No actual pictures or video of last weekends wedding, but a couple videos of some of the weeks festivities have made it online so I might as well put them up as relief from the recent sailing theme around these parts. Above is a video Scott put together of our trip down 6 Mile Creek with Chugach Outdoor Center. Bellow are Wilsons’ attempts to break up our post wedding hangovers with some homemade model rockets (plastic water bottles and duct tape) which struggled to make it 100 feet in the air. Good times.
video
Archived Posts from this Category
September 7, 2011
Wedding Activities Off All Sorts: 6 Mile Creek Rafting and Model Rocket Failures
Posted by dongshow under alcohol, mitigated disasters, video | Tags: 6 Mile Creek, Model Rockets, Whitewater Rafting |Leave a Comment
August 23, 2011
Alaska Cup Yacht Racing
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Maniac, Seward, William H. Seward Yacht Club |Leave a Comment
I spent the weekend sailing aboard Gary’s boat Maniac down in Seward for the Alaska Cup Regatta this weekend. We had trouble finding crew as the weather on Saturday was nasty (don’t be fooled, the picture above is from Sunday) and people had work, girlfriend or school commitments that kept them elsewhere. We sailed all weekend slightly under manned, which kept us from flying our spinnaker the first day, and forced us to sail a race (which we won) with a somewhat improvised reef. We also sailed on saturday with a Columbian crew member who didn’t speak a word of English. On our second downwind leg our somewhat novice helmsman accidentally jibed the boat (minute 3:50 in the video bellow) while he was on the boom, pitching him into the life lines, how he avoided being tossed overboard still amazes me.
Despite the challenges we got some incredibly lucky weather, and were able to play the tide to our advantage on a few occasions allowing us to eek out a victory. We took 2nd in the last race to clinch the win by less then half a boat length. Coming in to the windward finish on starboard we were completely overpowered, and Norm (our rookie helmsman) had the tiller in his chest trying to keep the boat from rounding up. Our closest rival barged in on port and fouled us just as we were crossing the line, making for a great finish to the regatta. All in all a fantastic weekend in Seward. The WHSYC is an amazing place, and through a fantastic party Saturday night, our crew ended up drinking for a little over 8 hours post race, and were all struggling with hangovers pre-race on Sunday. The only setback was my GoPro having no end of problems on Sunday, so I have next to no footage of any racing in the sunshine. That said, enjoy the cold gray racing in the rain from Sunday. Also, if your looking for any more sailing videos I highly suggest Gary’s Kite-cam footage of sailing around outside of Seward.
August 10, 2011
Kenai Lake Windsurfing
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Cooper Landing, Kenai Lake |[2] Comments
Spent the weekend camping and Windsurfing down on Kenai Lake. We had some fantastic winds on saturday, but it was a little too light on sunday. Saturday we discovered the little bay at the Quartz Creek boat launch makes for some perfect windsurfing. A little peninsula just to our east kept a large area sheltered from most of the chop but didn’t kill the winds. Great times, the best windsurfing I’ve done to date, there was a good 15 minutes where Max and I were crossing back and forth cheering.
July 29, 2011
Arial Footage of a Giant Caribou Herd
Posted by dongshow under video | Tags: Canada, Caribou, Nunavut |Leave a Comment
Our Nunavut corespondent just sent in a little helicopter footage of a massive caribou herd. Looks to be plenty of animals up there in Canada.
July 27, 2011
Lazy Weekend Camping in the Rain
Posted by dongshow under Fish, mitigated disasters, Uncategorized, video, wind sports | Tags: dipnetting, kasilof |1 Comment
So, despite having caught all of our fish tuesday afternoon, Kim and I opted to head back down to Kasilof this weekend for some partying and windsurfing. We figured at the very least we could have fun taunting or friends about their lack of fish from the beach.
Traffic on friday evening was outrageous, and Kim and I only arrived because we avoided the highway closure by taking the Skilak Lake cutoff. Our friends that left a few hours later weren’t so lucky, and ended up camping on the highway. Friday evening was gorgeous, but by the time they all arrived early Saturday morning it began to rain, and didn’t quit until sometime Monday. Early that morning a game of Rye Bocce commenced, and moments after it finished Kim managed to roll Mikey’s four wheeler, impaling his calf, and requiring 19 stitches at the Soldotna Emergency Room.
The fishing was really slow, so very little fishing was done at all, and the rain forced us to spend most of our time beneath a tarp we strung between the trucks. Nonetheless a good time was had, Max and I even got a little Windsurfing done in the mouth of the river, despite less then co-operative winds. I managed to have all sorts of issues, and was forced to swim the board back to shore, whereupon I began throwing up. Great times for sure, and it certainly beats having to get rescued by the Coast Guard or floating out to sea. Anyway, video bellow, no footage of fish actually being caught, but plenty of the usual beach antics plus some Windsurfing.
July 14, 2011
More Sailboat Racing in Seward
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Sailing, Seward, William H. Seward Yacht Club |Leave a Comment
Hunter, Matt the Cook and I went down to Seward last weekend for more sailing on Resurrection Bay with the William H. Seward Yacht Club. Where as on my one previous day down there Max and I both sailed on Williwaw, this time Hunter ended up on Cirrus, while Matt the Cook and I were racing with Gary on Maniac (a Beneteau FC10 for the boat nerds amongst the readers). It turned out to be another great day on the water with solid winds and the occasional spot of sunshine. I’ve got some video from the first part of the first race from both Cirrus and Maniac. I put both starts, and both of our first tacks (which were in response to one another) for a bit of comparison. You can see how on Maniac we managed to completely screw our start by failing to get the sails in and general chaos amongst the first time crew members. We recovered and managed to take a3rd place, but there is definitely room for improvement.
July 9, 2011
July Wet Wednesday Series
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Alaska Sailing Club, Buccaneer 18 |Leave a Comment
More video from this past Wednesday’s races out in Big Lake at the Alaska Sailing Club. All the video is from Chris’s boat. I was sailing with Tim, and we won all three races so any video from our boat wouldn’t have contained much action. So far I only have the 1st and 3rd races, but the second race will be up added as soon as I get the chance. You’ll notice that Chris is at a serious disadvantage as the only boat on the water without a spinnaker but still manages to beat a couple boats each race. In other news, Max scored a mint condition Mistral Maui that has long been forgotten in the back of his employers warehouse, and if you are looking to buy a house, it would be hard to do much better then this beautiful property. Also Luc Mehl has some amazing pictures to go with a great story of an amazing bike, ski, raft Denali traverse from north to south.
Race 2:
Race 3:
June 28, 2011
Poking Our Toes in the Inlet
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Portage Lake, Turnagain |1 Comment
After a week of steady improvement along with a brief survey of the tide tables, Max, Hunter and I decided to test our windsurfing skills in the inlet last Saturday. We’d originally decided around a spot near McHugh Creek at 11am, and the before leaving the winds were looking favorable. But upon arrival the water looked nasty with lots of chop and some really nasty looking current. The tide was also a ways out and just getting down to the water looked to be quite a bit of a challenge. In the end I got scared and we pulled the plug, and continued on to Portage Lake. The winds were initially a little light,but things improved through out the afternoon, and after some confidence building sailing there, we decided to try in the inlet, this time near Peterson Creek. It went well, as in we didn’t float off, but staying ahead of the current was as difficult or more then we suspected. A great day of windsurfing, some video as usual bellow, this time with the additional bonus of some slash guitar Max recorded to go with the windsurfing.
June 23, 2011
Unlike some winter junkies who actually claim to love the balance a nice summer brings I really can’t stand the season and would be totally content to sleep for the next 4 months if I was able to get away with it. That said, this summer has been an improvement by my unplanned purchase of a mid 80′s Mistral Maui Windsurfer. It’s been nice learning something new, where progress seems to come about in day, rather then season, long increments. Progress has been slowed by light winds but is moving along, hopefully I’ll be out in the inlet sooner rather then later.
June 18, 2011
Wednesday Night Sailing
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Alaska Sailing Club, Big Lake, Buccaneer 18 |Leave a Comment
Last Wednesday, just as was I was about to leave the office and start making plans to watch Game 7 I got a call from Doug asking if I was available to sail that night in Big Lake. One of the usual sailors was apparently out of town and leaving us a newish Buccaneer to sail if I was interested. Without hesitation I confirmed I was in and a couple minutes later was in the car cruising out to Big Lake. Once again we were greated with great winds out of the southwest and managed to get 3 races in. Doug and I took a 3rd, and 1st and a second. The video above is from the evening’s second race. Enjoy
June 15, 2011
Seward Sailling
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Seward Yacht Club |Leave a Comment
By work connections that were both random unexpected, Max and I were able to go sailing in Seward this past Saturday for a couple of races. Leaving town on Friday night I was super excited, but worked to keep my expectations down. I wasn’t expecting the racing to be too serious, and was actually thinking snagging a couple of salmon would be the weekends real highlight. But upon meeting Linda and the rest of the crew Saturday morning, it became clear it would be a much more competitive outing then I expected.
As we went about stripping the boat of it’d dodger, dingy, awning, while attaching the 120 Genoa, the idle chatter and small talk around the boat convinced me that everyone on board was expecting a couple of victories. Once out on the water with our sails up we quickly went about performing a couple of practice tacks and jibes in order to get Max (who’d never previously been in sailboat race) and I up to speed with both the boat and the rest of the crew. After some steady improvement we settled in a waited for the race to start.
The William H. Seward Yacht Club races with a handicap system, and as we were racing on the fastest boat in the fleet we were the last two start each time. In the first race, an Olympic with a downwind finish, we started 8 minutes behind the rest of the field, but by the reaching mark we were in second place, and would have been in first with two races to go if we didn’t have to jibe around a couple of boats Purse Seining just in front of the leeward gate. Growing up sailing on Spring Lake has meant dealing with aggressive powerboats is second nature, but having to avoid commercial fisherman in the middle of a race coarse was a personal first. Despite having to sail around a couple of nets we won the first race with ease. The second race, a quick windward leeward, we only spotted the fleet 3 or 4 minutes, we had some traveller issues and suffered through an auto tack, but had a safe lead halfway through the downwind leg and again won easily. So Max’s sailboat racing career has been launched with a pair of victories, and after a little more then 5 years out of the game, I’ve been in 5 races in the span of 3 days. Enjoy the video bellow, it’s looking like windsports are going to be the theme of the summer.
June 11, 2011
Wet Wednesday in Big Lake
Posted by dongshow under video, wind sports | Tags: Alaska Sailing Club, Big Lake |Leave a Comment
Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to catch a ride out to Big Lake and crew on a Buccaneer 18. We had nice winds, which is apparently rare in Big Lake, and with the super extended day light this time of year were able to get in 3 races, despite starting after 6:30. Anyway, I’d write more but I’m about to step out the door and head down to Seward for some fishing and hopefully even more sailing.
