SLSAILING.COM – The Portal Magazine for SL Sailing.

In the SL sailing world this weekend (December 18-19) has been dominated by the two days of memorial activities surrounding the life and legacy of one of the most loved and respected SL sailors of all time,  Delinda Dyrssen.

It was my distinct pleasure and privilege to speak to the assembled crowd about Delinda’s life in the SL sailing community.

After my comments Kentrock Messmer, the nealy appointed C0-Commodore of the Fisher’s Island Yacht Club  announced the creation of the DELINDA DRYSSEN AWARD. This award will be given to the member of the sailing community that most embodies Delinda’s enthusiasm and passion for sailing and life in general. In the near future the Delinda Dryseen Award will be revealed to the public. At that time COM will do a full article.

During the talk a large group of SL sailors passed behind the podium in a Grand Sail to honor Delinda. Here is what was shared:

Delinda Dyrssen was a sailor. No wait, that’s not right. Delinda Dyrssen IS a sailor.  I am sure that if we were able to take a look up in heaven right now…  we would probably find Delinda in her sailboat making her way to a music concert somewhere in heaven’s version of SL.

Delinda's Sea Stories Column

One of my memories of Delinda is a perfect example of the fact that Delinda was all about people.  A few years ago Delinda and I discussed the possibility of Delinda writing a regular column in SLSailing.COM.  The column was to be sort of a “Barbara Walters Meets SL Sailing”, or for those of you not old enough to catch that reference, think of a “Larry King Meets SL Sailing”.  In other words the column was to be interviews of people in SL Sailing.  Here is yet another example of Delinda’s personality. She was first and foremost interested in people.

There was another interesting insight into Delinda regarding this column.  The column header, which we have rezzed here, showed Delinda as a pirate barmaid wiping down the counter while playing counselor to one of her many loyal customers.  I had suggested we name the column “Sea Stories: Being Stories What Was told to a lovely Bar Wench”.  She said “I like the Sea Stories part, but not the Wench part. How about “Sea Stories: Being Stories What Was told to a lovely Bar LASS.”  Delinda liked role-play as much as any of us but she decided that “Wench” just didn’t fit her personality.

I have heard several interesting and lovely stories about Delinda recently, as I am sure we all have.  My favorite of these stories is one that our host at this memorial service, Fanci Beebe, told me.

Delinda's Memorial Celebration lasted two days

Earlier this year there was a major griefing attack launched simultaneously on many sims in the United Sailing Sims, where the Sailor’s Cove sims are located.  Reports were flooding in from numerous locations in the USS. Fanci was hovering over Fisher’s Island Yacht Club with residents gathering around her with reports, etc.  Fanci was swamped and feeling very overwhelmed.  When all of a sudden, out of the blue, literally, Delinda appears, suited up for battle.  She had a  Roman Centurion’s outfit on (probably the same one many of us got From the “300” movie sim).  So here was dainty Delinda with a large Centurion’s helmet on her head and sword in her hand…  Saying “reporting for duty” and ready to pitch in and help.  Fanci just stopped typing and stared. Then she laughed.  So here was a panic situation, overwhelming to say the least, and Delinda was alert enough…  To come over and calm the day with her sense of humor as if to say….  Don’t worry Fanci… it’s just a “game”, remember?

I have one final story to tell. In the SL sailing community we boast a few major Cup Regattas every year…  By far the most popular and the best organized of these is the Fizz Cup. Each year the Cup is run then capped off with an awards ceremony and dance. Among the activities is the selection of Miss Fizz. This honor was first bestowed in 2008. And the winner?  Our own Delinda Dyrssen of course.  It was funny. Delinda wore her crown all that day, and the next day, and the nex  Fanci tells me that Delinda wore the crown wherever she went for two weeks!  So in closing let me say…  Delinda, you were our Queen and Sovereign. You shall always remain at the top of SL Sailing’s List of Great Leaders. God Save the Queen!

Ed. Note: A Tribute to Delinda.
Because some waves are made of tears,
because sometimes the stream of life carries us too far,
because sometimes, even the wind keep silent,
because there are pages that are hard to turn ...

• Riot Director — Orca Flotta
• ZATZAi
• From RL Sailing to Dancing for Cash
• Nber, Hollywood, Tiny Tako’s and MTW
• Rowing with the Punches
• The Man from Zimmerstein

Further reading: A very Sad Day (on Treet TV)

I’ve never had much of a chance to talk to or get to know Orca Flotta, although I’ve seen her out there racing in many regattas around Sl Sailing. I was happy to get the chance to have the following conversation with her.

Delinda Dyrssen: Hi Orca.. What got you into sailing in SL?
Orca Flotta: LOL, I used to sail in RL almost all my life, started when i was 7, and stopped about 10 years ago. It took me some time to find sailing in SL though. I always thought sailing boats in here are just decorated motorboats, then I saw some Tako’s in a SL video on Youtube and thought.. hey that looks quite “realistic”.

DD: It was a video that opened your eyes to sailing in SL.. Yes I think most people don’t realize that there is a huge difference between skippering a scripted sail boat and driving a point and steer motorboat on SL.
OF: Probably not, and I thought the same.

DD: How long ago was this.. and tell me about your first experiences sailing on SL?
OF: Oh my, I guess around October last year. My first experience was just skippering my Tako (what else) around the waters of the USS. I met M1sha (Dallin) and Jane (Fosset), they were nice enough to talk to me a stupid noob sailor. Then, hardly able to handle the Tako, never having heard of gestures and such, I attended my first race in Hollywood sim. What a hard school that was!

DD: So you went right into sailing in races then? What advice would you give to the new sailor who is wanting to race in SL?
OF: Well, from my humble point of view I would give the advice to read AC’s (Armchair Binder) famous notecard. It, and AC himself, helped me lots. He even remotely installed the Nicholaz viewer on my laptop. I never knew that those things are important, like how many prims and scripts you carry around with your avie.

DD: So after AC worked with you.. your racing started getting better.. tell me about your most exciting win!
OF: Well, I didn’t really become better, which is partly or mostly to blame on my laziness. I hate practicing , but my most exciting win was just yesterday, Tako races in Plum Gut. Cacio and I crossed the finish with only a heartbeat difference. That was exciting. In 2 or 3 races we were sooo close. I guess I won in 2 of 3 races or so, but I don’t care much about who wins, as long as it’s fun!

DD: I understand your also a race director now.. tell me a little about when and where you do that.?
OF: Well, my official title may be Race Director but I call myself riot dictator. I only just started with the “Sailing for Life” Tako Competition we did in Mowry. Many if not most of the races Julia (Ceres) RD’d for me, since I was on my annual exile to Germany in RL. We used the EU friendly 12 (noon) time slot on Saturdays, and I want to keep that spot for future races. With different boat classes, starting this coming Saturday with a funny Wee Tiny Tako race.

DD: What other Sailing related things do you do in Mowry ?
OF: I’m a shop clerk at Saxxon’s store, telling people how wonderful his Tako textures are
and also I try to sell as lot of >->>>D SHARK stuff as possible.

DD: So when your not racing, directing a race or selling stuff in Mowry .. what else do you do in SL?
OF: As you can see we’re sitting right inside my second favorite SL pastime (a skyship you might see around Caledon). Like in sailing I love to explore so I have a whole fleet of flying vehicles to explore interesting areas with … from the air. In order to afford all that stuff I’m selling land and am a manager with one of SL’s bigger property firms.

DD: So work and play in SL. It really can be a second life cant it… go ahead, you can tell me the name of the property firm if you like.
OF: Yes, certainly, it’s Serena Estates, owned by Novellium Siddeley, for whom I’ve worked for quite a long time now. I started renting a skybox from him, then managed his club in a rental sim, did EN/DE translations and slowly grew into the job. I have a game plan, or my bbk* has a game plan for me, she refuses to support my lifestyle with any outside money. So poor little me has to earn her living here with hard work. (*.. ask Orca)

DD: Where is your favorite place to sail in SL? What is your favorite sailboat?
OF: Hard to say. Usually I would say it’s the USS (incl NE and SC) but with all the lag now, it’s hard to sail there, particularly with my bad connection from South Africa. Currently we experience less lag than the USS so I must say I prefer the mainland now.
OF: My favorite boat was and still is the Tako … and it’s bigger brother, the Tetra.

Anyone who looks closely at the “big map” on SL while in USS in recent days will notice just a little south of the southern sims some new ones are popping up. One in particular is Artificial Island where I recently enjoyed an exciting tour by the fascinating ZATZAi Asturias. This is the conversation that followed.

Delinda Dyrssen: I understand your bringing some new additions to USS. Tell me how this came about?
ZATZAi Asturias: Well you can blame MarkTwain White actually, we’ve known each other casually for a good while and I was asking his advice on something (telling him my plans and so forth) when he suggested the connection. I’d always liked what Mark and the others had done with the USS and had always wanted sailing to be a part of my own efforts so I was of course fine with the idea. Over the course of several weeks we met and talked about what I could expect and what would be expected of me, as well as meeting with the current USS sim holders.

DD: Tell me a little about the sims you will be bringing in .. Especially the Artificial Island Sim and how it will integrate with the Sailing community
ZA: There will be five sims in all, mostly ocean sims, three of them will be open space class 5 sims, and two will be full class 5 sims. Artificial Isle is my main sim, it was designed to be an event host and we’ve played home to several events since its inception in early 2007. We’ve hosted the home grown Second Convention which shows twice yearly, as well as acted as the inworld hub for SLCC 2007 and a few small conferences and events for other groups as well. We also put on regular events of a smaller nature of course, such as live music, games, and sporting events. The plan is to begin having regular sailing events, as well as other sporting activities like submarine races, tugby and aero racing (Hoverboard racing). The Artificial Isle sim is a single island, with plenty of surrounding water to sail around, as well as a interior bay. The Passages sim to the southwest will be a beach property that is 2/3rds water. The other three Open Space sims will be predominantly or completely water. With one have a few residential spots (Two Actually), the other playing home to our sporting club, and the last being open water.

DD: Well as you probably already know, people involved in sailing are always very concerned about lag.. I understand you have done some things to combat this… care to elaborate?
ZA: For SLCC we had 2,499 people come through in three days, for SecCon (Second Convention) we regular maxed out the sim (65 people concurrent), so we have a lot of experience with sim lag and how to manage it. Having the sims be Class 5 helps a lot, but the way we combat it is is with careful design, there are actually very few textures in use on the surface, and the prim geometry is relatively simple as well. There are also several visual blocks so people’s occlusion culling can do it’s job (You don’t render what you don’t see), that and careful script management has done wonders. We’re a relatively full sim, but our performance stats tends to be much better than other sims, we also helped beta test Havok 4 so we could know what to expect as it was eventually deployed. I’m happy to say we’ve never crashed during a large event, and sim stats have almost always been stellar, any lag tends to be strictly on the client side, which is dependant on the speed of the users computer.

DD: Tell me more about the sort of event you do here on AI sim? What is SecCon all about?
ZA: We host several events, not just our own, but SecCon in particular is a convention of my own creations. It’s a virtual convention, for the virtual world of Second Life. Its traditionally been a three day event with several events a day. The events ranging from discussion panels about issues that affect Second Life and the Internet at large, as well as sporting events, a party or two, and even fashion shows. Perhaps the most fun event though is the “Slebrity Roast”, were we pick out one well known individual in Second Life and get their friends to come and poke fun at them, much like they do on Comedy Central. Our next convention is coming up this May, and will be announced shortly, we have discussion panels on Net Neutrality, the future of Second Life grids, a Slebrity Roast and fashion show of course, as well as sporting events like Tugby, and a sailing regatta just to name two. There will be around fifteen events this spring, and it’ll be hosted concurrently in other sims around Second Life for those who can’t attend in person (like if the sim fills up) but want to listen/watch the live stream.

DD: It sounds like you will be exposing many people to Sailing in SL simply by the events being held in USS. I know you originally designed your sims with sailing in mind… tell me more about your experience with sailing in SL.. or in RL if you want.
ZA: I actually don’t sail in real life, I kayak. As far as Second Life is concerned, I was introduced to sailing way back in fall 2005 when Pixeleen Mistral was just getting things going in Sanchon. I would sail around the Korea mainland from my property in Seonhan to her sim and back, back then you could circumnavigate the continent, but there’s far too much litter now. I had a great deal of fun with her and the pirates but I never got into competitive sailing, because it was just too competitive! But I also took a lot of inspiration from the young Hollywood sim, and I really liked how you could sail all the way around it back then, and I followed a similar design with my own sim, but also adding a bay you could sail in and out of easily.

DD: Well it looks like it will be a major attraction to sailors everywhere in SL. I can see from the amount of effort you put into SL that you believe there is a bright future in Virtual Worlds. Can you tell me more about where you have been and where you see it going?
ZA: I remember reading “Snowcrash” years ago and thinking what a great idea Stephenson had, the Metaverse. I’ve seen a couple places try to pull it off without large success. I even remember seeing Second Life on display at E3 (Electronic & Entertainment Expo) several years ago, I thought it had potential but wasn’t terribly impressed. Second Life hasn’t changed too much since then, though it’s nice to finally be getting Havok 4, Windlight etc, but it’s fundamentally the same. Second Life is a platform, and it succeeds or fails based on what its user-base does with it. We’ve certainly seen individuals and organizations alike succeed and fail in this realm. I think the largest mistake some outfits make, is treating Second Life like a billboard, they treat it like a website. A place where you say who you are, and what you do, and that’s it. And that’s fine if you just want people to know you exist, but if you want to build word of mouth, get people involved, you have to be interactive. You have to take the approach you would in real life, if a company was to build an embassy of some sort to explain who they are and what they do, or like when any organization gets involved in a local community. It’s not an easy thing to do, but if you can pull it off, it can be very rewarding. I think there is still much potential to Second Life and other virtual worlds, each world having its own advantages and disadvantages. But Second Life is certainly poised with its recent technological advancements, the pressure Linden Lab is exerting on their Congressional contacts to become the ICANN of the Metaverse, and the coming of Open Source options from within and without Linden Lab.

DD: I understand you have been working on some things that can improve sailing?
ZA: Mostly pet peeves really, and things to help out friends or situations. A number of people are familiar with the composite calendar I created thats available open source on the SLSF forums. It basically makes it easy to combine and display google calendars from multiple sources on a single page in a browser or in Second Life on a prim. I’ve helped some with terraforming the new Balboa sims with Mark and Transparent, as well as the Newport Bay sim’s new look, so you can blame me for the idea of those giant rocks if you hate them. :-p Beyond that I’m working on some pet peeves, a way to ease communication during a regatta, perhaps a new start line of my own creation (If people prefer it), and I’m sure a few people were witness to our testing of a radio commentary of a sailing regatta the other week. There will be more work along these and other lines as time allows.

DD: Here is a question the boat builders out there will want to hear your answer to. Which is you favorite sailboat on SL?
ZA: For a long time it was the Trudeau Sea Sharp, and that still holds a special place in my heart (I have one permanently moored in my sim). But currently I enjoy sailing about in my Tetra 1.2, and I can’t wait for Verkin to release the 1.3 model he teased us with on the forums.

DD: The name ZATZAi… not common at all.. there must be a story behind that?
ZA: Not a terribly interesting one really. Years ago I was tired of having a different sign on every place I went, so I sat down and decided to come up with a unique word. It had to not exist in any language, be pronounceable with standard english grammar, be exactly six characters long and easily shortened to three letters. I came up with ZATZAi, it’s pronounced ZAT like CAT and ZAi like Hi, just two syllables. There is actually a zatzau root in Germany I later found out, and Ai means love in Japanese, but I was shooting more for Artificial Intelligence with the Ai reference (This was LONG before the movie btw). Why is it capitalized the way it is? Because it looks good that way.

To learn more about ZatZAI, AI sim and Second Convention, you can follow this link http://www.zatzai.com.

Anyone who has followed the SL sailboat racing scene knows there is an avatar out there who wins a whole lotta races. After talking with Armchair Binder I think I now understand why.
Delinda Dyrssen: Armchair I understand you have a RL sailing background, tell me a little about it.
Armchair Binder: I have lived near the water since I can remember. When I discovered sailing, it took all of my interest and I found it very fascinating how in depth it can be. With sailing, you keep learning more and more about what makes a sailboat move, and for me, this turned into how to get every ounce of speed out of it. As you keep progressing into the workings of the sailboat, you start learning about very technical aspects of aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, meteorology, and various other physics related dimensions. Aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are obviously applied, but to get to the next level, you need to be able to figure out which direction the wind will shift next. With some knowledge of the weather system in the area, a person can look up at the sky and read the clouds and the sun to have a decent chance of predicting what the wind will do next, which gives you an obvious advantage, hence I studied aspects of meteorology to gain a greater advantage on the race course. I find racing sailboats extremely interesting, it is a way to apply my knowledge of the aforementioned dynamics of what makes one boat get to a point before another boat.
DD: So you race in RL too.. care to elaborate?
AB: I have a very extensive sailboat racing background. I have been involved in America’s Cup campaigns and personally have won or been crew for some very prestigious regattas. I have many professional sailor friends that participate around the world in all kinds of racing events. I have been a semi-professional sailor, which means that I get paid to sail on a boat, but that income is not my primary source. I remember one instance where the owner of a boat that I was to race on had to get a lawyer to verify that I was not a full professional because only a certain amount of full professionals were allowed on each boat. As a semi-pro, I have been flown all over the United States just to race for an owner at different regattas.
DD: What is your favorite kind of racing?
AB: I enjoy racing one-design boats (where boats are identical), rather than participating in races where boats are given a rating for their predicted performance. I have taught strategy and tactics for sailboat racing and have been a sparring partner for people preparing for match racing (one on one, 2 boat) regattas.
DD: What are your views on The America’s Cup?
AB: I do not have much respect for the participants in the America’s Cup races, UNLESS they have earned their way onto a boat for being the most talented person for the position. I know of several cases where a person was crewing for a boat because his wealthy parents donated a lot of money to a syndicate. Also, I have personally seen where the helmsman in the sparring boat was consistently beating the main boat, but was not doing the starts for the boat in the Cup because he was not politically connected to the heads of the syndicate. Also, with the America’s Cup, it is the designers and the meteorologists that play a pivotal part in the outcome. Usually the boat that is built and optimized for the prevailing conditions wins. I have an immense amount of respect for the average sailor who accomplishes great winnings in major one-design regattas; for instance, the Olympics or some other regatta where sailors have gathered from more than a local area.
DD: Your undoubtedly one of the most accomplished racers in SL, what about RL?.
AB: Some of my personal achievements would be winning a 44 boat one-design regatta, a 35 boat one-design regatta, a 28 boat one design regatta, and was the tactician on the winning boat of a 50 boat one-design regatta.
DD: Impressive! Why have you stayed semi-pro and not just go at it full time?
AB: There are many parts to the answer. One major part is that on a boat at a professional level, overall there is not much camaraderie. You are there for one purpose, to make the boat win. The crew on such boats would get off the boat and go in all directions. There was not much of a sense of bonding between the crew members. Currently, for the most part, I sail with people that I like to hang out with off the water as well.
One wonderful experience that I had was sailing for a Japanese syndicate. It was very interesting to see how a different culture applied their beliefs to sailboat racing. The Japanese that I sailed with would never protest another boat. They felt that the dishonor of not exonerating the foul was more than the punishment that the judges would hand down for losing the protest. Their desire to pull me into their crew as almost a family member was somewhat awe inspiring because of the language barrier. Another factor is that while I was consumed by the racing scene, it consumed a lot of time away from my loved ones, and I was spending my vacation time doing these races and not with them. And unfortunately, most up and coming professional sailors have some kind of monetary backing from family or trust funds to allow them to pursue such ventures, and I did not fit that category.
DD: How did you learn about Second Life and the sailing here?
AB: I learned about Second Life through the America’s Cup website, it was a way to follow the America’s Cup aces in real time. I quickly signed up for Second Life and jumped past all the usual Second Life orientation tools and went straight to Americas Cup Anywhere where I met Florencia007 Czak. While doing so, I became quite interested in the dynamics of the community and events. Meeting the people of the SL sailing community has been wonderful, it has kept my interest well beyond the ending of the America’s Cup.
DD: How were your first experiences sailing in SL?
AB: I asked around and found the major sailing areas, and wanted to buy a boat to try out in a race, of course a Tako, which was 100L at the time for a person less than 30 days in Second Life. I was too much in a hurry to figure out how cheap it would have been to buy one with RL money, because I had no idea of the Linden/Dollar exchange rate, and I was in too much of a hurry to look into it, so I went dancing for cash. I met great people and had a fun time while doing so, and learned a lot talking to them while dancing for cash. When I had my 100L, I came back to the Tako vendor and the special deal no longer existed. Nber Medici explained that people were making alts to get the boat at the reduced rate, so off I went back to dancing for cash. Finally after purchasing my Tako, which became more of a quest, I was off to try it out.
DD: And how did that go?
AB: Since I skipped over most of the Second Life orientation, I had no clue how to rez the boat into the water properly. I tried by myself for some time and the boat kept sinking. After a Sunday class at Starboards, my coach, RnSdriver Lane, showed me how to put the boat into the water properly, and off I was, diving into the world of SL sailing. It was quite a struggle to try to bridge the gap between RL and SL sailing and all the technical aspects that make SL sailing easier and a better experience, and without the helpful assistance of the members of the SL community, I am not sure that I would have stuck around. For this reason, I created my Sailing tips notecard, which I try to make available wherever people are trying to learn. I am somewhat concerned about the pattern, where a person gets so far and is not improving, learning, or having as much fun as they once did, and as a result they do not keep their interest in SL sailing. The SL sailing community has been wonderful, so currently I am attempting to give back what I can by hosting events.
DD: Do you have any suggestions for someone who wants to become a better sailor?
AB: Some great books that I have read for learning more advanced sailing aspects are “High Performance Sailing” by Frank Bethwaite, “The Art and Science of Sails” by Tom Whidden, “North U Racing Tactics Coursebook”, and “North U Racing Trim Coursebook”