Thursday night. Free for everyone. 2012 racing season skipper’s meeting follows the talk.
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America’s Cup Live Broadcasts This Weekend If you have the time and interest you can tune in to the live broadcasts of the America's Cup series races from Venice this weekend. Quite a treat to hear the familiar "Guys, we got a cluster f**k here" spoken by a highly paid athlete in an Australian accent.
It's an amazing sight with the Cup catamarans racing in the narrow confines of the bay in front of lovely and historic Venice. You can find the races at http://www.youtube.com/AmericasCup. |
 Poised and Ready For Her New Wood and Lead Keel at The Shipwright's CO-OP The latest issue of the Port Townsend Marine Trades Association Spring 2012 Newsletter is out and as always full of interesting stories on the projects and talented trades people who work in PT’s marine trades. You can download your own copy here. Here’s a small sample to wet your appetite. More pictures and stories on the work being done on MARTHA are available here. The Schooner Martha By Rick Petrykowski In the aftermath of the mid-January snowstorm, we sat down with Robert D’Arcy and Chris Grace to get the skinny about Schooner MARTHA’s current restoration at the Shipwright’s Co-op. But first we needed to hear about MARTHA’s stellar performance in the Round the County Race in November 2011. Sponsored by the Orcas Island Yacht Club, the Round the County is one of the Northwest’s premier races, open to all classes, which brings a big turnout to the starting line at Lydia Shoal. Boats participating in the “little jaunt” circumnavigate the San Juan Islands counterclockwise or clockwise on alternating years. The forecast for the race on delivery day was for winds @ 25-50 knots with a large swell. Still, of the 70 entrants, there were no cancellations for Saturday’s start. Interest piqued on the big boats (“the Monstatrucks”); NEPTUNE’s CAR, ICON, BRAVEHEART and MARTHA. Out thru Peavine Pass into Rosario Strait, north to Clark, Matia and Sucia, turning west at Patos thru Boundary Pass to Haro Strait and then the push to Saturday’s finish at Roche harbor, her crew’s local knowledge and timing of current changes helped MARTHA seize the advantage. When the first day’s results came out, MARTHA’s time was first in her division and first overall! – to which Holly Kays (Mrs. Martha) said, “Oh my!”  http://project.kiteboat.com/ After helping finish up one of the first GP 26s with Brook Dees, and Jim Antrim’s Class 40 built at Berkeley Marine, Dan is again in the Bay area working on the Kiteboat Project, a foiler trimaran that is powered by a kite. Here’s a short report from the always entertaining Mr. Newland. “The boat is a kick. The hulls are 25′ long and weigh about 90 lbs each and (I’m not kidding), overbuilt. We could take probably 20 lbs out of them. Everything is carbon and the core is Nomex. VERY stiff but you can litereally put a half-hull under your arm and carry it off.” “The systems are interesting and fairly complex. The foils are “J” shaped and tied to the bow “sensors” i.e. paddle like deals that move when waves hit them to keep the boat from porpoising. The “T” foil rudder has a swiveling box with electric trim to adjust height. Then there are the kite launching poles, reels, controls…the list goes on. Anyway, it’s fun and great working with these guys. Most came from BMW/Oracle and built the trimaran so they are used to this stuff. Good guys, all. OH! and Tom George is good friends with one guy, Gabe Murphy. He grew up on Guemes Island in the SJ’s and ferried to school in Anacortes.” A welcome to a new voice on the PTSA site, Larry Fisher of the mighty Columbia 30, SILENT WAY.  The price on this boat is dropping $1000 a day. PHRF 117 NW What if you built it and they didn’t come? Jim Lee has built a wonderful new 26-foot sport boat up in Anacortes, but customer response has been underwhelming. Actually, he hasn’t been able to sell a single one in two years. So he’s hit on a radical measure to sell hull #2 and make way for #3: a reverse auction. He’s lowering the price $1,000 a day until the boat sells. You can follow the auction here. Base price on a Dart is $49,950, before sails, instruments, and so on. But this one, tricked out with all the trimmings, would be $73,767 plus shipping. As of today, February 3, it’s going for $62,000. That’s still a good deal of money, but given today’s materials and manufacturing costs, it’s not out of line. And it’s built here. In a more buoyant economy, ahem, Jim would surely have sold some boats by now. The 21st annual Shipwrights’ Race is coming right up on Saturday, February 25th. Round up your hibernating crew or pick up some fresh crew here on this site or at the skippers’ meeting and get ready for a fun race with wacky trophies and valuables prizes. You’ll have the choice of three fleets — [...] |
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