Is the Chesapeake Bay the top sailing destination on the planet? The blog Bone In Its Teeth makes the case, here.

I mean, how many sailing locations feature boating ospreys?

Of course, The Mariner knows no favorites, and the Chesapeake is not necessarily the first location sailors think

You know how, sometimes, you’d rather be wrong?

I seem to remember writing, “If” lead negotiator Stephen Barclay and his America’s Cup cohorts were a trifle naïve regarding San Francisco politics when they first blew into town, trumpeting the splendors to come, an 11th hour lawsuit filed last week by former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and still-local chairman of the Democratic Party Aaron Peskin should complete their education. This is a blood sport, and you don’t have to be certifiably sane to play.

I remain on-message. The America’s Cup is going to be fine.

Unfortunately, if you also care about the San Francisco waterfront, then the news is less so good.

“If” lead negotiator Stephen Barclay and his America’s Cup cohorts were a trifle naïve regarding San Francisco politics when they first blew into town, trumpeting the splendors to come, an 11th hour lawsuit filed last week by former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and still-local chairman of the Democratic Party Aaron Peskin should complete their education. This is a blood sport, and you don’t have to be certifiably sane to play.

I remain on-message, however. Relax. The America’s Cup is going to be fine.
Unless it’s the San Francisco waterfront you care about. Then you might worry. There’s still no Plan B.

A San Francisco treat since 2004, the Ocean Film Festival is growing in new directions, and you should know.

Will it go international come 2013? Don’t bet against it, and meanwhile there is a pre-event on Friday, February 24 at the Aquarium of the Bay to launch their first Evening of Sailing with three shorts and two, um, mediums.

Okay, we hope it’s not quite that . . .

Even as negotiations continued between the city fathers of San Francisco and the America’s Cup Event Authority, with Stephen Barclay as the lead, Oracle Racing held a media day on Tuesday—I suspect the sailing team would rather have had the time for other business—and my takeaway was a comment from Russell Coutts that he knows of a fourth challenger who has begun work on an AC72 catamaran for the 2013 America’s Cup match.

Good.

I’m not old enough to write a whole column about my digestion, but I will confess that I read the San Francisco budget analyst’s report/recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, parsing the latest business negotiations between the Port, the Office of the Mayor and the America’s Cup Event Authority, without fully digesting it.

That is, there wasn’t any sentence or paragraph that I didn’t understand, but—

Everybody please relax. The America’s Cup is going to be fine.

Through the lens of Gilles Martin-Raget

The recent spate of negative headlines from Auckland to San Francisco will someday make comic collectibles. I seem to recall, not so many years ago, a great handwringing around the building of a ballpark that was sure to drag the City of San Francisco straight to gridlock-perdition . . .

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night voted 10-0 to reject two appeals against the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Review.

Though not until the AC Event Authority agree do re-site its JumboTron from a barge anchored in Aquatic Park – where swim clubs argued it would stir up toxic silt – to a spot on land instead.

The vote does not preclude civil action, but I note that certain parties to the appeal, such as the Sierra Club, are on record as wanting the America’s Cup to be sailed on San Francisco Bay. Things need to get moving and keep moving.

Howzabout a little guest editorial from someone who has made the rounds of America’s Cup. You should know the name Keith Taylor. If not, what’s below is self-explanatory. Keith’s missive arrived at San Francisco City Hall yesterday, in advance of today’s hearing before the Board of Supervisors – the hearing to decide the fate of an appeal to the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Review:

Supervisors . . .

I urge you to hew to the greater good when considering the challenges to the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Report. Yes, you should respect the environment, but that’s not a mandate to block progress.

My first-hand perspective on the America’s Cup stretches over 45 years. As a marine writer and editor I’ve covered every America’s Cup defense since Newport, RI, in 1967, with the exception of the two Cup defenses in Valencia, Spain.

One of my takeaways from a heap of 2011 trips to San Francisco City Hall was a higher opinion of city government than I had when I started. Knowing that some of the best minds in what they call down there the “city family” have spent the last year working with the America’s Cup Event Authority to develop a plan that will work for 2012-13, it strikes me as almost an insult (though it’s inevitable, I suppose) that an appeal has been filed against the Environmental Impact Report recently approved by the SF Planning Commission.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be hearing public comment on the appeal on Tuesday, 4 pm.

This is the first crunchtime since the host city agreement sailed through, and once again the troops will gather for the Public Comment period, pro and con. But it’s not Armageddon, I think. I hope.