Good Old Boat – Newsletter December 2014Page 1
It’s time to remember your favorite sailor
We have a few Christmas ideas for your favorite sailor. That sailor might even be you! A gift subscription is a good idea or an extension to your current subscription works too. A Good Old BoatT-shirt, hooded zippered sweatshirt, or a long-sleeved denim shirt would go well with that. Or perhaps a GOB cap? Are you missing any back issues? Would you like us to read you a sailing story as an audiobook while you drive or exercise? How about one of our downloadable article compilations known as Archive eXtractions?
Please have a look around goodoldboat.com and audioseastories.com for holiday giving ideas. We have great gifts for all the sailors in your life.
Chicago boat show changes
The biggest blast of news out of the Windy City is that the Chicago Strictly Sail Show in January has merged with a powerboat and RV show, is now called Chicago Boat, RV & Strictly Sail Show, changed the date (it’s January 14-18), and moved to McCormick Place.
Other than that, the rest is the same. Karen and Jerry will be there with some of our staff, and our troubadour. Things are evolving on a daily basis. See more information in the Calendar section of this newsletter.
What kind of boat dog is best?
At the Annapolis Boat Show, reader Kate Murray mused about the best breeds of dogs for life as boat dogs. She’s naturally partial to the Jack Russell terrier and the Jackapoo since she lives aboard with a couple of these small companions. But what other dogs adapt well to life on the water? Portuguese water dogs are often mentioned, along with labs and retrievers. What about Yorkshire terriers or Boston terriers? (Kate has a thing for the small dogs on her small boat.) What are your suggestions? Write to Karen: and she’ll report in the next newsletter.
The cats are away . . .
Our poor overworked founders had a rough summer . . . what with launching their project boat and all. So they felt the need to take a little getaway. You know. Like a 10-day cruise in New Zealand, the poor dears. Don’t cry for them; Karen and Jerry will be sailing in the Bay of Islands when you get this newsletter, but they’ll be back soon to crack the whip over the exhausted worker mice who were left behind.
What else, you ask? They’re planning to write about their sailing experience even though Good Old Boat doesn’t publish articles about sailing destinations. It would seem that you can do pretty much anything you want if you own the company. At least that’s what they tell us when we, the worker mice, voice our opinions.
A final shot
After the many suggestions regarding what sailors do all day in the October 2014 newsletter, here’s a calming finale from John Malcolmson. He writes: “Powerboaters rush from point A to B. When the sailor steps aboard, he or she is already there.”
What’s coming in . . . January 2015
For the love of sailboats
- Mimosa, a Vineyard Vixen 34
- Vineyard Vixen 34 comparison by Rob Mazza
- C&C Mega 30
Speaking seriously
- AIS 101
- Adding a DC electrical circuit
- How sailboat rudders evolved by Rob Mazza
- Dead in the water
- Simplify sail changes
- Bottom-up head rebuild
- How to coax your VHF
- Rebuilding a deck, Part 2
- Over-the-top blocks . . .
- Cloth entryway solutions
- Bimini window treatment
What’s more
- A ton of magazines
- Finding Heidi
- Reflections: Stars in the water
- Simple solutions: Instrument sun cover
- Quick and Easys: Luff foil protection and Ablution solution
- The view from here: Milestones
In the news
With Jean-du-Sud Around the World remastered in HD
The excellent film by Yves Gélinas about his circumnavigation in an Alberg 30 has been remastered in high definition thanks to the generosity of Don Peebles, a New York sailing enthusiast. The 93-minute film was originally shot in 16-mm color 30 years ago during Yves’ solo 28,000-mile circumnavigation aboard Jean-du-Sud by way of the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn.
Intending to go sailing full-time, Don Peebles read many books about cruising under sail. In John Vigor’s Twenty Sailboats to Take You Anywhere, he read about Yves Gélinas and his award-winning film of the trip. After watching the film, Don felt it deserved to be brought up to HD standards. He contacted Yves and offered to have a 16-mm print remastered and color graded to high definition in a New York facility at his own expense.
In January 2014, Yves traveled to New York City for the restoration and was thrilled with the result: “It is a whole new film,” he said. “The picture is sharp and crisp again, colors are vibrant, true to life — a new life is given to my film!”
Yves was an actor and filmmaker before he went sailing. His goal was to create a work of art that would paint a moving picture of his voyage and become his “masterpiece.” With Jean-du-Sud Around the World was twice awarded the Palme D’Or at the prestigious La Rochelle International Sailing Film Festival. In addition, it was entered in seven international film festivals and won nine awards: five gold and one silver. The film has been broadcast on television in eleven countries and has sold thousands of copies on VHS, DVD, and as a standard definition download. Now it will be available in its full beauty through high definition.
Yves designed the self-steering gear that guided Jean-du-Sud around the world. The system steers impeccably on all points of sail. Yves tested the prototype during his circumnavigation and never had to hold the tiller. The last scenes show the gear steering Jean-du-Sud into Gaspé — downwind under main and reacher, wing on wing, without a pole to keep the large headsail from collapsing. Yves achieved his goal and went on to proudly offer his self-steering gear to fellow sailors with a guarantee valid for one circumnavigation or 28,000 miles. He named the gear simply, CapeHorn, evoking the ultimate sailor’s challenge.
The restored high-definition version of With Jean-du-Sud Around the World is available as an HD Download at Information about the CapeHorn self-steering system is at
Museum exhibition features really old boats
The exhibition “Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age,” now open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, covers the first millennium B.C., when the Phoenicians plied the Mediterranean Sea (and beyond) and features several illustrations of their ships.
The exhibition will be open until January 4. The exhibition is in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall on the second floor of the museum, which is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue in New York.
Susan Gateley’s website refit
One of GOB’s favorite writers, Susan Gateley, has given her good old website a re-fit. (It's winter on her boating waters so she's beached with lots of time). The website has been afloat since 1997 and recently went aloft to the Cloud, wherever that is, so she thought it was a good time for an overhaul. Find lots of new content at “Books and More” at or via the link at
Calendar
Toronto International BoatShow
January 10–18
Direct Energy Centre
Toronto, Ontario
North America’s largest indoor boat show featuring the world’s largest indoor lake, will also feature over 550 exhibitors. For more information go to
Chicago Boat, RV & Strictly Sail Show
January 14–18 McCormick Place, South Hall
Strictly Sail Chicago and the Chicago Boat, Sports & RV Show are joining forces in 2015 to create the Midwest’s premier marine and outdoors show. There’s still a lot for sailors to see and do, including seminars featuring Nigel Calder. See the Good Old Boat crew at our new booth, S1114. For more information go to
St. Petersburg Classic Regatta aka Good Old Boat Regatta
January 17
St. Petersburg, Florida
Racing Trophies will be awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each unique racing class/division, except in the Fun class. In keeping with the fun theme of this regatta, additional special awards will be given for: Oldest Boat, Oldest Skipper, Prettiest Boat, Most Unique/Unusual Boat, Most Stylish Crew, and for other such considerations deemed worthy by the regatta committee.
Seattle Boat Show: Indoors + Afloat
January 23–February 1
Century Link Field and Lake Union
Seattle, Washington
This show features more than 200 boating and fishing seminars. For more information, go to .com.
Strictly Sail Miami
February 12–16 Miamarina at Bayside Marketplace
Miami, Florida
Back for 2015 is the popular full-day couples seminar as well as seminars on Sailing Made Easy, Advanced Sailing Skills, Introduction to Cruising Catamarans and much more. For more information, go to
St. Petersburg Classic Regatta aka Good Old Boat Regatta
January 17
St. Petersburg, Florida
Racing Trophies will be awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each unique racing class/division, except in the Fun class. In keeping with the fun theme of this regatta, additional special awards will be given for: Oldest Boat, Oldest Skipper, Prettiest Boat, Most Unique/Unusual Boat, Most Stylish Crew, and for other such considerations deemed worthy by the regatta committee. For more information, go to
Book reviews
The Boys In The Boat: Nine Americans And Their Epic Quest For Gold At The 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown (Penguin Books, 2014, 416 pages, $17.00)
Review by Chas. Hague
Des Plaines, Illinois
In this age of College Sports = Football = Big Business, it is hard to believe that crew—races between boats with two, four, or eight rowers—was one of the most popular collegiate sports in the 1930s. Thousands came out to watch the races, railroads with waterside tracks put on special trains to pace the boats, and the sports pages of the big newspapers scrutinized every word uttered by the coaches for hidden meanings. The American universities rowed against each other every year, and every four years the best crew represented the USA at the Olympics.
The Boys in the Boat tells the story of the University of Washington crew. These young men were not the scions of the rich from Harvard or Yale — they were the sons of lumberjacks, farmers, and small-town businessmen. They held part-time jobs to pay for their educations and trained in their spare time. And despite all the obstacles, they went to Berlin in 1936.
The story primarily follows Joe Rantz, who came to the University of Washington in 1933 and turned out to possess the skill set that made a champion rower. Although he is the central character in the book (author Daniel Brown interviewed him extensively), he insisted that the book be “not just about me. It has to be about the boat.”
The most marvelous part of the book is the description of how the coaches and rowers formed “the boat.” A crew is not a “team”—nine men in a shell are more than a team. They function as one entity—three-quarters of a ton of muscle and power, balanced in a cedar-wood shell 60 feet long and 2 feet wide, generating as much energy in six minutes as a basketball player does in two games played back-to back.
Two other men were part of the boat: the coxswain, Bobby Moch,who had to juggle water conditions, weather, what the other boats were doing, and his own crew, and assemble it all into split-second tactical decisions to win the race; and George Yeoman Pocock, an unassuming Englishman who sculpted wood into the best racing shells ever made. (In the 1936 qualifying races at Poughkeepsie, 17 of the 18 competing boats were made by Pocock.) He was a philosopher of rowing and his thoughts on the sport begin every chapter. The advice he gives Joe Rantz is critical to the final creation of the boat.
The book is not limited to the Washington crew. Brown did a tremendous amount of research into the families and neighbors of the rowers and the times they lived in. The chapters describing Nazi Germany, cleaned up for the Olympics, will remind readers of In the Garden of the Beasts and Voyages in Desperate Times.
The races were not all the boys had to contend with. Their opponents threw roadblocks in their way, which they overcame with the love of their families (paying their way to Germany) and their personal courage.
The accounts of the individual races are page-turners. Brown describes the thoughts and actions of the rowers, the coxswain, the coaches, the reporters, and the friends listening on radios at home in Washington as the races take place, all without a sentence wasted.
Daniel James Brown did a wonderful job in telling the story of ordinary young men who, in the depth of the Depression, formed an extraordinary entity. I guarantee you will read the account of the climactic race for Olympic gold against the five best crews in the world, with Hitler himself watching, in one sitting.
Nine Of Cups: Caribbean Stories
By Marcie Connelly-Lynn, (Nine of Cups Publications,
2013; eBook, $3.99, download at
Review by Susan Lynn Kingsbury
Port Ludlow, Washington
“Seventy percent of the earth's surface is water; there's no better way to see it than on a boat.”
Marcie Connelly-Lynn
Marcie and David Lynn embarked upon a new life in 2000 when they moved onboard their sailboat, Nine of Cups*, and sailed off to live a dream. Fourteen years later, they still feel it’s the best decision they have ever made in their lives. And it’s still fun.
Journaling about their adventures gave Marcie an abundance to write about, leading to her articles being published in Caribbean Compass Magazine, and ultimately to this book, number one in a series chronicling their world travels.
Marcie’s first book, as the title indicates, focuses on sailing the Caribbean, and she covers a lot of territory. From Saba to St. Kitts to Guadeloupe to Tobago and the Eastern Out Islands of Venezuela — and more, this tome reads like an excellent travelogue. Readers will want to be sure to read/view this eBook on a computer or newer eBook reader to get the full effect of the numerous professional quality color photos, which help to bring the travels to life.
Nine of Cups: Caribbean Storiesis not just a book about sailing from port to port, or anchorage to anchorage. Lynn describes what they encounter during their sightseeing excursions (including the history of the locales), the local people, the anchorage conditions, etc. The imagery the author puts on the pages using words gives readers a “taste” of the colors, sounds, and smells, causing one to feel as though they are along for the ride.
“ . . . We could have easily stayed here for weeks without blinking an eye. The natural beauty and pristine remoteness of these islands is a magic of its own and time doesn’t matter . . . the next set of islands beckoned . . . we listened and moved on,” wrote the author while in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Marcie and David sometimes meet up with fellow cruisers, but it is not their goal. They tend to anchor in places less traveled to meet the locals and experience the culture up close and personal — and sometimes just to enjoy the solitude. They also enjoy interacting with those indigenous to the areas they are exploring.
While having beers and burgers in Nevis, St. Kitts, they meet a Swiss couple and are invited to spend time at their nearby plantation. The visit ends up being a highlight of their adventure.
And, of course there is the story of Marvin the Magnificent, touring a rum factory, visits to numerous lighthouses, butterflies and dragonflies galore, donkeys, flamingos, iguanas and, well, each port brings a new adventure.
Sailors, cruisers and armchair voyagers alike, it is definitely worth reading.
*Note: The name “Nine of Cups” comes from a tarot card and signifies dreams come true.
Ed Cutts: Designer, Boatbuilder And “Cutts Method” Inventorby Wayne Brown (Leeward Publications, 2014, 296 pages, $19.95)
Review by Chas. Hague
Des Plaines, Illinois
Edmund A. “Ed” Cutts was an exceptionally single-minded individual. As a very young child, he watched boats off Long Island. He took his first boat ride when he was 8½ years old. When he was nine, he told his father, “That's what I want to do in life—build wooden boats.” Practically everything he did for the rest of his life was focused on that one goal. He attended the New York Maritime High School to learn how to build wooden boats. He worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, then in the Navy as a machinist, because they needed precision workers more than wooden boat builders. (He wanted to build Admiral's Gigs.)