New Freebooters

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is it. We were all teleported back, some from beyond the Canaries, and placed on the start line at 10:00 UTC. Any course we then set was used to launch us off the line at 11:00 UTC. This was an hour ahead of the actual race, and of the Official on line race, which gave those playing both games a chance to concentrate separately on each start.

I didn’t do much in the Official race except set the starting course and change it a couple of times over the next hour. Found the background music and wave/wind noise irritating, and missed the constant weather and course updates of Sail On Line. I did watch live TV coverage of the real start, which was exciting although it was odd hearing commentators dumbing down the language - referring to the Right Hand Side and Left Hand Side (just like that, carefully and slowly) of the windward leg, rather than port and starboard or even East & West.

It was also impressive seeing the crews that had been together a long time tacking at speeds reminiscent of battles up the Gurnard shore in Cowes Week. I didn’t expect blue water crews to do that. Will there be match racing in this class one day?

The good, stiff breeze gave us a lively start for a record fleet of over 600 boats in the Sail On Line race, too. At first, places changed hectically - but that is to be expected if you think about it. If you zoomed right in, you could see the server updating boat positions in rotation, and 600 boats started off level.

Once we were all settled in, the fleet fanned out slightly - some seeking maximum speed and others pursuing longer-term goals. A fair number of those concentrating on speed paid for it later, when they had to alter course for the first headland.

I haven’t really covered myself in glory - once the system settled down, I managed to climb up from somewhere inn the 300s to 76th (a personal best), then forgot the minus sign when keying in a True Wind Angle course (i.e. one that automatically follows any windshifts). This resulted in an involuntary gybe, and then having to gybe back to the intended course. Since the simulator slows the boat during tacks and gybes, then slowly builds up boat speed again, this meant I was down to 88% of optimum speed and took several minutes to regain full speed. This early on the race, with everyone neck and neck, that lost me a LOT of places.

Now, we are facing a long night and the arrival of a big hole - an unavoidable zone with very light, very variable winds. The Kiwis have just woken up, and will be awake for this phase, so I expect to see many of them gain a lot during the night. I’m wondering whether to leave my very noisy PC on during the night, so that if I get up to let dogs out or add more wood to the stove I’ll be able to check my progress - and perhaps get myself out of a sticky position. I’ll do my best to set Delayed Courses based on the forecasts, but I don’t expect to hold my current 152nd position.

I’m not taking this seriously enough to set alarms - I have a friend’s 60th birthday lunch to attend tomorrow.

The wind has been dropping slowly all day, which has reduced the excitement a bit. A few people took Delayed Command gambles for the night watch - one or two paid off, but others were disastrous.

Mine would have lost me more than the four places it did if I hadn’t been woken at 06:00 local time by my dogs getting excited about something outside - deer or foxes, usually.

I was sailing into a zone of failing wind, and hastily changed course to go looking for the breeze. I lost a bit more during the day when I had to set a compass course to avoid Gran Canaria, forcing me to deviate from the maximum speed course I had been following. There is going to be a very large number of boats way past the Canaries by the time we get teleported back to the start - I don’t know what energy source our hosts use, but it had better be big.

One topic of conversation that kept recurring was the ‘Official’ Volvo online race. I think I’ll have to sign on over there to see for myself, but the general consensus was that its simulation of wind and boat direction and speed was less satisfying. It would appear that the model is coarser, with steps from cell to cell and less precise boat controls.

From what I am hearing, I’d guess that the Official race application is designed as a game, with fancy graphics, sound and performance-enhancing options. In a typical game, you would earn the credits with which to buy these ‘weapons’, but here you pay real money at the beginning of the race. No-one seems to be sure whether you can wait until you are in trouble and then buy what you need…

The Sail On Line application, by contrast, is primarily a weather simulator being traversed by boat models whose only controls are immediate or delayed commands to sail either a compass course or a course relative to the true wind. The boat will always sail at its optimum speed, with no sail change or sail trimming input need from the player.

I’d say that the Official Race will appeal primarily to game players, and the Sail On Line simultaor will appeal primarily to people who actually sail, whether they are experienced or comparative novices. Horses for courses.

Not all of the Sail On Line competitors (of which there are 530 registered as I write this) will be at their computers when the race starts at 11:00 UTC tomorrow. Several of them will be sailing their real boats, having set Delayed Commands to the best of their ability, based on weather forecast shown in the simuator for the appropriate times. In practice, that shouldn’t be too chancy - there won’t be headwinds, so no tacking, and the winds won’t be very stong, so the boats are less likely to plough up the beach in North Africa.

Of course, it could all change…

The Official Volvo online simulated race has just opened, but the sailonline.org one has been running for a while. There are already 463 boats registered and the leaders of the practice session are now weaving through the Canaries.

Everyone seems determined to keep going until the simulator tows (more likely teleports) us back to the start line off Alicante at 10:00 UTC on Saturday 11 Oct, an hour before the start.

Some competitors are entering both races, in fact the staff of sailonline.org have registered a team in the Official online race, in a spirit of friendly rivalry. There are significant differences between the two simulators not all of which are yet clear:

• All SoL competitors sail identically-equipped boats in a free-to-enter pure navigation race, whereas Official Race competitors are encouraged to pay about US$30 for extras which are essential for anyone competing seriously
• There is a serious prize for the winner of the Official Race - a Volvo car - but nothing for the SoL race
• The Official Race simulator includes sail changing and sail trimming functions, whereas the SoL simulator contestant is a navigator whose crew will always sail the boat at maximum speed for the prevailing course and conditions, except for a slow build-up of speed after a tack or a gybe.

As both a competitor and the Yachting Correspondent for New Freebooters, I shall be posting daily reports (and interviews with competitors whenever communications permit) from the sailonline.org race. If you are registered for the race, look out for SredniVashtar (currently having climbed to 110th place after the customary rather late start).

In the meantime, I have been practising long-forgotten arts and making friends with a cheerful and enthusiastic bunch of competitors from all over the world (even one struggling with a flaky broadband connection in Nairobi) and of all ages (the youngest one I have spoken to is 10 years old, I am 69, and some may be older still).

I’m getting a bit like my grandfather. I’ve been around long enough now to notice that some things have changed. I want to talk about the differences between then and now, and perhaps comment on where things seem to be going.

Note that I call them the good old days, not the better old days. I’m reminiscing mostly about challenge and excitement, and I don’t think there is any lack of that in today’s world - it’s just that the rules have changed, which stops life from getting boring.

There’s a lot of talk nowadays about over-protective attitudes, coming either from government or (influenced by the culture change) from parents. They certainly exist, but they won’t achieve what the protectors intend. Human beings always make risk judgements and act accordingly. There are well-documented examples of what can happen when you remove an obvious hazard in a road system - because it no longer looks dangerous, people drive faster and concentrate less. Sometimes, the situation gets worse than it was before.

Let’s forget the kind of nonsense that stopped kids from playing conkers and insists that anyone who takes other people’s children for a walk along a beach must have a life-saver certificate, and look at something more serious: clothing for sailing in cold weather in cold seas.

More than 30 years ago, Navy scientists established that no-one drowns in the English Channel. Wearing ordinary clothing, you die of hypothermia in about 30 minutes - even on a warm summer’s day.

I have no trouble believing that. I spent one such summer evening with several friends, searching Chilling beach for signs of a friend in his very early 20s, a strong swimmer, who had fallen out of a sailing dinghy a few hundred yards offshore while taking a novice for a sail. His body washed ashore the next day. He was wearing shorts, a shirt and a buoyancy aid, which was normal practice at the time (late 1950s).

During that period, I was one of several undergrad friends who competed for the fastest round trip from the Hamble River Sailing Club hard to Osborne Bay on the Isle of Wight, picking up a pebble to prove you’d been there, and back. We did it in a 12 foot Firefly dinghy, two up with no other boat around. I think a couple of other university club members knew what we were doing, but no-one waited around to see if we returned safely.

To stand a chance of beating the record, you needed a stiff westerly breeze (making it a planing reach both ways) and a tide stream that would help you in both directions. That made October or even November a good time to try. My best effort was made with John Turpin, a lad of Cornish fisherman stock (his brother wore a gold earring), just as penniless as most of us were. We wore oilskins and buoyancy aids, and did what we could to keep warm. Two thick wool jerseys and a university scarf soaked up a lot of the inevitable streams of cold water that poured down our necks. John’s secret weapon was several copies of the Radio Times stuffed inside his jersey.

Only a few years later, I had my first taste of the Burnham Icicle - a dinghy race held on New Year’s day on the Crouch in Essex. That year was windy as well as cold, and only one boat finished the course - the Jardine twins sailing a Flying Dutchman and wearing wetsuits. The only other boat which looked as if it would survive decided to retire, and the crew were helped back to the warm clubhouse while others pulled their boat up for them. From then on, Icicle rules required contestants to wear wetsuits.

Later, wetsuits became normal wear for dinghy sailing even in summer, and quite right, too. I enjoyed sailing as it was then, but the arrival of modern sailing gear has been a good thing.

Well, I’ve managed to sail my way up to 315th place after starting over 8 hours late. Its always easier from behind, but I only slipped back once during the day - when I forgot to come back in from gardening in time to change course for Mark No3. That lost me 9 places and about 10 minutes, I reckon.

The rest of the race looks like being a bit of a procession (100 boats have already finished), but I’m trying to gain another place by anticipating a wind shift that has been forecast.

My biggest problem is that the last turning mark is close to the shore. Setting up a delayed command for three hours from now is too risky - I’m likely either to turn too early and miss the mark, or carry on too far and run aground. There’s nothing for it - I’ll have to set the alarm for 01:20 and take the helm. Now how many online games persuade their players to do that kind of thing?

Rumour has it that more than one of the first 50 boats in this race was being sailed by someone who also sails the real thing. I wouldn’t be surprised. Several of them are genuinely exhausted, having taken sleep in short bursts just like real singlehanded blue water helmsmen.

It’s a bit like running in the London Marathon - a huge bunch of people trying hard but doing it for fun, and a small cadre of top class competitors taking it really seriously.

I’m hooked. I’ve just registered for the next race - a 6,000-mile haul from Alicante to Cape Town. This time, I plan to start on time, but wifie will be back at home so I’ll have less time to play. A double challenge.

PS. I couldn’t find an alarm clock, so I did my best to set a delayed command that would take me round the mark during the night. This game shows you actual forecasts at three-hour intervals, but changes the wind continuously (presumably by creating smooth transitions between the forecasts) - I ended up having travelled just a tiny bit further than I had estimated.

I turned before I hit the main coast, but my new course ran me aground on a peninsula to the west of my position, in the company of several other boats. I had overtaken several others during the night, but I was still 315th. With a straight reach to the finish after I’d refloated, there would be nothing new or exciting left, so I retired, happy to have learned a lot and made some new friends (there is a chat line open throughout the race, just like the radio channel on a real boat).

Watch this space for reports on the Alicante to Cape Town race starting in five days’ time.

Thanks to the YWB forums, I’ve been introduced to www.sailonline.org/. The site runs virtual yacht races using a simulator based on real locations and current weather forecasts. They also offer a sailing planner based on the same technology.

I didn’t register and start the current race (a figure-of-8 course in the Mediterranean, starting from Alicante and rounding the island of Formentera) until about 9 hours late, but it’s been eerily like some of my real-life experiences:

• After I switched off my PC, I realised that I’d set a course to round the marks in the reverse order. Since the course was still a valid option for the correct course, I went to bed.
• I’d set a delayed command to change course round what I thought was the first mark. Just as well that it wasn’t the real mark, because the wind dropped slightly more than expected. When I signed on again this morning, I found that I had turned about 2 nautical miles early and was now a third of the way down the next leg on a dead run in a failing breeze, having missed the buoy.
• In spite of all this, I was now in 374th position in a fleet of 480 boats, one of which had run aground in Tunisia during the night.

I’ll  report on progress later today. I’m hooked.

I’ve just discovered a place in cyberspace that has improved my quality of life. In an earlier post, and in my introductory video, I admitted to feeling homesick for the old days when yachts and yachting occupied most of my life outside working hours. Now I have found a way to renew my membership.

Yachting and Boating World has a section with links to not only their own forum, but fora for other IPC magazines. That is a wonderful resource for me - I can answer (or at least, offer opinions on) other people’s questions, generally browse around in my usual butterfly fashion, or post my own questions.

The great thing is that I know exactly what these people are talking about. I know many of the boats and harbours they discuss. Occasionally (because there are a few old salts there as well as younger folk) I even knew the people they’re talking about. That’s a wonderful feeling, but I got a fright when I started writing this post: my broadband link went down. Like all reasonable fora, the YBW ones have a rule that if you want to drop links to your own sites in your forum posts you should return the favour. There are some forums I wouldn’t mind being kicked out of, but not these.

He made it to his 100th birthday celebration, but Olin has now left us. He died on 13 September.

For an excellent obituary describing his life and his contributions to the sailing world (and even to the design of warships during WW II), see Bob Fisher in the Guardian.

One little snippet in this obituary was new to me: I always wondered where the name of the “Dorade” water-shedding ventilator came from. Olin invented it and used it on the 1931 Transatlantic and Fastnet winner Dorade , which he designed for his father.

From a distance, Maltese Falcon looks like a tea clipper from the days of Cutty Sark and Thermopylae. It’s only when you get closer that you notice that there’s no gap between the sails on each mast, that the yards are curved, and that her masts are unstayed.

She was built as a proof-of-concept for DynaRig, a system originally conceived in Germany in the 1960s as a means of powering cargo ships after the first oil crisis. It was abandoned because there was no way at the time to make the rig light enough.

The man with the imagination and drive to get her designed and built was ‘Valley Boy’ Tom Perkins, who once worked for Silicon Valley company Hewlett Packard, then created the groundbreaking venture capital company that helped launch companies such as Google and Amazon. So perhaps it’s not surprising that, even in his mid-70s, he was the man to see that Dynarig’s time had arrived - thanks to modern materials such as carbon fibre - and to have the skills and the drive to get his proof-of-concept built.

First, he bought a clipper-like steel hull that had been on Fabio Perini’s hands for a while, and commissioned Perini to modify it for his purposes - for a start, the hull had to be braced to carry three unstayed masts and the gear to rotate them.

Next, he built a manufacturing facility next door to the Turkish Perini Navi yard, in which he built the rig, since neither Perini nor anyone else had the necessary equipment or personnel. After Falcon was built, he gave the facility to Perini.

There are several photos of Maltese Falcon in the public domain, (take a look at Gaetan Lee’s view on flickr.com) some with and some without sails set, but the only ones I have seen which show clearly how the sail-setting system works are in the January 2007 issue of Yachting World, which you can buy in electronic form from Zinio . The middle of each sail is pulled by extra boltropes towards the mast, where it is furled onto a concealed drum in the forward section of the mast. The leeches draw in towards the centre and end up rolled on the drum. This system allows the unfurled sail to be set clear of the front of the mast, as a clean arc-of-a-circle aerofoil.

Perkins says that the royals (the top sails, as in a traditional square-rigger) account for up to 40% of the heeling moment. At first, this sounds unlikely, but I think I can understand why.

Wind velocity increases with height quite rapidly over the first few hundred feet - try flying a big kite and you’ll feel the proof after you launch it and start making it climb. This means that apparent wind angle at the mast head is greater than at deck level.

Watch a traditional square-rigger on a reach - you’ll see the upper yards squared off more than the lower ones if her sails are properly trimmed. She has loose-footed sails which can be set with a twist, but Dynarig sails can’t do this. Even if the yards were allowed to rotate independently about the mast, the sails couldn’t take the resulting twist - both head and foot boltropes are firmly held by the upper and lower yards and the cloth doesn’t stretch.

This means that every sail on a given mast, from course to royal, is set at the same angle to the boat’s centreline. In turn, this means that you have to trim the yards so that the royals are just below their stalling angle of attack and the courses will be at quite a low angle of attack - hence the royals are generating more power in proportion to their area than the courses are.

So it’s true that taking in the royals will drastically reduce the heeling moment of the rig, but this is partly because the remaining sails are under-trimmed. After taking in the royals, Tom probably re-trims the sails and adds back a bit of heel…

I’ve just received e-mail notification that the Prime Minister’s Office has responded to the petition that so many of you signed. Here is the link:

Military Hospital Petition Response

Use the comments section of this post to tell me what you think. My immediate take is that it does not address the claim that Selly Oak didn’t have the capacity to handle the casualties from one para unit in one campaign…