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Author: ws lirakis
a sailor who carries a camera
SECOND TRY
If you receive my blog, with this posting you should receive the opportunity to be notified each time I post. I had tried unsuccessfully a few days ago. Here’s hoping that it works this time.
CHANGE COMES HARD TO SAN FRANCISCO
Change is a difficult thing. We are creatures of habit. When you add the usual regulations of business, which we all know is often better left untouched once in place. The displaced business owners will likely survive the change but it is not unlike having a natural disaster force you out.
Another story that merits following is the rumor of a new parallel competition in monohulls.
More: Bio, E-mail, Twitter, News Team
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — We are now getting a better idea of the potential for negative impacts when the America’s Cup yacht race comes to San Francisco Bay in 2013.
Race organizers will pay the city $55 million for the use of Piers 19 through 29. They will also lease Piers 30 and 32 for decades. Many businesses love the sound of this, but the number of businesses taking a hit continues to grow.
Up to 80 businesses now might have to relocate because of the event. At the earliest, some would have to move by the end of this year, at the latest, some by the end of next year. Even with the lengthy timeframe, there are many nervous business owners along the Embarcadero.
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From the pedi-cabs, to the soccer players in the parking lot of Piers 27 and 29, to Mr. Toad’s vintage car tours, they are all included in the list of businesses along San Francisco’s waterfront that are about to begin a wild ride.
When the America’s Cup comes to town, the Port of San Francisco says as many as 80 businesses could be forced to move to make room for the venue’s viewing areas and racing village. While Larry Ellison’s yacht race is expected to bring millions in revenue to San Francisco, some business owners say it will not be good for their bottom line.
“I absolutely would love the America’s Cup to come to San Francisco, but I think that it could be brought here without a sort of slash-and-burn approach to the waterfront,” Michael Denny says.
Denny runs American Wine Distributors in Pier 23. Moving out of his 1,400 square foot space will mean a major headache. All his business licenses are tied to his Embarcadero address
“I have about 65 licenses all over the country that are all posted to that address, and if I move, I have to move them all,” he says laughingly.
However, it is really no laughing matter. Businesses like Teatro Zinzanni and Bauer’s Limousine and Transportation are sitting on piers where Ellison’s team plans to hold a public viewing area for the regatta. San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu says they should not worry.
“The city absolutely values these businesses and we’re going to do what we need to do to assist some of these businesses in relocation,” he says.
The board is still trying to decide which businesses will get to stay and which will have to pack up and move. Many of them lease warehouse space along the Embarcadero and Chiu says that should make it easy for those types of businesses to relocate into other port properties.
AN ALTERNATIVE?
It would appear that the 34th Americas Cup as imagined by Larry Ellison has some powerful detractors, some of who call it too radical, expensive and conceived without a consensus. Whilst the Californians continue to give form to the race in 2013, there is a group of syndicates that are working behind the scenes to create a new and ambitious competition that could be capable of throwing a shadow over the oldest trophy in sport.
According to information the people behind this new rebel fleet include Sir Keith Mills of Team Origin, Ernesto Bertarelli of Alinghi, Patricio Bertelli of Luna Rossa de Prada and Grant Dalton of Team New Zealand. Others hint that the man behind the project is Mr Bertarelli, but Alinghi has consistently denied this, stating that it is a group of people who are working on a personal project.
ALTERNATIVE?
The idea is to create a new class of boat for a regatta circuit similar to the 32nd edition of the Americas Cup, and the head of the design team is Rolf Vrolijk, the Dutch designer of the previous two Alinghi boats before BMW ORACLE/Golden Gate Yacht Club started their court action in New York, who has dusted off the designs of the AC90, the class originally chosen for the 33rd Cup.
Another powerful yachting figure behind the project is Grant Simmer, who has now joined Team Origin, and is coordinating the sports and technical aspects of this new event. The project is still in its embryo stages, seeking a concrete philosophy, and finding out if it could be viable commercially, or if private capital would be required from the heads of the syndicates involved. The main point now is to finance the event, starting on the basis that no regatta has the tradition and prestige of the Americas Cup.
Several syndicates involved in the 32nd edition of the Cup have been consulted over whether they would participate on these AC90s in an effort to determine the size of the fleet. It may be envisaged that 2013 could see the birth of the new regatta, if it goes ahead, it will be in exactly the same year that the Americas Cup races take place in San Francisco. Source: The Valencia Life Network, http://www.valencialife.net
MORE CHANGES COMING TO STEPHEN LIRAKIS. COM
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NEWPORT STILL PREPARING FOR THE AMERICA’S CUP
NEWPORT, R.I.—Gov. Lincoln Chafee says the state will help pay for infrastructure improvements needed so Newport can host sailing races that lead up to the America’s Cup finals.
The “pre-regattas” are planned for Newport and locations around the world before the final races in 2013 in San Francisco.
In Newport, Oracle Racing is planning races in the east passage of Narragansett Bay this year between Sept. 17-25. On Friday, Chafee toured Fort Adams State Park and told The Newport Daily News, the state “will do our part” to pay for upgrades needed to host the races there.
“I’m big on creating infrastructure,” he said. “It’s the role of government.”
Chafee said improvements at Fort Adams would pay for themselves by making future events possible there, and also by giving the park more visibility.
“Everyone who comes to Fort Adams, Rhode Island residents and those from outside the state, says how beautiful it is,” the governor said. “Anything that can open up this historic asset to more people is a big plus.”
Among the improvements needed: new docks along the waterfront, two cranes to hoist the catamarans in and out of the water, a barge for additional docking space and a long pier to protect the docking areas.
State funding is available for capital improvements to state parks, and the Department of Environmental Management has money to repave roads in state parks, said Paul Harden, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation’s manager of business and workforce development.
He said Oracle and racing organizers will pay for items such as the cranes.
“We think some federal funding also may be available,” Harden said.
WHAT’S UP WITH WINTER?
It is clear that the Jet stream has deviated from it’s expected path; causing us here in the northeast to have a cold and snowy winter; it seems without stop. But what caused the Jet Steam to behave this way? La Nina is the answer. In my search I also found a blog that follows the behavior, although the writer is a skier and loves the snow and cold.
FIRST AC45 LAUNCHED
Here are the first images of the new America’s Cup 45 foot class catamaran courtesy of Gilles Martin Raget.
If you have been following the America’s Cup saga you already know that each challenger must purchase and campaign one of these one design boats. The final will be in 72 foot “box rule” boats.
THEN AND NOW
I went to the St. George’s rink today to watch the alumni hockey game. (I last played 20 years ago when I broke my hand and required stitches over my eye for my efforts.)I went really to meet up with Peter French with whom I played hockey at SG; and had not seen since.
SPEEDREAM
35ft scale model of Speedream to be built
Vlad Murnikov’s radical foil-assisted monohull takes a step forward
Friday January 14th 2011, Author: Brian Hancock, Location: United States
As the design and engineering for SpeedDream continues to advance, a decision has been made to build a 35ft scale version of the radical new monohull. Hundreds of hours of computer engineering and analysis has already been completed for the SpeedDream design, but there is nothing like a scaled prototype version out sailing in actual conditions to test the unique ideas and technical solutions that are at the heart of this project.
“For a typical evolutionary design you start with a set of known performance parameters and work to gradually improve them,” said Vlad Murnikov, the lead designer and creative force behind SpeedDream. “But the SpeedDream concept is so radical and innovative there are no analogs to compare to and improve upon. While CFD analysis and tank testing are extremely important, they can only get us so far. It will be very useful to check both the general concept and the hull shape, appendages and rig configurations on a real scaled version of SpeedDream. Appendages like the extreme canting/telescoping keel and the lifting/stabilizing foil have to be tested and optimized in a real sailing environment and this is why we believe that building the prototype is necessary. I feel that a 35-foot version is the right size to provide a superb realistic platform to test all the critical SpeedDream components.”
To achieve previously unattained speeds and bridge the performance gap between multihulls and monohulls, SpeedDream relies upon two innovative appendages to greatly enhance the boat’s performance; a canting keel that lifts clear of the water when the boat is fully powered up, and a foil to leeward that provides not only lift, but also resists leeward force.
“The geometry of most modern canting systems allow for a maximum cant angle of up to 50 degrees,” said Murnikov. “For SpeedDream we have developed a proprietary system that allows much higher cant angles while at the same time being able to significantly reduce loads. The goal ultimately is to sail the boat with the keel completely out of water thereby removing a significant amount of drag while maximizing righting moment. In addition, the keel will be telescoping. This will allow us to fine tune the angle of heel as well as make it more practical to get the boat in and out of marinas where depth may be an issue.”
Lifting foils have been used in hydrofoil ferries and military craft for decades. Recent applications in sailing yachts include the DSS stabilising system developed by Hugh Welbourn. Curved lifting daggerboards find widespread use in offshore racing multihulls, in record setting projects like the extreme foiler L’Hydroptere, the boat that holds the outright speed record and in the latest generation IMOCA 60s.
Cam Lewis, the skipper of SpeedDream said: “I have followed developments in both monohull and multihulls for decades. This latest America’s Cup was a great example of how some new developments in foils radically changed the performance of both boats. It’s these innovative technologies like the telescoping keel and lifting foils that will set SpeedDream apart from all other monohulls and allow the boat to not only break, but smash all existing records. We will test these features, along with others in the SpeedDream-35 prototype and prove to us and the sailing community that this boat is a step ahead of anything else out there.”
TAYLOR SWIFT IS AN OPHIUCHUS
In case you were concerned that you are not who you think you are
Why did your zodiac sign change? We asked the astronomer who started it all
The internet is burning up with the news that the zodiac has been rearranged. There’s a 13th sign, Ophiuchus, and people who think they’re Virgos are actually Leos. What happened here? We talked to the astronomer who caused the fuss.
Today, Time, MSNBC and tons of other online news outlets are buzzing about the “new” horoscope. The articles are full of vague explanations like, “The star doctors say Earth right now is in a totally different spot in relation to the sun and its equatorial alignment than it was 3,000 years ago.” Or: “Because of the moon’s gravitational pull on Earth, the alignment of the stars was pushed by about a month.”
What on Earth is going on? And why does everybody suddenly have to work with a new version of the completely meaningless zodiac?
It seems to have started with this article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune last weekend, in which one astronomer made some statements about the zodiac. Parke Kunkle is on the board of directors of the Minnesota Planetarium Society and teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Kunkle told the Star-Tribune the Earth’s relation to the sun had changed since the Babylonians first created the zodiac.
We got in touch with Kunkle and asked him what he actually told the Star-Tribune. He said he was asked by the Star-Tribune to give them a few bits of information about astronomy, not realizing the article would become a huge discussion of astrology and the relationship between astronomy and astrology. And the main stuff he talked to the Star-Tribune about has to do with the phenomenon of “precession.”
Says Kunkle:
If you take a toy top and spin it, it spins around an axis and that axis tends to point in different directions. It moves around. That’s what we call precession. So in Earth’s case, right now, Earth’s spin axis points towards Polaris, the North Star. But in 3000 BC, the Earth’s axis pointed towards a different star, Thuban. And that majestic motion takes about 26,000 years. so if you went from 3,000 B.C. and waited 26,000 years, you’d have the north star Thuban again.
This phenomenon was first noticed around 130 B.C. by a Greek astronomer, Hipparchus of Nicea. And as a result, if you actually look at what stars were positioned behind the sun on a particular date, that would have been very different 5,000 years ago than it would today. “We’re in a different constellation now and that is the typical sun sign,” based on the sun’s position when you were born.
And no, Parke Kunkle didn’t tell the Star-Tribune that the zodiac ought to include 13 signs instead of 12 — especially since he doesn’t believe in astrology at all. (He highly recommends Phil Plait’s page about astrology.) He did mention that astronomers tend to reckon the sun’s position with 13 constellations instead of 12, and Ophiuchus is the 13th. But in the current astrology zodiac, there are just 12. “I just mentioned that it’s there, and astronomers actually count it… So if you actually watch the stars in the background of the sun, it actually does go through the constellation of Ophiuchus.” He adds that the Babylonians probably had totally different constellations anyway.
Somehow, Kunkle’s brief comments in the Star-Tribune article got morphed into “astronomer says the zodiac has to be revamped.” As various people have pointed out, this means your entire personality is different than what you originally believed it was — you might be flighty instead of hard-working, or fishy instead of scorpionesque. Taylor Swift is an Ophiuchus!
Such is the power that astronomers wield over all our fates.