THE WAY WE WERE

1971 STEPHEN LIRAKIS, JACK CUMMISKEY, MARTHA SMITH, RICHARD S NYE, CHRIS WICK — 1971 STEPHEN LIRAKIS, JACK CUMMISKEY, MARTHA SMITH, RICHARD B. NYE, CHRIS WICK

This photo remains one of my favorites. A memory, a happy one; taken with a polaroid camera. I do not remember who took it.

We were in Harwichport at David Steere’s house. He was the owner of “Yankee Girl”, which along with “American Eagle” and our boat “Carina” were leaving the following day to sail to Cowes for the Admiral’s Cup and Fastnet Race. It was 1971. My good friend Mickey Spillaine was the pro on “Yankee Girl” and Joe Kennedy was his mate along with John Scott, a classmate from St. George’s.

We crossed the atlantic in 14 days, as I remember, we beat “Yankee Girl” and American Eagle” boat for boat by a day. They sailed a more southerly and warmer route.

This was before GPS. We navigated by sextant and dead reckoning. Crossing the Grand Banks in the cold and fog we had not had a fix in days. Dead reckoning put us about 20 miles south of Sable Island. I was off watch when I felt something strange, we were running with a spinnaker at about 8 knots. My immediate thought was that we were going ashore on Sable Island. I leapt out of my bunk and headed on deck when there was a second bump. I arrived on deck in time to see a whale pop up astern.

SAILING NEWS OF THE DAY

LUNA ROSSA OFFICIALISES THE OPENING OF ITS NEW BASE AT CAGLIARI

Luna Rossa Challenge moves to Cagliari where the team will install its new base in view of the 35th America’s Cup, scheduled to take place in the Summer of 2017.
The work to set up the base will start in the coming weeks and it is expected to be operative as early as March. From May onwards the sailing team will start training on the water.

Patrizio Bertelli, President of Luna Rossa Challenge, declared:
“We chose Cagliari because the weather conditions in this bay are ideal for training with catamarans. The city of Cagliari also offers excellent logistic solutions and has given us a particularly warm welcome. We are very pleased, after several years abroad, to have the team base back in Italy again.”

The President of the Regione Sardegna, Ugo Cappellacci, said:
“With Luna Rossa, Sardinia is projected on the international stage. With its sea, framed by a city, this area of the island is an ideal place for sailing, not only from a technical point of view but also for its striking beauty.”

The Mayor of Cagliari, Massimo Zedda, said:
“We are honoured by Luna Rossa’s choice. I am sure that Cagliari and its citizens will give the team the welcome it deserves: we already started to breathe the enthusiasm when the first rumours spread regarding the possible arrival of Luna Rossa; we are strongly aware of the significant return that Cagliari will receive, in terms of image, for its beautiful seashore and for all that the city can offer. Our warmest welcome to all of the Luna Rossa team.”

The Port Authority Commissar, Piergiorgio Massidda, declared:
“The announcement of Patrizio Bertelli to choose Cagliari as base for the team Luna Rossa honours us and repays us for the work conducted in recent years to improve the conditions of our city and to make it a reference for international sailing. This is a unique opportunity, not only for the city but for the whole area which will be recognized at an international level. I am pleased therefore to take this opportunity to welcome the whole team Luna Rossa.”

– See more at: http://www.lunarossachallenge.com/en/news/luna-rossa-officialises-the-opening-of-its-new-base-at-cagliari#sthash.u7v34Kzw.dpuf

THE POWERFUL HAND OF GOD

Today we visited the MUSEUM OF RUSSIAN ICONS in Clinton Massachusetts. To have so many icons in one place is a little off-putting. It will take another visit to review and digest.

HARMONY

I saw the Everly Brothers in Greenwich Village in the early sixties. Their popularity may have been derailed by the emergence of the Beatles. Their songs certainly touched a cord and their harmony was unmatched.

WEATHER AT SEA

EARLY CARINA YEARS

FASTNET ROCK LOG 1969

BERMUDA RACE 1970

FASTNET ROCK LOG 1969

BERMUDA RACE 1970

DICK CARTER AND DICK NYE WITH THE ADMIRAL'S CUP 1969 — DICK CARTER AND DICK NYE WITH THE ADMIRAL’S CUP 1969

JIM MC CURDY, BODIE RHODES AND FASTNET ROCK

AMERICA WINS THE ADMIRAL'S CUP 1969 — AMERICA WINS THE ADMIRAL’S CUP 1969

No conversation about ocean racing should ignore “Carina” and the Nyes. Their contribution and commitment are an indelible benchmark on the history of sailing. A corinthian crew through and through. The memories and stories are many, for those who sailed on the Carina and those who sailed against the Carina.

For me, it was two transatlantic crossings and two Fastnet races, two Admiral’s Cups sandwiching a Bermuda Race win. The boat was designed at a time of change; the end of the CCA and RORC rating rules and the yet unknown IOR rule. Carina has proved to be a durable design.

FRESH WATER

People have been saying for years that water will become more expensive than oil; and more valuable. The signals have been here for a long time. Most of the population either chooses not to acknowledge the impending problem and are willing to “kick the can down the road” or truly ignorant of the problem.

Following the 1968 Transatlantic race, the longest I ever sailed; I returned home in late July and needed to find a summer job before returning to school. I did find a job, on a boat that could not keep help. It was a powerboat, 55 foot Chris Craft. The water tanks held over 500 gallons. On the weekends, tied to the dock I simply had the hose in the fill port turned on and could barely keep up with the consumption. It was the first shocking revelation of total disregard of water use. Remember I had just returned from 27 days at sea on a sailboat with a crew of 8 on which we used under 100 gallons of water.

check out : Peter McBride “Chasing Water”

Colorado River Drought Forces a Painful Reckoning for States

By MICHAEL WINESJAN. 5, 2014

To help the Colorado, federal authorities this year will for the first time reduce the water flow into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, created by Hoover Dam. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

LAKE MEAD, Nev. — The sinuous Colorado River and its slew of man-made reservoirs from the Rockies to southern Arizona are being sapped by 14 years of drought nearly unrivaled in 1,250 years.

The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle. Reservoirs have shrunk to less than half their capacities, the canyon walls around them ringed with white mineral deposits where water once lapped. Seeking to stretch their allotments of the river, regional water agencies are recycling sewage effluent, offering rebates to tear up grass lawns and subsidizing less thirsty appliances from dishwashers to shower heads.

But many experts believe the current drought is only the harbinger of a new, drier era in which the Colorado’s flow will be substantially and permanently diminished.

Faced with the shortage, federal authorities this year will for the first time decrease the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, from Lake Powell 180 miles upstream. That will reduce even more the level of Lake Mead, a crucial source of water for cities from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and for millions of acres of farmland.

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A connector will link the existing water infrastructure to a tunnel being built under Lake Mead. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Reclamation officials say there is a 50-50 chance that by 2015, Lake Mead’s water will be rationed to states downstream. That, too, has never happened before.

“If Lake Mead goes below elevation 1,000” — 1,000 feet above sea level — “we lose any capacity to pump water to serve the municipal needs of seven in 10 people in the state of Nevada,” said John Entsminger, the senior deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Since 2008, Mr. Entsminger’s agency has been drilling an $817 million tunnel under Lake Mead — a third attempt to capture more water as two higher tunnels have become threatened by the lake’s falling level. In September, faced with the prospect that one of the tunnels could run dry before the third one was completed, the authority took emergency measures: still another tunnel, this one to stretch the life of the most threatened intake until construction of the third one is finished.

These new realities are forcing a profound reassessment of how the 1,450-mile Colorado, the Southwest’s only major river, can continue to slake the thirst of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. Agriculture, from California’s Imperial Valley to Wyoming’s cattle herds, soaks up about three-quarters of its water, and produces 15 percent of the nation’s food. But 40 million people also depend on the river and its tributaries, and their numbers are rising rapidly.

The labyrinthine rules by which the seven Colorado states share the river’s water are rife with potential points of conflict. And while some states have made huge strides in conserving water — and even reducing the amount they consume — they have yet to chart a united path through shortages that could last years or even decades.

“There is no planning for a continuation of the drought we’ve had,” said one expert on the Colorado’s woes, who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with state officials. “There’s always been within the current planning an embedded hope that somehow, things would return to something more like normal.”

Unfortunately, the Colorado during most of Lake Mead’s 78-year history was not normal at all.

Studies now show that the 20th century was one of the three wettest of the last 13 centuries in the Colorado basin. On average, the Colorado’s flow over that period was actually 15 percent lower than in the 1900s. And most experts agree that the basin will get even drier: A brace of global-warming studies concludes that rising temperatures will reduce the Colorado’s average flow after 2050 by five to 35 percent, even if rainfall remains the same — and most of those studies predict that rains will diminish.

Already, the drought is upending many of the assumptions on which water barons relied when they tamed the Colorado in the 1900s.

The Colorado basin states tried in the 1920s to stave off future fights over water by splitting it, 50-50, between the upper-basin states of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming and the lower-basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California.

In fact, the deal underestimated how much water the fast-growing lower-basin states would need. During most of the wet 20th century, however, the river usually produced more than enough water to offset any shortage.

Now, the gap between need and supply is becoming untenable.

Lake Mead currently stands about 1,106 feet above sea level, and is expected to drop 20 feet in 2014. A continued decline would introduce a new set of problems: At 1,075 feet, rationing begins; at 1,050 feet, a more drastic rationing regime kicks in, and the uppermost water intake for Las Vegas shuts down. At 1,025 feet, rationing grows more draconian; at 1,000 feet, a second Las Vegas intake runs dry.

Lake Powell is another story. There, a 100-foot drop would shut down generators that supply enough electricity to power 350,000 homes.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month forecasts of water levels at Powell and Mead do not contemplate such steep declines. But neither did they foresee the current drought.

“We can’t depend on history to project the future anymore,” Carly Jerla, a geological hydrologist and the reclamation bureau’s Colorado River expert, said in an interview. The drought could end tomorrow, she said — or it could drag on for seven more years.

That raises questions that the states are just beginning to sort out.

The river’s upper-basin states are worried that they might have to curb their consumption to meet their obligations downstream. But the thorniest problems are in the lower basin, where a thicket of political and legal deals has left Arizona holding the bag should the Colorado River continue to diminish.

In the 1960s, California’s legislators demanded first dibs on lower-basin water as a condition of supporting federal legislation to build the Central Arizona Project, a vast web of canals irrigating that state’s farms and cities. Should rationing begin in 2015, Arizona would sacrifice a comparatively small fraction of its Colorado River allotment, while California’s supply would remain intact.

Painful as that would be, though, it could get worse: Should Mead continue to fall, Arizona would lose more than half of its Colorado River water before California lost so much as a drop.

That would have a cascading effect. The Central Arizona Project would lose revenue it gets from selling water, which would raise the price of water to remaining customers, leading farmers to return to pumping groundwater for irrigation — exactly what the Central Arizona Project was supposed to prevent.

“By going back to the pumps, you’ll have made the decision that agriculture will no longer be an industry in central Arizona,” David Modeer, the project’s general manager, said in an interview.

Even Californians doubt Arizona would stand for that, but no successor to the 1960s agreement is in place. And California has a vital interest in holding on to its full allotment of water. The Southern California region using Colorado water is expected to add six million people to the existing 19 million in the next 45 years, and its other water source — the Sierra Nevada to the north — is suffering the same drought and climate problems as the Colorado basin.

“The basic blueprint of our plan calls for a reliable foundation that we then build upon, and that reliable foundation is the Colorado River and Northern California water,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. “To the extent we lose one of those supplies, I don’t know that there is enough technology and new supplies to replace them.”

There may be ways to live with a permanently drier Colorado, but none of them are easy. Finding more water is possible — San Diego is already building a desalination plant on the Pacific shore — but there are too few sources to make a serious dent in a shortage.

That leaves conservation, a tack the lower-basin states already are pursuing. Arizona farmers reduce runoff, for example, by using laser technology to ensure that their fields are table flat. The state consumes essentially as much water today as in 1955, even as its population has grown nearly twelvefold.

Working to reduce water consumption by 20 percent per person from 2010 to 2020, Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District is recycling sewage effluent, giving away high-efficiency water nozzles and subsidizing items like artificial turf and zero-water urinals.

Southern Nevada’s water-saving measures are in some ways most impressive of all: Virtually all water used indoors, from home dishwashers to the toilets and bathtubs used by the 40 million tourists who visit Las Vegas each year, is treated and returned to Lake Mead. Officials here boast that everyone could take a 20-minute shower every day without increasing the city’s water consumption by a drop.

Moreover, an intensive conservation program slashed the region’s water consumption from 2002 to 2012, even as the area added 400,000 residents.

Even after those measures, federal officials say, much greater conservation is possible. Local officials say they have little choice.

“The era of big water transfers is either over, or it’s rapidly coming to an end,” said Mr. Entsminger, the southern Nevada water official. “It sure looks like in the 21st century, we’re all going to have to use less water.”

BALLOONS AROUND THE WORLD

The lure of flying eluded man really until the Montgolfier brothers. We can do so much more today but like so many things, we yearn for simpler days. newport351

AMERICA’S CUP MUSINGS

America’s Cup: Rod Davis – still looking for answers after Cup defeat
11:51 PM Sun 5 Jan 2014 GMT

‘Oracle Team USA vs Emirates Team New Zealand on the Final Race of the 2013 America’s Cup’ Carlo Borlenghi/Luna Rossa© Click Here to view large photo

Emirates Team NZ coach, Rod Davis, admits he is still a bit stunned, three months after the conclusion of the 34th America’s Cup, and the shock loss by the Challenger, after being on Match Point.

Part of Davis’ post-Cup frustration-relief therapy is to go sailboat racing every chance he can – and by is own admission, that is a lot of sailing, at present.

‘It’s still hard to believe that we out-prepared Oracle by that much, ahead of this regatta, and lost the regatta’, he says with the incredulity of the 9-8 result, still to fully register.

‘It is hard to come to grips with it. Normally when you out-prepare a team by that much in any sport, you come away with a victory. And it didn’t happen that way.’

‘Suddenly Oracle ended up with a better package, and that’s amazing and depressing!’

For sure, the America’s Cup Defender, Oracle Team USA, realized they were well off the pace in the early stages of the regatta, and began to play for time.

Rod Davis Chris Cameron-ETNZ©?nid=118184

Their first ploy was using their Postponement Card on just the third day of racing when they only had one win from five races, and Emirates Team New Zealand were just two race days away from winning their third America’s Cup.

At the time Regatta Director Iain Murray commented that the Postponement Card was intended to allow boats to recover from structural damage, not call for a time-out to allow them to re-group. But this was not stated in the rules, and Oracle Team USA elected to pull the pin on the racing after being passed again, sailing to windward on Leg 3 – a race which Emirates Team NZ went on to win by 65secs.

‘If you look at the results, we had 19 races in the regatta, and at the near half-way point, after the first nine races, we were six wins and three losses’ says Davis. (Two Oracle wins where spent to offset a Jury imposed penalty, so the points score was 6-1 at that stage.)

‘And after the next ten races, we were two wins and eight losses. So the trend was that Oracle was getting stronger all the way through. But in the second half of the series, we couldn’t buy a break’, says the Olympic Gold and Silver medalist, with the frustration and disbelief still clear in his voice.’

‘We had three races taken off us, and we were leading in all three. As the clock went on Oracle were getting stronger and stronger. With hindsight maybe we should have pushed to do more racing earlier on in the series.’

‘We had an option to that and we didn’t,’ he says, referring to the decision by both teams not to use a reserve day to make up races lost, early on in the series. Oracle Team USA were later reported to have used the day to make substantial changes to their rudders.

‘Honestly I don’t think anyone appreciated, at that point, it was going make a difference’

08/09/2013 – San Francisco (USA,CA) – 34th America’s Cup – Final Match – Race Day 2 ACEA – Photo Gilles Martin-Raget?nid=118184_©

‘The call was made not to race on the Reserve Day (September 16)’ says Davis. ‘As to why? You’d have to ask Emirates Team NZ upper management.’

‘So you look back at it, and see it differently now’ he reflects.

Davis believes the key error made by Emirates Team New Zealand was showing their hand too early on the foiling of their first AC72.

‘The major mistake that I see in the campaign was letting the world know we were foiling way too early. From a Sponsor, Press and Public point of view it was a coup, but for the big picture and winning the Cup, it was a liability’ he says.

He discounts the notion that regardless of Emirates Team NZ’s first foil-borne flypast up the Waitemata Harbour, and subsequent foiling with TVNZ on board, the other teams, with their spy and surveillance programs, would have spotted the foiling AC72 anyway.

‘They didn’t know the extent of it, however. We could have kept the extent of it a lot quieter.’

‘It wouldn’t have happened in the Russell Coutts’ era of Team New Zealand. In 2000, they changed bows out on the water, out of sight of spies, so nobody knew they were doing it,’ he recalls.

‘It says something that if you want to keep secrets, then you have got to be damn serious, truly committed, about keeping secrets,’ he adds.

Responding to a question on the wind limits and the effect they had on the racing, Davis believes that both teams got it wrong.

‘The funny thing about the wind limits is that Oracle wanted to lower the wind limits and wanted them a lot lower. We said ‘no, we’ll go from 33kts to 25kts’, and Oracle wanted it down at 20kts, because they wanted to position the limit low in the wind range, because they thought they had a good downrange boat, and our big powerful boat was going to be a good up range boat.’

‘But we get into the America’s Cup and it’s all wrong!’

‘We’ve got the light air boat and Oracle have got the heavy air boat. Halfway through the series Oracle was pushing to have the wind limits increased again! (Wanted the base limit increased from 23-25kts, which was rejected by Emirates Team NZ as they didn’t want a change mid series click here).

‘How do both teams get it so wrong?’ he asks.

ETNZ fully lifted during a recent training day Graeme Swan Click Here to view large photo

Superstitious New Zealand fans should have known something was likely to happen in Race 13, given their team’s complete lack of luck in the preceding nine days of racing.

The abandonment of Race 13 when the New Zealanders had a lead of 1000 metres, just short of the finish when the 40 minute time limit expired, caused widespread disbelief, given that AC72’s had been sailing at speeds of up to 20kts.

‘I guess no-one really understood that you couldn’t start a race in eight knots and not finish within the time limit.’ Davis explains…..

‘I don’t think that Oracle knew that any better than anyone else at the time, although they may claim they did now, because Oracle was pushing to race in light with thinking (wrongly) they were going to be quicker in eight knots.

‘We knew the time limit was going to be close, but nobody that I know of can say that before that race started, that you could not finish, if you had to use a gennaker or Code Zero.’

‘Iain Murray never knew that, none of the other teams knew that. Oracle says they knew it after the fact.’

‘We had just never sailed a San Francisco race in that light a breeze before,’ he added.

Davis has sailed in 11 America’s Cup campaigns, for four different national teams – as a coach and a sailor. Many consider ‘Hot Rod’ to be the consummate hired gun. Now the tide is running the other way with many wanting a return to the stronger nationality requirements that existed prior to 2007, and even a return to the near absolute nationality rule that existed from 1958 to 1983, and was only seriously diluted after the 2003 America’s Cup, by new Defender Alinghi, who sailed in 2007 with one Swiss National aboard.

‘It’s not what I think (Davis says he is in favor of a nationality rule) but it’s what Oracle thinks’ he responds. ‘Oracle is talking about a nationality clause, but if you look at it, why would they want a nationality clause? They only had one American on the boat this time. It makes no sense.’

‘Sometimes you don’t listen to what people say; you watch their position and figure that they will do what’s best for them. I can’t see a nationality clause coming out of Oracle.’

‘I don’t think Larry Ellison cares if there are not a lot of Challengers, so long as he hangs onto the Cup. I don’t think we will see much change in the nationality rule,’ he concludes.

With the Protocol for the next America’s Cup now not expected to be announced until at March, a least. Davis is more than a little skeptical about the reality of cost reduction. With his long America’s Cup experience, he is well aware that cost reduction is a topic that is often discussed, but never delivered.

‘We might see some changes in the one-design components of the boat – to try and make the boats less expensive by saving on designer costs.’

‘To try and make the America’s cup less expensive is a difficult, difficult thing to do. All you need is one team, one guy, who is prepared to spend more money and time and that will drag everybody else in that direction to match them and be competitive.’

‘How are you going to trim the budget by 20%? I don’t see it happening in reality’

‘They want to have the AC45’s racing in the future and do the ACWS type circuit. But that has a cost to it. And should those 45’s be modified to be foiling like the AC boats? If so, that’s going to be more expensive, isn’t it? ‘

‘How do you practically pull cost back? I pity the poor guy who is responsible for that’, he says, shaking his head.

The cynicism that there will be any change in the Nationality rules, coupled with the re-signing of crew by existing teams, is perceived as making it difficult for new teams to get established – and having to start with completely new sailing talent.

As a highly experienced coach, at both America’s Cup and Olympic level, how would Davis approach crew selection and training with a new team?

‘From a sailing team’s perspective, with new young talent you would get stuck into some big, say 60+ feet multi hull racing. And try and get their heads around that. The AC45 will work for them to a certain extent as far as the wings and stuff, because I expect the wings to stay.’

‘You want a good balance of youth and enthusiasm and experience, then let the experienced guys teach the new sailing talent how to deal with these boats and what we know about starting and racing and all that. Then turn the youth lose to use their talent and do what what they love to do, race sail boats’

‘From a design standpoint you are going to have to draft in from other teams as much design talent as you can, but before you can do that you need to have protocol to know what/if you’re designing hulls, boards, wings…

The Challenger of Record, Team Australia look set to emulate this approach – having been unable to sign their established America’s Cup sailors. Instead they are looking to draw on a not insubstantial pool of Olympic and other talent and go without the America’s Cup ‘heavies’.

‘I don’t know if it guarantees a will to win the Cup with that sort of approach,’ says Davis, ‘but you will do a very good job. And the America’s Cup is up for a revolution anyway, in terms of younger, fresher talent in all the sailing teams. There has to be.’

The five time Olympian sees Emirates Team New Zealand as being in a similar situation, having to rejuvenate a long established team.

‘Team New Zealand has gone with the same team from 2007 and that is probably the same core team from more than ten years down the road.

‘I think there has to be a new group that comes in. That has to be good news for New Zealand, because New Zealand has got a really good crop of new young sailors coming through right now.

‘They might be a click young, but the passion and talent means they’ll close the gaps pretty damn quick.’

‘The tricky part, and the part that needs clever management is the balance of experience and youthful aggression. That is not something that just happens, it takes insight to all the different perspectives; the new talent, the experienced veterans, and both their Olympic and AC aspirations. All this has to be blended into dominant, across the board successes. It can be done, it’s tricky to do but must be done’

by Richard Gladwell

Rod is an old friend, we sailed against one another in the 1977 america’s cup summer in twelve meters, both of us were bowmen. I always felt that a good bowman already knew what the helmsman would do before he did, being able to anticipate was key.

CAPETOWN TO RIO RACE

The Capetown to Rio race has historically been long and slow; generally a light air race. The 2014 race is proving to be anything but that. A number of boats from the 34 starters have withdrawn and one crew has died.
Maserati, the former volvo 70 was built for these conditions.

Month: January 2014