The Xena Blog brings you breaking news: Flying Squid

Oceanic squid flying up to 100 ft, in the Pacific Ocean. Photo: AFP/Getty

 Rather have one of these fellas land in the boat than flying fish....

From The Telegraph:

The mollusc propels itself out of the ocean by shooting a jet of water at high pressure, before opening its fins to glide at up to 11.2 metres per second, Jun Yamamoto of Hokkaido University said.

Olympic Gold medallist Bolt averaged 10.31 metres a second when he bagged gold in London last year.

"There were always witnesses and rumours that said squid were seen flying, and we have proved that it really is true," Yamamoto told AFP.

Yamamoto and his team were tracking a shoal of around 100 oceanic squid in the northwest Pacific 600 kilometres (370 miles) east of Tokyo, in July 2011.

As their boat approached, the 20 centimetre (8-inch) creatures launched themselves into the air with a powerful jet of water that shot out from their funnel-like stems. More...

Happy New Year of the Snake..."patience and steady progress"...

River Snake,  from Lorenzo Duque on the "Foreign Students in China 1973-79"
Facebook page. (I was one, in 1976-77)

Happy New Year of the Snake to all Friends of Xena and motley folk that pass by this site.  A Snake year is characterised by "patience" and "steady progress"....

From regular Xena crew Grant and Iris (aka "Grunta" and "Splash") in New Zealand:

Dear Peter Jing and Families

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Wishing you Guys a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2013  .... year of the Snake.

Enjoying Summer weather down here ..great sailing .. long walks .. Picnics with Family about for Waitangi Day Celebrations.

  

Euroyacht Newsletter this morning quoted:

hark, now hear the sailors cry,

smell the sea, and feel the sky,

let your soul and spirit fly,

Into the Mystic.

(track by - Van Morrison)

Best Wishes As Always

Grunta and Splash!

Katusha "on fire"

Katusha leading the fleet downwind - 2013 RC44 Oman Cup -  RC44 Class/MartinezStudio.es 

Regular Xena crew, Matt Kelway (aka "G"), is bowman on RC44 Katusha above, in the Oman Cup.
From the Sail-World website:

Katusha (RUS) were on fire and dominated the day winning the first two races and making a great recovery in the last to finish third, even after picking the un-favoured left side up the first beat and being buried at the top mark. 
Steve Howe is at the helm of Katusha this week, standing in for owner Gennadi Timchenko, he put their day into perspective.
'Yesterday was a good day and we tried to keep the same plan for the fleet racing today, get a good clean start, sail the shifts and get around the race course ahead of the fleet. It’s one design sailing at its best, you have your good days, your bad days and it’s going to happen when you have a bad race like we almost had in race three, but you just have to focus and minimise the risk.' 

Hat-tip to Stevo for the news.