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stpauligirl:

What episode is this? IS THIS REAL?

Yup. DS9 season 5, episode 6.

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In anticipation of Leg 2 I’ve been watching videos from previous races. This video of Team Russia gybing accidentally during the 2008-9 race is pretty fun, if scary.

The first few days of Leg 2 have a history of being rough. There often are high winds and big swells rolling up from the Southern Ocean. Surfing a Volvo 70, or even the current race’s somewhat less-powerful Volvo 65s, downwind in 40-50 knots of wind is a constant struggle to maintain control. Sail too close to the wind and the boat will round up and broach. Sail too far off the wind and the boat will round down, spinning to leeward and doing an out-of-control crash gybe. That’s what happened to Team Russia here.

Obsessive analysis of the video after the cut.

Here’s a rough transcript of what the video shows:

• 0:13 – 0:30 – Mast-cam view of the cockpit as the boat surfs. I’m not sure how fast they’re going, but my guess is it’s at least 30 knots. They appear to be going faster than the wave train, surfing down a face, getting doused as they bottom out in the trough, then taking off again on the next wave.
• 0:30 – We switch to the stern camera, looking forward. It’s not a great view because of all the spray on the lens, but you can see enough to tell that this isn’t a continuous shot with the previous view; two sequences from different times have been edited together. In the earlier shot the helmsman had the high-visibility yellow hood pulled over his head, while the mainsail trimmer (I think?) standing to his left had a dull yellow hood. In the new shot, though, the helmsman’s head is bare, while the trimmer has the high-visibility hood.
• 0:34 – The helmsman, on the starboard wheel, is spinning the wheel to starboard, but the boat keeps turning to port.
• 0:36 – 0:38 – As the boat heels to starboard its lee helm increases, turning them faster. Shouting (by the helmsman?): “Gybing! Gybing! Gybing!”
• 0:39 – The boom crashes over.
• 0:47 – Helmsman, gesturing upward: “Get the runners up! Get the runners up!” He’s talking about the running backstay. With the wind now on the opposite side of the boat, the mast is dangerously unsupported for much of its length. Rigging the port running backstay will help them avoid losing the mast.
• 0:53 – Helmsman, louder: “Get the runners up!”
• 0:54 – Crewmember, responding: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
• 0:55 – The shot dissolves as some time is edited out. I don’t think it was very long, but you can see that the shot becomes clearer as some of the spray clears from the lens, and the trimmer’s position changes slightly.
• 1:02 – Helmsman, gesturing to port: “Get the keel over!”
• 1:03 – Crewmember, responding: “Yeah, yeah; everybody’s working.”
• 1:10 – The trimmer unclips his harness in preparation for climbing up to the high side.
• 1:20 – The helmsman and trimmer climb to the high side of the boat.
• 1:24 – We switch to an interior shot, looking out at the cockpit and showing a crewmember sliding around inside the cabin.
• 1:38 – Back to the stern camera, looking forward.
• 1:44 – Crewmember: “Give me a knife. Give me a knife.” Not sure what he’s planning to use it for, but presumably there’s something that needs to be freed that can’t be released quickly enough via less-drastic measures.
• 1:46 – Back to the interior view, looking out of the cabin at the starboard wheel being spun back and forth. Maybe the helmsman is spinning the port wheel, testing to make sure the steering assembly is still working? Or checking to make sure the wheel is hard over to starboard?
• 1:51 – Crewmember: “More runner. More runner.” (Maybe?) It looks like the boat is leveling out; presumably they’ve got the keel canted back to centerline. At the same time, the boat begins moving forward again; you can see that they are turning to starboard, heading back downwind.
• 1:57 – “Are we going to do a gybe?” (That is, turn back to their original starboard gybe.) “No, no.” Rather than gybe back, they’re going to remain on port while they get things settled down.
• 2:06 – “Watch your runner.”
• 2:14 – Crewmember just aft of the cabin gestures upward. “Hang on guys. The runner is on the wrong side of the main. Okay?” You can see what I assume is the port runner hanging slack in the air to his right (our left); it looks like two of the three upper parts of the runner are caught behind the mainsail, while the third part leads back toward the boat’s port side (our right).
• 2:20 – The same crewmember keeps talking. “How about we get those sheets around?” He turns aft to address the people behind him. “Let’s get the sheets around first, okay?” He says some more after that, but I can’t make it out.
• 2:30 – The camera pans upward to show the rig. They’re sailing wing-and-wing, with the main to starboard and what looks like a staysail to port. A larger jib appears to be mostly flopping around forward of the staysail. The upper elements of the port runner are hanging loose; you can’t see it in the shot, but presumably their lower parts are pinned to starboard of the lower section of the mainsail.
• 2:36 – (Other crewmember) “Whatever you do, don’t go up without a harness.” I’m guessing this is in connection with a discussion of going forward to straighten out something with the headsail sheets.

Watching these guys get this situation under control is impressive. There’s some chaos at first, but then there’s a palpable sense of competence and calm.

Still, they were lucky nothing broke.

Also, as long as I’m obsessively analyzing, I can’t help observing that this year’s race, in which a Chinese-sponsored boat with a significant number of Chinese crew have been doing really well, might be a good time to think about retiring the phrase “Chinese gybe”. Just saying.

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Dongfeng Race Team prepares for Leg 2:

After 25 days at sea in leg one of the Volvo Ocean Race, the crew of the Dongfeng Race Team are now preparing for the challenge of leg two from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi. This is another exceptionally tough oceanic marathon and although slightly shorter than leg one at 6,125 nautical miles, it is still the third longest leg of the race.

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spiritofsailing:

Five-Cutter “Eva”

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dendroica:

Fringed Gentian (Gentianopsis crinita)

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1ppikiookami:

Hundreds of free digital publications on art

• The Met 
• Getty Publications Virtual Library
• The Guggenheim

happy happy

Whoa. I seriously want to check this out. Thanks!

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overdose-art:

Art History Meme : [2/6] Themes in Van Gogh’s work

 Still Life, Flowers

• Irises (1889)
• Basket of Pansies (1887)
• Wild Roses (1890)
• Almond Blossom (1890)
• Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1889)
• Butterflies and Poppies (1890)

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“I read the books and I really, really wanted to play the part. I started kundalini yoga, kickboxing and running, and completely changed my diet. I felt I wanted to undergo what was necessary for the part. I love a challenge. And I love defying limitation, gender stereotypes and people’s expectations of me as an actress.” – Gwendoline Christie for NET-A-PORTER, November 2014 (x)

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thehundredfootjourney:

That moment when you catch him looking.

See The Hundred-Foot Journey in theaters tomorrow. Get tickets.

I liked this movie a lot.

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thegetty:

“To be a painter, one must work with rays of light.” —Edvard Munch

Starry Night, 1893, Edvard Munch. The J. Paul Getty Museum

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sylvia-morris:

Sketching with some left over black paint. This is a perfect summary of my regular sketching: people’s faces, cats, and flowers.

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tomrny:

doctorcanon:

tomrny:

do you know how much better life would be if we could zoom our eyes in and out

Stepping closer. You are talking about moving your body.

oh yes let me just step closer into the sky and look at the stars, or how about i step closer into the tiger den at the zoo to see them better

Binoculars. A side-benefit of being a bird watcher is that you a) frequently have them with you and b) have desensitized yourself to giving a rat’s ass what people think about how you look using them.

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majagray:

#Repost from @team_sca
Congrats on the amazing job yesterday!!
—-

Hello Cape Town! It was worth the walk to the top of Lions Head this morning , what a view! #CapeTown

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nprfreshair:

“The Nile, draining out into the Mediterranean. The bright lights of Cairo announce the opening of the north-flowing river’s delta, with Jerusalem’s answering high beams to the northeast. This 4,258 mile braid of human life, first navigated end-to-end in 2004, is visible in a single glance from space.” – Chris Hadfield

Astronaut Chris Hadfield has a new book of photography called “You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes.”

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shmoo06:

SaturDIARY x x

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gandalf1202:

Laura Knight – Nuremberg Trial [1946] on Flickr.

On the right two benches of the accused leaders stretch away from the foreground to the centre of the painting. Behind the defendants stands a line of white-helmeted military police who guard the benches and separate them from the court beyond. On the left, in front of the defendants, sit two rows of lawyers, largely in black robes. The lawyers and the defendants study sheaves of paper. In the background the painting metamorphoses into a depiction of rubble and damaged buildings, leading back towards a burning horizon.

Knight was appointed a ‘war correspondent’ for this commission and made a special BBC broadcast from Nuremberg. She gained special access to the broadcasting box just above the prisoners where she was able to make charcoal studies of the main protagonists amongst the lawyers and the accused. Her painting reproduces faithfully the courtroom scene and is, in effect, a group portrait of the prisoners who are shown wearing the cumbersome headphones necessary to hear a translation of the proceedings. Knight was deeply disturbed by what she heard during the trial and the painting shows a landscape of desolation floating above the courtroom like a shared nightmare. We are invited to contemplate the dreadful consequences of totalitarian power. The international tribunal at Nuremberg tried twenty-one leading Germans, headed by Hermann Goering. Eleven of the accused were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment and a further four were given lesser prison terms.

[Imperial War Museum, London – Oil on canvas, 182.8 x 152.4 cm]

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Ian Walker driving upwind like a boss.

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