Three

This is not a commercial sponsored by a certain phone company. Instead it is mostly about the virtual sailing and a little bit about me. An old friend reminded me that I totally forgot my three years blogoversary. So here it is. A little late...

Munch, munch, munch

So what's happened? What's going on? Long story short? It's mostly more of the same. See my two year blogoversary post. We've seen a couple of new boats though. Very nice ones. Most of the new boats are now mesh boats, so we're getting used to boats with an extreme attention to detail. The Laser is one such boat. Beautifully built and fun to sail.

Munch, munch, munch

The Laser is definately a normal boat, but "boat" may be too big a word for the Laser. When it comes to real boats, there's the Bandit 50. It looks so much like a real boat. I still need to give it a test ride though, so I haven't got a good picture. Yet. It's been quite a busy year on the other side of the mirror, aka the RL. There's also the Cafe Del Mar. 75 feet of luxury sailing. Very nice too.

Munch. munch, munch

However, not everything is meshed up. Manul finally decided to release his beautiful Ten. An amazing and original piece of work. It's been updated a bit so it has a more recent sail engine, but that's not the important thing. The Ten is all about classic beauty. Lots of it. Also from the Rotary Bootshaus we saw the inflatable sailing canoe. Back in the mesh department, there's also new things cooking in Craigs Kitchen. All about beauty too. The Ktaba was updated and there's a new J underway.

Mega munch

The J-Class is so big it won't fint into one picture. Huge actually... and super classic. I can't wait to see a bunch of J's on a short up down course. That surely would be a challenge... the virtual J-Challenge would be somewhat easier to take on, as this huge boat can be sailed by one person. Easily.

Munch, munch, munch

ReneMarine has been a bit quiet this past year, but that's mainly because Rene has been busy building the Clever. I am not at all done writing about that lil boat. Perhaps not a classic beauty, but it has that touch of realism that makes it so much more fun to sail. 

There's also the mesh Ernestina, the Francois Jacques, the VO65, the Nacra17 and possibly more that I either forgot or never heard of. One thing strikes me as odd. Qyv and her Quest Marine has been kinda quiet, but I know there is something going on... It's around 28 feet and superdelicious... so stay tuned. Oh, and let's not forget Charlz Price and his beautiful boats at TRYC. On this next picture there's also Ana's new RC boat. It's been disguised as Ahab's harbour master boat, but under the disguise it has all kinds of interesting features for the RD to play with.

Munch, munch and a windmill

I took a few steps too. I built a boat, hehe. It's a beginning, but I have a long way to go. Currently I am messing with a windmill. It's perfect for learning about rotation. Think about it! Tower, prop, windmeter and windvane... all with individual and coupled rotation. It's a mess. I need to learn about rotation for other projects. Boatly projects. Fizzkit for mesh and stuff. Live wind import maybe. More on that in future posts. It's been an interesting year allright. Still the boat builders of SL are - in so many ways - playing catchup with the Flying Fizz...

Any conclusions after that lengthy read? I'd say the virtual sailing of SL and the SL sailing community, is more interesting and more vibrant than ever before. There's way more boats to choose from, and the quality of the builds are rising... better graphics and better sailing characteristics. I think I'll stick around a bit longer...

PS: Don't miss the Christmas Show at Tradewinds. It's fabulous.