New Feature

I’d like to try a new feature for COM. I want a place to post short announcements, do some shout outs for sailors who’ve done good things, and maybe share stuff from my inbox of SL news, gossip, and ‘events of interest’ for sailors and the sailing community.

Don’t tell me; I know what you’re thinking: “That Jane is a Saint! She does so much, and she works so hard!”
Wow, Thank you, that’s so nice. Actually, I’m hoping if I do a good job on this, they’ll finally grant me parole.

I decided to name the feature Ship to Shore, since it vaguely conveys the idea I was developing and it has good “S” alliteration. It’ll take a few days to get a good rhythm going here, and to settle into a comfortable format for newsy stuff. Let’s just cast off and give it a try; we’ll see where the wind and current carry us.

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Sailing for Life Sailboats at American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society is one of the largest Medical Research Advocacy Organizations in the World. It has a strong, global presence that focuses 24/7 on research to understand - and eliminate - the myriad dimensions of this terrible disease. ACS recognized the importance of the Second Life community early on, and for several years the ACS Relay For Life Campaign each Summer has been one of the biggest charity fundraisers in SL.

Unless you were hit in the head by your boom while sailing recently, you already know all this stuff, and you know that Sailing for Life is SLSA’s RFL team headed by Nber Medici. SFL represents the sailing community from all the yacht clubs and any-and-all of those little square sims with water and boats on the SL map that want to be a part of the effort.

ACS had an opening celebration on September 23, 2008 to kick off this year’s programs. The ACS sim is very pretty, but a really nice part is the lobby entrance faces on a a small bay, and one of the first things a visitor sees as they teleport in will be our sailboats with Sailing for Life sails flying. Kudos go out to Nber Medici and Fayandria Foley from ACS for making this possible. A shout out also goes to Taku Raymaker and Chaos Mandelbrot who helped with the logistics and pulled it together, and a huge shout out goes to Mothgirl Dibou and Takeshi Schnyder for providing the Flying Fizz boats adorned with Takeshi’s gorgeous SFL sail designs.

This week we’ll also add a Trudeau Twenty with Suzanne Zeluco’s SFL 2008 sails to round out the ACS mini-fleet.

Sailing for Life 2009 is still a long way off, so I’m not going to be ringing your doorbell anytime soon. I will ask one thing, though… if you get the time over the next few months, stop by at ACS headquarters for a moment and look out over their harbor. You’ll recognize the SFL boats immediately. They’re actually your boats, and they’re at ACS as a small reminder of the spirit, strength and generosity of the sailing community.  Take that moment and be proud of what you helped accomplish for Sailing for Life.

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Tory Micheline grows up!

In case you missed it, Tory Micheline at Mowry Bay Yacht Club celebrated her second Rez day this past week! WOOTS!!!

There was a big party with lots of funny people hosted by Armchair that evening. I was only there for a few minutes, and was in the middle of saying “Armchair! You need to wash your hands before you do that!” when I got a message that my knowledge and skills were urgent required elsewhere. I had to leave, since the job of picking up trash on the racecourse is, I think you will agree, a solemn responsibility.

From all I heard, however, Tory’s party went GREAT. While I think of it, let me also give a big WOOT for her Wednesday night races over at Mowry. Tory has a “Bring a friend” theme, which I think is a super idea. It’s a chance to show your non-sailing friends what all the excitement’s about, and it’s also a chance to show Mowry off to your friends who haven’t been there. The Bateau du jour for the Wednesday nite races is the venerable Tako, but Tory’s pretty relaxed, and she’ll probably let you sail what you want.

Since I’m talking Mowry sailing, don’t let me forget to mention Orca Flotta’s ongoing Saturday afternoon races. It’s always a great time, with lots of sailors dropping in to take a turn on the Hepurn line as their schedule permits. People I thought retired from racing or were still incarcerated, people like Pensive Mission and Pleasewakemeup Idler, even make occasional cameo appearances.

The picture above is from yesterday’s race, where the sloop du jour was the Jangars.

The Mowry Bay Yacht Club and Embalming Society is one othe original sailing clubs in Second Life. It’s part of SLSailing’s history and tradition, and it’s where many of the people who helped build NYC, SYC, and TYC first got their sea legs. This year another important club, Kazenojin Seiringu, disbanded, and I think many of us feel the loss and miss the attitude and knowledge the Kazenojin.

So in true Mow-Mow tradition, let me propose a toast for the leadership and enthusiasm that keeps Mowry vibrant and very very much fun. Actually, forget the toast; any true mow-mow would just jump in and buy several rounds for the house. Anyway, Here’s to Saxxon Domela, and the Raciest Race Committee in SL Sailing: Orca Flotta, Tory Micheline, and Julia Ceres!

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Something New, Something Really Old at FIYC

Lots is going on over at Fisher’s Island Yacht Club and USS-West. This past week Commodore Emmons announced a new raceline in Stillwater, and The Saturday PHRF Big-Boat Race had the luxury of splitting the race sequence over two lines! There was a good showing of boats for the big boat fleet yesterday, with a few Friendship Sloops and a gaggle of Knockabouts in addition to the ‘regulars.’

The new Stillwater line is nicely positioned for races that can move over waterways extending in three compass directions. Of course, when you’re done, the Bar is Cutwater is just a dinghy ride away, too.

I was going to mention the new Sims over in USS-West, but a more urgent issue suddenly came to my attention. As everyone knows, PatrickLeavitt is the owner of Lawson Landing/ Sailor’s Cove Estate, the extensive collection of beautiful sims that make up USS-West.

It’s therefore with some sense of pride that I note Patrick’s Second Life Profile has a picture of him, handsome as usual, wearing an NYC Trudeau Yacht Racing teeshirt (if you click that link to ORG, you’ll need to log-in to see the teeshirt pictures). I’m just concerned that Patrick’s shirt is now realllly old, and it’s so old it has “SLSF” on the sleeves instead of SLSA. Gee, and if the owner of USS-West and FIYC has been faithfully wearing an NYC teeshirt for the entire past year, now I feel really bad, thinking I should have had the sensitivity to post pictures of the whole NYC Steering Committee wearing FIYC jerseys in solidarity with Patrick… (no surprise, as I’m writing this, Epicurus Emmons just filled my inbox with FIYC shirts as encouragement… (He’s quick, that Epi)).

Maybe I should have just IM’d Fancie Beebe about this. I’m sure she’s aware of the problem, but hasn’t been able to get Patrick to stop wearing his old, frayed playclothes. I can empathize; I’ve had relationships like that too.

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Even Older Items at SYC

While I was thinking about how old Tory Micheline was, I flipped back to some really old stuff. I’ll post several interesting pictures everyone probably thought were lost in the great Hard Disk Crash of 2006, but let me add a couple quick onees here before signing off.

I know there’s this persistent rumor going around, you’ve heard it too… The one that says Marktwain White has a secret plan he’s slowly carrying out to take over the whole world, one sim at a time. I never put much credence into it until I went back and found this picture from January 2006.

Mark, I appreciate the global ambition… but I’m not sure a Tako is the best way to do it.

I’m happy if I never learn move about the Tako plan for world domination. The next picture is something else, however. It’s from November, 2005 so long ago some of us were sending messages written with Crayolas, not typing over the internet. Marktwain White and Nigel Linden.

Ok, forget about the ducks for a moment.

I was mostly impressed with the look of empathy  and understanding between them, and Nigels hand on Mark’s butt in a univeral gesture of fraternal support.

Mark? Maybe now you can tell us about those ducks…