ws lirakis – Page 122 – stephenlirakis.com

CARINA AND THE NYES

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/stephenl/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 388

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/stephenl/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 394

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/stephenl/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 400

For me, one of the untold stories of “Carina” and the Nye family that is not emphasized enough in the newly released book “Home is the Sailor” is the relationship between father and son. The two Richards worked together and sailed together throughout their lives. This relationship should not be underestimated. Richard acknowledged it to me some years ago when relating the story of the 1979 Fastnet Race. Richard S. was certainly now older and age was taking it’s toll. Conditions are miserable and Richard saw how happy his father was to be at sea. I was witness, like the rest of the crew to other small events that reflected the bond between father and son.

Another story that merits stating because it highlights the philosophy of the “Carina”. A few years ago a friend of mine who happened to work at North Sails said one of his regrets was never to have sailed on “Carina”. I was surprised at his remark, as it happened so many years after the Nyes had owned “Carina”. I responded by saying that the legacy of “Carina” was mostly forgotten in today’s world of sailing. But further he would likely never have been invited to sail on the boat as the Nyes never found the need to have “rockstars” as part of the crew.

WORLD CURRENT

I was alerted to this by Sailing Anarchy.

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

GROUPAMA dismasted while leading Puma. Telephonica is only 36 miles behind Puma; so the race is far from over.

TROPHEE JULES VERNE AWARDED

Last night the team that set the record around the world under sail was awarded the trophy for their accomplishments at the Musee de la Marine.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

TED NELSON, STEWARD AT IDA LEWIS YACHT CLUB

The past means different things to different people. A few of these photographs are 50 years old. Newport has changed.

GOD BLESS APRIL FOOL’S

ac breaking

gone native

A coalition of indigenous North American tribes today announced a lawsuit against Golden Gate Yacht Club and Oracle Racing, saying they were denied entry to the 34th America’s Cup on the basis of their background. “We have as legitimate a right as anyone to defend America’s honor for the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco,” said celebrity politician and artist Ben Nighthorse Campbell, spokesman for the Native America’s Cup Challenge (NACC). “We’ve assembled a team of tribal seaman, elder advisors and maritime warriors whose ancestors have been building and racing boats in North America for literally thousands of years.” Campbell said. “Back when Europeans were running around naked in blue dye, and Maori were still eating colonists, our tribes were sailing around fishing for salmon.”

The lawsuit asks the NY Supreme Court to require GGYC to set up a ‘winner take all’ defense trial in San Francisco this summer. “As submitted to this Court in Africa Diaspora Maritime v. Golden Gate Yacht Club, the GGYC has a duty to the American people that extends far beyond providing a playground for a handful of billionaires and some obsessed Kiwis,” the lawsuit says in its opening salvo. “Furthermore, GGYC has a duty as Trustee to all of America’s mariners to hold the trials in boats that reflect the true history of sailing in the Northwest – the dugout canoe with crab claw rig.”

NACC includes members of the Salish, Makah, and Iroquois tribes from the mainland US, the Tlingit and Inuit from Alaska, and several Canadian First Nations, though they have chosen to remain silent partners in fear of never being allowed to cross the US border again if they anger Larry Ellison. “We know how things work down there, and we don’t want Ellison to send us to Guantanamo,” one tribal elder said on condition of anonymity.

Africa Diaspora Maritime founder Charles Kithcart welcomes the additional Defender Challenger, though the idea of traditional racing craft may throw a wrench into his plans to race against Oracle on catamarans. “Seeing another group working to defend America’s Cup is truly rewarding, and I hope our campaign helped urge them to get into it,” said Kithcart, whose lawsuit goes to oral argument in Albany on the 17th of April. “We’ll just have to see what kind of boats the judges like best for the Defense, and maybe we’ll need to learn how to sail those cool canoes!”

Kithcart preferred not to discuss questions about discrimination in his lawsuit, though a NACC boatbuilder wasn’t so coy. “Yacht racing in general, and the America’s Cup in specific, is, without a doubt, the whitest sport left in all the world,” said the man known as Walks With Hammers. “You’d think they would’ve learned their lesson and opened it up to native peoples after that Maori dude turned the Cup intro scrap metal, but take a look at the ACWS events – the only color anywhere at those events is on the wings!”

The new case is Native America’s Cup Coalition v. Golden Gate Yacht Club. NYSC45223-12C.

HORSE RACE

Groupama and Mar Monstro are neck and neck. 1300 miles to go. What would you do? Read all About it HERE.

PALM SUNDAY/APRIL FOOL’S WEEKEND

Last night I listened to Tom Ehman speak about the “new” America’s Cup, a live video link with Kenny Read aboard Mar Monstro having rounded the Horn and now in the relatively calm South Atlantic.

For me, the selling of the America’s Cup is a little like when hollywood knows it has a bad movie it needs to advertise to try to boost the gate.

It was a moving moment to listen to Ken say the Southern Ocean had beaten him into submission. That he would not do this race again. Nature is relentless and without remorse.

Today is a lunch meeting of the New England Six meter class.

Palm Sunday and April Fool’s somehow don’t seem to go together.

TRACES OF THOMAS HARIOT

“Traces of Thomas Hariot” by Muriel Rukeyser is one of those books I have found fascinating . It connects the dots in a period of time, showing just how interconnected men of science were despite the complications of communication and travel. I had studied Elizabethan Drama in school.

A renaissance man in the true sense of the word. As always, the context of time is important, Many of the theories to which Hariot subscribed were considered heresy; the reason he never published and was so secretive. He belonged to a group known as “the school of night“. Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and Christopher Marlowe were also members. Thomas Kyd was tortured to death because a of a letter containing heresy was found in his apartment; one that he had shared with Christopher Marlowe.

The author had to find references concerning Thomas Hariot since he could never publish. I was reminded of the search again when I was asked for a press review of my sailing achievements. As far as a I know there are none. So how do I prove my achievements, such as they are? I don’t exist without a piece of paper? Something we have all joked about; but I was suddenly faced with exactly that problem. More recently one is given a certificate of participation in many regattas and races, but nothing like that existed in my time.

AMERICA’S CUP WORLD SERIES

SAN FRANCISCO APPROVES AMERICA’S CUP RACE FOR SEPTEMBER 2013

POSTED ON 27 MARCH 2012

It’s full speed ahead for the 2013 America’s Cup race in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today approved the agreement to host the America’s Cup in San Francisco September 7 to 22, 2013.

One of the most fiercely competitive and sought after trophies in all of sport, the America’s Cup, was first raced in 1851 around the Isle of Wight, 45 years before the modern Olympics. The U.S. yacht Americawon, giving the international sailing competition its name.

At the first race, Queen Victoria, who was watching at the finish line, asked who was second to America. The famous answer, “Your Majesty, there is no second.”

The 2013 race will be the first time the competition for the “Auld Mug” will be held in San Francisco, a perfect natural sailing arena where more than one million spectators will see the 34th edition of the America’s Cup.

The San Francisco agreement calls for teams to be based at Piers 30/32 and for the America’s Cup Village – the public Race Headquarters – at Piers 27/29. The pier improvements will be funded by the Port.

“We have worked very hard to bring this historic race to San Francisco and we’re very happy to have finally reached an agreement,” said Stephen Barclay, interim CEO of the America’s Cup. “Now we are focused on making this the most spectacular race in America’s Cup history.”

“We are thrilled that, in addition to the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America’s Cup racing in 2013, that the America’s Cup World Series will also take place in San Francisco in 2012,” said Mayor Edwin M. Lee. “This will add even more visitors, jobs and economic development as part of hosting one of the world’s premier sporting events.”

The inclusion of Piers 30/32 as the “pit row” for the teams in close proximity to the America’s Cup Village at Piers 27/29 will make the event’s footprint more compact and will benefit the teams as well as the general public. Racing will be visible from the shoreline – only minutes from downtown shopping and hotels, making this the most spectator-friendly event in the Cup’s 162-year history.

The dates for this year’s (2012) racing for the America’s Cup World Series, the global circuit of events leading up to the 2013 America’s Cup regatta in San Francisco, were also confirmed today:

AC World Series Naples, Italy – April 11-15, 2012
AC World Series Venice, Italy – May 15-20, 2012
AC World Series Newport, USA – June 26 – July 1, 2012
AC World Series San Francisco, USA – August 21-26, 2012
AC World Series San Francisco, USA – October 4-7, 2012

Each event will be a combination of practice and championship racing, with additional practice sailing on-site ahead of each event.

Racing for the Louis Vuitton Cup, the America’s Cup Challenger Series, will take place in July and August, 2013. The America’s Cup Match (finals), pitting the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup against defending champion ORACLE Racing – Team USA, commences Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013 and is a first to win five-race series.

America’s Cup racing in 2012 and 2013 will be televised internationally, and for the first time in more than 20 years it will be broadcast free-to-air in the U.S. by the NBC network. It will also be broadcast internationally through our family of media partners, and will be streamed to the web on www.youtube.com/americascup.

This unprecedented broadcast coverage is a reflection of the exciting venue, the technologically-advanced yachts, the Emmy-nominated fan-friendly advances in the television production, and the sheer physical and tactical challenge presented to the world’s best sailors by the yachts, format and venue.

Before the end of 2013 the America’s Cup is expected to have generated more than $1 billion in economic benefits for San Francisco, and created several thousand jobs.

Major sponsors include some of the world’s top brands: Louis Vuitton, PUMA, Prada, Emirates Airline, TAG Heuer, and Oracle.