The Cutty Sark, Britain’s famous 138-year-old tea clipper, was badly damaged in a fire Monday morning, according to the BBC. The ship was undergoing restoration at the time, and half of the planking and the masts had already been removed as part of the project. According to the article, the damage to the remaining strips of planking could be fixed.

This is kind of sad for me, as I have very fond memories of visiting this ship on a couple of occasions with my dad while visiting Greenwich. It is a simply stunning clipper and to see it in person was always really exciting for me. I can’t quite understand why someone would intentionally set it ablaze, as the BBC suggests happened.

The ship gets its fame from being one of the fastest clippers in the competitive China-England tea trade routes. The first ship of the season to arrive with tea was always met with huge profits, and the Cutty Sark always performed exceptionally well. In the famous race against Thermopylae, the Cutty Sark lost a rudder two weeks into the voyage and still managed to sail to port only one week behind the competitor. And that was with a jerry-rigged rudder, not a replacement.

The good news is that the chief executive of the Cutty Sark Charitable Trust, Richard Dougherty, believes that the damage can be undone.

What has to be the sleekest, shiniest, most beautiful boat ever built showed up today in Portland. I’ve been reading and hearing things about this thing of gorgeousness for quite some time now, and was quite shocked to see it docked down at our waterfront. 

The Earthrace boat, built by a bunch of New Zealanders, is out to destroy the globe circumnavigation record held by a powerboat (currently 75 days). They plan to have the job done in 65, giving them 10 extra days at the end to sit on the dock back home, drinking Margaritas and admiring their jaw dropping toy. Hey, that’s what I would do. 

Here’s the cool thing. It runs on BioDiesel, so you can put it in your xx-large garage right next to your Jetta. This will make it the first round-the-world attempt on renewable fuel. Beat that Batman.   More photos after the jump.

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So, yet again I have been away from my desk for an extended period of time. What have I been doing to warrant this vacancy? Well, all sorts of stuff. I have been up in Portland for quite a while now helping out with the Jesuit High School newspaper. My mom is the advisor there and I wanted to get involved. Besides, I’m working on the newspaper at the University of Oregon, and I thought it might be a good idea to get an idea of how this stuff works before I reported for duty. So, P-town it was for a few weeks.

Then, last weekend, Dad and I went off to sunny San Diego to go sailing. Not a bad prospect if you ask me. Dad’s got a former coworker who is still a member of a yacht club down there and we were able to rent a Catalina 28 for the day. Saturday turned out to be one of the better sailing moments I’ve yet experienced. There’s nothing quite like sailing out on the ocean off the coast of San Diego. The photos in the gallery are from that trip. Oh, and the latter photos are from our day trip to Tijuana. Dad and I rode the train to the border to go get some lunch that Sunday.

Tomorrow I head back down to San Francisco to visit Gisele. I didn’t get a huge opportunity to say hi to her when I was there last month, plus there are some other things I should do down there. Firstly, I’ve decided to show up in court for my ticket (cause I’m a good boy), and I also intend to check out the Academy of Art University – San Francisco. I’ve heard that they’ve got a good Advertising MFA program. Worth investigating. So, as my flight is rather early in the a.m., I think I should best be off to bed now. Night night.

So, have you ever had yak meat before? Didn’t think so. If you have, of course, I’m rather impressed. I’m up in Portland this weekend. Mom, Dad and I decided to go out for dinner last night, and we decided on a place that my parents go to with some frequency. It’s a Tibetan restaurant that serves amazing food. So, we ordered some yak dumplings. Hot damn, that meat was good. So, if you’ve never had yak before, and you ever have the opportunity to try it, I highly recommend it.

The photo above was from a sailing adventure in Newport a few weeks ago. My mom came out to watch and got this amazing shot . Pretty cool, huh?

Okay, well, I need to get on with the day’s activities. Just wanted to check in and say hi. “Hi.”

Check out some of the other photos my mom took in Newport.

But first, let me begin with yesterday. As I was getting ready to go out to the lake for sailing practice, I was approached by captain George Yioulos and Kirsten McEwen, a reporter for the U of O Daily Emerald. She was just getting ready to put to bed a story about George when it became clear that her photographer wasn’t going to make it out to the lake. So, they asked me to fill in and grab a George shot for the next day’s paper. I happily accepted the challenge. The story was in today’s edition and was absolutely fantastic [thank you Kirsten]! Plus, I got to take the photo. My first time being “published.” I can’t complain about that. While I was out at the lake, I also got some great shots of the team. More after the jump.

Ben Hackett is good at being a bad-ass.

Jes Giddens is the best. An awesome sailor and an inspiration to us all!

Tyler McNamara works on rigging a boat. This man’s as sharp as a tack [sailing pun intended].

George Yioulos is most certainly the man. He keeps this team together like it’s nobody’s business (except it happens to be his). He got a great write-up in the Oregon Daily Emerald today.

Matt Sperry is, no doubt, a dude. He is the nicest and greatest. And, he can sail like the dickens.

The month of April is quickly coming to a close, and yet I have neglected my website. My apologies. I have been busy beyond belief with classes as of late. But, let me give you a quick rundown of my month.

I was in Mexico for my spring break. I have photos. Perhaps at some point I’ll be able to post them. I ended up with some good shots. I was with my family in La Paz, the capital of California Baja Sur. I spent my time sailing, fishing and lounging. It was just the relaxing experience I was hoping for.

Upon my return I jumped right into classes. I’m taking Info Hell this term, a course designed to slowly kill its students. Essentially, I need to hand in 32 two-page annotations, and a giant paper among many other things. Now, I’m sure many of you do this sort of thing all the time. I don’t. I’m generally not very good at this type of whopping project. But, I’m doing it. I’ll survive and life will go on. But, that’s what I’ve been spending my time doing.

On top of that, I have been very involved with the sailing team this term. We’ve been practicing a lot, as well as traveling a lot. Two weeks ago, we were down in San Francisco tearing up the bay in our FJ’s. It’s been a lot of fun, but it’s been time consuming. Yesterday we were selling raffle tickets in the rain for hours (above photo). We’re trying to get rid of a nice Laser II. If you’re interested, drop me a line and I can arrange a ticket (or 20) for you.

So, work calls. I must be off. I wanted to check in, though, and give a small update. I hope you’re month has been treating you well.