The Wetass Chronicles

(Photo: Andrea Francolini)

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 12:00 PM

Sometimes all you need for a chuckle is a dancing penguin (courtesy of TWC Las Vegas assistant editor Dave Ross)...

"Look at that fool. I bet he's been watching "Saturday Night Fever" again..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 11:41 AM

Start drinking coffee, or reading your VCR manual. Because tonight (Friday) is the night that Nightline plans to air their program on deep cave diver Dave Shaw. The Outside piece--on which the Nightline program is based--is now online here...

Confounded Koppel: "I'm sorry, you're the editor of the Wetass what?...Hey, Tom, tell whoever booked this guy they're fired..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 11:10 AM

6 Comments

Last week I posted this excellent picture of a Great White shark that got stuck last summer in an inlet of Naushon Island in Buzzard's Bay. It was Friday, I was burned out, my caption was lame (if you want to see it, go scrolling for it yourself...).

Happily, the cutups over on the WoodenBoat forum came up with some much better ones. Here are the three best (in my humble view):

Numero Tres: "No, I'm not out with another woman... No,Honestly, I'm not. What do you mean you can hear someone in the bath..."

Numero Dos: "Honey, your Mom's still swimming. We'll be home soon..."

And, cue drumroll, Numero Uno: "Yes dear, I'm meeting with my lawyer right now...."

Feel free to see if you can do better...

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:47 AM

4 Comments

I guess Hurricane Dennis had a deal with Greenpeace. Because the storm which everyone derides as a semi-fizzle did manage one major act of destruction: it took out the $1 billion Thunder Horse oil drilling platform in the Gulf Of Mexico (story here; updates, pics, video here). The rig is jointly owned by BP and Exxon, and was expected to pump out up to 250,000 barrels of oil a day. But you can see from this Coast Guard video and the pictures below that o'l Thunder Horse ain't going to be pumping anything for quite a while. This is Man versus Nature (Round 4,365,623) and Nature took this one in a unanimous decision...

"Hey, Joe, there's a guy called Karl Rove on the phone, and he's babbling about the need to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:21 AM

4 Comments

Just found this link to a TV report on the F18 world championships on a CatSailor forum. It's probably really interesting if you speak Dutch, but even if you don't it has some pretty cool sailing footage, including a nice pitchpole at the windward mark towards the end of the report. Check it out (Warning! You have to suffer through a brief ad. The horror, the horror!)...

"Scheise, I wish Hans would get his lard ass out onto the rail a bit quicker..."
(Photo: Marloes van der Haagen)

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 12:36 PM

Here's a sometimes pretty amusing compilation of the many things that can surprise and go wrong. Click here...

"I got 'em, I got 'em! Err, hang on. He's got me! He's got me..."
(Photo via Horse's Mouth)

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:22 AM

The VOR takes race boats around the bottom of the world. Accordingly, they will be upside down (won't they?) and must prove they are capable of this unique sailing configuration. Latest Volvo Open 70 to get the treatment is Movistar (the link is http://www.movistar.es/vela/, but it doesn't seem to be working...). Here's how it all went:

A large crane was used to turn the 21.5 meter-long VO70 boat by hanging it from its keel bulb until it capsized completely. Four members of the crew – including Skipper Bouwe Bekking and Bowman Pepe Ribes – participated in the manoeuvre from inside the boat to check for possible flooding on the cabin and perform the self-righting of the hull.

The whole capsizing manoeuvre lasted 8 minutes and the boat was upside down for nearly 12 minutes.

To complete the operation successfully, the members of the crew inside the boat activated the pivoting keel system to return the boat to its natural position fully autonomously. The keel movement righted the hull slowly and gradually in just 5 minutes.

Interesting way to spend a few minutes...

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:11 AM

2 Comments

With 115 days to the start it's time to declare TWC's loyalties. And they go to....Brasil 1. Not because I like Torben Grael (which I do). Not because I like Adrienne Cahalan (which I do). But because...my wife is Brazilian (and loyalty starts at home). Plus, it's exciting for Brasil to have a crack team in this event, and the boat has recently started sailing (photo gallery here). Check out their website here. And while you are at it, check out Adrienne Chalan's website. She has a great story, and can usually be found aboard one or another of the world's fastest, most interesting sailing yachts. Talk about the "Wetass lifestyle"...

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:53 AM

This excellent small cat design is staging its world championships at the moment, on the North Sea. And when that's all over and done with, the class will head to my (sort of) home waters, Hampton, Virginia to be exact, for the North American championships. One of the things I love about cat sailors is that they are always shooting video. And the folks running the F18 NAs are planning to webcast the races live. Yup, live. On the internet. I love technology. For a taste of what is to come check out the NAs website, where you can watch a couple of teaser videos...

F18 Committee Boat Start: "Is this slow? This feels slow..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 2:31 PM

Longtime TWC readers (or at least anyone who has been checking in regularly in 2005) will remember that there was a good month or two when Wetass production was, err, substandard, lame, sporadic and downright disappointing. Well, the reason is that I was off doing some real work for a change. And that work--a lengthy feature on the amazing tale of deep cave diver Dave Shaw--has just hit the newstands in the August issue of Outside. So if you have $5 and a quiet hour, lay your hands on a copy and settle back for what I hope is an amazing tale. ABC's Nightline will air a program on the story sometime soon (probably this week, probably Friday), if they can tear themselves away from the media obssession with Karl Rove, Hurricane Dud Denny, and the future of the Supreme Court (okay, I admit this last one is important). I'll post the date as soon as I know it myself...

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 1:24 PM

3 Comments

The Great Wall withstood the Mongol hordes but it couldn't keep X-treme skateboarder Danny Way at bay. Way built a massive ramp and jumped a 61-foot rampart, negating 3000 years of Chinese isolation, altering forever the very self-perception of the Chinese people, and causing a billion awestruck Asians to utter "Duuude..." at exactly the same time. Actually, none of that happened. But Way did jump over the Wall. Outside Online has the story. And TWC, of course, has the video...

Way Up There: "Hmm. I wonder how you say "take me to the hospital" in Mandarin...?"

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 1:10 PM

Well, Philippe Kahn, internet wizard and possibly the most sailing-addicted man on the planet, has a new ride. The latest Pegasus is a TransPac 52, and it comes courtesy of the Farr boys over in Annapolis. It arrived just in time for the upcoming Transpac (oh, so that's what the class name is about...). And it looks like it could be a very, very...very fast ride to Hawaii. Not sure? Well click here to watch the thing doing about 20 (it's an .avi file--whatever that is--so be patient for the download). You can follow Philippe's Transpac adventure here. I wonder when I'm going to become an internet billionaire so I can build every hot boat that catches my fancy (buy some Wetass t-shirts, dammit! I'm running out of time)...

"Ho-hum. Seems like every year we're driving a boat across the Golden Gate for this guy Kahn..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:46 AM

The Italian Melges 24 Nationals was a very windy affair, and photographer James Robinson Taylor caught the wild and wet action. This is what they advertise in the brochure...

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:39 AM

As expected, Thomas Coville set a new solo transatlantic east/west record, with a final push from the outer winds of Hurricane Dennis. Time: 10 days, 11 hours, 50 minutes. Click here to watch Sodebo arriving with reefed main alone. How much do we care? Not that much. He beat Francis Joyon's old benchmark time by 15 hours and 27 minutes, but this is a young record which solo sailors are only now starting to attack (usually as they make their way to New York to go after the big one: the west/east solo transatlantic record). Still, nice sailing Thomas...

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Old Man Of The Sea Olivier de Kersauson and his big tri, Geronimo, lapped Australia in a record time of 17 days, 13 hours, 32 minutes. They got hit by a 70-knot microburst in the home stretch and ended up sailing backwards at a high rate of knots. Here's their report:

"Earlier today the boat sailed into the path of weather cell that had 70 knot breezes along with a mini tornado which picked up the boat and drove them backwards at 20 knots. During this the boat sustained damage to the steering causing the boat to drift towards land at 10 knots. The crew quickly repaired the damage to the steering system after taking the sails down and Geronimo continued on her way to Sydney."

I bet that was a good moment to learn some French expletives. As for lapping Aussieland: How much do we care? Even less than above. A record is a record, but I imagine this one will get tested, oh, about every ten years (or when the next maxi-multihull happens to break down near Australia and needs something to do...). Note to De Kersauson: unload Geronimo and build a new, massive, modern tri so you can return to doing what you do best, which is endlessly circling the globe in pursuit of the Jules Verne record...

Sodebo Success: "There's absolutely no one here, but what the hell, I'll raise my arms in victory anyhow..."

Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:12 AM

2 Comments