Three Rules of Sailing

1. Keep people IN the boat
2. Keep water OUT of the boat
3. Don't run into anything

One By One

Sydney Hobart race:  one by one they come in.   Here are the updated positions.

Sydney to Hobart Race

Every year on Boxing Day, a fleet of sailboats leaves Sydney Harbour to race to the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania in Hobart.  The race is famous in part for the tragedy of its 1998 race where only 44 boats made it out of the fleet of 115 boats.  Six people were lost when the fleet encountered a Force 12 storm.

Here is the fleet distribution as of this morning.  The red line is the rhumb line from the entry to Sydney Harbour to the approach to Hobart.

Just Another Winter Day

Live Small

Graham Hill describes a smaller footprint and illustrates an apartment of 400 SF.  Sailors know this well and a sailboat is the same idea applied.

Mobile Office

The navigation station on our boat makes a great little office.  if you consider we have mobile internet, I can be completely in the loop at the office "working at home".  The exception is that "home" is a movable platform that can be in a number of places

Volvo Ocean Race Continues

Windy Christmas Day

From Environment Canada
Today Tonight and MondayGale warning in effect.Wind southwest 35 to 45 knots diminishing to 15 to 25 early this evening then backing to southeast 15 to 20 early Monday morning. Wind increasing to southeast 25 to 35 Monday afternoon.
The boat is being buffeted a bit in the 30+ knot winds

MERRY CHRISTMAS

A Christmas Festival

This Leroy Anderson piece is a staple at Christmas Concerts all over the world.  I played it with the Calgary Concert Band and the Edmonton Cosmopolitan Monday Band many times.  Can't have Christmas without it.

Volvo Ocean Race - In The Stealth Zone

S/V Island Spirit

Hayden Cochran and his wife - also IP owners - on board their boat "Island Spirit" are now in southern Florida on their way to the Bahamas.  Wish we were there:

Volvo Ocean Race - Piracy

The race is approaching the "Stealth Zone"

For Unto Us A Child Is Born

When I was a graduate student, there was a poster up that on the 16th of December (I won't say which year) there would be a "reading of Handel's Messiah - bring your scores".  I had a score and turned up under the great dome on Massachusetts Avenue where the MIT Chamber Orchestra, the MIT Chorus and 4 student soloists sang part one of the Messiah.  The railings for 3 stories were ringed with people holding their scores and joining in at the choruses.  I will never forget that day and for me this particular chorus is quintessentially Christmas: 

Still Racing

A Comment on City Design

So last Friday I read  that Stephen Holl has been awarded the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Gold Medal.  The article refers to a quote by one of the selection committee who notes:

Holl’s building hovers above garden and park spaces on eight legs, creating a shaded microclimate and quality public outdoor space that’s sorely lacking in developing-world cities. Making the building coexist and interact with the green space below necessitated that this developing nation take a fundamental symbol of its burgeoning prosperity—a new shimmering high rise tower—and tip it on its side. Such depth of inquiry and lack of presupposition in Holl’s work make this kind of audacious gambit almost common in his buildings.

Here is a picture of that quality outdoor public space:

Note the throngs of people admiring, appreciating and enjoying  the quality outdoor public space

Now we examine what one might presume is a contrasting and thus a a poor example of a quality outdoor public space – no one knows the "starchitect involved":

Notice the un-used spaces, lack of extensive vista and the obvious poor quality outdoor public space –pathetic

What a joke the profession has become, so self-focued and without knowledge that it is no longer noticed or questioned in the architalk.  It is no longer about life, but about the object and the admiration of others in the club.

About Holistic Thinking...

Benjamin Zander talks about music and passion - but it is the thinking behind understanding things outside of little bits of time or siloed boxes that is the important lesson here

VOR - Leg 2 - Almost 10 Hours Old

Volve Ocean Race Leg 1

How do you Describe "Beautiful"

I am having a number of arguments with colleagues as to what constitutes "beauty".  My heretical view as an architect is that much of what I see in modern architecture is devoid of humility, a human touch and it ultimately does not move us at a fundamental level the way some things - like a handsome landscape

(Photo:Hayden Cochrane aboard Island Spirit)

or view of dawn at sea - is capable of touching our spirit.  But it is clearly possible to do so with things created by us - in this example, a beautiful short tune composed by a gifted musician played beautifully.

Fuel Fill-Up

We filled the diesel tank on board Terratima when we left Nanaimo back on the Labour Day weekend.  That weekend we motored most of the way back once the wind backed sufficiently to make sailing a proposition of going in the wrong direction.


So yesterday, we filled the tanks after using fuel for heating.  The total: 616 litres.  Do the math - THAT'S 162.72 US GALLONS AND THAT HURTS:  $$$

Volvo Ocean and Crazy Delivery Issues