West Marine is (not?) my friend

Last week, I received a Friend Request on the Facebook from West Marine.  Awww... West Marine?  FBFs with me?  Yay!

Unfortunately, my new "friend" went behind my back and this past Saturday told the staff at our local West Marine store, at 2827 Festival Lane, Dublin OH, that effective immediately their store hours would be cut back to Tues-Sun, 10 AM - 5 PM. 

Let's pause a moment to reflect on the likelihood that the majority of boat owners -- many of whom, like me, work for a living -- will ever be able to shop at the West Marine between the hours of 10 AM and 5 PM.

Okay, shall we continue?  Yeah.... NO.  It's just not possible, at least for me, and I can't imagine how such a decision could be conducive to the short-term or long-term success of West Marine's Dublin store.  My complaints have nothing to do with losing the ability to buy marine goodies at excellent prices, because I can often find a lower price on what I need at some of the other internet marine retailers.  My complaint is about no longer having a place to fondle marine goodies, stroll the aisles of eye-candy and fun toys, get helpful advice from the friendly staff members, and engage in 'community' with fellow Central Ohio boaters.

I try not to be 'that guy' -- the one who whines and complains and lives in a state of helplessness.  If you feel as I do about the loss of realistic shopping hours at your local West Marine, please consider joining me in taking the following actions:

1. Call West Marine's corporate office at 831-728-2700 to let them know that you will no longer be able to shop at their store with their new hours of operation and propose an alternative that would resolve the issue.  (For me, having the store open from 11 AM - 6 PM would do the trick.)
2. Instead of using the 'Ship to Store' feature when ordering from the West Marine web site, identify the item number(s) you wish to buy and call your local store to place the order.  You still benefit by not paying for shipping, and the store benefits by getting credit for the sale.  A more profitable store is more likely to receive favorable attention from the corporate office!
3. In this age of social networking and its place as a critical part of corporate marketing strategy, turn a Facebook Friend into a Facebook Frenemy by posting your concerns on West Marine's Wall.  You can even un-Friend them if it makes you feel better.

Local West Marine store, I love you.  The sailing off-season will be difficult enough, but having to endure it without you seems unbearable.  I miss you already.

Kaye, thank you for staying a few minutes late this evening so that I could pick up some marine-grade duplex wire and a buss bar for my re-wiring project.  I hated to impose upon you, and I appreciate how gracious and helpful you were (and always are.)  I hope to see you and your staff many more times this Winter as I dream and scheme and shop in preparation for sailing season 2011.

anchor light? check! steaming light? check!

... constant, vague sense of confusion? Check!

I stand amazed. My brother-in-law Terry is super-skilled at wiring projects.... and is also a master of 'how to do things efficiently and with high quality.' Terry offered to install the electrical system in the new boat. We delayed launch day long enough to wire the masthead anchor light and the steaming light. (I remembered to attach the new Windex before we raised the mast too -- woohoo!)

So here's the brainteaser: After drilling holes at the masthead, mid-mast, and at the base of the mast, we organized our supplies:

• 30' wire for anchor light
• 20' wire for steaming light
• 25' conduit to surround and protect the wires within the mast
• 25' fish tape

It would have taken me - conservatively - about 30 minutes with pencil and paper to figure out the sequence of events needed to fish the conduit up through the hole in the base of the mast (or down the open mast "cap")... then fish the two wires (one at masthead and one through a hole at mid-mast (and in the conduit at the same place)... and then end up with everything in the right position to connect the lights to the wires. Terry, on the other hand, paused for perhaps 10 seconds (at most) and then jumped right in with the hole-drilling and "fishing!!"

If it was up to me, I would probably still be up at the boat lot with fish-tape in one hand and conduit in the other and a completely puzzled look on my face. I guess we all have our own individual gifts. Basic problem-solving apparently is not one of my gifts, but I guess you probably already knew that.

Also, my bro-in-law ROCKS! Next up on the electrical to-do list: stereo and speakers!

tow vehicle decision - part three

Closure is a beautiful thing, and I am here to both obtain it and provide it in this post -- a closure double-play! Using the evaluation criteria from my last post on this topic, I will arrive at the best decision for my 2009 tow vehicle needs by using a method I like to call ''help-I'm-going-all-neurotic-and-overthinking-stuff-again,' or HIGANOSA for those who prefer made-up acronym-type words.

At first, I tried to assign a score to each combination of option and criterium without assigning a weighting to the criteria just to keep it simple, but then I realized that I would definitely need to assign relative weightings to each criterium. For example, it wouldn't be appropriate to give equal importance to potential for disaster and scalable, since (1) I seem to leave a trail of disasters in my wake everywhere I go and then I go all helpless, vulnerable female and I hate it when I do that, and (2) I'm not planning to buy a bigger boat anytime soon.... unless I marry a sailor or otherwise 'marry up' or something. Therefore, I assigned a weighting of 10 to potential for disaster and a 4 to scalable.

Based on this method -- or "methodology," if you're one of those people who prefer to use meaningless, annoying execu-speak [and I'm whistling innocently as I type this] -- I came up with the following:

Each score indicates the attractiveness of the option for each criteria. (I initially screwed this up completely, and I just spent the past 20 minutes still reeling from utter confusion.) For example, for Cost, continue to mooch off friends gets a 9 (because it's mostly free) while buy a honda pilot gets a 0 (because the car payment would feel more like a mortgage payment.)

So after all this flailing and obsessing, here's how things shook out:




I guess I'll be mooching off my friends at the club for one more year! I'll bring the coffee, donuts, and adult-type beverages to express my gratitude for their cheerful generosity! Renting a truck (as suggested by my friend J.P. Clowes, the sailor who taught me humility at my first regatta in 2006 when he crossed the finish line in his Daysailer II before I rounded the first mark in my Capri 18) was a close second. I'm a little surprised that buy a pilot came in 3rd, ahead of buy a beater truck. I'm not sure if the scalability and dependability of the Pilot is really sufficient to support buying a $35,000 vehicle. My checkbook most certainly doth NOT runneth over. As an aside, I recently spent a lot of time at my Honda dealership having my CR-V (178k miles and still running like a dream!) checked out. Just to kill time and have fun with the sales-boys, I went outside to gape at the Pilots, and then I went inside to ask some questions about the towing capacity and stuff like that. All three of the sales-boys were falling all over each other to give me their business cards and brochures and stuff. Good times. Have I mentioned that I like boys? I like boys a lot. Anyway, one of the boys came to see me in the service department waiting room and gave me more of his Pilot pitch and a second business card. I told him that in all honesty I would have a difficult time justifying the purchase of a vehicle that seats seven for just me and my dog. Sales boys have an answer for every objection (because that's their job and all), and his answer to this was that my dog could have the option of sitting in a different seat every time we went for a ride. I told him I would talk it over with my dog, and if she would willing to get a job and help with the payments, I would consider trading in my CR-V right away. Otherwise, I intend to drive the CR-V until the day it dies -- at least another 100k miles or so. Judy Jetson was not open to considering the whole job concept. She was all 'What? Go to work instead of just napping all day? You've got to be kidding me!' Yeah, Mommy knows, bubula.... Mommy knows.

Judy 'take that job and shove it' Jetson

... Anyway, so there it is. The mooching begins sometime after Launch Day, which is April 1st! I hope that you have enjoyed this Journey of Discovery with me. Okay - if you need me, I'll be upstairs cataloging my handbags by 'cubic inches of storage space.'

are there any more guessers out there?

Hey, would anyone else care to take a guess as to what that slightly scary looking object might be? I'm getting preparing to hand down judgement on the most interesting response!

Also, check out the wicked-cool countdown gadget I added at the top of my blog! Splash Day is what we here in Central Ohio, and perhaps elsewhere, call the day that we launch (splash!) our boats into the water and park them at our docks. We have a club event on the first Saturday in April.

If you would like to do something similar (such as 'number of days 'til the sheer coolness of me 'n my Laser causes the extinction of the Force Five AND the Sunfish' ... or 'number of days since I Doctor-Oned my dinghy'... or 'number of days until I can eat chocolate again') you can create one here.

Thank you for your attention. Carry on...

2009 sailing goal: the reveal

Since I was such a miserable failure at achieving last year's sailing goal, I've decided to employ my favorite 'strategy for success' for this season:

Lower expectations = higher achievement.

During my flight to Portland earlier this week, I read in Cruising World magazine that "more catamarans are being sold in the U.S. and chartered in the Caribbean than ever before." I'm not sure that I could explain, even at gunpoint, why catamarans have never been all that interesting to me... but they haven't. At all. Maybe I'm a monohull snob, or maybe I just have no sailing ambition whatsoever. Oh gosh, maybe I've lost my sailing mojo.

Actually, the best sailing story I've ever heard -- as told by someone very dear to me -- involved a Hobie-16, Pamlico Sound in NC, 25 knots of wind, and an island picnic. And one of the most accomplished racers in my club is a catamaran sailor/racer. Last summer, when I fell in love with a neighborhood cat and wanted to see if anyone owned him, I bought a pink collar with a name tag that said "Hobie" and my phone number. Unfortunately, we ended up putting the collar on another cow-cat that looked just like the one I loved (...shoulda known when the poor kitty panicked and peed when I picked him up), and it turned out that the real Hobie lived at the house across the street from me and answered to the name 'Henri' (pronounced in a French sort of way.) The unfriendly imposter Hobie is apparently still roaming around Columbus, Ohio, wearing a hot pink collar with my phone number on the tag. Oddly enough, he never came back to visit after the very stressful collar-installation experience...

Anyway... one of my sailing-blogging buddies and his gorgeous French wife -- dyed in the wool monohull sailors, I thought -- recently checked out a giant trimaran on the Columbia River in Portland. And finally, the guy at our marina who gets my award for being the most crazy and annoying and yelling-at-people-oriented sails a Corsair 28. I guess my point is that so many people are having a blast (and/or yelling at people) on a catamaran these days... and I've never taken the opportunity to understand what all the fuss is about.

Well, that is about to change, because my sailing goal for 2009 is this:

Sail a catamaran.

And by "sail," I mean "move briskly across the water, powered only by the wind, while on a catamaran"... or "sit on a catamaran parked on the beach and think about sailing"... or even "snap a self-portrait of oneself, smiling, with a catamaran in the background."

I updated the 'Sailing Goals' section at the right side of my blog. When (not if!) I achieve this goal, I may feel ambitious enough to set an additional goal for 2009, such as "buy cute new sailing shoes... like those cornflower blue mary jane trekkers from the landsend.com site, in a size 9 [cough-birthdaypresent-cough]."

I really think I can do this. Wait - what kind of attitude is that? I know I can do this. It's a brand new season full of amazing possibilities and high achievement! I can achieve this season's goal. And I will.

another 'girl power' update

Dee Caffari may displace Ben Ainsle as my favorite smokin'-hot British sailor. As she finished sixth in the Vendee Globe, she also became the third sailor -- and the first woman -- to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation in both directions.

Dee (naturally, we're on a first name basis) is 36 years old (which may or may not be younger... or older... than me), and she is a former teacher who has been sailing professionally for the past ten years... with only the past eighteen months on the Open 60.

Of the thirty sailors who started this year's Vendee Globe, only eleven finished. This year's race was said to include some of the most difficult conditions yet. What I found very interesting about this story is the statement that aside from completing the race amidst killer conditions, Dee's boat, 'Aviva', was in immaculate condition both inside and out. All those mad sailing skillz AND she keeps a clean boat? Now that is girl power.

greetings, facebook friends

Soon after I joined Facebook -- thanks, Melissa & Jacque, for yet another addiction! -- I saw the option to rig up the 'Notes' tab to import postings from a blog site. I have a sailing-oriented blog on blogger.com where I post something every few weeks, although it's been more frequently lately. It's called:

Central Air ~ The continuing adventure of a dinghy... and her beloved little sailboat

So the Notes you are seeing within Facebook actually originate from my blog, which you can also visit if you are so inclined. I'm not sure why I thought this was important for you to know (I'm certainly not trawling for ad revenue or whatnot)... but anyway... there you go.

And speaking of Facebook, don't you think it should have a separate category of Friends called 'Frenemies?'

mile high club, cortisone shot, etc.

Ha! That sure got your attention, eh?!

I'm here in Portland, and the city is so very pretty at night! On my flight to O'Hare, we passed over Lake Michigan, but I didn't see any boats. Shortly before we landed in Portland, we passed over an impressive body of water (the Columbia River, I'm guessing?!) and I saw a huge sailboat marina. I'm wondering if this is the river where my pal Greg - aka "Dr. One" -- sails. (Greg?)

My flight from Chicago to Portland was interesting. I shared the exit row with a couple from Orlando who had spent their entire 4.5-hour Chicago layover at the bar... doing shots of Finlandia. They both passed out immediately after takeoff and slept for two hours. They were feeling a little frisky when they awoke, and I was starting to worry that they might try to 'seal the deal' right there in the exit row. It was a little awkward. I turned up the volume on the satellite radio (80s on 8 !!!) and buried my nose a little deeper into my Cruising World magazine.

Let me get to the second, less-sexy part of this post's title. (I don't care what the clock radio in my hotel room says. It is 11:40 PM to me!) Okay... In the midst of packing up all of the extraneous stuff in my house to put in storage while my house is on the market, I strained my left shoulder. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something and assumed that once the heavy lifting was over it would heal right up. I consulted with Bro, a Physical Therapist who does phone consultations with his hypochondriac sister, and his diagnosis was *Bursitis.* He sounded very grim when he said it, and that took all the wind out of my sails. Bro's wife (also a PT) told me that she had it once and it didn't start feeling better for six weeks. It's official: I am old.

So here I am... six weeks later... with all the same pain that I had on day one. It's actually worse today from hauling bags around all day. During the drive to my hotel tonight, a sudden realization hit me. I'm going to need to have a pain-free, ready-to-race shoulder in just a little more than six weeks from now!! There is no way I'll be able to trim sails and grind winches like this. I guess I may need to consider getting a cortisone shot. Don't they use like a railroad spike to give those shots?! Have you ever had one? How bad is it?! I'll do just about anything to ensure that I can race and sail this season, but I'd feel better about the situation if there was a place that offered 'sedation dentistry' and cortisone shots as a combo deal.

the boomkicker, a favorite of mast-dancers everywhere

I just placed my order at pyacht.com, as recommended by my friend Gordo, for a real honest-to-goodness boomkicker. I had an awkward, low-end boomkicker last season, and I never managed to get it adjusted to my satisfaction.

Aside from the joy of not having to flail around to hook and unhook the topping lift this season, the delight I will experience from this purchase includes (1) drilling holes in the boom, and (2) dancing. (Yeah... ummm... let's just leave it at that.)

tow vehicle decision - part two

Okay, now that I've let the anticipation grow over the past few weeks, I'm back to work through my all-important tow vehicle decision right here in front of the world. You, dear readers, have the opportunity to witness the obsessive-compulsive, overly-analytic, spreadsheet-oriented process that I employ for such decisions as...

Which stereo system should I buy, based on the optimal combination of price, features, sound quality, and fewest unsightly wires to conceal?

...as well as...

Coffee?... or tea?? (okay, just kidding about that one.)

The corporate types and 'Six Sigma Practitioners' refer to this decision-making tool as a Pugh Matrix, but I like to refer to it as the 'help-I'm-going-all-neurotic-and-overthinking-stuff-again' or the HIGANOSA Method. (Acronyms -- all the cool kids are using them.)

To start with, I'll determine the criteria against which I will test each of my tow vehicle options. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

The best solution will have:

• minimum cost
• scalable solution (as in, 'will be capable of towing my next boat when I catch 'two-foot-itis'' and trade up to a Catalina 22, 25, or maybe even a 30-footer like my mentor Edward, an experienced blue water racer and intergalactically-syndicated sailing columnist)
• dependable long-term solution (will suffice for more than just 1-2 seasons)
• minimum chance of degradation of personal dignity
• supports regional trailer-sailing

I think that's about it. In some upcoming riveting posts, I'll brainstorm my list of options and assign each option a 'score' for each criterium. At the end of all this HIGANOSA-ing, I will have (a) finally written a few blog posts this year, and (b) more fully exposed the depths of my quirkyness to the internets, and (c) have a solid decision on what to do about towing Central Air this season. Believe me, you won't want to miss a minute of this.

tooting my own blog-horn

My BFF The Tillerman's final group writing project of 2008 involves having each participant select his/her favorite 2008 post from his/her own blog. Although I'm fairly sure that every word that passes through my lips or from the clickity-clack of my fingertips is pure genius, it was quite easy for me to select one particular post as my favorite.

But first, some statistics:

# of posts in 2005: 6
# of posts in 2006: 19
# of posts in 2007: 30
# of posts in 2008: 33 (including this one)

This is a pretty pathetic number of posts, especially compared to some of my favorite fellow sailing bloggers ever. Seeking to better understand this data, in true execu-droid style I performed a complex analysis of the figures and arrived at the following conclusions:

1. My enjoyment of the sport increased dramatically when I upgraded from my 14-foot dinghy to my fabulous Capri 18 'yot.' There were many more stories to tell in 2007 - my first full season of sailing Central Air '2.'
2. Although my enjoyment of the sport -- and my skill level, as I finally graduated to the level of 'novice' -- increased even more in 2008, I was too busy having great adventures and making lovely memories (and storing more precious snapshots in my mind than even the flickr could contain), and that didn't leave much time to blog.

The post that best represents this season of adventure and lovely memories is 'Hooray for Team La Vita.' This post is simply the best because it provides a snapshot of this season that includes all the components of a perfect sail: great company, a stiff breeze, and a crew that just 'clicks.'

Viva Team La Vita!

Dinner Date

I am way past the deadline date for participating in Tillerman's monthly writing project -- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? -- but it's such a fun topic to think about that I can't resist posting anyway.


The assignment was to write about "which sailor or sailors, living or dead, real or fictional you would like to invite to a dinner party." Without hesitation or a second thought, my dinner guests would be Robin Lee and Patti Graham. I'm a sucker for a great love story, and I'm a sucker for great sailing stories, so I can't imagine any better way to spend an evening.


And, so I won't feel like a 'third wheel,' I think I would probably invite a date to join me. Hmmm.... I suppose this fellow would do:

Stephanie, Andy, Justin, and Christy are away from their desks.... *far* away from their desks...

I went for a sail this evening with my co-workers Stephanie and Justin, and Stephanie's husband Andy. It was a gorgeous fall evening, but there were surprisingly few sailboats on the lake. That's okay, that just meant there was more wind for us!

The photos below may appear to be very effective tools for future 'leverage' at the office, but I assure you they are merely artifacts of an enjoyable evening on the water. (moo-hoo-hahahahah!)

Pirate Stephanie the Mothfondler

Admiral Andy the Fiestaboy

First Mate Justin the Urchineater

Cap'n Christy the Hurlgirl

Cleri-what?

Have you ever heard of Clerihew Day or a type of poem called a 'clerihew?' Yeah, I hadn't either, but I get all my best sailing/blogging/international cultural info from my friend Tillerman, and he is celebrating Clerihew Day with a clerihew-writing exercise on his blog today.

Following the guidelines of a good clerihew...

• it is biographical
• it begins with the subject's name
• it has the rhyme scheme AABB
• it should be light-hearted or humorous

.... I submit the following as my contribution:

Christy the sailing chick with mad skill
Has a sailing goal she'll never fulfill
Why are boys so mean?
Christy needs a broken heart vaccine.

SIGH. <"wink">

Sail Like a Girl

At last night's ACSA general meeting, I met my new sailing hero. (Scootch over, Captain Bill Pinkney, there is room enough in my heart for two sailing heroes!) Our guest speaker after the meeting was Heidi Backus-Riddle, the 1985 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and an all-around kick-#ss sailor and speaker!

In the photo to the left, which I must admit to "borrowing" from the internet, Heidi (second from left) and her all-chick crew are posing after winning the 2007 Fall Bay Regatta on her Tartan 10 - "Nuts."

Heidi also served as the first lady Commodore of the Great Lakes' Inter-Lake Yachting Association.

Sailing is a family sport for Heidi, as her crew is made up primarily of her sisters and her daughter. What a privilege to race with family. (Note to Bro -- please come up and race in a weekend regatta with me!)

Heidi concluded her talk by providing us with two pages of tips for better racing -- really good stuff. Many of her suggestions involved the importance of maintaining focus and concentration, two areas where I've realized that I come up painfully short. Hopefully by the end of this sailing season I'll be able to make it through a 1-2 hour race without making random, inane comments or pausing to freshen up my lip gloss.... and will win some blue flags as a result.

Someday, when she's not so busy winning regattas and such, I hope that Heidi will write a book about her experiences. If Heidi has a fan club, and she should, I'd like to apply be President.

America's Cup Dispute In Ten Words or Less: Winner!

Thank you to those who did their best to help me better understand the America's Cup Dispute, which apparently continues to this day.

I am awarding the grand prize to Litoralis for this very helpful entry:

Silly rich guys. Trusts are for kids, not sailing regattas.

Litoralis is the winner of a copy of Central Air: the mix tape*! All I need now is for Litoralis to entrust me with his mailing address or his secret MailBoxes Etc. box number or etc, etc. (cdavis0627-at-no-spam-pls-at-yahoo-pls-no-spammerz-dot-com)

Thanks again for your help, sailors!

*guaranteed 100% Buffett-free.

help... me...

My current favorite source of sailing p0rn* is Mike & Kylie's blog. It was Shirley Phillips, a friend from the club who will soon be returning to Canada (where all the cute hockey players are born and raised), who turned me on to following M & K's great adventures. Mike & Kylie are the same age as me, but whereas I spend my days here in a tiny little cubicle in wintry Central Ohio writing (kick-#ss!) use cases and software specifications... Mike and Kylie spend their days cruising, hiking, and snorkeling the Caribbean.

Anyway, Mike & Kylie haven't been blogging much lately (probably because they spend their days cruising, hiking, and snorkeling the Caribbean), and my other ultimate favorite sailing bloggers that I follow regularly seem to be rather quiet over the holidays, so I've found myself lately without much selection of high-quality sailing p0rn. Last night I hit a real low point. I sat and read the West Marine catalog... and actually enjoyed it.

*sailing p0rn is defined as graphic (in terms of detail)-but-tasteful descriptions (preferably with photos!) of one's sailing adventures, experimentation, and toys. It is, of course, no more 'coarse' than, say, Rated PG-13.

Fish on Friday

This is Bro and my niece Brooke, posing with a tasty trout.

Books for Sailors

Adam at Messing about in Sailboats has once again added huge value to the entire WWW by publishing his list of favorite must-have books for sailors. It's a brilliant list. Thanks, Adam!

Thrifty kittens like me will use this list to reserve each book at the library, but (Santa, take note!) I'm definitely adding A Berth to Bermuda: One Hundred Years of the World's Classic Ocean Race to my wish list for my personal sailing library.