp angles

I usually sail downwind with relatively flat foot (about or less than 1’) because it feels fast when doing lee angles. I also tend to do big lee angles and rarely transition from the lee mode. (I am changing this right now to balance even) When I sailed close to Mark I noticed that he had much fuller foot and his angles were very gentle. Basically from the side his sail looked like a spinnaker with foot about 1-1.3’ from the boom. Unfortunately I don’t remember for sure but I think he was faster in 25-28kt puffs and I had an edge in 20-25kt range when I could sail angles instead of switching into safe mode.

5. Moderate-to-low risk fast speed starts

According to Mark, executing an ideal high-speed start in clean air is the best way to “deal yourself into the game”. Statistically better than gambling at the favored end.

6. Clouds

Bill Symes asked about clouds and how they affect strategy. Mark’s take was that if the cloud height (from could bottom to top) is less than the altitude of the cloud bottom then it does not affect air at the surface, hence it might not be very interesting strategically. Unless the cloud rains. Standalone raining clouds create downdrift that works like a huge gentle puff creating similar shifts and wind disturbances around it. Massive standalone non-raining clouds might indicate an updrift with appropriate wind changes (vector directed into the center of the updrift under the cloud, hence more wind under the upwind edge and less under the downwind and shifts of the sides – opposite to the raining cloud).

Overall the camp was good. There was a lot of discussion on the shore (might be actually even more than the sailing itself :) Winds were mild (15-25kt up the river), no crowd this time and plenty of NW ale :)

I took my folks with me,
father ended up driving the whaler with the camera both days.
On Saturday we had a fine dinner at the Full Sail Brewery – things could not be any better!

Day 3 - the key

2009-11-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

Conditions
- southerly 3-5 knots, flat water

Upwind
- posture: knees together (not spread on deck or locked into the cockpit), butt as close to the centerline as balance allows, feet in the cockpit under the butt – in general all weight is localized so that boat could play under the body
- tiller extension is planted in the deck
- wind comes in puffs, lulls and shifts regularly
- boat goes fastest when flat
- any kind of heeling then rightening on puffs/lulls creates unnecessary drag and visibly knocks the boat out of the groove (even though rightening may feel good – almost like a pump)
- puff provides power to speed up and go higher
- on the puff move shoulders out to keep the boat flat and take the sheet to one block or b2b
- it is absolutely crucial to come down from pinching and ease the sheet before the puff ends, if boat heels to wind while pinching then it’s too late and too slow, in fact it’s slow few moves ahead because at this moment I still need to a. ease the sheet and b. turn down which can’t be done at the same time
- the center of body weight should be in the balance spot between puffs and lulls – shoulders out on puffs, in on lulls
- if boat heels to lee when puff comes, it’s too late again; new pressure should’ve been anticipated and pre-processed appropriately

Conclusion - anticipation is the key. It is the primary thing that allows keeping boat flat and fast. At some point during practice I was able to see 2-3 seconds ahead of wind. I guess top guys see at least 5-10 seconds ahead. Something to work on as the feel of anticipation goove is quite distinct and should be reproducable without training partner.

At some point when our speed was comprable Derick suggested that he'll start behind me and I should try keeping ahead doing whatever it takes going upwind. Normal racing situation. Immediately after we started I was so stiff and excited that I could not reliably focus on the groove. He sailed below and was faster right until I decided to roll over him. He tacked and I followed, then we tacked back. I lost about a boatlength on two tacks. He was below me and pulled a little bit forward to get to clean air, then tacked again. I didn't follow as I decided to save on tacks and focus on speed. As he sailed up and away from my focus I restored the lead. Yet another mental skill to practice - staying on someone's hip for as long as possible.

Day 2

2009-10-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Conditions
- southerly 5-7 knots, little chop then flat

Upwind
- sail trim: full foot (10”), no downhaul and vang is take-slack at about one foot from b2b
- I tend to pinch too much, should sail for speed
- on puffs I tend to righten from leeward heel with one relatively fast move, should do it much slower
- position: right on the cleats
- rudder locked by hand behind resting on the deck, confirmed fast

Tacking
- I tent to ease the sheet too soon, should ease right at the moment of crossing or may be a moment later
- need to roll more

Downwind
- tend to let boom grossly out 110-130 degrees, need to re-adjust intuition, 90 degrees is fast
- it’s Ok to compensate windward heel with the rudder a bit

Gybing
- boat flat or a little to leeward, start taking the sheet, start rolling to windward while taking and start slow turn, boom crosses off 45 degrees position, still wait on the old windward side until boom is about to finish crossing, stop the turn, boat max rolled, one knee is in the cockpit, fluent move to the middle of the cockpit and gently press with both hands on the new windward side to pump and righten, finally move the body to the new windward, ease the sheet
- not a single gybe resulted in sheet caught up at the transom, accelerated each time :)

Starting
- three transits: the line, one boat length down, two boat lengths down
- pre-start holding position with vang off, slow drifting to leeward is inevitable, head to wind or close most of the time, feathering: a bit of speed, head to wind, loose speed, skull down main out a bit, catch the wind and immediately head to wind with a bit of speed
- practice: hold position near a buoy for 90 seconds (initial position is few meters to windward and a bit down from the buoy), start right at the buoy with acceleration maneuver

Training with Derick Vranizan, day 1

2009-10-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Conditions
- southerly 15-17 knots gusting to 22, high chop

Upwind
- tend to sit too far forward, recommended position about a foot behind the cleats
- sail was trimmed really flat with lots of downhaul (I could see lines along the mast), lots of vang and nearly flat foot (sail 1 inch from the boom)
- boat must be flat in all conditions, chop or flat
- sailing thru chop: bow down and let the sail out foot and a half

Tacking
- prep: mainsheet between legs, back leg above the strap
- body movement inside and down into the cockpit as the boom is really low because of the tight vang
- finish the tack jump hiking, lean forward and then switch hands

Downwind
- sheeting from the block is more stable
- control and reduce windward heel when accelerating from the wave, otherwise turn is too sharp or I try to compensate with the rudder

Gybing
- yes it is possible to gybe planing down the wave, need more practice

Reach
- problem: butt against spray creates too much drag; solution: legs stretched to the front of the cockpit, hiking with one chick on the deck leaning out and back

Strait of Juan de Fuca, homework II

2009-10-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took my family on a two-day trip across Olympic Peninsula. The schedule was packed as usual – we’ve visited Port Townsend, Dungeness Spit, Hurricane Ridge, Sol Duc Hot Springs, Port Angeles, Crescent Bay, Pysht and Pillar Point, Clallam Bay and Sekiu, Neah Bay, Cape Flattery and Hoh River National Forest. Just as I imagined it when Sonya and I traveled our first recon few months ago.

I looked again at few ramps I’ve seen before and found few more ramps and reasonable beaches along the north shore. The general impression is that I will clearly need a support boat to do the whole thing (Neah Bay to Port Townsend). However doing smaller segments might go with just a standby car.

First prep steps should be
a. sailing in the outer waters near Port Angeles
b. sailing from Dungeness Bay to Port Angeles and back,
c. sailing from Port Angeles to Port Townsend,
d. sailing from Neah Bay to Sekiu.
All of these steps can probably be done without the support boat if weather stays inside 20 knots.

While browsing Makah website I stumbled across this useful collection of shoreline aerial photos http://apps.ecy.wa.gov/shorephotos/index.html by Department of Ecology, State of Washington.

Port Angeles to Dungeness Bay
The ramp at Port Angeles looks good:

The shore is populated, however quick access to the beach is not possible in many places:

The ramp inside Dungeness Spit is reasonable, but it’s surrounded by lots of shallow water:

Neah Bay to Sekiu
Both Neah Bay and Sekiu ramps are good:

Shoreline is difficult. Lots of rocks in the nearby waters and the shore itself is rocky in many places. On the bright side the road follows shore within 30 yards for most of the way.

Port Angeles to Port Townsend
There are three reasonable intermediate exits – the ramp at Dungeness Spit (see above), John Wayne Marina in Sequim Bay (see first recon) and the ramp on the Gardiner Beach:

Tango

2009-10-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

I keep coming back to this clip again and again. Perfection is intrinsically attractive.

Missed fleet championship

2009-10-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

I feel a bit burned out even though I only sailed once in two weeks for the last couple months. These couple months were quite extreme with my folks in town. I had one full weekend of training at Shilshole, weekend of pre-worlds camp at Cascade Locks (with Mark Bethwaite), week-long trip to Yellowstone, successful attempt of sailing Hood Canal, weekend at Dewatto, weekend of OD racing in Bellingham, 5 days trip to New York / Adirondack. The trip to New York presented me with cold virus and in combination with some low-key emotions I brought from Bellingham made me skip racing this weekend. A bit regrettable as conditions looked stellar with two days of strong northerly breeze and crisp sunshine. I instead spent one day sleeping out the bug and on Sunday I took my parents to Rainier where we hiked up to the beautiful Van Trump Park. The hike was so pleasant. I felt at home at last and all the thoughts and aspirations of mountaineering flashed back into my head. If weathermen are right this El Nino winter is promising to be dry and warm with lots of sunny days, which is good for sailing and climbing. So I might have a chance to do something up high in November/December after Turkey Bowl.

Open Source Laser Manual

2009-10-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

Quite a bit of wisdom here
http://www.findseedo.com/lasermanual.html

Loss of innocence

2009-09-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am back from Bellingham where I finished 4th in BBODR sharing score with 3rd, again. Exactly the same result as a year ago.

I’ve learned quite a strong lesson this time which clearly marks the next turning point in my racing. For years, probably from the very beginning of my sailing career, I believed in winning by strategy and speed. I was never fond of covering others or playing rules to tactically hurt others. Rules were there as a general guidance to avoid collision and damage on the course. Well, I am leaving the club of nice guys as this attitude is no longer sustainable. Being skillful jerk on the race course seems to be required to match and mitigate the pressure of occasional to consistent arrogance in the upper pack. I guess I’ll have to find another place to heal karma.

On top of the much irritation from the few unpleasant clashes on the course and generally 2:1 ratio of “between races” to “inside races” time I believe the results of the last race are wrong. The only witness I tried to talk to was the guy whom I believe I beat on the finish line by at least one boat length. I remember we looked at each other and the committee boat right after the finish to figure positions. When I approached the guy after results had been announced he wasn’t willing to discuss or remember anything instead accepting the advice of a lady to his left “just say no”.

So, as the dry remainder, even the best of racing sucks compared to long distance things. Elements might kill but they won’t do it on purpose. Racing feels more like a dirty senseless scuffle with legitimized back stabbing.

Other than that, sailing was fun. Winds were light both days and very shifty which made it tricky and fascinating.
I’ve learned that I need to sit few inches forward in these conditions and I let the boom too far out when sailing by the lee in the drifter. Overall I feel like I miss practice in light conditions. One of the drawbacks to the Gorge addiction :)

my little crew :)

grin of happiness :)

Hood Canal – full plate

2009-09-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

53 miles inside 7 1/2 hours. Route map is here.

Friday morning forecast promised long weekend filled with strong winds. I had enough time for the final recon drive with my folks on Saturday and then make an attempt on Sunday. The recon trip proved to be extra useful as we decided to change the original plan of support team following along the West shore to instead drive highway 101 on the East shore. The change was quite radical as we had no idea about location or quality of ramps on the West side. I figured ramps’ location Saturday night staring at NOAA charts. Decision was correct as it provided 100% access and visibility of the Canal during 2/3 of the route. Saturday also gave me some time to fight off a moderate fever (probably cold) and on Sunday morning I felt pretty good. Out of the two promised storm systems first one came thru too quickly yielding light winds on Saturday and sunny skies. The second system though stayed on schedule and was something I’ve never seen before on Puget Sound :)

We left Kenmore at 7.20am and arrived at Twanoh around 9.20. On the way we drove thru a big clearing in the skies and saw an enormous dark blue wall standing to the South-West.
Twanoh greeted us with rain and light wind which was a bit disappointing as I expected it to be at least 10kt. We discussed possible change of plans but I was determined to proceed anyway expecting the dark-blue wall would bring some movement to the air.

I hit the water at 10.20 and headed South in light and shifty air. The plan was to get the southern tip of the peninsula by noon and reassess conditions. During first couple miles wind was shifting 90 degrees inside 5-10kt, but then it shut off. I could see lots of energy up in the air as torn clouds were flying fast 100 yards above, but the energy was not touching the surface. Slowly working occasional puffs and rocking the boat I moved towards the next wind line which put me on the reach a mile or so before the southern tip turning point (I expected to sail upwind in 10-20kt all the way to the turning point).

As I sailed around the southern tip wind picked up to 15kt and I was happy to hit the checkpoint on time and enter what seemed to be a solid pressure. Not for long. The dark-blue wall was one of a few massive cells that were moving thru the area. These cells, as they were moving North-East across the Canal in the direction from Hoodsport and Lilliwaup towards Bremerton and Bainbridge Island, were substantially disturbing wind. Each cell would bring a 120 degrees shift, change in strength and a wall of rain. One time rain line was so strong and distinct it looked like a white luminescent strip of boiling water moving across the black surface. Again I was looking for the puffs and trying to ride them. The time however was working against me and with the average pace of 4mph against ground (my GPS was still working) I felt I might have to bail at Seabeck. As cells were passing I started to recognize patterns of puffs and rain lines which allowed for efficient positioning for the next one at the end of the previous puff. The scenery was absolutely magic. I had 40 miles long Canal for myself. West side of the Canal was covered with saturated green forests, rugged ridges and mountains disappearing in dark blue storm clouds. Emerald hills and bluffs on the West side were once in a while illuminated by sun breaking between the cells. I was worried about lightning but never seen one, however clouds were looking quite promising for this kind of trouble.
On the traverse of Holly wind stabilized and picked up to about 15kt. Skies ahead above the Canal were relatively clean and I felt the belt of cells was behind. I was making 7-9mph against ground (with at least 2kt current from North). As I was approaching Seabeck I decided to proceed to the end, the Salsbury Point. The decision was communicated to my folks who then peeled off the shore and started a long drive around towards the Hood Canal bridge approximately 25 miles North.

Half way between Holly and Seabeck wind picked up to 20, then 30 and on the last stretch to Seabeck ramp traverse it started gusting 30+kt.
wind at WestPoint weather station
I flipped during one of the gusts. It was a dry capsize, but the situation made me very nervous. My folks are out of sight driving around and the last 20 miles would be a bit above my comfort zone if it blows 35. If something breaks I would have to choose between gunmen from the Bangor Naval Base to the right and a desert shore to the left… So I flattened the sail, turned on safe mode and sailed closer to East shore in the wind shadow. Things eventually got under control and pressure dropped to around 20kt but I was still driving in the safe-mode, meaning flat sail and not much play by the lee and wave carving… Man I was frustrated. I wasted about 10 miles of perfect waves of 4-5ft height on a fun breeze, but I still think it was right thing to do. All the way from Seabeck I was tortured by the pestering thought that the weakest part is my rudder. So I focused really hard on sailing in the way that would put no pressure on the rudder. In the end after 20 miles of trying I figured how to sail broad to tight reaches with only short and light bursts of pressure on the rudder by applying just the right amount of body movement and sail trim with each gust and series of waves (anticipation is the key!).
On the traverse of Bangor I got the first glimpse of the bridge and realized trip is gonna end soon. I’ve also witnessed an insanely intense rainbow. It was full and very dramatic with huge storm clouds in the background. As I sailed the last 7 miles to the bridge I eased the safe mode and started playing again. Wind was 15 to 25kt as weathermen promised, waves were wide and steep and the rudder had to be free of pressure :) I was planing most of the time in brilliant sun and solid air.

Eventually I passed the bridge and the project was complete :) I landed 10 minutes before 6pm.
Few minutes after I got off the water a couple young ladies stopped by in a red SUV. They said they saw me on the water and followed me to see where I would land. Hmm I guess Lasers aren’t seen that often on Hood Canal.

Special thanks go to my mom and dad who made this project possible :)

Gear: 7mile walkie-talkie radios, cell phones, GPS, 2 extra AA batteries.
Food: I had one quart of gatorade and 4 bars, consumed only one bar and a half quart as I literally had no time to stop.

Would I do it again? YES.
Next time will be from Union as it has a really good ramp and cuts the upwind leg. I wish I had a partner to make it a true race. Having a support boat would make safe mode unnecessary, so not a single drop of the fun would be wasted…