And now, the end is near......

....and back to work, we must venture...

Our last night we stayed by the airport in Oakland.  Turned out to be a blessing with the big mess over in San Francisco with the Asiana flight.  Not to mention I wouldn't be too keen on seeing a burnt out hulk of an airplane right before taking off.

Tim and I went down to Jack London Square where he remembered this funky little historic bar from a long time ago when he was there.  We meandered around the marina and was amused to see that the J-School had a 36 Hunter as part of its training fleet.  That would be, uh, like, having Dean Barker train for the AC72s by using my little Hobie sail yak.  

Heinhold's First and Last Chance Saloon was totally awesome.  The type of historical funky little places I enjoy.  Tim and I dubbed it the Chart Room of the west.

The link above does a good job with its funky history, but the first thing you notice is the severely sloping floor caused by an earthquake.  The entire bar has a slope, you'll see below.

It was a great way to end out our trip.

Tim reading the history at the bar.
No the picture isn't crooked!

The knot board made by a sailor.
Coins signed by military going off to WWII, unfortunately many did not come
back to claim their coins.

Once again, the camera is level with the bar.

A lot of history on the walls, especially about Jack London.

Amen.

Fun bar.

As of last report--we think there is still a mouse on our boat.

RACE DAY!

Okay, more like an exhibition since there was only one boat participating.. but still.

Thank you ETNZ for taking the high road.

Dock Out show, interviewing the team.

Send off by the Maori dancers and most enthusiastic cheerleaders ever.

Doing a flyby for the fans as they head for the start line.
The mark in back is the one of the finish line marks.

Down at the Pavilion watching the Pre Show with Andy Green and Tucker Thompson.
Through out the Park they had these most awesome bean bag throws.

Andy Green and Tucker Thompson

Andy and Tucker with the live feed of ETNZ heading to start.

Flying down the course on their first pass.

After we returned from the Pavilion to the water front, you only can see about half the course. I realized later that if we had taken the ferry over to Alcatraz, you can see the ENTIRE race course.

Second pass heading to the last mark before the line.
(The course is very much a different design than traditional)

Through the finish line.

ETNZ top speed for the day was 42kts.  They averaged 20kts over the course (approx 16nm)

The police boat was hard at work today keeping the lookie-loos off of the race course.
However, I think the 72ft catamaran bearing down at me at 40kts would garner my attention.

1 point for ETNZ and the gratitude of the fans.  GOOD JOB!

Time out for some Kitsch--The Tonga Room

The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco is a very historic place.  You walk in the front lobby and practically can feel the High Society history oozing from the 4 story columns.

But down a couple flights of stairs, and through a hallway, where the hotel pool used to be...therein lies the Tonga Room.

It was created in 1945, the link above has the history details.  The place embodies the era, still to this day.  The food is okay, Asian inspired, the drinks are fabo, and the house band is fun.  Periodically, they have 'rain storm' where rain falls over the pool area and the house lights flicker as in lightning and thunder sound effects.

The house band performing on the floating stage in what was once the original pool.

If you are in San Fran, you should stop by.  Great fun.

Biking the City on the Bay-Luna Rossa practice

In one of our brighter moves, we decided to rent a couple of bikes and check out Marina Green, Golden Gate Yacht club and then go back to the team bases.  Wound up being a great time and we got a free crab trapping lesson out of it also!

Oracle was scheduled to go out, but when they did they went far past the Golden Gate bridge so we could get a good view of them unless we went up to the Golden Gate, and I wasn't in the mood for that.

However, we got quite the show from Luna Rossa.

Taking out the marks for practice.

Luna Rossa in front of the Golden Gate

Luna Rossa up on foil.

Money Shot--In front of Alcatraz

As we were watching the practice, we met a nice gent from San Jose that was catching red crabs. He gave us a quick lesson and he soon had a pot full.  The next go around he had to fight with a seal to get his pot back.  He cooks them in coconut milk, lemon grass, some spices and makes a stew from them.

The bait used is squid, seals like it also!

Later in the afternoon we biked down to ETNZ and Luna Rossa's team bases, it's quite the layout they have.

Hard to see, but they are just putting the boat back to bed after practice.

The crane used to get the boats in the water.

The Italian and New Zealand flags were at half mast in honor of Artemis' Andrew 'Bart' Simpson.

Op-Ed time--America's Cup

This is purely my opinion and thoughts, you are free to agree or disagree with me as you see fit in the comments below.

If you have been following the events leading up to this AC, you know it's been rife with legal issues, loss of fan support, loss of media support.  Very sad for what is considered the oldest trophy in an international sport.

I realize that since this began over 150 years ago that some of these issues have been going on.  Rich guys with egos and too much money on their hands and the desire to design newer, faster boats are just a few of the obvious ones.

But today, we have only four competitors, one who has been severely crippled by a devastating crash and will miss the first half of the Louis Vuitton Cup.  The other two challengers are now in front of the international jury with protests over new safety rules imposed.  The first race became a race of one because of the Italian team boycotting last Sunday.

On top of that, what was meant for a fan show--the time trials--had to be cancelled because the conditions were considered too unsafe.

This is what the America's Cup has come to.  The desire to make a radical, faster boat has created a situation where they will not take the boats out if it is over 20 kts wind.

I was able to see Luna Rosa practice and New Zealand race, I get it. The boats foil, they go fast, they are sexy. But I really don't believe these boats should be what go for the America's Cup.  Call me a traditionalist, but I think a modern one design, preferably a more stable monohull perhaps should be for the Cup.  I think the design should be determined by a lot of factors, not just the guy who wants to build one.  There's a place for these super race cats, just not the America's Cup.  After talking to people this past weekend, many don't think there's any going back.  That's sad.

At $8 million a piece, these boats don't come cheap.  As a result, it's become cost prohibitive for teams to compete.  Throw in the political and legal nonsense, sponsors have lost the desire to be part of it.  You are not seeing any BMW-Oracle this time, that's for sure.

So, I personally feel the America's Cup has been hijacked by he who has the most money gets the cup. That doesn't seem very sportsmanlike to me.  Not only is unfair to fans of racing, it's unfair to those sailors out there that train hard, work hard for the chance to prove they are the best.

The current fact is, the AC 72 is not a safe boat.  There has been loss of life.  Oracle USA also had pitchpoled their boat in training.  It could very well happen again on the race course.  I repeat, they will not take them out in 20 knots of wind.  Have you been to San Francisco?  It's known for its breeze.

After the Artemis crash, the teams agreed on a set of safety enhancements.  They did agree.  However, the week before the first Louis Vuitton, New Zealand and Luna Rossa filed a protest at the timeline on the fixes to the rudder.  They have a valid point, they don't have time to create the fix, test the fix and still race the boat.  That is what is under judgement right now.  They state it gives an unfair advantage to Oracle USA who don't have to race until September.  They are right.  Max Sirena, although being a little too dramatic about it, states that enforcing the rudder rule is causing unsafe conditions in itself. And I agree.

Today, New Zealand goes out for its second race without a competitor.  Team Artemis will not be ready for a couple more weeks.  What will happen when they finally start racing and the boats are being pushed harder and harder?

Anyway, I will get off my soapbox now. Thanks for listening. Feel free to add your thoughts.

I'll post practice and race pics soon.

What happens when you have too much money......

You have this conundrum.

Should I stay on my motor yacht today?

Or my sail yacht?

Both of these toys are Oracle boss Larry Ellison.  Not doing too bad for a college drop out.  Like that other fella, what was his name?  Oh, yeah, Steve Jobs.

To give Uncle Larry his due, he did take that Perini Navi out daily with guests, I guess the other was a floating guest 'cottage'.

After perusing the few displays they had (Flying on Water needs a little work), we did what good sailors always do, we found the drink tent.  They had a Napa Valley wine bar, New Zealand beer bar, and the popular Mumm Champagne bar.

You get to keep the plastic glass.

However, if you you are going to have around 20 adult beverage bars in your park, spring for the Northern Tissue toilet trucks-the nice ones with real flushing toilets.  Not porta potties. Really? You had the room for the fancy toilet trucks, c'mon!

Opening ceremony, there's going to be a boat para....uh, I mean, there will be time tri......uh, crap, wanna meet some sailors?

I do want to put forth some caveats here.  Tim and I wound up having a great time immersing ourselves into the AC stuff, we are just disappointed...as are a lot of sailing fans.  I hope it starts building momentum during the Louis Vuitton Cup and the AC racing will be an 'event'.

However, I do want to be honest on what is happening.  Despite that, we are actually thinking of going back.  Even if Dean Barker files a restraining order against me.

So, on Friday the 5th, the ORIGINAL plan was to have a boat parade featuring different models of AC boats over the years and then the big boys.  Well, evidently some people pulled their boats out, they decided not to do the big boys because of high winds in the morning (or maybe it was the snarl fest that the press conference turned into).

Instead, they brought over the crews from the boats and then they participated in the parade on their tenders and chase boats. The only absence was the Artemis folks because the team is working hard on trying to get the new boat ready for at least part of the Louis Vuitton.  That being said, Artemis is the emotional favorite and have a HUGE following.  (The story on Artemis is here.)  I would say the popular favorite is New Zealand with the home team not getting as much support as you would think, but that might change later.

Emirates Team New Zealand

Luna Rossa
(rocking those Prada jackets)

Oracle USA

The boat parade wound up being San Francisco FD boat, the Schooner America replica, one of the older AC boats (back with they were monohulls), the AC boats, and the team chase boats with the crews.

Onto San Francisco....don't tell anybody, but there's a 'boat' thing going on

Okay, the title is reflecting the absolute meltdown that is currently happening with the promotion and management of the America's Cup.  

I'm not talking about the politics, I'll get to that later.

Being from a marketing and event management background, I was absolutely twitching about some of the decisions being made.  I'm not saying I would have had all the answers, but something needs to be fixed over the next few weeks or else San Francisco and Mr. Larry Ellison are going to lose out on A LOT of money.

Oh, what the hell am I talking about?  

Taa  Daaaaa

According to the locals, there is absolutely NO coverage on the events surrounding the America's Cup (concerts, free live music from popular local acts, free movies, etc).  Uncle Larry wanted to go big, and he did, spending a lot of jack and building what will eventually be the new cruise ship terminal.  However, things apparently haven't gone well and the TV coverage has been pulled, although one NBC affiliate did air the New Zealand race. In which New Zealand won, because, well, they were the only ones racing. Funny how that works out.

However, he went TOO big and now he's got this massive sprawled out complex with two different entities (AC Park and AC Village) located about 4 miles apart.  What happens there is you start to lose concentrated momentum in a crowd, and quite honestly the Park 'looked' deserted even though quite a few people were there, but the Village was a ghost town.  The fine folks over at www.SailingAnarchy.com are having an absolute hey day with it.

One of the things that really had Tim and I going was the fact that out front of the Park they had barkers yelling over megaphones on how awesome it was inside.  Sigh.  Barkers? Really, Larry?  This isn't some carnival side show.

We knew it was off to a bad start when the big boats weren't going to be in the boat parade  and they cancelled the time trials (more on that later).  However, they didn't announce what they were going to do instead of time trials, we just were lucky to fall over it.

Also, they announced that you could have your picture taken with the actual Cup during certain times of the day.  That ALSO got cancelled but nobody knew.  Sigh.  

The poster signing sessions turned out to be popular, and I'm glad for both the sailors and fans on that one.

 

Napa and the Napa Valley Wine Train

Last time we were in Napa we did the crazy winery tour, we were actually looking for something different this time.  We were actually there for July 4th, but that turned out to be a bit of a bust.  More of a local thing.  The ironic thing was the beverage vendors on the street were run by the Kiwanis, there fore you needed 'coo-pins' as Ron White would say.  And there in the heart of wine country the Kiwanis served the absolute WORST wine imaginable, completely unpalatable. However, we found this great wine bar/bistro called Carpe Diem and wound up having a great time talking to people and the bartenders.

During the day, we wandered around Napa, they are working on a 9/11 sculpture using some of the I-beams from the Twin Towers, it looks like it will be very nice when it's done.

We took the Napa Valley Wine Train for lunch and that was quite nice.  Before boarding we wandered over to the Oxbow Public Market and thought, wow, I'd kill to have something like that in my town.  It reminded me of the European Style markets with all the food stalls and activity.

However, the wine train.  Excellent service and food (although I'm not usually used to eating that much during the day).

The train at the station, getting ready to board.

Tim at our table.

Underway, going through the vineyards.

One of the refurbished Pullman lounge cars.

Money shot!

The evening train going by our hotel.

This was just a quick not even two full day trip through Napa, so we didn't do much but chill out and get some pool time.

More Old Sac

The spouse playing around with the train stuff.
It's true, they never grow up!

Tim and I stopped by this cool little bar and grill that is owned by the renown Fat's Family.  The Fat City Bar and Cafe is a bit different than their Asian restaurants, but the inspiration was in the menu.
Part of the fun of the place is how they salvaged historic pieces from across the country to put in the bar.

The arched bar came from Molly Brown's original bar in Leadville, Colorado. (circa 1876)
You may know her as the Unsinkable Molly Brown (or Kathy Bates if that works for you)

Tim is looking at the Purple Lady from the Chicago's World Fair of 1893.

Also, throughout the bar there are real and reproduction Tiffany lamps, we couldn't get the staff to tell us which were real.  There was also a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox.  Neat place.

Later we wandered over to a restaurant called the Fire House, in the historic fire house of Old Sac. Very good restaurant, more of a special occasion place I think.

View of the State Capitol