I'm SAILING!

[Beefy]

??????????????????

haha good call

[Jessie]

If his eyes were a tad bigger he'd make a good candidate for anime.

He does look like a Pokemon character or something.

[dazie]

If his eyes were a tad bigger he'd make a good candidate for anime.

He does look like a Pokemon character or something.

That was pointed out many times in that thread.  The other pictures are even better- there's herds and herds of these people roaming throughout New Jersey evidently.

[dazie]

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/mediaplayer/index.aspx?guid=dd9f1528-1eeb-4b68-b8c4-f3cbcbcd67d8&bhcp=1

Good stuff- kinda wobbly though.  Don't bother with sound- all there is is wave noises.

[Gamplayerx]

Dazie, the morning news keeps breaking to the Harborcam, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the boats that didn't make it yesterday.  Apparantly, the Pirates of the Caribbean was supposed to get here around dawn this morning, but low winds delayed it.  They said it's about 10 miles out right now, so it's still not in the camera view yet.

[dazie]

  Thank you for the update!

If you get a chance, you should go to Baltimore while the boats are there.  Pretty damn impressive.

[cnamon]

  Thank you for the update!

If you get a chance, you should go to Baltimore while the boats are there.  Pretty damn impressive.

Are you going to Balmore?

[dazie]

I can't.  I could afford the plane tix OR the hotel room OR a car and food.     I'm very sad about this.

[Gamplayerx]

  Thank you for the update!

If you get a chance, you should go to Baltimore while the boats are there.  Pretty damn impressive.

Nah.  I'll wait until they come here. 

[dazie]

  Thank you for the update!

If you get a chance, you should go to Baltimore while the boats are there.  Pretty damn impressive.

Nah.  I'll wait until they come here. 

Thursday May 4- Parade of Sail to Annapolis.

[dazie]

Thu, 18 May 2006 12:20:00 UTC

ABN AMRO statement: Hans Horrevoets a crew member aboard ABN AMRO TWO, one of the two ABN AMRO yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race 2005 – 2006, died earlier this morning after failing to regain consciousness after being swept overboard from the boat. The young crew, who have sailed this boat so well, are devastated.

What a shocker.  They've lost people in this race before, but not during the last few go 'rounds.  Although he was not one of "my" guys, the sailing community on this level is pretty small, so it will really affect everyone, and that pains me.

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/news/article/2006/may/mobupdate/index.aspx

[dazie]

sheeite!

Sometimes I wish I didn't read the things I did.  When the man went overboard off ABN ARMO Two, the rest of the fleet was notified to head to that spot asap.  This necessitated some sharp turns (gybes) from several of the boats, including movistar.  The "Mikey" that Bekking writes about is a friendly acquaintance of mine from the last race.  He's from South Africa and says that Reno is "the ass end of nowhere" and called Ursus up in the middle of the night to tell him "your wife is a mother fucker".  Keep in mind the conditions at the time he went up the mast-  wind up to 35 knots and seas to match.

From the VOR Site: (excerpt)

Bouwe Bekking from movistar sent this email during the afternoon
...
"Finally we gybed the boat, but when I looked up, I nearly got a heart attack, the mainsail had split horizontal completely across, about five meters under the top. This had turned really bad for us, now we had a ripped mainsail, where the top was still on the lock. The tripping mechanism was jammed, so had to send Mikey up the rig, to trip the lock and painstaking slow we could lower the sail bit by bit on the deck.

"This was a major. We knew immediately that we probably only could repair this downstairs meaning losing ground against the other boats.

"Then Capey (navigator) came on deck and told us the horrible news.

"No words necessary, everybody felt miserable, but we had situation on our hands we had to solve, so that distracted us away from the bad news.

"Once the main was secured on the deck we hoisted the trysail. One issue was that the main halyard had hooked behind the jumpers, so we had to clear that first. Not easy, in the howling wind and driving rain.

[dazie]

WTF is going on with this leg of the race???

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/news/article/2006/may/abandon/index.aspx

Following a night of fighting their keel problems after the aft end of their keel pivot bearing broke away from the hull, Bouwe Bekking and his crew have abandoned their vessel and have safely transferred to ABN AMRO TWO which has been standing by since approximately 2200GMT last night.

Yikes.

The transfer was completed in the eye of the low pressure system that is passing over, when winds dropped to seven knots. The forecast is for winds of up to 50 knots to come in from the west imminently, which hastened the decision to abandon movistar.

YIKES.

I know this isn't a big deal for well, anyone but me.  But please keep these two crews in your good thoughts.  ABN AMRO Two has already lost a person, now it looks like moviestar will lose the boat.  (but thankfully not their lives)

[Jessie]

Sorry, Dazie.  Those guys are crazy.

[dazie]

ABN AMRO TWO are 118 miles from the Lizard sailing at 23 knots. They met HMS Mersey at 1930GMT and then have been sailing in convoy with the Fishery Protection vessel since. For the moment, however, ABN AMRO TWO seems to be outrunning their escort which has a top speed of just 20 knots according to the Royal Navy web site; TWO is hitting mid 20s and perhaps running away despite their extra cargo.

The HMS Mersey is from the Royal Navy.  Wonder how they feel, getting beat by a sailboat with twice the people it's supposed to be carrying.

"The Lizard" is a scoring point- some rock formation off the coast of the UK.

[dazie]

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/news/article/2006/may/abnamrotwoatgunwharf/index.aspx

I'm such a softie.  I cried reading the article!

But the tears poured when I looked through the pics- especially this one:



That's the skipper of the ABN AMRO One boat and the skipper of the Two boat.  Same team, Two is "the kids" and the boat that lost the crewmember. 

[dazie]

They held a press conference today, and explained why the sailor wasn't tethered...

At just after 0200 GMT with a building breeze the ABN AMRO TWO crew had undertaken a sail change, from the masthead spinnaker to the fractional one better suited for the stronger conditions forecast. During the sail change the wind had piped up from 12-14 knots to 25. As the crew were sorting the boat out following the change so the crew were in the process of taking turns to go down below to put on their lifejackets and harnesses. At the time skipper Sebastien Josse was on the helm as Hans Horrevoets was trimming the spinnaker.

Unfortunately as spinnaker trimmer in charge of the most important sail flying at the time, Horrevoets was the last to go down below to put on his lifejacket and harness. Before he had the opportunity to do this ABN AMRO TWO buried her bow deep into a wave.

Luke Molloy recounted his version of events: "I was down below putting on my foulweather gear and harness. While I was doing that with George [Peet], the boat nosedived - you could feel it inside - and heeled a little bit to windward. The boat stopped and you could hear the water coming down the deck. The next thing you know the boat had levelled out, the sail was flogging, you could hear it shaking the whole rig in the boat. Seb screamed 'man overboard - everyone on deck'. I threw my harness on and flew up the hatch."

[dazie]

*grin* some things never change.  My friend (not really friend, but friendly acquaintance?) Stu, at the prizegiving.  Drink in hand, looking a bit mussed up.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Beefy]

Dazie, while I am happy for your friends who made it and sad for those who didn't, I want you to know that when I am on the stand explaining why I had to shoot Christopher Cross in the face with a bazooka... I am totally blaming you.

[dazie]

Duly noted.

[ReBurn]

So is it over?

[dazie]

So is it over?

Nope.  This is an enormously long race.  They still have two legs to go, abeit little ones.  From Portsmouth they'll sail to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdam they'll sail to Gothenburg.

[nishi]

Dazie, while I am happy for your friends who made it and sad for those who didn't, I want you to know that when I am on the stand explaining why I had to shoot Christopher Cross in the face with a bazooka... I am totally blaming you.

i have often thought about using my administrative powers for the dark side and changing the name of this thread for exactly the same reason.

we will rot in prison together.

[dazie]

Dazie, while I am happy for your friends who made it and sad for those who didn't, I want you to know that when I am on the stand explaining why I had to shoot Christopher Cross in the face with a bazooka... I am totally blaming you.

i have often thought about using my administrative powers for the dark side and changing the name of this thread for exactly the same reason.

we will rot in prison together.

Well, just make sure that every time someone posts, they change the subject!

[dc]

I have no plans on changing the subject.  Chris Cross needs all the help he can get.