Russell Brown

Like often happens, I regret my comments about the guy with the proa. I feel bad for him and I wish he had the time to make the start. Sorry for being a jerk.

She was drinking beer for hours after she finished and looks fine today!

The proa did turn up, but was still in pieces in the parking lot at almost noon today. The boat itself has potential, but how someone could show up the day before the race with a boat that has never really sailed is beyond me. This is mostly why proas have a bad name, they attract flakes. This is not just optimism, it's lot's of bad qualities combined, including ego. I really hope someone ends up with the boat that will sort it out. I really hope it's not on the starting line at 5 am. I'd be embarrassed. I saw some come cool pedal drives inspired by a certain Australian pedal drive expert. Can't wait to see the Tornado going.

One woman rowed an 11 foot long dinghy 70 miles in just under 20 hours = 3.5 mph average and I'm a bit more than impressed. She never stopped rowing and seemed pretty fine at the end. Inger is not a serious rower and her boat was quite loaded with safety and camping gear. There were so many fast boats behind her and I'm still a bit dumbfounded that she did so well. We'll post a short video of Inger soon.

Greg Barton and his team mate won the seventy48. Remember Greg? He won some olympic medals in the K-1, but that was about 30 years ago. Inger is absolutely killing it in our nesting dinghy. She's in about the middle of the pack and ahead of a very long string of faster boats. She has done about 70 percent of the race at 8 am.

Team Valhalla is one of our PT 11 nesting dinghies rowed by Inger Rankins. She's doing way too well and I hope she's going to back off on the throttle soon. She's got a long way to go.

Thanks for the prognosis. I don't really know any of the boats or people this year either (except for Larry on Dreamcatchers) and I don't know how to judge the comparative speed of the boats entered, so it's good to hear your thoughts. I think you are right about the Tornado having potential and I can't wait to see the pedal drive on it. I used to have a Tornado and did a lot of sailing on it solo (I called it my favorite cruising boat), but did my fastest ever crossing of the straights on it, so I think it has some potential as an R2AK boat and the pedal system could be really good. I had never heard of a Corsair 970 Sport before, but I guess it's powered up. I hope an underdog wins this year. By that I mean someone that we don't expect to win and someone not sailing an expensive newer boat. In fact, I hope that someone who could really use the prize money wins and that someone wins in an old boat, which is possible this year as there are a few faster old boats entered. It seems like there are plenty of entrants who just want to do the race for the experience. I guess that's the category I fit into. I'll never be nuts enough to win the race and the cruise home is the part I look forward to most.

I think that you could be right, that a monohull could win this year. There are a handful of fast mono's entered. What about the Corsair 970 or the 28?. They could be fast. I don't know any of these people, but I guess I will soon. For me, the interesting boats will be Roger Mann's new boat and the Tornado that has possibly the coolest pedal drive system ever (I think there's a photo of it above in this thread). I will probably see lots of the slower boats along the way as I did last year. I just don't have much of the kind of crazy it takes to win.

Hi Skip, I'm going solo from Victoria. Glad you are coming. I'll take you for a pedal. Things in town are going to heat up pretty soon. It will be interesting...

Well thanks for that Olaf, I'm not sure why I never looked at Ronstan. I think that Duckworks (which is local) carries them so I can go have a look.

So, sailing a boat named Nice Pair was okay but sailing with a porn star wasn't?,

I saw some stuff and I heard some stuff, but I never worked on the boat, so the best thing would be to talk to someone who knows the boat well or has done work on it. It looks cool, but I'm not sure that it sails well.

It looks like the Reynolds 33 isn't coming and I'm pretty sure the proa isn't either. I'm pretty close to ready myself I think, besides only having one ancient screecher furler and a few other iffy parts. I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be any similarly priced furlers in this load range (2000 lbs working). Anyone else using Eelsnot on their bottoms?

That boat is not as nice as it looks from afar. The construction was not great and it's had issues.

I have been doing some research and the old school Harken screecher furler has a lot going for it. I can't believe how much the newer types cost and I'm not really sure that I want one anyway. It's hard to imagine a furler that works better than the old one that came with my boat. Fisheries supply thought they could get one and the price was right, but no go, so I'm sourcing fast release push pins to swap the old one from sail to sail.