Interview with Naeve Rossini

For the past three weeks the attention of much of the SL Sailing Community has been focused on the 2010 ACA-SL Cup.  We’ve been involved as participants, as observers, as judges, and as videographers and photographers.  What a great event!  While Quirky Torok was the overall organizer of the ACA-SL cup,  ”behind-the-scenes” Naeve Rossini was  very busy.  I asked Naeve to share some thoughts with me in the aftermath of the cup.

AND some very exciting news!  You will have the opportunity to relive the highlights at the MarkTwain White Show this coming Saturday night February 13th at 6 pm SLT in the Hollywood Bowl.  This Special edition of the MTW Show will be ALL 2010 ACA-SL Cup. From the opening fleet races to the exciting finals you’ll be transported to the center of the action.  Both entertaining and educational, watching the MTW Show this Saturday will give you pointers on how to win and thrill you with exciting footage of the races.  Now let’s listen to Naeve!

• Nber:  Naeve, I’m always interested in finding out how people become involved in the sailing scene in Second Life.  Your SL Birthday was in 2007, but it doesn’t appear that you got active in sailing until 2009.  How did you find sailing?
• Naeve:  You know that moment when someone walks in on you while you’re doing something a little naughty? My landlord did that back in February 2009 while I was setting out some naughty furniture inside a 65m long live-aboard sailboat that I had just put out on my quarter of the homestead. He said to me, “Did you know that there’s a big sailing community here?” and passed me a notecard. He didn’t know much about SL sailing himself and, eager to get away from my boat before he discovered what was inside, we went exploring at Starboards Yacht Club.   After wandering through the vendor area for a bit, I came upon the ACA and Caf’s gorgeous custom sails on the opposite wall. From there, I was hooked. Funny story: When I bought my first boat, an ACA, I also asked Caf to make me sails. I asked for “the orca one,” and was told that I couldn’t have it because it was a custom design. I had my own custom design made, but I thought for the longest time that the orca sails were Orca Flotta’s… until I saw Francois Jacques whip out the boat at a race.
  
  

  Naeve blonde, with the Cup

• Nber: What attracts you to sailing in Second Life?
• Naeve:  There are three things that keep me coming back to sailing: 1) the community, 2) the aesthetics and 3) the novelty. I’ll start with the last one and work backwards. Before buying my first (sailable) boat, I had never set foot on a sailboat. Sailing was and still is very new to me. I know enough jargon to get myself in trouble. I love learning new things and this sport was just nerdy enough to get my brain going full tilt on it.  I sailed in RL for the first time in October 2009 and it was… not as glamourous as racing in an IACC monohull, but it was so much fun. I plan to go a lot more and intend to get ASA-certified when finances allow. I’m an amateur photographer so I’m always looking for good images and there’s something that’s simply beautiful and elegant about sailboats on water. I love them as subject matter and that’s made even more so by the freedom of creativity that SL provides. There is no way that you would find half the sails we see in SL on a boat in RL. Sometimes, I’m here just to see what people put on their sails next. Last, and most importantly, it’s the people. I love that being a part of this community means that I regularly interact with people all over the world and that we share a special camaraderie that only seems to exist between sailors. You have all welcomed me with wide open arms and I’m privileged to be able to return the favour.

• Nber: Why did you decide to help organize the ACA 2010 event rather than actually sail in it?
• Naeve:  I organised the ACA 2010 to hide my stunning mediocrity in sailing the boat! Gemma Vuckovic, Carmen Foden, Quirky Torok, Garrick Diesel, Aleister Biondetti and Neron Blanco were all names that I chased around when I first started. Whether they knew it or not, I looked up to them and I would have loved to face off against them in a tournament. As luck would have it, though, Quirky approached me the day after J-Classic 2009 ended–and if it wasn’t, it sure felt like it–and asked me to run an ACA event timed to coincide with the RL 33rd America’s Cup.  I was already pretty high on the America’s Cup. I had been doing a lot of reading and research into it ever since J-Classic 2009 started. I was already primed and inspired by the history of the America’s Cup. I probably had a target painted on my back.  With a little egging on from Jane Fossett, I took it on, with the confidence that my experience with J-Classic 2009 would enable me to create something grand enough to befit the America’s Cup. From what I’ve heard, it was a success.

• Nber: What has been the “best” part of working to organize and manage the ACA event?
• Naeve:  “I’m still shaking from that race.”   The best part about organising this event is seeing the thrill and the joy that competition brings out in everyone who participated.  Participation is what makes us feel alive. I can’t see any of your faces out there, but I can picture smiles and excitement as people came together to contribute in the many ways that they contribute: racing, judging, endless debates about rules, watching from the blimps, making the blimps, filming, photographing, training… the list goes on and on.  The impact of an event like this goes much further than the people who actually race in it and getting the whole community involved is the most rewarding thing.

• Nber: What has been the most frustrating part?
• Naeve:  Without a doubt, the most frustrating part was seeing people crash during the races or not show up at all for various reasons. I know that they were excited and anticipating to be in these races and to compete. It kills me to see them taken out by something over which they really have little control.  In drafting the rules, I tried to mitigate the impact of crashing as best I could, but no solution will ever be 100% satisfactory for the racers or for the organisers. The only real solution is to not have crashing be an issue at all, and that is really up to Linden Labs.

• Nber:  Have you seen any sailing tactics being used in the ACA races that you think are particularly effective?
• Naeve:  The most obvious answers are “know the course” and “know the boat,” but there are two key points where I’ve seen fortunes turn.  The first is the pre-start. Bottom line, the objective of the countdown is to set yourself up to hit the line at 0:00:00 at full speed. Every second you delay in getting over the line is a penalty against your final time. The other thing is using the wind. With wind shadowing enabled on the ACA’s and many other boats, there is an impact on you and your opponents based on whether or not you are windward, both in speed (clean air) or course (right-of-way). In one of the opening round races, the racers used their wind advantage on each other, causing four lead changes!

• Nber: Did you consider using true Match Racing rules (umpires/start), and why did you decide not to use them?
• Naeve:   I did. Believe it or not, I didn’t find out about true Match Racing rules until pretty late in the planning process. My experience with match racing in SL up to that point was that they were basically run like two-boat fleet races.  Rather than introduce something that I suspected many racers may also be unaware of, I decided to stay with the known format and reserve the true Match Racing rules for a later event. I wanted to get people educated (including myself) and trained on those rules before using them in a competition.

• Nber: When will you announce the next SL-Louis Vuitton Cup?
• Naeve: If we’re going to put Louis Vuitton’s name on a cup series, I think Louis is going to have to start handing out some gifts.  I can’t speak for a Louis Vuitton Cup. That’s entirely up to Quirky and 9th.com/ACA Racer.  Whether or not there is a RL Louis Vuitton Cup or 34th America’s Cup race next year, though, I think SL is big enough that it can have its own cup series. In the meantime, I already have a few ideas brewing for future events. I love racing and while casual races are fun, I’m a junkie for the adrenaline rush when the stakes are higher.  One thing I am very interested in bringing to SL is true Match Racing. I don’t know when or how it will show up, but you can look for news to come within a few months.

• Nber: What advice would you give to a new sailor interested in ratcheting up their sailing to a more competitive level?
• Naeve:  I’d start by painting your boat pink. (Nber:  LOL!).  There are so many facets to improving yourself as a sailor, but the top thing is to get in a boat and race, race and race some more. No amount of sitting around and thinking will give you what you get from going out and actually doing it.   Train with skippers who are better than you. Learn from what they do and how they train.  Talk to people. You’d be surprised that the fellow hanging out in the box watching the races may be the guy who’s umpired RL ISAF events and could flip you inside the rulebook and out between bites of pizza.  Learn your boat(s). Know their quirks, whether you do it intuitively or analytically.  And, learn the rules. Start with RRSSL, but I’d recommend being familiar with RRS, too. Not all races use all the rules, nor do you have to protest all the time, but if knowing them makes a difference.

• Nber: Is there anything that you would like to tell the sailing community that I have not asked?
• Naeve: I just want to say that it’s been a year since I bought my first boat in SL and I’ve had a really great time with this community. I still feel like a noob a lot of times, even though I’m probably already a dinosaur in SL years. Thank you for all the good times we’ve had and for even better times ahead.   Keep calm and raise sail.