A Speed Freak Besserwisser from Oslo, Norway

[Stein]

This is actually my second post on the forum, as my first is an overly long answer to the presentation of another new member. (Boating pro with dumb questions). By that I guess I've proven part of my post heading. (Besserwisser).

I do a lot of stuff, like bicycling, snowboarding and kiting, and I love travelling, but my main thing is: I've been sailing all kinds of boats all of my life, which soon is 50 years. I'll go on doing that for at least 50 more. I've done a number of long distance cruises. The more interesting ones would be on the TRT 1200 (40 foot very fast cruiser, proven capable of averaging above 20 real knots for hours) "Siste Skrik" (Last Scream) cruising in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic, and from the Eastern Mediterranean, out the Gibraltar Straight and up to Oslo, and totally different: In an old 20 tonne monohull from southern Turkey through Greece, Istanbul and the Bosporus Straight, across the Black Sea, up the river Danube through Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria,, and down the Main and Rhine rivers through Germany and the Netherlands, across the North Sea and home to Oslo. A very laborious and technically demanding trip, but a true adventure.

I've been racing very much too, a few years as a pro, but now I do it purely for fun. Key words would be the Yngling class, 470 dinghy, IOR classes (International Offshore Rule, predecessor of IMS), Hobie Cat 16, the Formula 28 pro multihull series, and briefly in the BIG size Formula classes. Last year I took up the relatively new and extremely competitive Formula 18 catamaran class and now sail the new Hobie Cat for that class, the Wild Cat. Incredibly fast and fun boats. Enjoy feeling like a semi rookie.

I've built a few boats. Notably Formula 28 trimaran Mirage, (length 28 foot/8,5 metres, beam 7,7 metres/25 foot, total weight 680 kilos/1500 pounds, sail area upwind 92 square metres/990 square foot, meaning: A monster fast thing) and was part of the design/build/race campaign behind Formula 28 trimaran XOZ, twice World Champ. (Both still exist, but have been somewhat detuned to make them possible to handle.) I've also designed a few boats, but mostly racing, until recently. I'm in the (lengthy) process of building a (very fast) long distance "cruiser", which will be much more suitable for normal sailors, and might be made for others too.

Having been in the sailing world all my life, I've gathered some theoretical qualifications. I have the D5LA certificate (Worldwide Yacht Master), certificates for all maritime radios, I'm a national level sailing Judge, national level sailing Coach and an Official Class Measurer (Wrong translation? Well. I measure race boats and certify that they are within allowed tolerances, or make the basis for calculating their handicap rating.)

I cannot promise to be regularly present here, but I'll pop by every now and then to give my 5 cents worth of opinion. I think it's a fair assumption that those cents will frequently give a generous word count value, and hopefully I'll stumble onto good stuff to say too.

Stein

[Stillraining]

Welcome Aboard

[James S]

Welcome to the forum Stein....thats a wonderful first post.

[CSY Man]

Ouch...

Impressive CV Mr. Norway.

Hopefully you don't mind hanging out with the unwashed masses here who never was racing judges or built our own boats or sailed the "Last Screams" or did all that good stuff.

Some of us are just lazy 'ol cruising sailors looking for good advise on extending the life of the battery bank or finding the best route to the Bahamas.

Lykke til din skrythals..

[Stein]

Ha ha. Men alt sammen er sant og faktisk tonet ned litt. Jeg tenkte det allerede var kvalmende nok. Men samtidig er det jo et poeng på et forum som dette å vise at man har kompetanse til å mene ting.

Well. My post did, in spite of being overly long and self indulgent (I excuse myself on the latter, as the point was a presentation related to sailing), lack a bit: Why am I here? I have at least six reasons for participating:
1. The important one is sharing my never dying enthusiasm with others of similar conviction.
2. I know a lot on the topic, due to an equally undying curiosity. I will learn here too.
3. I hope to contribute to the quality of discussions by adding my specific kind of knowledge.
4. As a multihull enthusiast, I hope to spread the one true religion... He he.
5. I actually enjoy writing. (What a shock. And yes, I talk a lot too!)
6. I find it very self enlightening to contemplate and explain even things I know much about.

Stein

[Stein]

I found this forum through a Norwegian multihull forum (flerskrog.org) that mentioned an old thread here, discussing mono versus multi, daggerboard versus fixed skegs and general safety topics related to those and ways of using boats. I've read through the lot, and find some misconceptions on those topics. The last post on the thread is from 2006. Is it still ok to revive this thread by commenting it? I guess many of the participants will have moved on, so the comment would mostly be towards new readers. Or would it be better to create a new thread and put in a link to the one that inspired it?

Stein

[Stillraining]

Personally I think it best to rive it...It gives continuity to the discussion...others will disagree with that...My reasoning is i like to go to one place for info not search all over the place.

As an example...You can just go to all my threads for all the best information avalibal on CF..

[CSY Man]

I found this forum through a Norwegian multihull forum (flerskrog.org) that mentioned an old thread here, discussing mono versus multi,

This Board was actually started by a Norwegian Multihull guy named Gisle, from Drammen with his cat somewhere in the Indian Ocean, so the roots are indeed there.

Then it grew up and evolved into a mature majority mono-hull board with them Catamaran guys always trying to sing the "No-Sink" song when one of the toy boats turned turtle in a breeze.

[Stein]

Very interesting. Drammen is just 40 kilometers west of Oslo centre (but quite a bit more distant fram the Indian Ocean.. :-)). I thought I knew all multihullers in the area, having been pretty deep into that "clan" for the last 30ish years, but can't recall any Gisle. But if he was interested in different sides of multihulls than speed and racing, (which I've been mostly preoccupied with) he may like to keep a low profile.

Is he still active here? I'll try to ask some of the seniors in the club if they know him. This site is obviously a good one with lots of experienced people. Should get more attention from our members. (No fear. Most of them talk less than me. :-D)

Stein

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and Welcome aboard!
Good to have you and your experience here on the forum.
kind regards,

[Stein]

Muchas gracias Señor. :-)
Just got home from Mallorca. Sailed the Hublot Palma Vela. Palmavela. Great fun with stars like Paul Cayard and huge boats.

But this revived some of the old memories from big boat sailing. They are just way too slow for their cost and size. Our neighbour at the pier was the 143 foot Wally "Esence". It's price is reportedly (I don't know if it's true, but it looks probable) upwards of 30 million Euros. It is a flush deck extremely smooth and fast looking carbon monster boat. But with the 18 thousand Euro, 18 foot, Formula 18 Wild Cat I sail at home, I can easily go way faster than it at any angle of sailing, unless the wind is very soft, when having a 50 meter or so mast, comes in handy. The high level of attention to this kind of racing seems weirdly out of touch with reality.

As an added spice to the trip, it was very hard to get home again. The volcano on Iceland made the stay a bit longer. But nice anyway, when those troubles and costs are taken care of by the boat owners shore crew and the weather is great. Maybe that's some of the explanation for why this sort of sailing stays in focus? Money...