Category: Uncategorized

Department of Delinquency–“Catmando”: Meet Californian Ronson Chuka Smothers. He lives to fish. Not just any fish. Catfish. Monster catfish. In 1999 he caught an 89.63-pound blue catfish at Irvine Lake, and snagged the California catfish record. But five months later a lucky, bass-fishing, sumbitch, grabbed a 101-pounder, relegating Catmando to runner-up. That didn’t sit well. So Smothers has spent 100 days a year for the past five years trying to reclaim his glory, often spending all day or all night in his boat. Sitting. Waiting. Hoping. The LA Times caught up to Smothers this week, and has a hilarious profile of this catfish crazy Ahab. Check it out:

The voice answering the phone at Irvine Lake insisted on respect for Southern California’s king of catfish.

“I seek the one they call Catmando,” I said.

“You mean the exalted Catmando,” she corrected. Moments later, his majesty, Ronson Chuka Smothers, was on the line…

Most anglers are liars and wannabes, but Catmando — “I like catfish, I’m a man and fishing is what I do” — is anointed…

“It’s the mystery of the deep,” Smothers said. “You don’t know the biggest catfish. Every time that line moves, you don’t know how big it is. Knowing any second you could be hooked up to something half the size of you, that’s what keeps you going. I’m looking for one fish, for the one bite.”

Who knows if Catmando will ever get that ONE fish, or whether, subconsciously, he really wants to. But at least he got a hell of a nickname out of it all…



Crazy Catmando: “I’m looking for this Dude’s big, big brother…”

(Photo: LA Times)

Annals Of Achievement–Half Woman/Half Fish: South African Verna Van Schaik is one hell of a scuba diver. Yesterday she dove to 221 meters (that’s 725 feet for all you metric-challenged readers), in a deep, dark cave at North Cape, South Africa. That’s an all-time depth record for a woman, and it took Van Schaik just 12 minutes to get to that depth. Then came the hard part–a five hour and twenty seven minute ascent, which required 40 separate decompression stops. Read Verna’s dive diary here. There’s also a great photo gallery. Cave diving. I can’t see it, because I’ve never had a thing for Gollum. But there’s always someone…

Verna As Venus: “You know. It just occurred to me. This is a really, really weird sport…”

Halloween’s Coming…: So it’s no surprise that at least a few Wetasses out there are doing their pumpking carving 25 feet under the waters off the Florida Keys…



Wet Pumpkins: The Dude on the far left thinks it’s Valentine’s Day…

Annals Of Misadventure–Roslin Bails: When we last checked on her, Roslin Forrest (who was out to become the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe solo and non-stop) was massively seasick and headed for San Francisco to consider her options. So it’s no surprise that on Friday she pulled the plug on her adventure. You can check out the entirety of her long message of explanation over at Explorer’s Web. But here’s the gist:

“…[T]his is perhaps one of the hardest decisions I will have ever had to ever make. I say the following with regret, but with my head held high and a smile behind my tears.

I was upset with my decision, or realization, that a solo circumnavigator is not for me.

The question that I was asked so many times and I hear repeatedly in my head; “Why is it you want to spend ten months, alone, sailing around the world?” If you ask most people they would shake their heads, perhaps make a face and say, “I don’t!” And that’s exactly it. It takes a certain kind of person to do such a sail; a person with a serious amount of grit.

There has, for many years been an English sailor, a few years older than me, whom I have always been jealous of and looked up to. (If you’re a sailor and don’t know of Ellen McArthur please look into this girl!) I think of Ellen now and all the amazing things she has accomplished and I feel no jealously. Like so many others I look up to her in admiration. I now know that I don’t share the same outstanding qualities that she does. It just isn’t me and that’s OK. I don’t need to put myself through months of misery to prove it to myself or to anyone else..”

It takes a lot of strength to be this honest. And, oddly, a lot of strength to give up and admit failure. One of solo sailing’s most notorious stories is the saga of Donald Crowhurst, who simply could not bring himself to admit to the world that he wasn’t up to the solo, non-stop Golden Globe race in 1968. Crowhurst ended up sailing in circles in the South Atlantic reporting false positions, afraid to head into the maelstrom of the Southern Ocean and too proud to admit defeat. When it became increasingly clear his deception would be discovered he went mad, and walked off the back of his boat. It’s a cautionary tale, so no one should be too hard on Ros. But at the same time you can’t head off to sea with so little experience, and so little preparation (she lamented the lack of a frying pan) and not expect to catch some flack when it all goes wrong. Click here, if you want to drop in on a discussion of her decision at Sailing Anarchy. Here’s a sample:

Sympathetic: “Just be thankful that she had the good sense to quit and that she didn’t have to be rescued by anyone. Hopefully this was a good learning experience for her and she’ll do some shakedowns and be better prepared in the future.”

Not so sympathetic: “…[G]etting seasick proved too large a challenge for her. Either that or not having a frying pan to puke in.”

My take: I have no problem with anyone who chooses to risk their own life with poor preparation. But I have a big problem when they risk someone else’s life by calling in the rescuers when trouble inevitably hits. Thankfully, Roslin didn’t ask anyone else to put their life on the line for her. But what if she had experienced her change of heart off Cape Horn? Here’s how Francis Chichester described his pioneering 1967 solo rounding of that godforsaken headland:

“The waves were tremendous. They varied each time, but all were like great sloping walls towering behind you. The kind I liked least was like a great bank of gray-green earth 50′ (15m) high and very steep. Image yourself at the bottom of one” he told Life readers..

“My cockpit was filled five times and once it took more than 15 minutes to drain….My wind-reading machine stopped recording at 60 knots. My self-steering could not cope with the buffeting….I had a feeling of helplessness.”

And Chichester was as experienced as they come. You made the right call, Roslin…



Chichester Battles Cape Horn: “I say, Roslin, dear girl, this isn’t the place for you…”

Sandy Point Speed Week–Not Nukin’ Yet: The king of all southern hemisphere speed weeks got underway Saturday. No official report yet, but I snagged this brief summary off a chat forum:

“The unofficial, underground, unrestricted (etc) Sandy Point GPS SpeedWeek started with a bit of fun yesterday (Saturday). The forecast was ‘iffy’ and the winds were light in the morning with a gentle southerly breeze. By the time the tide had receded far enough to get into the inlet easily there was 11 knots of SW. As the day wore on it gradually built and by midday there were sailors everywhere on large boards (Hypersonics and similar) and sails. During the afternoon the equipment was scaled down slightly as the wind eventually built to 15-18 knots. (I had my fastest runs on a Carve 99 with 340 Hyper fin and 6.6 KA Koncept at 30.9kts)

About 20 people where squeezing every last drop of power out of the wind and a few were peaking in the low 30Kts. Maquarrie Innovation had two runs at low tide and got up to over 40 Knots on one with the crew pod flying over 1 meter above the water. (15-18 knots of wind remember). It was not a good average as they had difficulty getting planing and entered the course slow. The second run they struggled to get going and did not get the crew pod flying. I doubt they went much more than 30 knots. On this run they lost part of the endplate under the wing so I wondered if it had been dragging in the water and prevented them from planing. Don’t know though.

Ian Fox and Mal Wright were busily downloading tracks and working out results last night. I saw some preliminary results that had some low 30’s (Kts) 500m averages but I will have to wait ’till I see the full results to say more.

Long range forecasts are saying 30+ knot SW winds on Wednesday. Bring it ON!”

Stay out of the Fishy Pub, boys and girls. Big winds are on the way…



The Sandy Point Speed Track: Could it look any faster…?

Have A Wetass Weekend…:

(Photo: Tim Parker via AVWeb)

Annals Of Misadventure–Roslin Forrest: Canadian solo sailor Ros Forrest, attempting to become the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe non-stop is in trouble. Not danger (yet), but trouble. Turns out she just didn’t have a lot of experience in her boat before she set out earlier this month. Her winch handles don’t fit, her sheets are the wrong length, she’s been having trouble with her centerboard, and she forgot to bring a frying pan. These are all minor issues, taken alone. But it sure seems like she doesn’t know that much about sailing. And when you put it all together and remember that she’s headed for the tempest of Cape Horn, which has killed more than a few old salts, it’s a bit worrying. Plus, Roslin is now suffering from severe seasickness after going through her first real storm at sea (with winds up to 50 knots), and isn’t getting much food or liquid down. Her shore team has recommended that she head toward the California coast and calmer seas, so she can think it all over and bail out if she decides she’s just not up to facing the Southern Ocean and ten more months of sailing. The pull of a nearby port can be overwhelming when things are going badly at sea, but it’s a smart decision. No one will fault her if she gives up. And if she doesn’t, well, she’s really got heart. Either way, hope she stays safe…



Naive Roslin?: “Wow, this is great. I wonder what it will be like when the wind starts to blow…”

Annals Of Inanity–Where’s The Fire?: Most of us have been slapped with speeding tickets, mostly for topping the speed limit by 15, 20, 25 mph. So TWC would like to offer a salute to one Samuel Armstrong Tilley, from the great state of Minnesota. Last month, Tilley was hit with a speeding ticket for doing, umm, 205.1 mph on a Honda motorcycle. Yikes. That’s believed to be an unofficial world record for speeding on a public road, exceeding the previous record set by New Yorker Dr. William Faenza, who was nabbed doing 182 mph (in a 55 mph zone) in a 1997 Lamborghini Diablo. Tilley was clocked by a police plane using a stopwatch, but is contesting his ticket by arguing his Honda RC51 bike is only capable of about 145-150 mph (oh, is that all?). Might the police plane pilot have made a mistake? Turns out he was timing both Tilley and a friend of Tilley’s (who was doing 111mph on an MV Agusta F4i)…and flying the plane at the same time. You decide. Anyhow, if you want to get a sense of what it’s like to be on a motorcycle doing close to 200 mph, check out this mesmerizing video (note: the speedo is registering kilometers per hour. When it hits 299 the bike is doing about 180 mph).

Tilley’s fine was only $105 so he doesn’t have to worry too much one way or the other. He’s just lucky he’s not a citizen of Finland, where speeding ticket fines are proportional to the speeder’s personal wealth. The result: Finnish millionaire Jussi Salonoja was recently fined a world record $216,900 for speeding in a 25 mph zone. Now that’s a fine…



Tilley’s Defense: “C’mon, Judge. There was no way I was doing 200 mph on this thing…”

The Need For Speed…: The speed junkie sailors of the Northern Hemisphere have had their week at Weymouth. Now it’s the time for Antipdoean adrenaline addicts to get their groove on. Starting Saturday, at Sandy Point, in Victoria, Austalia, the Southern Hemisphere’s fastest sailors will be unleashing one timed run after another. Sandy Point is where Yellow Pages Endeavor (the current sailing speed world record holder, at 46.52 knots) put up its world record time. And it’s where YPE’s successor, Macqaurie Innovation, will try to outdo her. The otherworldly red machine has been at Sandy Point since the end of August, and has already put up a 44 knot run. Sandy Point Speed Week will run for, umm, a week. Want to know more? Check out the following event FAQs, to get the full, irreverent, Aussie flavor of the event:

So what are the rules ?

Simple. Just Go.

Go out (when you like)

Go fast (when you can)

Go back ( when you’re done)

Go download your results for filtering.

That’s it ?

Basically.

Endanger another competitor : OUT

Fail to yield to Starboard (tack, not Tiki boards) : OUT

Interfere with or obstruct Macquarie Innovation : OUT

What ? Where’s the official NoR etc ?

Hello ? This event is likely not for you.

Thanks for your interest anyway.

Who’s organising it?

Looking for someone to complain to ?

Sorry. Wrong event.

This is a serious racer event by racers, for racers.

Event management is from the highest levels of the sport in Australia.

But this is an event – for us as racers – not bureaucrats.

Everyone’s invited, but we aren’t asking you to be there.

Underground? Clandestine ?

Not intentionally. But it could seem that way.

Just hardcore. Pure. And Simple.

What about safety?

This is potentially a dangerous activity.

If conditions get epic, potential will become reality.

Sandy Point is an isolated location.

Rescue and medical facilities are limited. And distant.

Medical evacuation for serious injury will be both essential and expensive.

Event safety will be a priority – but not always possible.

You attend and participate entirely at your own risk.

You MUST have suitable liability insurance.

(let us say that again)

You MUST have suitable liability insurance.

Well what type of sailing craft can compete?

Provided only wind powers it, you can race.

Can’t get much simpler.

So who will be there?

Those who want to be.

Windsurfers. Kiters. Foils Yachts. Blokarts?

Macquarie Innovation. (Yellow Pages)

There’s a lot of guys out there with the yearn to burn.

A few pretty fast ladies too. Or is that pretty, fast ladies ?

If you can do it & want it bad enough you will be too.

Your call.

Can you cheat?

Yes, just once. And you are out. Guaranteed.

Just like an Olympic drug cheat, we will find you.

You’re out of the event, shamed, and it will be known.

Where is Sandy Point?

Sandy Point is a quiet isolated small coastal community.

One store, one cafe, one streetlight.

At night, everyone sleeps. Or hits the Fishy pub.

What will conditions be like?

Nestled inside a natural venturi on the Southern tip of mainland Australia

Sandy Point faces the full brunt of Antarctic’s roaring 40’s.

The actual racing takes place on Shallow Inlet, about 2Kms past town.

It’s vehicle accessible only at low to mid tides via Sandy Point Road.

Ocean winds sweep in from Bass Strait over a foiled sandbar 500m wide

creating perfect offshore airflow on flat water inside the tidal inlet.

A good October day at Sandy Point is windy from SW at 15-25kts.

Wind that time of year is frontal, some days can be light.

Temperatures can vary from warm on light wind days to cold.

On a REALLY good October day W/SW cold frontal winds can be 40kts +.

Hypothermia is a real possibility in these conditions. Be prepared.

These are the days. They are cold, harsh. Fast.

I heard the place really nukes. Does it?

It can, and when it does, be ready.

60kt fronts turn day into grey.

And monofilm into trash.

Is it really “sandy”?

Yes. Very.

A new car will never be the same.

Laugh now. But we warned you.

I love it. Hope it nukes…



Mystical Macquarie: Ready to rumble…

Wetass Video Of The Week…: This film about how kitesurfing can go oh-so-wrong has been making the rounds, and there’s a reason. It’s unf*ckingbelievable. Money quote: “I’m kitesurfing, not skydiving.” Click here to check out one wild ride, with blow-by-blow follow-up interview…



“Uh-oh. I’m starting to think I might need a parachute.”

(Photo: WetDawg)

Thanks to Lucian and WaterWrkPr for the tip