Back In Bangkok

wingssail image-judy jensen
Off to Work



KBank

Arrived in Bangkok on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday Morning I'm on the street in front of our hotel heading off to work at another bank in Bangkok.

Searching for Apartments

The first thing we had to do when we got to Bangkok is look for a place to live. Judy had already been looking on the Internet so she only had to start making appointments to see some places, (from the luxury of her hotel tub; we don't have one of these on Wings, do we?)

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
Making Appointments

Checking out the view

Wow, Linen included!

Near Silom

Not only could we see my office from the hotel, but we could also see the neighborhood where the apartment is located. It's a couple of blocks off of Silom Avenue, close to the train station an also fairly close to the office.

Sailing Memories-Remember This?

western circuit regatta image
WINGS, powered up

It seems like an eternity ago that we were racing in Singapore in the Western Ciruit Regatta when this picture was taken, but it was not even one year ago; just last August. A lot has happened since then: our crew developed into a fine machine and also became good friends, we sailed the Malacca Straits to Phuket, raced in the King's Cup and won, cruised all over the area around Phuket with our granddaughter Candace and again after she left, raced shorthanded with Pierre in the Phang Nga Bay Regatta and came in second behind a fully crewed race boat, and since then have come back to Bangkok to work.

I think I like looking at this photo: it brings back some memories.

Tokyo Joe's-Bangkok Blues Festival

Unless you are into pain, don't even bother looking at the videos I posted below, however this one is really good, even if it was a different night and the place wasn't really rockin' like it was on Saturday.

You can also go to their myspace site
soidogbluesband and there are a couple of good clips there.

Still, I had my phone out and recorded a couple of cuts:

youtube video by wingssail imagesSoi Dog Blues Band

Yeah, I know, it's horrible quality; I took it with the old cell phone which I got for free in Hong Kong 4 years ago, what did I expect? But maybe you get the idea of what it was like in this club last night. If you click on some of the other clips which YouTube throws up you can get better sound, but it wasn't the same night.

There are four guitars going full blast; fast, hard, loud and lots of fuzz tone.

We loved it.

The guy in the foreground in the black shirt is the harmonica player waiting for his cue.
youtube video by wingsail images

Serious Trouble blues band

Sorry about the poor quality of this clip, I took it with my old cell phone. I know you can't hear a thing or see much, but maybe you get the idea.

These guys were from Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia and they rocked. Other than that we didn't learm much about them.

Think Hendrix, think Alvin Lee, think Jeff Healey, think Stevie Ray Vaughn.

You got it.

Killing Time

wingssail image-judy jensen
By the Pool

Hearing the birds in the jungle while reading a book by the pool in between dips to cool off: this is relaxing.

Whacking an Old Sail

Doug Christie of Lidgard made this sail for us in, oh, it must have been 1988 so we have had it for a long time. It was the primary racing sail for several years in Seattle, then we used it cruising for a number of years, and we used it again racing in Hong Kong and Singapore and it still did well for us in both countries. At about 20 years old that is pretty good for a laminated racing sail. But maybe we are not done with it yet: I got the idea that we can keep it a little longer if we cut out the worst area of weak cloth (the luff area where the Mylar is not backed by Dacron taffeta and the Mylar has failed completely)and at the same time create a slightly smaller sail for those light air days cruising in Asia when the 150% is just too much trouble.

I drew a long line from the tack to a spot in the leech about 3 meters from the top of the sail. Then I just whacked off all the cloth at the front of the sail, including the head patch and luff tape, along this line. This got rid of the latest hole and most of the bad cloth. I put the curve back in the luff (cutting off a lttle more bad cloth, and then I put the head patch back on and reattached the luff tape. Viola! We now have a 115%, high clew, #2 genoa which will be great for cruising. This whole job was about 8 hours and I did it all on the boat except for marking the lines which I did on the dock. I still need to put on a new spreader patch (only one is required now) and repair a few more weaks spots near the leech, but other than that the sail is ready to use and we can't wait to try it out.

If this works then it is probably the sail we need to have made in Dacron in the future (when this one finally finds it's way to the rubbish bin if it ever does).

Here are some photos of the project.

wingssail images
Sewing on Deck




Above:Smaller, higher clew
Below: New sail in bold line