RJ Kikuchiyo

RJ Kikuchiyo wrote about the SL Coast Guard:

“… As a continuation of a personal and public mission I have endeavored to promote safe boating in SL just as I do in RL. The professionalism and service that I have witnessed from the SLCG staff has only earned more respect from me for the education and looking-out roles that they provide. …

In that comment he also referenced the article on OS Grid:

OS Grid: I must thank Owen, Nomad and Glida and others for pioneering the coastline of virtual worlds. I arrived with raw materials and desire, but their generosity allows this community to extend its horizons to new places. I am excited to announce that the virtual Great Point Lighthouse of Nantucket has now a home in OS Grid next to the NYC Clubhouse (inspired by the RL Nantucket YC house and Djduerer Zou).
The offer goes out to any OS Grid sim owner that requests a lighthouse can be provided one of their choice, for no more than the time it takes to create. (fine print: please request a real [past or present] lighthouse, as I’m no good at making stuff up!)

Thank you, RJ!

This now gives me a great excuse to talk about RJ Kikuchiyo. I’m only going to say a few words today, since I’m already writing another article about the work he and SLNE’s Mister Wind are doing to develop children’s educational programs on science and the environment.

If I haven’t said it before (although I’m pretty sure I have), RJ is quite remarkable as a builder, sailor, and human being. He’s an able spokesperson for SL Sailing and last month had a presentation on “Virtual boating” in SecondLife at the New York National Boat Show. The booth used video to chronicle RJ’s activites in SL over an entire week, and included a segment on the SL Boat Show 2008, not to mention a cameo appearance by Jacqueline Trudeau.

I appreciate there are many superb builders in SL, and in future articles I hope to highlight their wonderful talents and creations, but for me RJ fits in a class by himself. He has an uncanny ability to transform bare wisps of ideas into detailed, virtual objects that maintain and exceed the excitement, the endurance, and the promise of his client’s dreams. 

RJ’s extraordinary ability is firmly grounded in his real life experience and his knowledge of practical and technical details of sailing and navigation. He knows what is genuine and he has the skill to convey that core of authenticity in all of his creations. His work captures a moment in time, and each of his three dimensional builds reveals a unique slice of history, culture, craftwork and humor. 

I first met RJ in Nantucket sim a few days after I first arrived in SL. Back then, I was mostly trying to learn how to walk straight without falling off the dock. In addition to all his other hats, RJ was in charge of Nantucket’s Coast Guard station. I’m pretty sure he introduced himself because he considered me a Water Saftey Hazard and a Boating Accident Waiting to Happen.

RJ was also Nantucket Sim’s master builder, and it was quite amazing to watch his new creations expand across the estate, and then see the estate grow larger to accommodate his new material. RJ would pour over the RL maps and navigational charts of the region to get the layout, then use stacks of photographs he personally took of the real buildings and local surround to capture the subtle details and context.

I recall one evening when I was practicing sitting  and then standing up in my tako without falling overboard (still not an easy feat).  RJ came over and asked what Real Life building I thought was missing in Nantucket sim. I suggested the “Jared Coffin House,” a shipowner’s mansion built in 1845 that’s now a historic landmark and just a few blocks from the dock in town. We spent some minutes discussing the details of the building and trading website images that showed different views… and then I fell off the dock and crashed out of SL again.

When I rezzed back to that spot the following morning… wow. I was standing in front of the Jared Coffin House! In just a few hours late that night RJ had captured the essence of the venerable and elegant building and brought it to life right there in Nantucket sim.

When I thought about it this week I stopped back in Nantucket to see if it was still there two years later. Unfortunately, we all know that pixels are perishable; I was told: 

“We don’t have it rezzed anywhere…
not for a long time…
it was fairly useless as a retail space.”

I certainly understand the practical considerations involved in that decision, and I left taking solace in the fact that at least the real life Nantucket had the grace to keep the Coffin House rezzed for the past 163 years…

RJ has many interests, and his design portfolio includes sailboats, powerboats, clothes, furniture, terraforms, houses, flags, navigational markers… and pretty much anything else tou can imagine. But it only takes a few minutes with him to realize that his true passion is for lighthouses.

Very early on, RJ started the “Lighthouse Board” group in SL, and over the past few years he’s recreated quite a large number of well known historic lights and placed them across the SL waterways.  In fact when I first purchased a parcel of land two years ago, within minutes RJ showed up. He said he was happy I bought the land since he’d been thinking for weeks a lighthouse should go on that property… and he knew just the one to build: Block Island’s South East Light.  While he did most of the building, I had the chance to read up on a good deal of the available history and collect copies of the remaining photos of the structure taken over the years. the project was fascinating and timely, since erosion and many decades of coastal weather put the historic site at risk. Recreating the beacon was a way to preserve the structure and make it accessible to many who would never see it, while at the same time drawing attention to the deterioration of this and many other lights on the East Coast of North America.   

When Nantucket Yacht Club moved to USS-South, I left Mystic and the lighthouse was carefully packaged and placed in inventory. However I was truly delighted when Spirit Cleanslate and Transparent Banshee fell in love with the lighthouse as well, and placed a copy on their Greenhouse sim in USS.  If you have not yet visited Greenhouse, stop reading this and go have a look. It is easily one of the most beautiful spots in all of Second Life. What a great place for SE Light to come to rest!

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Brenham Estates

While I was thinking about this article, I went around and looked at several of RJ’s more recent lighthouse creations. I think my favorite is the one in Brenham Estates, a private three-sim estate owned by Madison Brenham. 

Madison was the partner of Djduerer Zou, and you may recall that both Saxxon Domela and I wrote about him  in different contexts this past month. Djduerer (”Dude”) was a sailor in real life, but then developed a progressive, degenerative brain disorder that gradually made it impossible for him to perform even simple activities of daily living.

Through Second Life he was able to sail again. Even more important, Dude found a community of sailors who took him in and accepted him as a friend, unquestioning. His disease relentlessly progressed, and as the end neared Dude’s texting became unintelligible and he had increasing difficulty moving or controlling a boat in SL. At Mowry, NYC, and all the other yacht clubs the sailors responded as one: People pulled together and worked in concert to keep Dude part of the community… on the water, the dock… anywhere.

And then he was gone.

As Saxxon recounts in his article, Dude gave us as much, or more, than we ever gave him. We all saw the strength and importance of a community and we witnessed the hidden potential inside Second Life to accomplish extraordinary things. The experience  left a lasting impression on nearly all of us, both individually and as a group.  I suspect that impression will not go away; after two years Saxxon and I are here still writing about it. That’s a good thing.

On March 17, 2007, several weeks after Dude’s death, we got together again for Djduerer Zuo. Jacqueline Trudeau’s remarkable Beach Cat was launched that evening, and at her request all proceeds from sales were donated to The Michael J Fox Foundation in Dude’s memory. That night, in less than two hours, we sold seventy-two boats.

Madison Brenham continued in Second Life after Dude’s death.  I had not spoken with her for a year and a half until this past week while I was out hunting for RJ’s lighthouses. I discovered that Madison’s created a very pretty residential estate with a tropical theme named Brenham Estates. It has a strict covenant to maintain that beauty, so no cars, no powerboats, and no intentionally obnoxious scripts, please.

But on the other hand, if you want a beautiful tropical paradise, this comes very close. The estate is subtly dedicated to Dude, and one of the sims is named Duerer. It has a yacht club, and sailboats are encouraged; Dude’s boat, which for a long time rested in a cradle in front of NYC, is now on a mooring again in one of the bays. it looks like it belongs there.

It does.

RJ Kikuchiyo and Dude were good friends. I guess it’s therefore no surprise RJ’s memorial to Dude is a lighthouse.

This one is Trwyn Du, and its Real-life location is Penmon Point in Northern Wales.   If you go over to Brenham Estates to look at it, be sure to go inside the lighthouse… you’ll find a winding staircase inside with three distinct levels, and the attention to detail is again remarkable.

The strikingly beautiful residential parcels, a covenent that emphasizes harmony and peace, a yacht club with perfect water for for sailing, and a RJ Kikuchiyo light; what an absolutely perfect tribute to our friend Dude.

It looks like others feel the same way, since most of the residential parcels are taken. Whether you are in the market to rent a parcel or not however, take a few minutes to go look at RJ’s lighthouse, talk to Madison, and then have a drink at the bar with Dude once again.

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Big Bots

Whenever I log in, I usually get this announcement in the right upper corner of my screen that tells me how many are online at the moment . As you can see, 68,719 were online when I took the picture . I have to admit however that I never questioned what that number represented, or asked “68,719… of what?”

Well, Owen Oyen has got me wondering about just that now…

 A couple weeks ago Owen took Weston Lane and myself over to visit a furniture store in Quark. (that’s right, a furniture store). He didn’t give me a landmark however; Owen told me to just type “furniture” into the SL Search. He was right, the place he mentioned was listed first, which I guess is supposed to mean it is very popular, or at least has a lot of traffic. When I went to the store, however, it was nearly empty and my mini-map showed only a few green dots, as shown in the upper half of the picture to the left.  Owen then suggested I look at the SL world map for that sim; it revealed something remarkably different. According to that map (shown in the bottom half of the picture) there were 79 people in the sim, even though as far as I could tell there was only Owen, Weston, and myself.  A closer look at the map revealed that what looks like a single green dot on the mini- map is actually a huge stack of ‘bots’ underground. In fact, a full 96% of the “traffic” in that furniture store was bots!

Owen next took us over to visit one of the companies that makes bots. Apparently there’s a big buisness in bots, since they’ll make a business location look more popular and move it higher on the search engines. Hollywood sim used to have campers for that, but it didn’t work; Nber taught them all how to sail, they joined Mowry, and now they all sit on the dock in Hepurn drinking with Saxx late at night. (On that note: did you hear Saxxon Domela opened a new store? Your Tako can once again be beautiful.)

Anyway, back to the bots… The bot-store Weston and I visited with Owen also sold animated bots that can act as greeters in a club, or dancers; they even have ’stripper bots’ that will ask for money and then go through gyrations consistent with that job-description (and no, I didn’t ask details). 

Owen reports that bots are a big and growing business, and they form a significant percentage of the ‘users online’ at any given time. I admit I was somewhat skeptical on that point… I mean, bots can’t be that popular, right? However, as soon as I said that, Weston Lane shouted from the other corner of the store: “Hey, I know this place! I bought a bot from these people a while ago!”

Well… that settled it…: slam-dunk for Owen!

(Note for the record: To my knowledge, Weston has never purchased, nor does he currently own, one of the aforementioned ”stripper bots”).

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 Osprey Station Closes

The next time you see an SLCG patrol boat pass by, please hail them with a salute to Sanstrom Laxness and all the members of his Second Life Coast Guard fleet. They patrol the navigable waterways of SL, advise on maritime standards and protocols, teach water safety, and officiate at events. However, they are not ‘boat police,’ so they’re not going to stop your Larinda to search your hold for illegal drugs (so you can all relax now).

The SLCG does a very nice job, and they are as close to RL as it gets in this digital ocean. To illustrate that point, let me say as far as I know the SLCG is the only group that has an official, written staff policy against sexual harassment in Second Life. If you know any other group here that’s been willing to touch that hot topic, I’d love to hear about it. The SLCG took it head-on.

For several months The SLCG was a constant presence on the United Sailing Sims waterways. They operating out of Osprey Station, a great USS location at the bottleneck point where USS-South joins with Sailor’s Cove/ USS-West. Svar Beckersted provided the site and the support. (By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, Svar does many, many nice things for SLSailing. He usually does them quietly and behind the scenes… and what he does is often trememdously effective. If I thank Svar Beckersted one more time, he’ll probably take out a restraining order against me, so let me just leave it there. But next time you see Svar, go ahead, take a chance and  thank him for everything…)

Anyway, back at the SLCG, I’m sorry to say that along with so many others in the SL Sailing community, the SLCG took a hit when the Lindens reversed their open sims policy and dramatically increased tier charges. Three weeks ago I said the Linden action amounted to a “drive-by mauling” of it’s user base. Actually, in retrospect I think my choice of words was overly polite.

Commander Laxness, always responsible and professional, made a decision to withdraw his fleet from Osprey and consolidate his resources on the mainland. NYC’s Commodore Jacques has extended courtesy dock space and marina priveldges to SLCG, but for the time being the USS has lost its Coast Guard coverage. Hopefully the new arrangements between USS and LL mainland will offer additional opportunities for sailors to work with the SLCG.

Last week at the Boatshow, Elisha Paklena informed me with some pride that the SLCG was alive and well at their Muirhead Station, around the corner from Helvellyn on the mainland. (see the picture above.)  It was a good excuse for me to go visit and see what was new in Helvellyn.

Helvellyn

A year and a half ago, I recall asking Pensive Mission why he decided to buy property in East End, the sim due East from Nantucket sim in SLNE. At the time, SLNE was still quite new, and rapidly expanding. Pensive replied: “Because I couldn’t find anywhere to live near Mowry.”

Although rather concrete, Pensive’s brief reply spoke volumes. That’s one reason SLNE and other private maritime communities started and quickly grew. For example, Tasha Kostolany, Izabella Bentham, Ravishal Bentham, and many other sailors began as part of Saxxon Domela’s Mowry fleet, but then came to SLNE because they saw few options to expand around MBYC. Even Patrick Leavitt initially considered developing a sailing community near Mowry. However, when he saw the options around Hepurn were limited, he struck out on his own, aggressively building Sailor’s Cove.

 Well, times change and, with a little luck, needs get met. In this case, Indigo Mertel and Espresso Saarinen joined together to provide residential space that would be attractive to sailors in a community setting. They developed the East River Community, centered in the Free Town of Helvellyn. ERC is designed with a maritime theme that Indigo describes as “A charming place with a distinct Southern European style.”

If you look at a map below, you’ll see that Helvellyn lies due East of Mowry, so its right in Saxxon Domela’s backyard and positioned nicely to cosponsor sailing and social events. It certainly is attactive, and distinct from the New England theme that dominates much of SLNE, NYC and parts of Sailor’s Cove- USS West. I’ve actually never seen Elisha Paklena so excited about a place. Helvellyn’s also very close to diverse, great sailing on both rivers as well as great racing at MBYC and Free Adriatic.

 The interesting arrangement of rivers and waterways provides a host of unique opportunities for cruising and racing. The chart below shows a great course that will take you all the way from MBYC to Helvellyn Village. From there it’s not much further to Free Adriatic and all the spots further South.

Next time you’re over there, go take a look!

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 Quiz of the Week

Here’s something you definitely do not see very often. Today’s challenge is to identify:

1) What sim is this?
2) Who’s boat is burning?
3) What is the occasion?
4) Why is it burning?

 Forget Question #4; I have no idea why the boat is burning either. If you are totally confused, that could be a positive sign. If you need more help, the picture below was posted concurrently:

The winner of this week’s Quiz will receive a free lifetime subscription to SLSailing.com.

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Sailors on OS Grid

Interesting things are happening over on OS Grid. M1sha Dallin and I will post an article here about it in a few days, but I couldn’t wait to show you a couple pictures!

Six weeks ago at the beginning of the Openspace Sim protest, Bri Hasp started a thread in the Forum (“The OpenSim Response”) expressing a certain skepticism and dismay over Jack Linden’s claim that usage patterns forced Linden Labs to increase it’s tier charges by 67%. Her statement “Don’t barf on your keyboards” rather succinctly summed up her personal opinion on this matter, and she then asked about an Open Sim alternative: “Where do we stand or forecast when a boat can sail? and how can it be moved forward…”

She received a huge response; as of today there are over ten pages of posts in her thread. The number of sailors signing up for a free OS Grid account has also escalated pretty dramatically, and the core of a sailing community is forming there. 

It’s impressive how quickly things are pulling together due in large measure the commitment of many great people, including Bri Hasp, Owen Oyen, M1sha Dallin, Cynthia Centaur and many, many others that we’ll talk about in the next article. Owen already has a basic sailboat in the water, and several of the clubs are setting up outposts and planning the next step as a steady stream of sailors come over to look around, try the water, and move in.

Speaking of which, I’ve been wondering where joepie’s been hanging out these past few weeks. Now I know: Here’s a picture from Liv Leigh, showing her and Owen standing on Joepie Korobase’s dock in OS Grid! 

OS Grid is still the untamed frontier, however, and it needs a lot of work on the “infrastructure” before sailors will be tempted to give up their SL accounts. I think it’s most likely people will decide which grid suits their needs best for a particular project or activity, and go back and forth between worlds. We’ll all see how this unfolds over time.

Having said that, let me give a shout out for Nomad Zamani; he’s done a great deal of work bringing Nantucket Yacht Club to OS Grid. Here’s a picture of him standing on the dock next to a vendor for one of Owen’s boats. As you can see, there’s even a race course set up and charts available!

And this week, just in time for Christmas and New Years… RJ Kikuchiyo built a great new NYC clubhouse. This place is looking less and less like the wild frontier everyday… Geez, with RJ’s builds, its starting to look like the Hamptons…

I’m new to Open Sims myself, so I’m still looking around and learning. As I find out the details I’ll let you know what’s going on with the other clubs, and report on how things progress as sailors take bold steps to build an alternative sailing world. 

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Cognitive Loss

As you probably already know, last week in ‘The great COM crash of 2008′ I lost most of the articles I posted to this website over the past year. Unfortunately, it looks like the articles are not recoverable.

I must say, however, that although those few hundred vaporized web pages represented a lot of work from the past year, I never really thought about it in that fashion; it wasn’t ‘work.’ I love the intelligence and humor of the whole sailing community here, and writing was one way to express my personal admiration and wonderment. I thought the articles were no big deal, and hardly worth backing up. At least in one sense I learned I was wrong.

When I tried this week to recover some of the lost material, I started looking at sites that referenced the com articles in some way. The closer I looked, the more I found out what I guess I should have known all along. In small and not-so-small ways, people all over the world had actually read the articles and the comments, linked to them, used slices of text for their own articles, and incorporated the ideas expressed to bolster their own enthusiasm over digital communities. Woot. I guess each of us has a bigger impact than we might first imagine. I stopped trying to recover my file fragments when my glasses fogged up someplace on a Polish website…

Anyway, on a somewhat lighter note, I grudgingly admit I was not able to find a single bit of evidence that anyone on this planet thought my humor was worth copying. Geez, you would think in a world of eight billion people, somebody would say to themselves “that’s funny” and pass along one of my jokes [cough]. Just wait until my next life…

Editor Jane

Now I’m done telling you that, I really want to thank MarkTwain White, Nber Medici, Francois Jacques… and, well, every intrepid sailor who cast off into a digital sea this past year. I was proud to write here about SLSailing in 2008, and I’m happy to be Editor for 2009. 

In the past year I’ve come to learn that SLSailors have a special understanding and vision; they may be sitting in toy boats in a virtual bathtub, but they are not playing a “game.” SLSailing for them is a complex human interface that uses sailing as it’s core metaphor. How that works and how all the cascade of interactions play out is pretty unpredictable, but always fascinating.

There are many changes on the horizon for SLSailing in 2009, and I have lots to write about here. I’m also busy recruiting more sailors who’d like to contribute or co-author articles on special topics. SLSailing.com is your website, so let’s cast off and sail this thing together, and we’ll see where we end up.

As usual, although the New Year hasn’t even started, I think I’m already six articles behind… so no more pop-philosophy from me! Time to get back to work here!

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You may have just read Jane’s article about the inaugural award named after some old guy with non-prim hair. Bea Woodget deserves all the praise she has been given.

However, I have some additional praise to hand out as well. Jane has recovered very nicely from the attempts on her life last week. The bomb in the steersheets of her Tako turned out to be a fake and letter she received only contained powered cough medicine. Like all good journalists Jane has at least as many lives as a cat.

And make no mistake about it, coughing aside, Jane is a good journalist AND a good editor. Now that we came close to losing her, we can pause and think back on her many great articles over the past year in SLSailing.com. Of course, we can only “think” on them because Jane accidently mistook the delete key for the submit key and forever installed more than a hundred articles in the giant database in the sky.

But, you know? Life goes on. And it’s time to acknowlege the great work that Jane has done at SLSailing.COM. Through her efforts, through her clever command of the pen, through her relentless pursuit of the truth, Jane has been a strong voice who has helped this community in a big way.

Therefore on the cusp of a new year and with new and exiciting challenges for US Sailing upon us it gives me pleasure to announce the promotion of Jane Fosset from Managing Editor to Editor. Congratulations Jane.

SLSailing uses the “C” word.

Sims cost a good deal of money, and the boats, buildings and landscaping that adorn the estates require an investment of hours of skilled artisanship. However, I think we’d all agree those 512×512 square plots and the pixel petunias we place on them are actually not the most valuable feature of SL.

I think sailors regularly get together in SL because they value something that’s intangible and harder to define, but nonetheless extremely powerful and sitting right out in the open. I believe most sailors are here because they value the unique and complex SLSailing Community. They identify with that community group, they feel a strong personal attachment to it, and they share a passion to grow SLSailing and see where the future leads us.

SL Sailors should be proud. Through cooperation and communication, they’ve developed a number of strong, intertwined communities that offer powerful new ways for people from diverse cultures and distant lands to get together and share their ideas, information, hopes and dreams. And yes, they can even sail, but sometimes they just like to hang out in their Takos, talkin’ trash and watching the sunset.

What was Marktwain White’s term last month? He called it “Camelot.”

Well, Camelot may sound like a great place and an ideal community, but we all know it also takes a good deal of hard work, patience and understanding to keep our diverse community together and moving towards shared goals. Differences of opinion or perception are not always a bad thing; in fact we should encourage it. Diversity and debate leads to new insight and innovation; its how SLSailing will grow and strengthen.

The key is the common respect that we have for each other, and the belief we are common roots. After all, we are sailors.

The MarkTwain White Award

I guess my point here is pretty obvious. The sailing community is one of our most important assets, but it’s also complex and fragile. We should nurture it and help it grow. We should be doing more to champion those sailors who have the insight to work behind-the-scenes on projects that build our community, encourage diversity, enhance communication and make new sailors feel welcome.

It can’t be too hard to do that, so SLSailing.com is jumping in with both feet!

As the year draws to a close, many publications announce editorial picks for top news events and “The most important person of the year.” We’ve decided to do that at COM too, and to set it up as an annual recognition called the MarkTwain White Award. The prize will go to the one individual that COM’s editors think best personifies SLSailing’s ideals, enthusiasm, and commitment across all the different clubs, regions, and sail events of Second Life. Don’t worry though, there’s nothing to run for here, there’s no voting, and nobody’s goint to attend boring committee meetings over this. Instead, the editors and staff of COM will take recommendations and talk to sailors to reach a consensus decision. Does that mean our decision could be political and biased? Grin; I hope so… isn’t everything? In fact, I admit I’m biased in favor of promoting and encouraging things that strenthen our sailing community across club lines and estate barriers. Don’t look to closely; I’ll guarantee you’ll see my finger trying to tip the scales in favor of the community.

You have a different view and want to talk about it? GREAT. The whole idea of the Mark Twain White Award award is to get people thinking and talking about our community and how we all can support it. You have a different idea than I do? Lets do BOTH.

OH. In case you are wondering, I admit I was the person who named this award in honor of MarkTwain White. I’ve known him for two years now, and I have never met anyone in SLSailing who works as hard, covers subjects in as much detail, or has such undaunted persistence. We disagree all the time on big and little things, and the disagreements are the most fun I have in SL. He’s a relentless force for the sailing community, and this award could only be named after Mark.

Grin, having said that, I also have to admit he accused me of naming the award after him just so he’d be ineligible to receive it himself.

Wonder Woodgett Wins White

After quite a number of discussions, including several I had looking in the mirror, it was very clear there was a single consensus candidate for the inaugural 2008 White Award. Our community is full of truly wonderful people who work hard to support SLSailing. But in that group too, when I asked I only heard one name.

The person that the editors and every sailor agreed best personified SLSailing’s common ideals, enthusiasm, and commitment…
the one who vigorously worked to include all sailing groups in each and every one of her events…
the one who made sure she was unpartisan by sailing in every estate willing to promote sailing…
and the one person who not only ran the largest Cup Regatta in SL history, but
went so far as to teach a whole generation of sailors how to sail that boat so they could participate…

Wait… did I mention she started the first French Sailing Club in SL while doing all this? Oh… and that she was for many months arguably the BEST all-round sailor in Second Life? (Well, she was…)

This year’s pick for SLSailing.com’s sailor of 2008 and innaugural recipient of the Marktwain White Award is BEA WOODGETT.

There! Now we all have a full week before 2009 during which we can stand up and applaud for one of the nicest — and greatest — people ever, in-world or out.

Thank you Bea for making our lives better, on land and sea!!!

A J-Classic

Last evening Armchair Binder, Kentrock Mesmer and I stopped over at the Trudeau yacht yard to see what’s new, and we got a chance to speak with Jacqueline Trudeau about her next boat!

The boat is still in “alpha” and isn’t scripted yet. However the hull is mostly complete, the mast is stepped, and the sails are set.  Let me tell you, even motionless at the dock, this boat is a knockout.

The boat is styled after the famous J-Class boats that sailed in the Americas Cup races of the 1930s.  Only 10 such boats were ever built,  and the “J” standard was used for only three America’s Cup competitions. A few of the J Class boats are still sailing today. 

These majestic cup racers are now coming to life in SL through Jacqueline Trudeau’s legendary craftsmanship and exquisite attention to detail. I’m not sure whether she has even thought about it, but it seems pretty clear that the J-Class boats will make a perfect update and replacement for  Trudeau Yachts’ award-winning but venerable Defender II. 

Since  it’s still pretty early and the boat’s not scripted, I can’t tell you very much about the features it’s going to have at launch time, but a few things can’t be missed.  The boat is approximately 30m in length with a narrow beam and the decking is wood. I’m not sure about the hull construction however (some of the RL boats had steel hulls) and I didn’t get a look at the keel. 

But the big surprise is the spinnaker! This is the first boat in the entire Trudeau lineup to sport a spinnaker. The view from the stationary hull with the parachute up is incredibly exciting; you can feel the boat straining to take off… but I guess we all need a little patience still before that’s going to happen.

The boat will take several more weeks before in-water trials begin, and then please leave a few more weeks for the beta test crew to help tune and debug the sails, shadow, and chute so the boat emulates real-lif performance.

Six weeks ago I wrote a short note on these pages that talked about the America’s Cup Class boats, saying it was time for a significant upgrade and ”I want a New Gun.”  My comments were meant in humor, since I think  we all agree the decisions about style and features in a new vessel should be in the hands of the boatwright, the “artist.” However, in that same post I rattled off my secret wish to Santa Claus: for Christmas I wanted a Cup racer that uses apparent wind, casts a realistic downwind shadow, and flies a spinnaker.

Well, I may need to wait a few more weeks for delivery, but Santa? Thank you.

This boat looks like it might do quite nicely…

In a few days 2008 will draw to a close, and another annual chapter of SL sailing history will reach it’s conclusion.

Some time ago, Taku Raymaker told me he felt this New Year was particularly significant.  Waypoint Yacht Club had just turned one year old, and in that very short time it had earned the respect and admiration of sailors across the grid. I’m a huge fan of NYC Racing, as everyone knows… but today I’m willing to admit it: Waypoint under Commodore Raymaker’s direction has the best race fleet anywhere in SL. Does any one dissent?

[Grin. OK Taku, I said it, you're the "Fleet to Beat.." but watch out in 2009!]

So? How do you celebrate such a great year? Well, Taku of course knew there was really only way: You have a boat race!
But not just any race. This race needed to acknowledge more than the end of the year. It would celebrate the end of an entire phase of sailing in Second Life. United Sailing Sims of 2008 was about to disappear; all of those wonderful evening cruises and photo finish races held across the 130 sims would soon be just a memory. In early January 2009 the United Sailing Sims will move across the grid, shuffle its sims, and a new USS will join waters with the mainland Nautilus maritime region. A new and different phase will begin.

Yesterday’s Leetle Cup Distance Race was Taku’s thoughtful tribute to the past year of USS sailing, and it was perfect.

The course covered much of the territory of the USS, and traveled through the race waters of all seven USS sailing clubs. As the race progressed, the SL map showed a remarkable procession of raceboats laid out across the course. The weather conditions were great for the racers, and the long string of race sails whizzing past made it just as exciting for the observers.

One of my favorite memories of WYC this past year was an early morning many months ago when Taku sent a notice he was racing in Hollywood. I suspect most people in the Western Hemisphere were asleep, and the only note  I got was in Japanese. It was just a regular club race, nothing special. Grin… except sailors noticed it was Taku’s race…

So many sailors showed up for the race that morning that Hollywood sim overloaded (cough). God bless Nber Medici for jumping in and contacting the concierge to increase the sim occupancy so Taku’s fleet could set sail that morning!

And guess what? The same thing happened for The Leetle Cup Distance Race yesterday. Long before the race started, WYC’s sim overloaded with the incoming rush of contestants and excited spectators. Taku must be an old hand at this now, because he managed it smoothly; and the race start was near perfect.

I counted eighteen boats in the prestart, not a bad tribute to the event and Taku’s skill, I’d say. (Wasn’t Epi complaining recently that sailors weren’t racing as much?)

The competition was outstanding, and top awards went to the first three finishers. Ahjep Kattun’s first place time was nearly ten minutes faster than the top finisher in last week’s LCDR practice heat (which was won by Yacht Harbour). Commodore Raymaker read a message from Jacqueline Trudeau commending the fleet for the remarkable effort.

She certainly got that right. The Leetle Cup Distance Race was indeed an event to remember, and a wonderful final racing tribute to both SLSailing 2008 and the USS sailing waters we’ve shared together over the past year. It was a wonderful moment to pause and reflect, as we prepare for a new set of racing challanges in 2009.

Race Results:

1: ahjep Kattun - +00:51:59
2: Takeshi Schnyder - +00:52:25
3: Hypatia Rieko - +00:58:57

4: Alain Gloster - +01:01:17
5: Odysseus Yiyuan - +01:01:49
6: Miwha Masala - +01:01:59
7: Massy Johin - +01:02:24
8: nobuko Criss - +01:02:31
9: Kei Cioc - +01:02:45
10: reia Setsuko - +01:03:45
11: jeremia Spotter - +01:04:11
12: Heidi Stiglitz- +01:04:20
13:  shinobi Woodget - +01:06:15
14: REVO Blitz - +01:08:19

Lap Times:
Takeshi Schnyder– lap 0: +00:00:25
Massy Johin– lap 0: +00:00:34
jeremia Spotter– lap 0: +00:00:48
macro Nacht– lap 0: +00:01:08
Yacht Harbour– lap 0: +00:01:08
nobuko Criss– lap 0: +00:01:08
nemu Yoshikawa– lap 0: +00:01:08
Liv Leigh– lap 0: +00:01:08
ahjep Kattun– lap 0: +00:01:32
Heidi Stiglitz– lap 0: +00:01:32
Odysseus Yiyuan– lap 0: +00:01:32
Kei Cioc– lap 0: +00:01:32
reia Setsuko– lap 0: +00:01:32
Miwha Masala– lap 0: +00:01:59
Hypatia Rieko– lap 0: +00:01:59
shinobi Woodget– lap 0: +00:01:59
Alain Gloster– lap 0: +00:02:29
REVO Blitz– lap 0: +00:03:31
ahjep Kattun– lap 1: +00:51:59
Takeshi Schnyder– lap 1: +00:52:25
Hypatia Rieko– lap 1: +00:58:57
Alain Gloster– lap 1: +01:01:17
Odysseus Yiyuan– lap 1: +01:01:49
Miwha Masala– lap 1: +01:01:59
Massy Johin– lap 1: +01:02:24
nobuko Criss– lap 1: +01:02:31
Kei Cioc– lap 1: +01:02:45
reia Setsuko– lap 1: +01:03:45
jeremia Spotter– lap 1: +01:04:11
Heidi Stiglitz- +01:04:20
shinobi Woodget– lap 1: +01:06:15
REVO Blitz– lap 1: +01:08:19

The United Sailing Sims announces a joint community project with Linden Lab to enhance the sailing experience throughout Second Life. Once the move of the 130 plus sim complex takes place to an area east of Nautilus City, the USS will be well positioned to expand their current activities into the 40 plus sims of the about to be formed Blake Sea(named for Sir Peter Blake, the legendary racer and marine environmentalist).

From sailboat racing, to scuba diving, to surfing, to long range cruising, the areas around Nautilus, Blake Sea, and the United Sailing Sims will provide Second Life Residents with unparalleled recreational possibilities. In addition the USS leadership will work with Linden Lab to enhance water based activities across the entire Grid.

Linden Lab states in their formal announcement that “this is the first time that we’ve allowed estates to connect to the Mainland in this way, and it is testimony to both the great community the USS has built up, and our desire to work with resident groups to improve the Mainland experience.”

The actual move will take place in the weeks ahead.

Look for regular updates to the project in the pages of unitedsailingsims.com. The USS press contact is MarkTwain White (marktwainwhite@gmail.com). Mark will hold a town meeting at 9am on Saturday at the USS Headquaters located on the second floor of the Starboards Yacht Club. 

Has tragedy befallen the crew of the good ship Amaya?  Did a rogue wave overturn the happy little boat?  Did Elisha and Indigo get abducted by pirates, lawyers, or worse… politicians?  Will the Amaya continue on her merry way around the waters of Sansara?

No, no, no/no/no, and probably.

We’d set out from Mowry, fully intending to make a circuit of the Adriatic, and perhaps some poking up the rivers to see what’s where.  As readers are doubtless aware, we made it as far as Orwood, dropping anchor there, with the full intent to pick up after a good night’s sleep.

Well… it’d be nicer to say we were asleep for a very long while (months!) but… even as a cat, that’s pushing things a bit.

What happened was… the world.

Around the time Amaya took its voyage, Indigo was beginning to plan a new sailing-friendly community on the East River, just over the hills from Mowry.  Well, we were awoken early the next morning by her phone ringing (ringtone: Inno Di Mameli), and the ensuing phone conversation indicated that our cruise would be cut short.  She vanished in a cloud of pretty sparkly lights, heading off to finalize the land deal.

I could have weighed anchor on my own, raised sail and turned toward the rising sun, but…

I am a cat, and we’re known for curiosity.  I followed.  I can’t say it was a mistake, given all that has transpired yet, but… poor Amaya, lingering there in the Mallard, until I sent someone to haul her out and transport her back to Mowry.

And, in the months that followed, I lurked around while the Free Town of Helvellyn and the East River Community took root.  I moved Paklena Sailworks there.  The list goes on and on.

In short, I wound up taking a very significant vacation from sailing in order to assist with some good community building.  I mean… as much as I love the water… everybody needs a welcoming home port to come back to, right?

(I eventually did sail Amaya back down to the Adriatic, then on down the East to her new home in Helvellyn harbor.)

If you haven’t noticed, there has been a little bit of trouble with large portions of our sailing world.  (I am hereby nominating myself for the understatement of the year award.)  Enough has been written about root causes, costs, legalities and moralities and whatnot, both here on slsailing.com and elsewhere, that I don’t think it necessary to bring the situation up in those terms again.  There are others much more qualified than this cat to do so, anyway.

What I think the bigger issue, and fear/anger/despair, is the sense of, they’re taking my home port away. My friendly waters, my familiar coastlines.  You sail in an area, you get used to it.  You know it.  It’s how I was with Mowry; it’s how I’ve become with Helvellyn.  It’s why this extended shore leave was necessary for me… building a new home port, dredging channels through new waters.  Not just for me, but for all who have come after.  We have a few townsfolk; we have even more business owners in town, and thanks in large part to people like Manul Rotaru and the sailors of the Mowry Bay Cruising Club and Free Adriatic, we have sailors who are passing through and taking in the sights, if not actually calling Helvellyn harbor home.

But you know, I don’t really want to make this an ad for Helvellyn.  I’m only using it because it’s the place I’m most familiar with in this regard.  I’m sure, if this article were being written by another, they would use their own familiar home port as an example as well.

We need our home ports.  We need ports, period.  Even in the openspace sim crisis… any port will do in a storm.  But it’s always nice, and welcoming, and heartwarming to be returning to YOUR port, with that silly lopsided buoy at the entrance to the channel, the waves breaking on the seawall over there… knowing it’s a place you will fight for until you can fight no longer, and when you can’t, you know you’ll move on and find a new place to fight for.

Because that’s what homes are for.  Even if your home is the sea.  Especially if it’s the sea.