MacGregorSailors.com

I'm still installing my stereo. About to go out and cut the speaker holes now. Hopefully I can still salvage the latter part of the weekend for sailing though...but heck, our hot and humid season is in full roll now so sailing starts becoming synonomous with sweating...

Hey wait a sec, I was sailing last night in the SPYC twilight series so I guess I've already been sailing this weekend, albeit not on a Mac. Spinnaker got tangled up on one leg so we didn't do so well. Missed third place last week by 3 seconds though. Guess this puts me in the (spoiled brat) Florida and California bracket...no biggie..

Racing boats are nice and all but very Spartan ... I sure am gonna like this new 200W stereo system (with helm remote) to go along with my microwave and kitchen sink on my waterbago... Next will be a cool video system for the kids which uses the stereo system as sound... Of course, at the rate I'm going, it will be another year or two before that is done..

This is our forecast. According to Randy, this translates to 800-900 mph winds. Yee friggin hah. I still wanna go, 20 mph winds by 3 pm.

On edit: Mom just called from the hospital today. They are going to send her home. (Shoulder replaced)

Now to figure out how to be the good son and still get some sailing in today. If its not one thing its another and no its not as bad as it sounds, I have 2 brothers. (I think theyre adopted but mom wont fess up)

Sun Jenny has to run her 20 mile practice for the race she's prepping for, see how bad it is?? all these familial obligations!!!

To sum it up:

Sat: Mom out of Hosp.
Sun: Jenny running 20
Mon: something will happen

Damn, I think I'm going sailing. I clicked Im going sailing in the poll but I shouldve clicked "If my wife lets me!!"

Mom update: got picking up mom pawned off on son #2.

Dont think Im evil. I'll stop by tonight and redeem the "Good son status"!!

Mom update: got picking up mom pawned off on son #2.

Dont hate me 'cause I'm beutiful. I'll stop by tonight and redeem the "Good son status"!!

Scott

My family committment is my father's birthday - he's an official senior citizen now. I'm one of 3 sons as well, but the only one who didn't move far, far away so I get the responsibility of doing birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, sink is plugged (that was this morning), etc.

But then I get the benefit of free last minute child care as well so...I'll put on a smile...and try to go sailing tomorrow.

And with any luck, Grandpa will invite the kids for a sleepover tonight and the Admiral and I can really enjoy a moonlight sail tomorrow night!!!

The sun is out and the rain is over; this is shaping up like a top ten weekend. Sun and temps in the 80's.

Tomorrow is the First Mate's Birthday and summer opening day at the Yacht Club. We're headed for the Lake tonight and will be back on Monday. Yee haw!!! It would be nice if we can get some breeze too, but really I don't much care.

Ok I went sailing!!

Awesome day, it was worth it. Moon, boy, you shouldve gone!!!
Winds from the SW at 18-22 or so with gusts of 25-30!!

i didnt say anything and the Skipper hadnt mentioned anything about the blow so I quietly reefed and off we went. To her benefit, she never said a word and handled her duties admirably!! Well I guess there was that one gust where we got the windows close to the water and she snappily told me to mind my job and stop shooting video.

We were under reefed main and about 30% genoa upwind and reefed main and genoa all the way out downwind.

Maintained about 4.7 to 6 knots upwind and 6-7.5 on the broad reach with a steady 8 knots downwind!! Check out the vids, Hopefully this will provide a fix for those that didnt get to go!!

Border patrol

Interesting Cat Homebuilt

Upwind, Listen to the wind!!

More upwind

Cool Kite club at the Marina

Broad reach

Wakes, the one off the transom is downwind at around 8 knots with the wind on the aft quarter.

Thanks ....I needed that.....I cant even post a photo and here you are giving us a day on the water in video.

Don't want to stray off topic, Scott, but I'd love to know how you made the videos and how you got them in flv format. (And it was great to live vicariously - ours hasn't been out yet this season!)

Windows movie maker (capture) will save them in almost any format you can think of. I did work on a few in MPeg and WMV but flv works a little better to save bandwidth and is a little more v-90 friendly.

I use a 6-7 year old dazzle digital video hook up but I imagine it would be easier with fire wire or a proprietary video transfer protocol. The dazzle was in the milk crate in the basement collecting dust so I grabbed the patch off the site and played with it. (I dont know if it would work with a reg video cam but we have a DVC and it will transfer digital.)

FYI, you can imbed vids here and it takes no more bandwidth than a photo until the user clicks it. I just didnt want to be the first, but here goes.



My mistake. You cant imbed, just link.

Wife let me (on Sat) !!!!!

Raised the mast and finished rigging while in the slip. All while watching the USCG "Eagle" get pushed by a couple of tugs up to the Quantico Marina --- and off-load 4 busses of passengers. Wasn't going to let them have all the fun. Ran with only the 150 deployed. Kept the Admiral and Swab happy as we get our sea legs back.

The Eagle was bare-polled. Hate to be the lucky midshipmen getting to haul all that canvas up the rigging to the upper rigging (first two masts were square rigged).

Maybe we should start a "Who got to go" poll for comparison?

I went as promised. You can read about it here:

http://cfcassidy.com/sevencs/blog/blog.html

Tats an awesome blog/ clog. (capt log)

I've hesitated doing this, but things are slow and here goes. Had my X in a 30 mph wind. My friend doing the video had trouble keeping the camera focused on the boat. (Sorry about all the wind noise.)



It's fun going over to the dark side every now and then. But it is a sailboat. Life is good!

The video feature on photobucket is really cool. I don't have my boat yet so I had to dig into my archives from December. We saw these guys just before sunset heading back into King Harbor in Redondo Beach. A traffic jam of a different sort here in LA;)