Category: Uncategorized

Wetass Career #62–Golf Ball Fisherman: Next time you are on a golf course and see the duffers dunking shot after shot into the water hazards, ask yourself: what happens to all those lost balls? The answer is: Michael Aux Tinee. He’s the guy in funny waders, carrying a big feed bag, who’s trudging, swimming and diving through the water hazards, scooping up ball after ball with his self-designed “Mr. Lucky” retrieval probe. Sounds like a miserable way to make a living, but Aux Tinee and the hundreds of other golf ball fishermen that troll through the nation’s golf courses are onto something good. The average golfer loses 5 balls a round (it’s a $200 million a year industry, bro). Aux Tinee retrieves anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 balls a year, and gets between thirty cents and two dollars (according to the quality) for each one. You do the math. Check out this profile of Aux Tinee if you’re ready to start going to golf courses to MAKE money, instead of just lose balls. Here’s an excerpt:

“Water moccasins can be tricky. Shards of glass may pierce his waders. Stones are murder on the knees. And it’s no picnic diving through inky, chemical-clouded water with people taking aim at you. But that’s not the worst part of the job. “It’s the turtles — they’ll take your finger right off,” says Michael Aux Tinee, Golf Ball Diver…

The money may be quick, but it can come at a price. And though Aux Tinee has never been hurt, some of his fellow divers have not been so lucky. In June of 2001, Emmett Clive Willis III drowned while hunting balls in Hickory, North Carolina. The same fate met Mark Feher while he was working a course in Boynton Beach, Florida. Some divers have nearly lost their lives amid the branches and fishing line that often rest at pond’s bottom. In swampy Florida, alligators are a major hazard.”

Or you can read about Norm Spahn, who dives Sawgrass and has a personal record of 15,000 balls in a single day. He’s been attacked by an alligator, bitten three times by water moccasins, and had crabs and snapping turtles hanging off him more times than he can count. In addition to golf balls, he’s hauled out about 500 golf clubs…

Is this a great country, or what…?



Scavenger Spahn: “Hey, you big baby, do you mind if I putt out WITH YOUR CLUB…?”

Department of Weirdass Wetass Adventures–Sherlock Holmes Across The Outback?: You have to give British adventurer Lloyd Scott credit–a lot of credit–for imagination and a raging enthusiasm for life. In the 1980s, Scott, 43, survived leukemia and a bone marrow transplant. In the aftermath he decided to raise money for leukemia research by pulling off, umm, unusual stunts. So in 2002 he claimed the record for the slowest London Marathon ever, with a time of more than 5 days. Why was he so slow? Well, he raced the entire course wearing a 200 pound deep sea diver’s suit. In 2003 he came up with another oddball stunt. He walked the entire length of Loch Ness…underwater (it took him 12 days to cover the 25 miles). Guess that divers suit came in handy. And on Wednesday, Scott, 43, set off on his latest unusual adventure: he’s peddling an antique bicycle across Australia, 2600 miles from Perth to Sydney…dressed like Sherlock Holmes. In other words, he’s wearing a tweed suit, a deerstalker cap, and a large fake moustache. Scott’s route crosses the Nullarbor Plain, where temperatures will regularly top 100 degrees, and he admits that he might loosen–or even, if no one’s looking, take OFF his jacket–when the mercury soars. “Everyone I’ve sort of met over here has warned me of what to look out for — road trains, cattle grids, kangaroos, emus, bulls, camels — and I’ve got a list now that’s nearly as long my arm,” Scott said. TWC can think of a much more obvious danger: the mother of all sore, aching, butts. But maybe he can use some of the $2.5 million he’s hoping to raise on a little aloe cream…



“I think I can roll right over koalas, but I better not hit any kangaroos…”

(Photo: AFP)

Photorgasm–Digital Cameras, White Snow And The Alps: You can smell the snow coming, and it’s time to go skiing, or at least think about skiing. To get you in the right frame of mind, here are a couple of shots from Skiing magazine’s digital camera contest. Go here if you want to see more…





(Photos: Jancsi Hadik)

The Wetass In Winter–Reinhold Messner: He’s brash, egotistical, and loves to dive into controversy. He’s also one of the best climbers to ever put boot to rock, and the Guardian newspaper has a must-read profile of the man who turned big mountain climbing on its head by throwing away his oxygen bottle, disdaining massive climbing parties in favor of going solo, and who became the first climber to stand on the top of every 8,000 meter mountain on the planet. The profile includes a concise and insightful history of Messner’s controversial evolution as a climber. More important, Messner, who is now 60, voices his profound disillusion with the state of modern mountaineering. And he doesn’t mince words (as if he ever did):

‘Mountaineering is over,’ he says, emphatically. ‘Alpinism is dead. Maybe its spirit is still alive a little in Britain and America, but it will soon die out.’…

When he stood on top of Lhotse on 16 October 1986, Messner had become the first man to climb all 14 8,000m peaks. But statistics alone could never tell the story of the danger and difficulty that he embraced. Between 1980 and 1982, eight of the world’s top climbers died at high altitude, including Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman, two of Britain’s finest alpinists. Messner knew the risks. ‘You could die in each climb and that meant you were responsible for yourself,’ he says when we meet. ‘We were real mountaineers: careful, aware and even afraid. By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are. You can only get this if you expose yourself to high danger. I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain.’

This wilful embrace of danger has all but disappeared today, he says, blue eyes flashing with indignation. ‘High-altitude alpinism has become tourism and show. These commercial trips to Everest, they are still dangerous. But the guides and organisers tell clients, “Don’t worry, it’s all organised.” The route is prepared by hundreds of Sherpas. Extra oxygen is available in all camps, right up to the summit. People will cook for you and lay out your beds. Clients feel safe and don’t care about the risks.’

Messner mentions the tragedies of the spring climbing season of 1996, when 12 people, among them commercial clients who had paid more than $50,000 (£28,000) for a place on a team, died on Everest. ‘They climbed like stupid people. But it’s human nature to act like that. When there are so many people on a mountain you feel like there is no danger.’

Ouch. Tell us what you really think, Reinhold. As much as the commercial climbing community might not want to hear such criticism, Messner is raising questions that go to the heart of what climbing is all about. And he’s certainly earned the right…



Mad Messner: “I don’t need no stinkin’ oxygen bottles, guides, or friends. I do need a little publicity though…”

Wetass Video Of The Week–U.S. Navy vs. ???: This is a great clip, particularly if you are in the Air Force or Army, or you are Irish (why? watch it and you’ll see why). It’s based on a well-traveled story about U.S. Navy arrogance, and someone liked it so much they turned it into a pretty high quality vid. Click here to watch this drama on the high seas…



“Okay, men. Let’s go kick some ass…!”

Annals Of Adventure–Roslin Forrest Sails Away: Most 23-year olds are messing around with resumes and wondering why they have to get older. Canadian Roslin Forrest has found the perfect solution: go sailing. On Sunday, Roslin set off singlehanded from Vancouver in her Columbia 34 “Scotwork” (I guess when you get sponsorship you have to go with the sponsor’s name, even if it is a clunker). Her goal is to become the youngest woman to sail solo and non-stop around the world. Right now that distinction belongs to Ellen MacArthur, who completed the non-stop Vendee Globe at the age of 24. Roslin is headed south for Cape Horn, and then east across the Southern Ocean. She expects to complete the voyage in about ten months (Ellen did it in three months). You can follow Roslin’s voyage here. There’s a lot of talk on sailing forums about Roslin’s relative lack of sailing experience, particularly offshore experience. But that’s what makes her voyage and its ambitions so courageous. Tania Aebi, who made it around the world solo, was basically put on the boat with no experience whatsoever by her father. So we’ll see how Roslin does. Right now, the going is nice and easy:

“Well a very slow four days, didn’t think it would take so long to get this far. I got wind for a few hours every day, but mostly glassy calm. First night was no fun in the shipping lanes after drifting there; rumbling monsters speeding by me, not sure if they saw me or not. Called Seattle Traffic to start warning them. Radar on every night and draining batteries.

Ebbing tide is slowly taking me out to sea, hope wind picks up before the flood tide.

Phosphorescents were great with the sea lions swimming about. Now sitting just SW of Carmanah Pt. My ten minute naps are working surprisingly well for now.

Love Ros”

Cape Horn will be the first real test…



Glassy Departure: “Uh-oh. At this rate it’s going to take me 12 years to sail all the way around, and I definitely don’t have enough Skittles for that…”

Annals Of Adrenaline–Weymouth Speed Week: Now this is an event that any Wetass would love. Every year, the good folks at the Amateur Yacht Research Society, along with a gentleman named Bob Downhill, stage a speed sailing free-for-all in the speed friendly confines of Portland (England) harbor. They set up a 500 meter course, hope the wind blows like hell, and will time any speed junkie, in any craft they choose, over a 500 meter run. The result is a non-stop whirlwind of windsurfers, kitesurfers, skiffs, multihulls and, this year, more extravagant craft like SailRocket and WindJet (two of the freaky-looking contenders in the quest to break the 50-knot speed-sailing barrier). This year, more than 50 contestants put up more than 800 runs, and 20 of the 50 topped 30 knots (which is to say they ran the course in under 30 seconds). Top speed went to windsurfer Bjorn Dunkerbeck, who put up a 36.18 knot run (a Weymouth Speed Week record). And one windsurfer sailed a total of 181 kilometers (according to his GPS) over the course of the week. You can see pictures and full results here.

Other Speed Week news of note: Paul Larsen’s SailRocket finally stopped diving to the bottom of the bay long enough to break the 30 knot barrier. Here’s Paul’s description of what it’s like to try and keep this beast under control (warning: somewhat technical language ahead):

“We were first off when the breeze came in and this was a pretty alarming run. The water was good and I was well lined up on the course. There was still a lot of spray and visibility was limited. The boat proceeded to go into a big yawing motion which felt like the sailing equivalent of a big ‘ fish-tail’ . I was fighting to keep it simply pointed down the course as the helm swung from heaps of weather to heaps of lee helm. It was if I was just playing catch up with the rudder as to where the boat really wanted to go as if someone was steering with the back wheels whilst I was steering with the front. There was a hell of a lot of steering input going in and therefore I had no intention of going in real close until I was comfortable. You have to remember that on this boat I only have two options in order to get out of trouble. One is to sheet in hard to bring on lee-helm which makes the craft bear away until I get enough room to either round-up or I keep bearing away until I lose the apparent wind and slow down. It’s going to be a pretty hairy option in the speeds to come. The other option is to dump the mainsheet which brings on a lot of weather helm, overpowers the steering and causes the boat to round up and stop. This will not be an option when we get in real close to the shore. We think that the boat is yawing around due to its overall layout. With the rig so far off to one side, the centre of effort of the sail plan can move fore and aft of the centre board quite a lot with inputs from sheeting angle, boat to wind angle, apparent wind angle and gusts. The latter could perhaps have upset what is usually a much smoother transition for one form of helm to the other. We will play with this and Malcolm will do some numbers. I did a big bear away at the end of the course and bounced over the chop further of the shore at a deep angle. I think this is when we got the 31 [knots]…”

WindJet, which was powered by a 20 square meter kite (I told you it was a freak show), managed some runs in the high 20s. If you want to see what a kite-powered speedboat looks like, check out this little Quicktime movie clip of WindJet bouncing along. Hmmm. SailRocket and WindJet are very, very cool, and very, very finicky. My bet is that a windsurfer is going to be the first to break Yellow Pages Endeavor 46.52 knot speed sailing record. Stay tuned…



Wild Weymouth: “Keep it rolling, Paul. If SailRocket slows down or stops, you’ll get run over by a RIB, a windsurfer, a kitesurfer, and, once they turn around, a beach cat…”

(Photo: Ingrid Abery)

Annals Of Adventure–Martian Mission (Sort Of): The pull of the Red Planet grows. With the Moon already done, the space shuttle grounded, and the international space station just…existing, a manned mission to Mars is just what the world needs to get excited about space again. Okay, it’s not going to happen anytime very soon, but the Russians–God bless ’em–are on the move. They are planning the launch the 500 Days experiment, in which they will lock six volunteers (who clearly don’t have much else going on at home) into a metal tube for–duh–500 days. They’ll have limited supplies of food, water and oxygen, and the idea is to see whether humans can handle the psychological stresses of a long Mars mission without killing each other. The experiment is planned for 2006, and the Russians have generously invited their colleagues at NASA to participate. Typically, the NASA bureaucracy is gumming the idea to death pending a decision (just say “yes,” you idiots, it’s a very cool experiment, even if the food will be all cabbage and black bread). The longest an American has stayed in space is 196 days. The Russians, of course, have that whipped. Their endurance record is 438 days, which is roughly the amount of time it takes to read “War And Peace” ten times. Potential volunteers should note that the Russians do not dare try this experiment with a mixed crew, so no women will be allowed. That should be appealing to, say, sailors in the Royal Navy. But TWC says it not a truly useful experiment unless they try two other mock missions–for contrast and comparison–at the same time: an all woman crew (who says men will handle the stress better?), and a mixed crew (it’s at least worth looking into and would draw a boatload of internet traffic if they’re smart enough to install a webcam). Come to think of it, this mock mission would make for great reality TV, and the Russians always need cash for their space program. So seed the crews with some fading celebs desperate for attention, and give Mark Burnett a call…



The Martian Life: “Excuse me, Paris. There’s a guy on the phone with a funny accent. Says he’s from the Russian Space Agency…”

Have A Wetass Weekend…

(Photo: Madman Bryan Youngs, via Wet Dawg)

Department Of Deconstruction–The Cult Of Summit Bagging: The LA Times takes an interesting look into the history and psychology of serial summitting. With so many glory hounds and amateurs going for either the Seven Summits (the highest seven peaks on the seven continents) or the Fourteen 8,000ers, the purists are griping that the sport of big mountain climbing has been turned into a money-grubbing, ego stroking parody of its glorified early years, when motives were personal and quests were quixotic. Here’s Reinhold Messner, the first man to bag the world’s fourteen highest mountains:

Messner, as is his wont, has been vocal about the commercialism that has gripped his sport, particularly the swarm pursuing Everest. “This Everest is no longer my Everest. Nor is it the same mountain the pioneers knew,” he wrote in Climbing magazine five years ago. “Yet it remains the most prestigious peak in the world, apex of all vanities. At the same time it has become a substitute, a kind of badge of courage the peak bagger would love to flaunt on his lapel back home, without having to assume the necessary responsibility in the field.”

A few interesting tid bits. Youngest person to bag the seven summits: 22-year-old Britton Keeshan, an American college student and grandson of TV’s Captain Kangaroo (no, he didn’t hop to the top). Fastest to hit all Seven: well-known climbing guides Rob Hall and Gary Ball, who did the circuit in just 214 days (both men are now dead, killed in the mountains). The next number to pay attention to: twenty-one. Turns out some of the 14 8,000ers have multiple summits, and no one has hit them all. The race is on…



Climbaholic Ed Viesturs: “Dammit, I’m due to polish off the fourteen next year, and NOW they raise the number…?!”