H2uh0

The last one is an amazing shot of Saturn. If you go down a ways in the comments, one the posters enlarged the image for download. Go to Chris Drost 12-28 @ 1:40am to find it. Check it here.

Here's to a great 2007! Can you believe it?

Wow, Paul and had one of those spectacular sails yesterday! It was gusting to 35 when we headed out with a double reef in the main. The skies were crytal clear from the windy storm a day earlier. We could tell the wind had a very northerly component and that gave us some confidence in heading out the channel as we could put out a little jib to help us out to the bay. We got out there and it was a good 25 kts with huge swells. We got out to the end of the pier without tacking as the wind was strong and from the right direction. We headed for the lee of Angel with about a 40% jib up only. Once in the lee we hove to for lunch and had a great one with Alcatraz and the GGB in the background. After lunch we took a tack towards the pier and then decided to head back towards Angel. The wind was still strong and the knot meter hovered at 7. We locked the wheel and let the boat sail perfectly into Raccoon. We decided to tack thru and with a couple tacks we were around the corner with the help of a full main and jib. Heading home was great as we decided to head for the cut in the pier as it was a perfect heading. Got back around sunset for one of the best sails of the year! Looking forward to many more sails like this one in 2007!!

Ever want to watch the first episode of Sienfeld? Or catch the latest from Battle Star Galactica? Well now you can on your computer....for free! Check out the website here.

DEAN KARNAZES WAS SLOBBERING DRUNK. IT WAS HIS 30TH BIRTHDAY, and he'd started with beer and moved on to tequila shots at a bar near his home in San Francisco. Now, after midnight, an attractive young woman – not his wife – was hitting on him. This was not the life he'd imagined for himself. He was a corporate hack desperately running the rat race. The company had just bought him a new Lexus. He wanted to vomit. Karnazes resisted the urge and, instead, slipped out the bar's back door and walked the few blocks to his house. On the back porch, he found an old pair of sneakers. He stripped down to his T-shirt and underwear, laced up the shoes, and started running. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

He sobered up in Daly City, about 15 miles south. It was nearly four in the morning. The air was cool, slightly damp from the fog, and Karnazes was in a residential neighborhood, burping tequila, with no pants on. He felt ridiculous, but it brought a smile to his face. He hadn't had this much fun in a long time. So he decided to keep running.

When the sun came up, Karnazes was trotting south along Route 1, heading toward Santa Cruz. He had covered 30 miles. In the process, he'd had a blinding realization: There were untapped reservoirs within him. It was like a religious conversion. He had been born again as a long-distance runner. More than anything else now, he wanted to find out how far he could go. But at that exact moment, what he really needed to do was stop. He called his wife from a pay phone, and an hour later she found him in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. He passed out in the car on the way home.

Read the article by clicking here.

ICHI Ban skipper Matt Allen is no stranger to the hazards of sailing, but nothing prepared him for the cold slap in the chops that floored him during last year's Rolex Trophy Series.

"All of a sudden, I was just laid flat on the deck. I didn't see anything coming at me," he says. The next thing he noticed was a terrible smell. "I opened my eyes and there was this enormous flying fish. It had jumped straight out of the water and hit me. There was blood everywhere but fortunately most of it was his."

Copping a fish in the face earned Allen a black eye but there are more perilous aspects of yacht racing.

"People have been picked up by ropes and thrown up in the air," he says. "We've often been sailing along with (deadly) sea snakes in the water, which is not scary until you start getting waves over the boats. You think, 'This wave may have a sea snake in it'."

On his first Sydney to Hobart race, a lightning strike knocked the skipper off the helm. Allen has even dislodged sharks from boat keels. And in the 2001 race, unusual atmospheric activity produced giant water spouts.

"You wouldn't believe it could happen until you see it, it's like something straight out of Dorothy from Kansas," he says. "You think you're going to miss one and then all of a sudden, it changes course. It can pull anything off the deck, including people."

Sunfish, which weigh up to 2300 kilograms, can cause serious damage, and collisions are common.

Ocean Skins went one better in the inaugural Melbourne to Vanuatu race this year, retiring with a damaged rudder after hitting a whale.

"It was a funny feeling; it was very soft," says skipper Tony Fowler. "We cut into him and just saw this huge tail splash out. He'd gone but it stopped the boat dead."

So he was understandably nervous when the Victorian yacht found itself among a pod on the way up from Geelong for this year's Sydney to Hobart. "It looked like we were in the middle of the whale highway. I have never seen so many whales in my life," he says.

Fowler also had waves dump dozens of squid on the deck, and watched his boat turn black with ink. Most terrifying were the two rogue waves encountered in Bass Strait.

"Just out of the blue, it picks up from nowhere. You can feel the water sucking out from under you, building the momentum. We reckon the waves were as big as the boat, which is 47 foot (14.3 metres)," he says.

The waves didn't break and the boat managed to sail over them. "It still put the fear of God into us," Fowler says.

Rogue waves are most dangerous when they break on the boat, releasing huge amounts of energy. Sailing over them creates the possibility of falling into the trough behind.

Professor Michael Banner, from the University of NSW, has been developing a system that would allow meteorologists to forecast rogue waves. He knows about the damage they can do. "Have you ever seen The Perfect Storm? That's an exaggerated example of what could happen," he says.

Allen says weird astral activity such as the Southern Lights can really give seamen the spooks. "It really looks like the sky has turned all red, and sailors often worry about red skies," he says.

Superstition aside, Allen says the sight is beautiful. "You might think it was quite romantic, if you weren't on a boat with 13 sweaty blokes."

(TheOceans.net) Maud Fontenoy passed Cape Horn Thursday, thus entering the Pacific Ocean – only to meet a series of low fronts which have kept the French solo sailor on constant watch.

Already tired after experiencing major storms on the south Atlantic, Maud longs for some badly needed sleep. “How difficult it is to sail so much to the south,” she vents.

"It’s hard"

“The cold, the storms with violent gusts, the dangerous sea, the constantly black sky, the stress… The truth of the matter is that I feel on top of the world, crossing a hostile universe which I have to save myself from,” Maud reports.

“Fatigue builds up, the cold becomes increasingly overwhelming and it is difficult for me to carry out the numerous maneuvers that I must do. It’s hard.”

Champagne must wait

Traditionally, sailors crack open a bottle of champagne when they cross Cape Horn, but Maud has decided to delay the celebration until she reach milder conditions - which according to forecasts won't take place in at least another week.

Maud’s next target is Cape Leeuwin, South Australia. That will be the third cape she will turn in her solo circumnavigation, with start and finish line in Reunion Island, against the prevailing currents.

French rower Maud Fontenoy set out from St. Pierre et Miquelon, (French) Canada on June 13, 2003 in an attempt to become the first woman to row across the Atlantic West to East. 117 days and an arduous journey later, she reached that goal on October 9th, 2003.

She drank sea water, fought off sharks, and tumbled in 30 foot waves. In the final weeks she was caught up in endless circles in the North Atlantic. Cargo ships brushed pass her like giants, frightening ghosts in the night. Injured and badly beaten she pushed hard towards the east, but the strong wind and the waves took her south without mercy. She arrived at the rocky coast in agitated seas and darkness, where not even the tow ship would go out to get her. But she never gave up and she stole the heart of hard core explorers for her fighting spirit, and her romantic messages in the midst of brutal storms.

In 2005 Maud rowed solo from Peru to French Polynesia, mid-Pacific to follow the route of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. She left from Callao January 12, 2005 at 17h40 (22h40 GMT).

Maud's current sail started in October, 2006. Fontenoy departed Reunion Island (Indian Ocean) on Board the "L'Oreal Paris", a 26m long, aluminum-hulled and carbon-masted sailing vessel. She hopes to complete a solo sailing trip around the world, against the prevailing winds - across Cape of good Hope, then Cape Horn and the southern seas. Maud hopes to cross the finish line back in Reunion Island by February, 2007.

I am out on a three day bay sail to finish up a great year of sailing in SF. Sunday night I was loading the boat and felt a little wind coming thru the cockpit. Decided to hit the bay for a night sail! Clear sky, lots of stars and 8-10 kts of wind for a perfect sail. Then on Monday my friend Geoff came up for a classic December sail. 60's on the bay, beautiful sun and lots of wind from the north. We hit 6.9 on the speedo. Parked it with a hove to for lunch by Alcatraz and the Golden Gate was our backdrop. Light coming home but still some wind. Two more days of beautiful weather are in the forcast!

It seems boats are getting bigger and faster all the time. When I sail the bay and hit that occasional 8 kts it is thrilling. When I see a video of sail boats going an effortless 30 -35 knots it blows me away. I dream of some day sailing on one of these screamers, but until then I'll just keep watching the vids.