The weather is going to be a boomer this week in Saga!
We just had a great practice flight in typical Saga winds. Light and variable near the surface with good speed up top.
Because our other volunteer crew are not available until tomorrow, we hijacked some spectators from Nagasaki who had come to watch the balloons. I took the guy for a flight from the main launch field then landed after my first practice goal and swapped him for his girlfriend for the next hop.
After another practice goal we landed and they both drove the van while Yosh took over and flew the balloon for half an hour. He had a great time and I think learnt a lot about where he was actually up to in his training.
I gave him a rough flight plan - fly for about half an hour and land anywhere he wanted to that was safe and not crop. It was a solo flight without actually being solo. As the morning went on we edged closer and closer to the sea and his stress levels started to climb as the light and variable winds messed with his approaches.
In the end I took over for the landing as we were starting to run out of options and I really needed the balloon for the coming week :)
Anyhow, we are all ready to compete. Master briefing is this afternoon then it is game on.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Japanese efficiency
Some quick observations from a far away land.
Japanese efficiency is not what it used to be. Even the land of the rising sun is being shackled and tamed by bureaucracy.
To anyone who has visited Japan before would be aware that they are in some ways the masters of procedure, rubber stamps and ten people doing the work of one. I honestly feel that only in India have they been surpassed in these areas. The great thing has however been that the Japanese were kept in check by a sense of honor and duty, a need to please and at the end of the day, actually make stuff happen rather than hinder it. The red tape was a mask that was always politely removed when it became obvious it was actually a problem.
It seems that unless a miracle happens in the morning, the red tape is fixed in place for the moment on one subject. Unfortunately it is one close to my heart at this minute and that is fuel tanks.
The powers to be have ruled that only Japanese manufactured and approved tanks can be filled. For me this would have been very handy to know about last week as I have now freighted three tanks of exactly the right size and capacity for my little basket to Japan only to be told I can't use them.
This is compounded by the fact that the Japanese tanks are crap. They are too small and I don't like the valve configuration. To get the same amount of fuel in my basket I will need to carry five of the little buggers and that is just physically impossible. Sigh....
So fingers crossed that after tomorrows practice flight I will know how long my duration will be with these tanks and more importantly, enough people will have problems that it is sorted out as it always would have been in the good old Japan that I have come to love over the years.
Other than that, I am here, my gear is here, my crew Yosh is here and the forecast is looking good for a week of flying.
Oh bugger...this post will now be out of date because the free Internet seems to be down at the competition HQ.
Japanese efficiency is not what it used to be. Even the land of the rising sun is being shackled and tamed by bureaucracy.
To anyone who has visited Japan before would be aware that they are in some ways the masters of procedure, rubber stamps and ten people doing the work of one. I honestly feel that only in India have they been surpassed in these areas. The great thing has however been that the Japanese were kept in check by a sense of honor and duty, a need to please and at the end of the day, actually make stuff happen rather than hinder it. The red tape was a mask that was always politely removed when it became obvious it was actually a problem.
It seems that unless a miracle happens in the morning, the red tape is fixed in place for the moment on one subject. Unfortunately it is one close to my heart at this minute and that is fuel tanks.
The powers to be have ruled that only Japanese manufactured and approved tanks can be filled. For me this would have been very handy to know about last week as I have now freighted three tanks of exactly the right size and capacity for my little basket to Japan only to be told I can't use them.
This is compounded by the fact that the Japanese tanks are crap. They are too small and I don't like the valve configuration. To get the same amount of fuel in my basket I will need to carry five of the little buggers and that is just physically impossible. Sigh....
So fingers crossed that after tomorrows practice flight I will know how long my duration will be with these tanks and more importantly, enough people will have problems that it is sorted out as it always would have been in the good old Japan that I have come to love over the years.
Other than that, I am here, my gear is here, my crew Yosh is here and the forecast is looking good for a week of flying.
Oh bugger...this post will now be out of date because the free Internet seems to be down at the competition HQ.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Back from outa space
Looks like I have been a bit slack with this old blog here but the good news is I am still alive and the adventure continues.
It is that time of year again and time to head over to Japan for a bit of competition ballooning. Just for a change I am attending Saga for the pacific championship and then Motegi for the Tochigi Championship.
It will be an interesting year for two reasons. Firstly it is the year after the World Championship was held in Motegi and secondly, for Motegi at least, it will be the organising committees fist year without Masashi running the show at all.
I am left with mixed feelings about the whole thing. Had Masashi not passed away last year I may have been tempted to have a year off and put all my focus on the 2008 Worlds in Austria. These trips to Japan are expensive in time as much as anything but they do provide the only training at this level available to me. With the effort of Masahi's team in Motegi over the years, I feel it is critical to support the event and in particular show Honda that their continued support of ballooning is appreciated.
So, the end result is that I am going, I am excited and I plan to win (as always...)
My balloon is already on it's way and with some luck will be waiting for me at Fukuoka on Monday morning. My good friend Yosh will be meeting me at the airport so we can go and clear it from Customs first thing in the morning.
In other life matters since my last post, a quick update on what has been going on...
I have been going nuts with my Ceroc dancing. Not that I am a competitive bastard but I ended up doing the Ceroc Championships a few weeks back. I entered in two events, Dance with a stranger and Girls Blindfold. It was great fun! In DWAS you have no idea about the music or who you are dancing with. Every 40 seconds or so you swap dance partners and keep on dancing. The whole idea is to freestyle your way through the songs as smoothly as you can while making the most of the music and your partner.
There were two rounds of heats to get the 35+ couples down to the 6 finalists (6 guys and 6 girls that is). I made it through to the final but that was it. Still, I was very happy having never participated in a dance champs before and not really being prepared as I would have like to have been.
The girls blindfold was good fun and my dance partner Charlie and I only had a few weeks to prepare after deciding to do it. This was a little different in that you at least knew who you were dancing with and could set up some moves but you still have no idea about the music and just have to interpret it on the night. The catch is that the girl has a blindfold on so it is all about you ability to lead the girl and for the girl, her ability to follow. This is bit of a fun event and we didn't make the final but again had a hell of a lot of fun.
The next big thing is Kite Surfing. Thanks to a mate from dancing, I have been learning to Kite Surf and have just bought my first rig. Having done just about every sport with a board on my feet, I have got up to speed reasonably fast over two weekends of learning and am able to get up and going with few problems. Now I just need to finesse the kite control and practice, practice, practice. Having my own kite will help too because I won't be so worried about trashing it.
So that is it for now. I will try and get some links happening for the balloon events and will probably next talk from Singapore Airport....which reminds me!
My trip to Japan is with Singapore Airlines and is via Singapore. I am not sure about the flight out of Sydney but I know the return flight will be on the new Airbus A380. That is very cool as they only just did the first ever commercial flight with the A380 today.
Singapore/Sydney is the first route for this massive and new aircraft. As an aviation buff it would be a bit like getting onto a 747 within the first week of it entering service back in January 1970.
It is that time of year again and time to head over to Japan for a bit of competition ballooning. Just for a change I am attending Saga for the pacific championship and then Motegi for the Tochigi Championship.
It will be an interesting year for two reasons. Firstly it is the year after the World Championship was held in Motegi and secondly, for Motegi at least, it will be the organising committees fist year without Masashi running the show at all.
I am left with mixed feelings about the whole thing. Had Masashi not passed away last year I may have been tempted to have a year off and put all my focus on the 2008 Worlds in Austria. These trips to Japan are expensive in time as much as anything but they do provide the only training at this level available to me. With the effort of Masahi's team in Motegi over the years, I feel it is critical to support the event and in particular show Honda that their continued support of ballooning is appreciated.
So, the end result is that I am going, I am excited and I plan to win (as always...)
My balloon is already on it's way and with some luck will be waiting for me at Fukuoka on Monday morning. My good friend Yosh will be meeting me at the airport so we can go and clear it from Customs first thing in the morning.
In other life matters since my last post, a quick update on what has been going on...
I have been going nuts with my Ceroc dancing. Not that I am a competitive bastard but I ended up doing the Ceroc Championships a few weeks back. I entered in two events, Dance with a stranger and Girls Blindfold. It was great fun! In DWAS you have no idea about the music or who you are dancing with. Every 40 seconds or so you swap dance partners and keep on dancing. The whole idea is to freestyle your way through the songs as smoothly as you can while making the most of the music and your partner.There were two rounds of heats to get the 35+ couples down to the 6 finalists (6 guys and 6 girls that is). I made it through to the final but that was it. Still, I was very happy having never participated in a dance champs before and not really being prepared as I would have like to have been.
The girls blindfold was good fun and my dance partner Charlie and I only had a few weeks to prepare after deciding to do it. This was a little different in that you at least knew who you were dancing with and could set up some moves but you still have no idea about the music and just have to interpret it on the night. The catch is that the girl has a blindfold on so it is all about you ability to lead the girl and for the girl, her ability to follow. This is bit of a fun event and we didn't make the final but again had a hell of a lot of fun.
The next big thing is Kite Surfing. Thanks to a mate from dancing, I have been learning to Kite Surf and have just bought my first rig. Having done just about every sport with a board on my feet, I have got up to speed reasonably fast over two weekends of learning and am able to get up and going with few problems. Now I just need to finesse the kite control and practice, practice, practice. Having my own kite will help too because I won't be so worried about trashing it.So that is it for now. I will try and get some links happening for the balloon events and will probably next talk from Singapore Airport....which reminds me!
My trip to Japan is with Singapore Airlines and is via Singapore. I am not sure about the flight out of Sydney but I know the return flight will be on the new Airbus A380. That is very cool as they only just did the first ever commercial flight with the A380 today.Singapore/Sydney is the first route for this massive and new aircraft. As an aviation buff it would be a bit like getting onto a 747 within the first week of it entering service back in January 1970.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Little less talk, litte more action please...
Well there has not been much action here for a while because, in my real world there has not been much action to write about...
After all of my fun and games with the Nationals and Sailing it has been head down bum up here at work and not much else has happened.
The weather for flying has been generally poor and the few days I had allocated for some commercial flying have turned out to be windy, wet or both.
Last weekend I finally got to go and play and had two interesting flights.
Saturday we had a large corporate group from Canon to fly up in the Hunter Valley. It consisted of journos and photographers from all over the place on a junket to test out and review the new EOS40D digital SLR. It was an interesting mix of people and they were having way to much fun. The toys they were playing with were absolutely fantastic and I could hardly hear myself think while the shutters clicked away for the entire flight.
I worked out I had about $30,000 worth of cameras and lenses in the basket between the 10 passengers. I was really glad that when I pulled my camera out it was a Canon too. I might have been lynched if it was anything else.
After the flight we got to hang around while they printed out the best shots on a fancy new Pixma printer - the results were fantastic and fast for an inkjet printer spitting out high quality A3 sheets.
As much as I enjoy meeting new people on commercial flights, this group were wonderful in that they entertained themselves, had lots of interesting stories and were busy telling them to anyone who would listen.
The next flight on Sunday was interesting for different reasons.
With the visit of the great errorist* Gerorge dubbya Bush and the rest of the APEC gang, Sydney is in lock down. The entire Sydney basin has been declared a restricted zone for aviation and special flight authorisations are required.
All this has been in place for months with people expecting to operate in the area having a registered operator number and needing to file flight plans etc. The really cool bit is that on the day of your flight you need to get a special authorisation code from the defense force.
If you can't quote the flight authorisation code and registered operator number when contacted in flight, you will end up getting escorted out of the zone by and FA/18 fighter or Blackhawk helicopter.
Now I don't know the last time someone tried to escort a balloon anywhere, other than the tragic events in Belarus, but I was really hoping they would give it a go. I am annoyed enough about the waste of money and time that this little APEC party is costing us that I was ready to be martyred to show how stupid this whole situation is.
My passengers were amused at the whole concept, then a little concerned that we may get shot at and finally bitterly disappointed when we didn't see a single bit of military hardware for the entire flight. You can't win.
Next weekend will be more interesting because they APEC crowd will actually be in town so with some luck we will get a decent air show for all our tax payers dollars being spent on fortifications and dinner parties for the various world leaders.
* follow the link for a definition - language may offend but we are talking about an offensive individual.
After all of my fun and games with the Nationals and Sailing it has been head down bum up here at work and not much else has happened.
The weather for flying has been generally poor and the few days I had allocated for some commercial flying have turned out to be windy, wet or both.
Last weekend I finally got to go and play and had two interesting flights.
Saturday we had a large corporate group from Canon to fly up in the Hunter Valley. It consisted of journos and photographers from all over the place on a junket to test out and review the new EOS40D digital SLR. It was an interesting mix of people and they were having way to much fun. The toys they were playing with were absolutely fantastic and I could hardly hear myself think while the shutters clicked away for the entire flight.
I worked out I had about $30,000 worth of cameras and lenses in the basket between the 10 passengers. I was really glad that when I pulled my camera out it was a Canon too. I might have been lynched if it was anything else.
After the flight we got to hang around while they printed out the best shots on a fancy new Pixma printer - the results were fantastic and fast for an inkjet printer spitting out high quality A3 sheets.
As much as I enjoy meeting new people on commercial flights, this group were wonderful in that they entertained themselves, had lots of interesting stories and were busy telling them to anyone who would listen.
The next flight on Sunday was interesting for different reasons.
With the visit of the great errorist* Gerorge dubbya Bush and the rest of the APEC gang, Sydney is in lock down. The entire Sydney basin has been declared a restricted zone for aviation and special flight authorisations are required.All this has been in place for months with people expecting to operate in the area having a registered operator number and needing to file flight plans etc. The really cool bit is that on the day of your flight you need to get a special authorisation code from the defense force.
If you can't quote the flight authorisation code and registered operator number when contacted in flight, you will end up getting escorted out of the zone by and FA/18 fighter or Blackhawk helicopter.Now I don't know the last time someone tried to escort a balloon anywhere, other than the tragic events in Belarus, but I was really hoping they would give it a go. I am annoyed enough about the waste of money and time that this little APEC party is costing us that I was ready to be martyred to show how stupid this whole situation is.
My passengers were amused at the whole concept, then a little concerned that we may get shot at and finally bitterly disappointed when we didn't see a single bit of military hardware for the entire flight. You can't win.
Next weekend will be more interesting because they APEC crowd will actually be in town so with some luck we will get a decent air show for all our tax payers dollars being spent on fortifications and dinner parties for the various world leaders.
* follow the link for a definition - language may offend but we are talking about an offensive individual.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Words of wisdom...
Just read a couple of wise words that suddenly made me realise something about someone I know, that I probably knew deep down but can only now accept as fact....And no, I have not been drinking.
"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person."
On a lighter note and from the same barrel of wise words;
"Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night"
"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person."
On a lighter note and from the same barrel of wise words;
"Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night"
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Winners are grinners..
Back to the real world after 2 days 11 hours and 15minutes of fun.One word to describe the race. Fun. The weather for the sail could not have been much better. We spent most of the time under spinnaker blasting along at between 7 and 9 knots with a few slow periods of lighter air that bought our average speed for the 384 mile race back to 6.5 knots. This is fast for our boat as it is a cruiser not a light weight racer.
The start with 72 boats was fantastic. We were all under spinnaker on port tack in Sydney harbour, the bright yellow Kavanagh Balloons branded kite flying along with all the big names in Australian racing. A quick gybe just after sow'n'pigs reef got us out of the heads and then a gybe back to port to head up to coast. From there until midnight we were running with the Kav kite until wind speeds got up over 30knots and we pulled it down before it broke something. Maximum boat speed was 12.2 knots on the first night.
Sunday morning and the breeze had eased slightly and the Kav kite went back up until we pulled a swift little gybe and set a bigger and lighter kite around 10am. During the day we passed a few whales and even got to see a large humpback breech a few times. No photos - too busy racing!We held the big kite all day in lighter winds. That night the light weight kite suffered a small tear during a gybe and soon blew out leaving us with the kite torn in two pieces.
A quick drop of the damaged sail and the heavier Kav kite went back up with little fuss and we were under way.
Lighter winds on Monday morning made for a few tense moments as boats we had passed or been holding off started to creep up around us. It kept everyone focussed and made for some jovial exchanges at change of watch as to who had done a better job keeping boat speed and course. We also got to see more whales and a few dolphins.
Sunrise on Monday morningBy sunset Monday we were at Byron Bay and the winds were back up above 20knots and the boat humming along in the high 7 to 8 knot range again. We were visited by some more dolphins having a play in our bow wave.
We had calculated we needed a run rate of 5.6knots to beat UBS Wild Thing but it was all depending on the finish time for Stampede as to whether we would get 1st or 2nd.
After rounding Point Danger we gybed back to port for the line, passing behind Tartan who we had been in close contact with all day. Soon after the sea breeze flipped to the westerly and we were able to drop out kite and hoist the number 2 head sail for a reach into the finish line. In the change of direction and our timing of the gybe we ended up in front of Tartan and they followed us over the line about 200m behind and in 4th place.
For us, we had done enough to finish in first place on corrected time and in doing so had some very sporty boats behind us. Wild Thing had finished 15 hours ahead but with the performance handy cap system that put them 3 hours behind us on corrected time.Not bad for my first big ocean race. The skipper summed it up perfectly. "We are out to have fun and winning is the best sort of fun."
We pulled into a berth at the Southport Yacht club at about 2am and could hear the party at the club going strong. A quick change from full race gear into the appropriate onshore sailing gear and we were in there drinking Bundy and Coke from jugs like the rest and best of them. A little after 4.30 am it was time to sleep for a few hours before breakfast and the presentation.
The talk at a yacht club after a race is as bad or worse than a ballooning championship. Lots of hand signals describing manoeuvres, rules and tactics. Back slapping for a job well done and commiserations over wrong decisions. The biggest difference is the drinking - I am yet to see rum and coke being sold by the jug at a balloon meet. It might get more people into ballooning if we did...
There is also the uniform. You have to look salty and wind/sun burned with the right shirt (name of your boat or a famous race is mandatory) and beer or rum in hand (a jug is good for extra or instant friends).
A great quote overheard while sitting below decks at the yacht club: "Oh thats Namadgi.....we were beaten by that? Oh no!"
Highlights for me have to be helming for about 8 hours in the race, at speed and under spinnaker. Overtaking a few boats while on the helm only to have the crew ooh and ahh at the whales! Getting the met right and seeing it all unfold more or less as I expected. Getting to share a race with dad, that was cool. Winning but I suppose that is a little obvious.
It was a great honour to sail and share in the win with Rick (Skipper), Gath (Nav), Jack, Brad Susan and dad. Thanks for having me along for the ride.
Balina nearing Sunset
Dad & Susan near North Solitary Island
Me on the helm during happy hour
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