Louis Vitton Cup....America's Cup to Follow

San Francisco, Ca

I blazed a trail across the Golden Gate Bridge from my home in Marin County to watch The Italians and Swedes battle it out for privilege to challenge the Americans for the cup in September.

Team Oracle Downwind at 35 knots approaching Alcatraz

These cats are truly amazing.....to watch these machines jibe around a windward mark at 35 knots on hydrofoils is just crazy talk!

Jibing around the windward mark 30 knots

Italian Team Prada beating to windward at 20 knots

From the Grandstands using my wideangle

Christian Allaire, USCG (ret)
Currently a Mortgage Banker

On This Easter The Following Images

San Rafael, California

Fisherman's Wharf

Mexican Granny Selling Trinkets San Rafael CA

Church of Saint Raphael San Rafael California

Capt Chris

34th America's Cup Race in San Francisco

San Rafael, California


I was laying in the V-bunks aboard Christa the other night when it occurred to me the monumental nature of the 34th running of the America's Cup being held in San Francisco. Back in the day, I received orders to be stationed in San Francisco against my will. I had no desire to be stationed in the city by the bay. I mistakenly thought it was cold and rainy all the time, and that everyone had to be gay. I was way way askew in my assessment. The first time I walked through Sausalito, California I was floored. Some readers may know I lived aboard in Sausalito for seven years. The nautical heritage of San Francisco is significant, and is one of the huge draws for me to settle back down in the Bay Area. The America's Cup being hosted here in 2013 is just another feather in the cities seafaring cap.





The craziness of these sailing machine's is hard to grasp. Computer technology has pushed the sport into the stratosphere. I will be rooting hard for the American's and can't wait to observe the trials on the bay, the hoopla that the race will bring and of course the race itself will be great. Could be time to get a telephoto lens!





I hope to bring some personal reporting and photographs to the blog as the teams start to buy up pier space along the city waterfront. When things heat up, I'll be on scene. Could be time to join the CG Auxiliary and get more involved.

Blast From the Past

Jolly Harbor, Antigua 2008

Actually, not that much in the past. I just love the picture.

CC

San Francisco and the Golden Gate Photo ExpedItion

San Rafael, California


Yesterday was beautiful condition here in the San Francisco Bay Area to exercise my digital photography skills. Admittedly novice skills, but skills non the less. I mean how is one to become a better photographer? You gotta get out there and snap some pictures! And so I did. Here a tiny sample of pictures I took with my Canon G11, and then retouched in Aperture 3. At the bottom of the post I provide the link to the full Album of photos in my Picasa Web Album. Please let me know what you think!

Fort Cronkite Beach

 I spent about three hours hiking and driving around, snapping away as the light conditions changed. As the sun set, the fog started to appear creating some really cool conditions. What a joy. Click here to access my Picasa Web Album where you can you see all 286 photo's.

CC

Christian Allaire Is on the Road

Shelton Connecticut
At my Sisters

I rolled out of San Francisco this past Tuesday for a smooth month on the east coast. I'm be visiting family and friends during the period. I've used my sisters house for a storage facility for as long as I can remember. Living aboard a boat creates issues with space obviously. Over the years I've accumulated stuff I just don't want to part with.

As I mentioned in my December 10th post, I've always loved taking pictures. I built up quite a library of old school photo albums from days past. I'm now taking digital pictures of all my pictures and archiving them in the cloud and on Facebook, as well as on my MacBook for further back-up. It's been great fun to skulk through the past. Kind of gives you a check on how life has gone thus far.

I created the below slideshow in Apple's iPhoto 11. It really is a test run to see how it turns out. If I like it, I will make some more shows chronicling some other events in my life. How you enjoy!

Capt Chris

California Arrival

San Mateo California, Silicon Valley
Staying with Mark & Joanne

In my minds eye I had held the beauty of California. But the reality is a stretch better. I crossed into California yesterday morning and watched the nature of the desert gradually change. The desert is so vast and majestic and so very hot. I was traveling along I-10 for most of my trip westward.

But to avoid the metropolis of Los Angeles I had to re-route myself pretty far off the rhumb line, but was well worth it. I turned north at Palm Springs and climbed into the mountains, and then descended into Yucca Valley. The grandeur is tough to get your mind wrapped around. Certainly not a ideal location for a breakdown. All of this scenery was totally unexpected and really made the long drive pleasant. I would have loved to camp in some of these areas but the temperatures preclude any thing like that.

I guess what I am saying is I really did forget how absolutly beautiful California is. I spent the night in Mojave California not far from Edwards Air force Base. Another desert oasis of a town.

This morning the terrain changed again into mountains, then straight into the bread basket of California. I stopped in Arvin, a sleepy agriculture town south of Bakersfield that felt like Mexico to me. Maybe because the population is 87.8 percent Hispanic according to the 2000 census. I picked up a authentic breakfast burrito from a little Mexican Tacoria and then spent the next 3 hours north bound on I-5 through the central valley. The central valley is a sea of commercial farming operations. Water is a gigantic issue in California. The system of canals that has been created to divert water to the LA basin and the farms is a gigantic political football. With that, I noticed thousands of acres of farming land burned out. Signs abound reading "Congress Created Bustbowl." Something is afoot; not unusal in a state where the government is in a constant state of crisis management.

I've spent the past few months in warm temperatures and air conditioning. But in true San Francisco fashion, as soon as I negotiated Altamont Pass, the temperatures dropped dramatically and the fog started to appear. The Green Hornet felt the influence of the mighty Pacific for the first time. Once upon the San Mateo bridge which spans the south San Francisco Bay, I could see a typical 15 to 25 knot westerly breeze churning up a chop. And once again I had that stupid grin, boy was I happy.

It's nice to be back in the hood. Now I just need Christa to make it safely here. More on that tomorrow.

Capt Chris

Stay Strong Blog Readers

Living Aboard Christa In Naples Florida

 Blogging it turns out is alot of work. At least people who are successful at it, work at it just about daily.  I wouldn't toss myself into the "success" category really, but I do acknowledge that I haven't given up. In fact I'm more motivated than ever to keep at it. And, this is why you see re-designs more than you should and why I just can't help but tinker with the site layout.

It is important for me to keep in mind that a layout change does not constitute more content. It's kind of like a beautiful woman with no brains that continues to wear fresh and new clothing. The new clothing still won't cover up the fact she has not brains. My giggering with the blogger designs can leave me with the illusion of blogging. But bloggers must write and this is not easy to do day in and day out. I often wonder what the burn out rate for blogs is.

I enjoy mental challenge and this is why I didn't cancel the blog after I changed my circumnavigation plans. I still struggle to figure out what to write about or photograph or video. I guess the answer rests within a regular guys regular life. I do have to acknowledge the blogging pioneers at Bumfuzzle. They are the coolest.

To the sailing enthusiasts who follow or have followed, I thank you very much and hope you stick with the blog as I move in other directions. But, and this is a big butt! I don't ever see leaving me leaving my sailing roots. It's just in my blood. I will continue to liveaboard Christa and will ply the waters of San Francisco Bay to keep the nautical skills sharp. San Francisco and especially Sausalito has a substantial nautical heritage. I'll be rubbing elbows with all the salts that call Sausalito home. Of course I'll report when appropriate.

For others who are not so jazzed about the sailing aspect I hope you will stick around and send me feedback. I'll always try and keep it interesting and will blaze a path in new directions.

Now onto the whole point of this blog entry. I went back to my old format for a couple of reasons. I think it just is my favorite as it allows larger sized pictures than 3 column type blogs. But here is the most important reason. I received info that some people were experiencing problems with the new re-design in terms of shutting down their browser or triggering virus alerts. I know some have stopped reading the blog because of this. The problem only manifests while using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. No matter, I hope by going back to the old standby, the issues with the browser is solved. It is a tried and true design and has no bugs in it. The other one was new and apparently had some bugs. So that is that!

Capt Chris
PS: I found the really cool nautical picture above in a Picasa Featured Photograph section of Picasa Web Albums. Really cool picture of a salty dude standing watch or however the viewer wants to interpret it.

Trucking Christa Across the USA

Nailed to the dock, Naples Florida
Weather is rain, high 70's

As many know, I am in Naples picking up some work over the winter time to try and offset the cost of trucking Christa, my Westsail32 to Sausalito California, in the San Francisco Bay area. The short version of why I'm am heading west via the continent vs water is explained briefly here. It did occur to me moments ago, their may be some curiosity about the process and the expence involved. So I'm plan on documenting everything in the blog.

I am not a novice at the trucking game. Pictured above is Christa being lowered onto the bed of a tractor trailer in San Francisco in July 2005. I had always intended on leaving on trip around the planet from the West Coast post retirement, but the Coast Guard had other plans for me on my last tour. So I was forced to truck Christa from San Francisco to Wakefield Rhode Island. Everything with my first move went very smoothly, but there was a learning curve no doubt. The trucking charge in 2005 was about $5800 and roughly $1000 to haul-out and then re-launch. All of the prep work was done by me. This saved a fortune. It was about a week solid of 10 hours a day removing everything necessary for Christa to become legal for transport. I remember feeling sick to my stomach watching Christa's stern rock down the road aboard that flatbed.

A great resource is a website called uship.com. This is a auction type site. You plug in the parameters  and shipping companies make competitive bids. Last summer I bid out the job, from several different ports just to get a sense of the expense involved and to help me determine how much effort I should make to get to a certain shipping port. Clearly it would best if I crossed the Gulf of Mexico to Houston. This shaves off major trucking mileage. But I simply do not want to cross the Gulf. I am trying to balance out the following. The closer to California I get, obviously I save on shipping cost. But I need to nail a date down to ship and of course sailing and dates don't mesh well. So I'd have to build in a bunch of cushion time wise, which means I'd knock off work earlier than intended. See the conflict? Then where ever I end up trucking from leaves me stranded with-out a car. Then I'd have to pay to transport my butt back to Naples to pick up the Green Hornet. So I could end up saving on transport cost only to have the savings eaten elsewhere. I believe economists call this Opportunity cost. Not to mention crossing the Gulf with all the oil rigs and shipping traffic.

I have likely settled on shipping out of Ft Myers or Tampa Bay here in Florida. I will also consider Pensacola. Pensacola would be a 300 mile dash and could be done easily on one good weather window.

A-1-Haul-A Boat quoted me @ $8400 from Jacksonville to SF Bay.
Able Boat Transport quoted me @ $9200 from Jacksonville to SF Bay
Boat Express Shipping quoted me @ $6,000 to 8,000 from Houston to SF Bay

These are old quotes and unfortunately fuel prices have risen and I will likely pay more. For my own planning purposes I expect to spend $10,000 all in. Maybe I should change my Donate Button from educational expenses to boat trucking!

In the below pic, you can see all the rigging, including the Profurl strapped to the mast. The crane plucked the mast at the spreaders. It took about 35 minutes to do, billed @ 85 dollars every 15 minutes for the crane. So preparation is important. One stuck pin, bent cotter pin that needs to be unbent will cost dearly. This trucking experience was very valuable in terms of me learning my own boat. I had to put my hands on just about every piece of gear on the boat, adding to a already pretty good familiarity with the old girl.

 Trucking a boat is a fairly decent under taking, but also an opportunity to do some projects. In future posts I'll lay out some of those projects.

Capt Chris