Inspirational

One of the truly heroic stories of the Games, Nick Scandone, while suffering with ALS, won a gold medal in the Skud 18 class. To win a Gold medal in any discipline is an amazing achievement. To do so while in the advanced stages of a neurodegenerative disease is nothing short of inspirational: remember that an Olympic campaign is not just two weeks in Qingdao, but years of hard work.

RIP.

Starcom: Burke is our Man Of The Year

BRASS TACKS SUNDAY, an at times controversial but interesting radio discussion programme yesterday, named one-armed sailor Andrew Burke as its Personality Of The Year 2008.

Burke, who lost his left arm, collar and shoulder blade to cancer three years ago, put his sea-faring skills to work by sailing solo around Barbados on February 10, to raise funds for others battling cancer. He helped raise $350 000 for cancer victims.

For the full story, click here.

4.7 marketing

"Ok boys, somewhere in this picture is a Laser sail. If you can spot it, and tell me correctly which rig it's from, you win a free coaching session."

Sail? What Sail?! Apologies to SA for blatantly lifting their image, but I suffered from the same weak knee syndrome that they did when viewing the best ever SCOTW, and felt the need to share this feeling with others!

BigSmall

This is a brilliant shot of the machine that has been dubbed DOGzilla. Sitting at the dock there it looks...quite normal, really. Just your average trimaran, perhaps a similar size to an Extreme 40. But click on the picture and look closely, you can just about see someone standing infront of the starboard daggerboard. He looks like an ant!

Canned

This is the first time, in the three years I have been living in this country, that I have been genuinely pissed off with the weather. With good reason too: the weekend of sailing that I have been looking forward to since April was canned due to the bad weather you can see in this satellite image.

Normally I don't really care: sun, cloud, rain, cold, warm...I just take it as it comes and don't get too stressed. People here love to complain about the weather, even though it's normally what we everyone expects. Lisa definitely prefers summer to winter.

Oh sure, I have been annoyed a few times when it rained on the weekend, after a week of sunshine. I have been frustrated on many occasions around Europe by the fickle wind, (though if I had been Laser sailing today, I would have welcomed the cancellation).

Unfortunately I did not check the forecast last week and so the weather took me by surprise. Mark, the skipper, called me on Friday to say that Saturday's practice session was not a good idea, given the 40+ knot winds that were forecasted. So instead we met in the evening for dinner and a "lemonade"!

When I got down to the boat at 0745 this morning it was pouring with rain, which gave me a chance to test out my new Henri Lloyd Salopettes. The verdict: functional, comfortable, warm and dry. And no more straps that won't stay put.

But the only use it got today was carting sails around Port Hamble. The RC probably made the right decision, but I will have another week before I can give a proper product review.

I like it!

Denmark, the country that gave us X-Yachts and the lovable IMX 40, has now brought us Luctor Yachts. They only have one boat at the moment, the Luctor 42. Designed by the same people behind the Maltese Falcon, it's fortunately a lot better looking, like a smaller version of the amazing TP52 (they even copied the colour scheme with this particular boat).

The cockpit layout is simple and clean, with a grinder in the middle and two steering coloumns that are well forward of the main traveller. At the front is a bowsprit to hold out the 194 sq/m gennaker. They claim it will do upwards of 30 knots downwind given the right conditions and with that massive assymetrical, that's not too difficult to believe.

Luctor describes it as good value for money, but I have yet to see a price tag. Still, it's likely to be less money than a TP52, for nearly as much fun!

The Homecoming

Vasilij, with Trevor by his side, returns triumphantly to his home town of Izola, Slovenia, following his Silver-medal performance in Qingdao.