SIGHTINGS
JULIEN GIRADOT / DPPI / TOTALLYMONEY.COM
perham — cont’d As if those campaigns aren't controversial enough — "What age is too young?" many critics are asking — 13-year-old Dutch sailor Laura Dekker has now thrown her hat into the ring with the full support of her parents, who are circumnavigators themselves. Even in the Netherlands, however, which is arguably the most open-minded country in Europe, Dekker's intentions have sparked a substantial controversy. In fact, government agencies are vying to put her in protective services in order to block her record attempt. It's important to note that her proposed route would take her mostly through the tropics via the Panama and Suez Canals. Although we're normally opposed to the regulation of personal liberties, we can certainly see the point of those who question the wisdom of allowing kids to go to sea on their own when their wisdom teeth haven't even come in yet. But where do you draw the How long will Perham hold the title? Not line? Perhaps at crossing the long if Zac’s little sis has her way. Southern Ocean and rounding Cape Horn. Remembering how that tumultuous cauldron has nearly taken the lives of more mature sailing luminaries like Isabelle Autissier (twice), Tony Bullimore (five times), and others, we have to wonder if the potential glory is worth the risk. Stay tuned for further developments. — andy
size matters The boat on the cover of the most recent issue of ShowBoats International, one of the ultra-glossy magazines published for the megayacht market, is Bill Joy’s 190-ft ketch Ethereal, a very lovely boat in what might be called the ‘modern traditional’ style. The yacht was launched in The Netherlands last October by the celebrated Royal Huisman Shipyard. Joy, a co-founder and chief scientist of Santa Clara-based Sun Microsystems until ‘03, and a current partner in the Palo Alto venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, was one of the first boatowners to spend a lot of time and money considering all options in an effort to make his yacht as eco-friendly as possible. To that end, she’s got a hybrid electro-mechanical propulsion system and all sorts of other features to make her more energy efficient. Ethereal was chosen as the cover girl for ShowBoats because it was the “’Super-Green Superyachts” issue of the magazine. If you’re wondering how anybody can say “green motoryacht” without turning red with embarrassment, editor Jill Bobrow said she understood. In fact, Bobrow initially compared it to other oxymorons such as down escalator, jumbo shrimp, old news, and black light. But by the end of her editorial, Bobrow wrote that ‘green motoryacht’ didn’t have to be an oxymoron because “yachts are becoming ‘more perfect.’” While admitting that the idea of creating a megayacht that had zero impact on the environment was “hopelessly optimistic,” she said that thanks to the surge in environmental awareness by the owners of big yachts, “giant baby steps” were being made. We wouldn’t have envied Bobrow’s assignment of having to make the case for mega-motoryachts being green, but at least she was honest enough to present evidence to the contrary. For example, in one of the issue’s articles, former San Francisco Bay sailor, Ron Holland, the continued on outside column of next sightings page Page 86 •
Latitude 38
• September, 2009
navigation Triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point — such as a finish line of a sailing race — by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly. The point can then be fixed as the third point of a triangle with one known side and two known angles. It sounds complicated and not very much fun, so when we decided to navigate the recent Santa Barbara to King Harbor Race on Profligate without the use of GPS,