Awesome! Surfing Pic.


Pete Cabrinha. Jaws. PHOTO Rick Leeks

More pics at Billabong XXL.

Vendee Globe Upadte.


At the 1900 GMT ranking tonight, Vincent Riou (PRB) has closed down to within just 4.6 miles of Jean Le Cam Bonduelle) according to the distance to the goal, the first of the gateways to the southern ocean, a waypoint off South Africa. On the water this translates as a 76 mile lateral difference with PRB to the north east of Bonduelle. The big question tonight is whether the expected wind shift will indeed kick in from the south-east as forecast favouring the latter’s course or whether Riou will be able to win this particular game in a virtual sense at least, by favoring heading over speed, down just over a knot on the leader.

Whatever the case Sébastien Josse (VMI), Roland Jourdain (Sill et Véolia) and Mike Golding (Ecover) also have the emphasis on heading. Alex Thomson(Hugo Boss) is strangely holding onto his northerly option despite losing ground on the frontrunners which may mean that he is suffering further technical problems preventing him from joining the others, or he is waiting to begin a secret attack in the 8 hour “twilight zone” between tonight’s last ranking and the next one at 0400 GMT tomorrow.

Currently the leader is level with the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha to its right as he drops down the southern Atlantic, 275 miles off Natal on the Brazilian mainland. After having multiplied the manœuvres of late to escape the doldrums as quickly as possible, the leading competitors set out on a long port tack yesterday that is likely to last several days.

Rankings as of Friday, November 19, 2004 - 04:00 AM GMT
1. Bonduelle, Jean Le Cam, 20503.3 miles to finish
2. PRB, VIncent RIou, 11.7 miles to leader
3. VMI, Sébastien Josse, 23.8
4. Sill Véolia, Roland Jourdain, 57.3
5. Ecover, Mike Golding, 79.3
6. Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson, 110.7
7. Virbac-Paprec, Jean-Pierre Dick, 177.6
8. Temenos, Dominique Wavre, 213.7
9. Pro-Form, Marc Thiercelin, 244.6
10. UUDS, Hervé Laurent, 253.3
11. Hellomoto, Conrad Humphreys, 264.4
12. Skandia, Nick Moloney, 267.3
13. VM Matériaux, Patrice Carpentier, 267.6
14. Arcelor Dunkerque, Joé Seeten, 270.5
15. Ocean Planet, Bruce Schwab, 326.8
16. AKENA Vérandas, Raphaël Dinelli, 484.2
17. Max Havelaar / Best Western, Benoît Parnaudeau, 498.0
18. Benefic, Karen Leibovici, 524.3
19. ROXY, Anne Liardet, 538.2
20. Brother, Norbert Sedlacek, 858.3

Vende Globe webiste.

Cuba Libre. Drink recipe.
Rum, rum, rum I love rum.


Ingredients:
Ice cubes or cracked ice
2 ounces white Bacardi or Hana Bay silver rum
2 1/2 ounces (more or less) Coca-Cola
1 lime wedge (optional)

Preparation:
Place ice in a tall glass and pour the rum over it. Fill the glass with Coca-Cola, and add lime if you wish.

Silverskiff Trophy 2004. Rowing Pics

Sculling on the Po River.


Juri Jaanson the men's winner.

The winners of the 13th annual Silverskiff Trophy were Juri Jaanson of Estonia for the men's race and Ekaterina Karsten of Belarussia for the women.

More pics at row2k.

Kowabunga dude!

For God's (and your) sake stay out of shark infested waters.


Click to see

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- A great white shark estimated to be at least 18 feet long attacked and presumably killed an elderly South African woman Monday off a beach near Cape Town, officials said.

Tyna Webb, 77, who lived in the area, was swimming Monday off Sunny Cove in Fish Hoek when the massive shark circled her and then attacked, witnesses and officials said. About 15 people witnessed the attack.

"All that was left was a little red bathing cap," said Paul Dennett, who witnessed the attack from his home nearby.
More...

Raft up. Bodrum Cup Photo


Annual wooden boat race in Turkey.


Photo from Maxranchi.com

Airborne! Surf Photo


Fantastic!

Photo from "New Dawn: Indonesia's Post Modern Revival" SURFER Magazine

Roland Jourdain racks up a 385 mile day...


Sill et Véolia has once again increased the best distance covered in 24 hours after a blinder of a day racking up 385 miles.

Vendee Globe official site.

Vendee Globe. Sailing Pic.


The Start of the Vendee Globe. Hervé Laurent (UUDS) and Marc Thiercelin (Pro-Form) fight it out.

The Vendée Globe countdown. 4 days to go for the around the world race.

The Vendée Globe 2004 – 2005 Skippers:

Patrice Carpentier
Jean-Pierre Dick
Raphaël Dinelli
Mike Golding
Conrad Humphreys
Sébastien Josse
Roland Jourdain
Hervé Laurent
Jean Le Cam
Karen Leibovici
Anne Liardet
Nick Moloney
Benoît Parnaudeau
Vincent Riou
Bruce Schwab
Norbert Sedlacek
Joe Seeten
Marc Thiercelin
Alex Thomson
Dominique Wavre

The Vendée Globe is the big papa race of sailing. It is a singlehanded, non-stop around the world - an endurance race for boat and competitor.

Don't fall! Sailing Pic



This photo comes from the Global Challenge. The view from above on the "Me To You" skippered by James Allen

Pro Am Regatta Pictures from Bermuda. Sailing Pics






Starboard!


Sorry

2004 U.S. Olympic Rowing Medalists to Participate at the Head of the Charles

Women's eight on the medal stand at the 2004 Olympic Games. Photo by Ed Hewitt.

The 2004 U.S. Olympic-medal winning men’s and women’s eights will come together on Saturday at the 2004 Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston for the first time since bringing home gold and silver medals, respectively, from Athens. Although the two crews will not be racing in tact in the championship eights races, they will row down the course as part of this weekend’s activities. ...more.

Cats on Lake Pontchartrain. Sailing Pic.



Sailing in "The Big Easy."
2004 International Catamaran Challenge Trophy,
also known as the "Little America's Cup."

Photo from by Southern Yacht Club.

Check out this sled! Alex Thomson getting ready for the Vendee Globe.


British skipper Alex Thomson and HUGO BOSS(The Boat) arrive at Les Sables d'Olonne, in preparation for the start of Vendée Globe on 7th November 2004.

Aussies win another sailing shindig.


Aussie super maxi Alfa Romeo beat 1,960 other yachts in the 36th annual Barcolana Cup, taking Line Honors for the second year in a row.

On the positive side of life.


Blind sailor Scott Duncan conducts sea trials before setting out on his round the world sail.

Scott Duncan, 38, and Pamela Habek, 42, have left San Francisco for an around the world sail which would make them the first blind people to circumnavigate the Earth.

From The San Francisco Chronicle: byMichael Taylor

To the cheers of about a dozen well-wishers, some of them waving their white canes in the air, Duncan reversed his boat, Tournesol, out of its slip at Pier 39 at 12:35 p.m. Monday and the couple set out to circumnavigate the globe.

Carl Augusto, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, said that as far as he knows, this around-the-world voyage by a blind couple is a first. The foundation is one of about 25 sponsors that are helping to pay the estimated $300,000 cost of the two-year voyage.

For Duncan and Habek, it's a chance to show the world, as Duncan put it, that "disabled people can do this. We can't drive a car at 60 mph, but we can drive a boat at six knots." Before they set out Monday, they both worked as associate executive directors at San Francisco's Rose Resnick Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and lived in San Francisco.

Duncan is not totally blind, but he has 20/450 vision in his left eye and what he calls "20-nothing" in his right. With corrective lenses, Habek's vision is 20/200. Jerry Kuns, a totally blind man who is a friend of Duncan and Habek, and who came along to help send them off, said, "They're seeing less than 10 percent of a normal person."

A couple of obvious questions come to mind for Duncan and Habek. How do you see where you're going? How do you know where you're going? How do you, well, sail this thing around the world without accidentally killing yourselves?

Duncan leads a couple of visitors down below and points out the array of electronic aids that help the modern sailor get nearly any place he wants to go.

"First and foremost, radar," Duncan said. "I can read it with a magnifying glass and it gives a broad picture of what's in front of the boat."

Then there's the talking Global Positioning System. It tells Duncan and Habek their speed, position and distance from various waypoints. They also have charts and a 10-power video magnifier -- a souped-up magnifying glass - - that they can place over charts.

These aids, along with his quarter century of experience in sailing, will help him and Habek get Tournesol down the coast to Panama, then out across the Pacific and Indian oceans, around the tip of South Africa, across to Brazil, then through the Panama Canal, to Hawaii and back home.

Asked why he's doing this, Duncan, who once taught at a camp for blind children, said, "I wanted to make a statement for visually impaired kids. I told the kids at the camp that you have to work harder when you're blind. I kept telling them they can do more than they think they can do.

"Next time you see a blind person, think, well, they're different, but I don't necessarily need to do something for them," he said. "Nothing drives me more crazy than when I'm crossing a street and someone grabs my arm."

It's a sentiment echoed by many blind people and certainly by the American Foundation for the Blind.

"Blind people are constantly struggling to be viewed as equal in their ability with sighted people," Augusto said in an interview from his home in New Jersey. "And sometimes it takes an extraordinary accomplishment on someone's part ... to show the sighted world that blind people are capable of living, working and achieving with dignity and success alongside their sighted peers."

Of course, Duncan has been pretty self-sufficient and successful for much of his life. He had his own company -- AccessAbility Inc., , a firm that made computer systems for the blind. He sold it and made enough money to be able, with help from the sponsors, to sail Tournesol around the world.

Asked about the possibility of hitting a barely submerged container that has fallen off that 900-foot freighter that might loom in their path some night, Duncan, whose T-shirt bears the legend "Fear Sucks," simply points out the boat's "ditch bag."

The ditch bag has food and water for five days, a first-aid kit and a radio transmitter that sends a signal to rescue authorities worldwide. The boat also has a life raft that can automatically inflate and a dinghy powered by an outboard motor.

For her part, Habek, who came to sailing later in life, says she's going on the trip because she had been working at the organization for the blind for 16 years and "it was the perfect time to transition into something else."

Habek is no stranger to the sea -- she grew up in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and her father was a longtime rigger for Hinckley Yachts, one of the world's best-known boatyards. But she didn't really get into serious sailing until she met Duncan.

"I have qualms," she conceded. "I think about things like thunder and lightning, and about the idea that there's no one on the bridge of a tanker."

Then suddenly, the voyage was at hand. The lines were singled up. The engine was churning. Duncan and Habek stood on the bow and their friends raised a toast of champagne.

"It's not often in life that you do something and at the same time send an important message and still have a wonderful adventure," Duncan said. "Cheers! We love you! OK, you guys, we're going to blow this place."

Readers may follow the voyage at www.blindsailing.com.

See Gitana fly! Sailing Pic.



Gitana X shows some skin in this photo before she took a tumble and capsized.

Nick Moloney getting ready for the Vendee Globe. Sailing Pic



Nick Moloney taking his Open 60 Skandia through some sea trials before the VENDÉE GLOBE. "It is so important to check everything, then check it again and again and again," said Nick.