Coop's Corner

  Time once was when if you went to a sailboat race the organizers started the race. Unless there was no wind, or serious fog. If there was “too much” wind, great don’t start. Sadly, this is no more. The idea that it’s blowing too hard has had the threshold of what constitutes too hard gradually lowered. If the threshold windspeed, at which the organizers deem it too windy, continues to fall, perhaps we will all end…

‘Tis that time again. After losing the 2020 race to COVID, the Cruising Club of America’s Newport Bermuda Race is on for 2022. Many Safety at Sea certificates have lapsed and considering this year’s race has roughly 220 entries, the demand for new, current certificates is high. The Annapolis to Bermuda Race, aka The Bermuda Ocean Race, is on again too. They have at this writing 37 entries, so when summed to 220, there are close to…

The statement “The America’s Cup has changed a lot in the past 40 years” qualifies as a gold medal, AAA, five-star understatement of substantial proportions. Certainly, the boats are in a different league than the plodding ol’ 12 Metres, but the thing I have been thinking about is how the crews are assembled. To write on this topic properly I would need to consult THE Tome on the America’s Cup, the late Bob Fisher’s two-volume history, An…

Don’t panic, dear reader. I’m not leaving; just reflecting this month on memories. I am occasionally asked, “if I miss Australia.” Well, that is a difficult question that does not truly have an elevator pitch answer. Depending on the circumstances, where we are and who is asking, there are a couple of versions. Sound bite: “Well, I have not lived there for forty years. I have lived in the U.S. longer than I lived in Australia.” The…

My memory of the first time I did my own boat work was in the middle ‘60s. The work was fiberglass taping. The boat in question was my Sabot. A hard chine, plywood, garage-built boat Dad had bought to act as a tender for the big boat and to get me sailing on my lonesome. The amount of lonesome sailing I put on the boat ultimately caused some leaking through the chines. Your boat, your fix was…

One of the inspirations that led to Bob Salmon inventing the Mini Transat in about 1976 was the burgeoning costs of the O.S.T.A.R. From that race’s invention and first edition in 1960, it had exploded to the point where the boats, and equipment, were light years past the budgets of the average bear. The first O.S.T.A.R. had five boats with everyone sailing “what they brung,” boats they already owned. The second, in 1964, had fifteen entries and…

Passion must be a top contender for stoking the soul, to get it up to red ember hot, temperature. Passion is a curious thing. Not sure I, or anyone, can explain, or define it, but I humor myself I can see it, or appreciate it, or realize someone has it when I am exposed to it… In our own arena, manifest through WindCheck magazine, any one of the past 37 America’s Cup events has been oversubscribed by…

Regular readers will know of my penchant for using metaphors from Star Wars. Today’s line is “You need not be a Jedi to see into the future.” I cannot be the only sailor doing some head scratching about the results of the U.S. Olympic Sailing Team in Japan. I do not envy Paul Cayard’s new job as the director of this team. I would recommend, Paul, you get out and do as I have just done and…

As a kid, I saw the David Lean production of Lawrence of Arabia in the local cinema. I was fascinated. Of all the movie’s magnificent scenes, one continues to stand out. The one where T.E. Lawrence brings a young Arab kid into the officer’s bar in Cairo. They are both in Arab dress, filthy after having been in the desert for days, weeks. Lawrence approaches the bar and orders two lemonades. The inhabitants of the bar, the…

For the dear reader with a long memory or nothing better to do on a snowy February evening, I bring your attention to a previous Corner column, “Bresting the Ribbon,” on the ugly duckling of human diseases, Epilepsy (windcheckmagazine.com/article/bresting-the-ribbon/). Extra credit for remembering the name Phil Haydon, Ph.D., Neuroscientist extraordinaire and founder of Sail 4 Epilepsy (S4E; sailforepilepsy.org). I met Phil through the Bermuda One-Two Yacht Race community at one of their not infrequent gatherings at Newport…