Yin and Yang
Now it’s real.
Photo by Guilain Grenier
And on the West Bay . . .
Photo KL
A new look for the Red & White . . .
AND ON THE OTHER SIDE
It’s like this.
First I rowed a small boat.
Then I sailed a small boat.
Big boats, slow boats, fast boats. Around in circles. Across oceans.
I’ve sailed boards.
I’ve sailed models, radio-controlled and un.
Landsailers, yes. (A tiny bit.) I’ve served the American Land Sailing Association as an official timekeeper for the first-ever demonstration that is possible to go dead downwind, under windpower alone, faster than the wind.
I’ve had a lucky sailing life.
As landsailing goes, it’s a fast game, but first came the likes of these folks, who just wanted to get somewhere . . .
Source: kansapedia.com
Apparently a number of these contraptions were built as early as 1860. Given the right breeze, they cruised at 15 mph and were reported to hit 40 mph, though I doubt that was GPS-verified. A point-to-point time of 20 days, Kansas City to Denver, was given out in a press report. Upon the arrival of a wind wagon from Westport, Missouri
a newspaper in Council Grove, Kansas posed the question, “Who says now that the Santa Fe Trail is not a navigable stream?”
It took an old friend and former crewmate—a lapsed sailor, but we’ll get him back—to open my eyes to yet another historical dimension of sailing. One involving parallel rails. It played this way . . .
Could be full-gauge, as above. Such a jolly outing.
Could be model gauge.
Those who were part of San Francisco Bay’s “Laser Generation” will remember this man by a different name. Now he signs himself as GrahamoT. Below is a link to his latest whimsy. It’s four minutes long—in full screen you can read the reproduced, 19th century news accounts—rolling you toward what our 21st century modeler hath wrought.
THE OTHER OTHER SIDE
WHAT’S BIGGER THAN THE GOLDEN GATE YACHT CLUB?
Troy Sears’ replica of the schooner yacht America, that’s what.
Photo KL