From a very young age we've all learned about ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. Ben Franklin was one of the early folks to write about it in detail. For thousands of years sailors have been making their way about the planet using ocean currents to their advantage when ever possible. Sailboat racers spend a lot of time, energy, and thought plotting the best way to cross the Gulf Stream on their way to Bermuda. Finding that perfect spot to cross the steam often results in trophies and accolades at the the finish line. So in prepartion for your next ocean voyage check out this video to get the most comprehensive and condensed view the our planet's ocean currents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xusdWPuWAoU
Charlie
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Blogging, It's a Lifestyle
Last year on April 28 I started blogging. I wrote a total of 42 posts. It was fun. I enjoyed doing it. It also was a pressure cooker! Finding topics to write about. Finding words to express things well. Finding the right balance between light hearted and deeply serious...... and then the followers...so intimidating to "have followers". ..Well not really. Granted there were only a handful, and they were mostly folks I begged. (thank you) ..but still ..the ..pressure.. Now the truth and confession. I ran out of gas. CBI went through a lot in the previous year getting the new piers built while pushing our programming onwards and upwards. And I just ran out of gas. Now anyone who knows me, knows that this new age of social media is dragging me along kicking and screaming. However, now is now and then was then, and bloggin is a lifestyle, so today I sit before my computer, newly energized with the dawning 2012 sailing season before us, and a lot to write about. CBI is an exciting place to be lately and it will be my goal to communicate to the entire world how incredible this place is. So here's is some of the latest news.
CBI has a new website. We've tried to make the web site work better and present CBI with more pictures, more video, more fun, more excitement...in short more of everything that we think makes CBI so special.
In addition to our email newsletter we are using Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube. You can expect to see more and more of our communication through these media.
CBI is adding two Sonars to out fleet. They'll be coming online in the next few months.
And about those pink bouys at the top of the Mercuries..... Some of you may have noticed a shocking pink splash of color living at the top of our Mercury masts this spring. This came out of experiments last year with various floats at the top of the masts. Our goal here is twofold. One, to minimize the number of capsized Mercuries that "turtle", turning fully upside-down and sticking their mast into the mud, and two, increase visibility of our fleet. Anyone who has ever had to evacuate our entire fleet of sailboats from the river in advance of a summer thunderstorm can appreciate improving our ability to identify our boats. As is our usual method we are constantly testing ways to improve our programming and on-the-water safety. Our hope is that the new bright floats at the top of the mast will serve this purpose.
There's much more to report but I want to save that for my next postings. So stay tuned. Finally, I want to express a big thank you to the many volunteers who have been helping in the shop this past winter and at work parties. Thank you!
Opening Day : SATURDAY, MARCH 31 OPEN HOUSE
Cheers,
Charlie
CBI has a new website. We've tried to make the web site work better and present CBI with more pictures, more video, more fun, more excitement...in short more of everything that we think makes CBI so special.
In addition to our email newsletter we are using Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube. You can expect to see more and more of our communication through these media.
CBI is adding two Sonars to out fleet. They'll be coming online in the next few months.
And about those pink bouys at the top of the Mercuries..... Some of you may have noticed a shocking pink splash of color living at the top of our Mercury masts this spring. This came out of experiments last year with various floats at the top of the masts. Our goal here is twofold. One, to minimize the number of capsized Mercuries that "turtle", turning fully upside-down and sticking their mast into the mud, and two, increase visibility of our fleet. Anyone who has ever had to evacuate our entire fleet of sailboats from the river in advance of a summer thunderstorm can appreciate improving our ability to identify our boats. As is our usual method we are constantly testing ways to improve our programming and on-the-water safety. Our hope is that the new bright floats at the top of the mast will serve this purpose.
There's much more to report but I want to save that for my next postings. So stay tuned. Finally, I want to express a big thank you to the many volunteers who have been helping in the shop this past winter and at work parties. Thank you!
Opening Day : SATURDAY, MARCH 31 OPEN HOUSE
Cheers,
Charlie
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What's the best way to improve your sailing skills?
The absolute best way to develop and improve your sailing skills is to go racing. Even if you are less than thrilled with the competitive adenaline that racing can bring out in folks, there is absolutely no better way to become a better sailor. Clear;ly I'm biased here. But my bias is from a lifetime of sailing, racing, cruising, and teaching/coaching. Because of my experience on the race course, my cruising skills are better than most. Racing teaches boathandling, sail trim, awareness of wind, current, weather,...the list goes on. So if you want to improve your skills as a sailor this year, no matter how good you think you are, you need to go racing. Here's how:
Click here
Charlie
Click here
Charlie
Monday, April 25, 2011
Great news for the Charles River!
The last couple of years I have learned more about algae in the Charles River than I really wanted. While the Charles River has been getting dramatically cleaner over the past 10 to 15 years, in the last few years we have witnessed problems with algae blooms which raised concerns about human contact with the water. The algae can produce toxic stuff which may (NOTE THE WORD MAY) not be so great to come in contact with and certainly not to ingest. The science is incomplete and therefore lends itself to many, often conflicting, conclusions. Simply put, add the right mix of nutrients in the water (I suspect we may want to have a word with the folks upstream who apply fertilizer to their lawns), add sunlight, warm it up and algae has a feast. To be fair this algae may be responsible for giving our planet oxygen. For that I will always be grateful. But all things in their proper time and place I say. At the risk of being one more NIMBY person, I say go make your oxygen somewhere else.
So here is some great news. Power plants create a lot of heat and have to constantly cool things down. The Kendall power station in Cambridge is no different. As I understand it in the past they would use river water to cool things off and then when done return it to the river. However, it would still be kind of warm, maybe 100 degrees Fahrenheit +/-. So the really good news is that they are implementing new technology that will reduce the amount of warm water returning by 95%....95%!! That's a lot a percent. Here is the link to the article about this great development for all of us who play on the Charles River.
Charlie
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/02/02/power_plant_plan_to_cut_discharge_send_heat_to_boston/?page=1
So here is some great news. Power plants create a lot of heat and have to constantly cool things down. The Kendall power station in Cambridge is no different. As I understand it in the past they would use river water to cool things off and then when done return it to the river. However, it would still be kind of warm, maybe 100 degrees Fahrenheit +/-. So the really good news is that they are implementing new technology that will reduce the amount of warm water returning by 95%....95%!! That's a lot a percent. Here is the link to the article about this great development for all of us who play on the Charles River.
Charlie
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/02/02/power_plant_plan_to_cut_discharge_send_heat_to_boston/?page=1
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Dock project approaching completion!
On opening day (April 1) under snow and rain I espoused to the news cameras that it was really 80 degrees and sunny at Community Boating. I think I mentioned something about weather being a state of mind. hmmm...I know I was feeling the fact that being open at all on April 1st was really quite remarkable. To have seen, day to day, the dock construction throughout the winter and perhaps understand better than most that there were many more reasons for the project to fall behind than push ahead, such as a brutal winter and materials coming from third world countries on slow boats, I am still pinching myself to see that we are open and coming close to completion. Some of the areas still being worked on include the 420 floats, the high performance floats, the boat ramp by the crane, the fence around the facility, some areas of decking and bumpers along the edges of the entire structure. There's also a "punch list" being worked through. I'm feeling pretty comfortable that we will see the entire facility 100% by mid May. Keep an eye out on this web site, blog, and Basin Breezes, for info about when windsurfing and Lasers will be "open". They're coming soon!
Spending so much of my attention and energy focused on the construction project makes me miss paying more attention to sailing. This is one reason why I really appreciate our great staff. There's a reason why CBI received a lot of awards this past winter from the US Sailing Association. Thanks to the work of our program directors this winter we will see great programming again this summer. Just today we have a group of kids from two Boy's and Girl's clubs embarking on a week long course of sailing instruction - a jump start to the summer junior program. Last weekend CBI hosted an important high school qualifying regatta. Sign-ups for the Accessible Sailing Program are underway and the adult program will see a continuing emphasis on on-the-water instruction and advanced classes such a sailboat racing (Look to our class schedules on the web site to see what's being offered). While I honestly feel a little pride for all of us in the new facility, I am most excited about what we will do with it in the future. It's no mystery - we're gonna turn more and more folks, young and old, into sailors. Think of that song " What the world needs now....(more sailors!)
Charlie
Spending so much of my attention and energy focused on the construction project makes me miss paying more attention to sailing. This is one reason why I really appreciate our great staff. There's a reason why CBI received a lot of awards this past winter from the US Sailing Association. Thanks to the work of our program directors this winter we will see great programming again this summer. Just today we have a group of kids from two Boy's and Girl's clubs embarking on a week long course of sailing instruction - a jump start to the summer junior program. Last weekend CBI hosted an important high school qualifying regatta. Sign-ups for the Accessible Sailing Program are underway and the adult program will see a continuing emphasis on on-the-water instruction and advanced classes such a sailboat racing (Look to our class schedules on the web site to see what's being offered). While I honestly feel a little pride for all of us in the new facility, I am most excited about what we will do with it in the future. It's no mystery - we're gonna turn more and more folks, young and old, into sailors. Think of that song " What the world needs now....(more sailors!)
Charlie
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Opening Day is Here! Weather Forecast - Sunny, 80
Have you ever considered that weather is a state of mind? I hope so. Because I have for a long time now been boasting and bragging that it is always Sunny and 80 on the dock at CBI, ......which it is. In fact I even promised my boss (CBI's Board of Directors) that we would open on April 1 and I would personally deliver a sunny, gorgeous, and warm day. Recently a few naysayers have pointed out to me that the weather forecast for tomorrow includes snow. What's your point I say? Let's consider... Isn't weather as we generally know it something that we experience? And haven't we all noticed how no two people can be counted on to recount in the same way experiences that they allegedly share? Therefore we see that no experience is the same for any two individuals and therefore experience is an invalid basis for quantifying states of being and any related issues. So while it may appear to some that snow, rain and cold will be the dominant features of the weather tomorrow, the truth is that it will be warm, sunny, and windy.
Welcome to the 2011 sailing season!
Charlie
Welcome to the 2011 sailing season!
Charlie
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Opening Day Weather Forecast
Beautiful weather expected for Opening Day. In fact the weather is going to be so brilliant that no matter what the weather actually is, it is going to be beautiful, brilliant, fantastic and generally wonderful. This is a fact. And I am willing to stand by this forecast no matter what. So here are the plans we have made.
Thanks to a lot of hands helping out at the work party last Saturday (65 in total) we got a lot of the boathouse put back into order. Starting tomorrow we will be launching, with the help of the contractor's crane, R19s, Sonars, and Launches. The focus on Saturday will Mercuries in the slip - as many as possible. That will give us all of next week to rig, tune, and tweak. We invite everyone to take next Friday off from work, come lend a hand in the morning and go for a sail in the afternoon. I have to confess that I am so excited to get the 2011 sailing season off and running and do it on April 1. A part of me really thought that we might not be able to sail until mid April. So a big hats off to the management team at the DCR and the crew at CRC Contractors for pushing this project all the way through. Remember what this winter was like? The workers who built this dock never took a break even when the wind, snow, and cold seemed unbearably harsh.
Now onto a more worrying subject.. There are not many who sail at CBI who do not recognize the ebullient southern voice of Jim Johnson. I don't know if I've ever met a more enthusiastic sailor in my life. One thing I've learned at CBI over many years is how easily enthusiasm in our adult members turns into a certain childishness. I am of course completely immune to this. Jim on the other hand, is another story. While purportedly visiting the boathouse to renew his membership for 2011, Jim was found to be preparing to rig a Mercury and go sailing. Photos attached.
Upon interrogation Jim explained "there is a pretty good wind today." Well, yes Jim there sure is but that doesn't make what you were doing right....does it? .....mmmmmm........... there sure is a nice wind.......mmmmmmmm...... gotta go....
Charlie
Thanks to a lot of hands helping out at the work party last Saturday (65 in total) we got a lot of the boathouse put back into order. Starting tomorrow we will be launching, with the help of the contractor's crane, R19s, Sonars, and Launches. The focus on Saturday will Mercuries in the slip - as many as possible. That will give us all of next week to rig, tune, and tweak. We invite everyone to take next Friday off from work, come lend a hand in the morning and go for a sail in the afternoon. I have to confess that I am so excited to get the 2011 sailing season off and running and do it on April 1. A part of me really thought that we might not be able to sail until mid April. So a big hats off to the management team at the DCR and the crew at CRC Contractors for pushing this project all the way through. Remember what this winter was like? The workers who built this dock never took a break even when the wind, snow, and cold seemed unbearably harsh.
Now onto a more worrying subject.. There are not many who sail at CBI who do not recognize the ebullient southern voice of Jim Johnson. I don't know if I've ever met a more enthusiastic sailor in my life. One thing I've learned at CBI over many years is how easily enthusiasm in our adult members turns into a certain childishness. I am of course completely immune to this. Jim on the other hand, is another story. While purportedly visiting the boathouse to renew his membership for 2011, Jim was found to be preparing to rig a Mercury and go sailing. Photos attached.
Upon interrogation Jim explained "there is a pretty good wind today." Well, yes Jim there sure is but that doesn't make what you were doing right....does it? .....mmmmmm........... there sure is a nice wind.......mmmmmmmm...... gotta go....
Charlie
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