Well, I suppose there’s good news all around:

Piers has been alive six years without seriously hurting himself, so we celebrated.  Lobster-shaped chocolate cake with us during the week, and then lots of friends and family on the weekend.

I’ve been hired to lecture a full-year section of Introduction to Philosophy at Lakehead University for this coming year.  That’s good.  I’m much happier with Intro than with what the other most likely option was going to be – Biomedical Ethics (online).  I’ve done both before and I much rather prefer Intro – it’s lecturing (not the mediated online format), it’s Intro (I’m a generalist), it’s easy (I’ve taught the class twice before, so most of the footwork has been done), and it’s worth twice as much money (it’s a full-year course, where Bio is only the Winter term). 

In related news, the approval for the Advanced Institute for Globalization and Culture (AIG+C, or The Agency) has come, and so is no longer hypothetical.  I’m hoping to be a part of this.  And I quote:

Globalization and the increased and changing role of culture in economic and social terms means that the fundamental assumptions upon which the regional economy and society are constituted must be reconceived.  The Advanced Institute for Globalization and Culture (AIG+C) offers a context for researchers to develop and communicate information, research results, and theoretical reflections on the forces that are shaping the problems and possibilities within the region.

Cool.

Finally, we seem to getting into phase on Straight Jacket.  No wins yet – far from it.  But we’re not last anymore, and that’s progress.  This past weekend was the annual Spring Series – distance race on Saturday, three windward/leeward courses (Wednesday night style, but only 4 legs instead of the usual 5), and we are beginning to see just how fast SJ can be even shorthanded (we only had 5 crew, and SJ needs 8-9 to be fully functional).

SJ is a boat from an old design rule that requires some specific and even unique boathandling.  She has a VERY large main, and a VERY small bow, and is VERY wide in the beam.  It became so very clear to me this weekend (especially Sunday) just how much SJ sails like a Lightning – to be fast, first remember to ‘keep it flat when it doesn’t want to be flat, and make it heel when it doesn’t want to heel.’  Because of the design, when the wind is up, keeping her flat is very hard to to.  With so few crew available to ‘sit on the rail’ or ‘hike’ (sit with legs outboard on the windward side of the boat, or ‘high side’) to counteract the heeling of the boat by the wind on the sails, we had to take other measures.  We reduced sail.  You must understand, this is a very hard thing for a racer to do.  It’s like installing a rev limiter in your Porsche – like self-inflicted castration.  There’s just something ‘wrong’ about it, making no sense to the deeper parts of your soul.  However, with the anenometer showing us only 12-13 knots (just over 20 km/h) true windspeed, we found that we were blazingly fast with a #3 (small headsail) and a reefed main (mainsail area reduced by lowering it to and securing it to predefined tying points).  In those conditions with full crew we’d have a full main and the #1 (biggest headsail) because we’d have so many crew out hiking, keeping the boat flatter.  But with only five crew, three of whom could hike out (driver and mailsail trimmer can’t hike), the reduced power allowed up to sit upright, showing more effective sail area to the wind with less drag on the sails, helm, hull, and keel.  Fast.  Fast fast fast. 

One last observation – the boat ‘functions’ better upwind with less people.  SJ has a lot of ‘controls’ that need tending to each time we change direction through the wind (tack or gybe), and that usually means lots of bodies.  This weekend, there were less crew but maneuvers were quick and clean, very much unlike when we have full crew.  Huh!  Part of that can be attributed to the competency of the crew this weekend (four very experienced crew, one newbie).  Even then, the only times, it seems, we actually need so many hands (the 8-9 mentioned above) is for weight on the rail and gybing the spinnaker (many, many more ‘controls’ involved than usual).  Something for us to chew on.