Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Juli Designs

Recently I discovered Juli Gothly's delightful boat shop in Sailor's Cove and, immediately, I wanted to know more about the person behind the shop. So I asked Juli to tell us about herself, her life in Sailor's Cove and her boats. Here is her story............

"I like online games and used to play a lot. But most of the games are the same, you kill monsters and your level goes up and so on. Of course communication with other players is a big part of it, too. One day I had enough of killing monsters, so I started SL - lol.

As I am from Japan (in case you couldn't tell from my accent - lol) I started in a Japanese sim and had a little house and a little shop there. Then I found out about the United Sailing Sims through Taku Raymaker, the owner of Waypoint Yacht Club. For a long time it was my daily thing to sail from WYC to Sailor's Cove (that was before the USS joined to the mainland.)

As you get near to Sailor's Cove, you can see the bay with a shop (very fortunately, it is my shop now), moored boats then more shops along the bay. I just loved the atmosphere. One day Taku told me that there was a shop vacant there so I jumped on it. It was December, 2008. Fanci was kind enough to let me move to the shop at the end of the pier when it became vacant a few months after that.

In regards to boats, I am not a yachts-only lover, I love any water craft. When I knew there were yachts in SL, I went to get one. But it was too difficult to handle so I decided to build one for myself. The first one I built was an America's Cup-class yacht with motor. The sails were there but didn't move. My yachts had the Tako scripts until Mothgirl released the Fizz3. My existing yachts all have the Fizz3 scripts.

As far as the boat design goes, I don't enjoy making replicas or reproductions at all, although some of my boats are based on ones that exist in real life. There are far better people around than I for the reproductions. For example, I buy Trudeau's when I want a classic yacht reproduction. I actually own a few of them. Or Black Spot if I want to have even older ones. And, yes, I do have some of them, too ;)

I have my own method of hull design, curve and balance which may not be perfectly reproduced by the prims but I try anyway. It is about the overall visual balance. The deck may slope down from the bow and it may be counter-balanced by the curve of the cabin top, etc.

I am not a sailor in real life. I am a canoe person (or I used to be anyway) - Surfski and OC1 to be precise. Surfski is the fastest paddling ocean craft used by the lifeguards. OC stands for Outrigger Canoe, 1 is for single.

They are both sit-on-top-type canoes, therefore suitable in places like Hawaii. I actually make OC1, OC2 and OC6 in SL (no one buys them though - lol.) My OC6 is probably one of the most fun boats in SL. It is for six people and everybody can stop paddling individually and the boat speed corresponds to the amount of people paddling as well.

You asked about my shops in other locations. I think I was rushing too much. Of course, when you are selling things, good sales would cheer you up. I tried to expand Juli Designs by having branches and vendors but I am closing them one by one. It didn't suit me. I would like to have my shop only at Sailor's Cove now.

I have my parcel in Fishers Island which I call my workshop. As the name suggests, I have my work space up in the sky although it has a security orb. Nothing is secret about what I make but I wouldn't like to have my thing copy-botted while I am working on it.

I also enjoy doing the garden there very much. I may plant something which is out of season due to my ignorance but I love gardening. I'd love to have a nice garden and lots of animals (static of course - lol) as much as the prim allows. You will see a lot of roses there soon :)"

Thank you very much :)

Juli Gothly


Thank YOU, Juli, it was a pleasure to meet you!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Top O' the Morning (After)



The Wednesday night March 17th St. Patrick's Day Party at Fishers Island Yacht Club clubhouse was a total success! Guests were treated to Irish tunes spun by DJ BennyThe Boozehound, decorations and food by Fanci and Runa, and all the green beer they could drink! And who could have guessed that so many people knew how to dance the Irish jig ?!

A few pictures of the festivities can be seen here:

Sunday, March 14, 2010

MBCC Cruisers Party Hearty at Cut Water

On March 14, kittensusie Landar, Cruise Director, Mowry Bay Cruising Club, guided her intrepid Sunday afternoon cruisers to Cut Water where they packed the sim and danced for hours to tunes spun by famous DJ, Quirky Torok.

Hosted by Fanci Beebe and Sailor's Cove Sims, the party was so much fun people were dancing on the tables!

Wearing O' the Green


!~YOU ARE INVITED~!

To come celebrate the wearin' of the green

at the Fishers Island Yacht Club St. Patricks Day Party!

There will be music! There will be dancing! There will be drinking!

YAY!

So bring your friends, advise your adversaries and tell every passerby that all are welcomed to attend at their own peril...err I mean with opened arms to...

The Fishers Island Yacht Club St. Patrick's Day Party!

Wednesday March 17th 5pm til we pass out....


ERIN GO BRAGH! (less)



~ invitation and graphic designed by Runa and Benny ~

Thursday, March 11, 2010

CHEERS!





Meet
BennyThe Boozehound
Harbormaster,
Sailor’s Cove Sims


Interview by
Roan Blackburn, March 9, 2010


RB: How long have you been in SecondLife, Benny?

BB: My original avi, Contra Koba, was created in May of 2007 and Benny was made in October, 2007, specifically to captain my Larinda. The reason for this was so my friend, Runa Mc Millan, and I could explore by sea and not have to worry about auto return and no rez areas, as Benny was always sitting at the helm. We could jump off and back on and leave Benny to “guard” the boat.

RB: When and how did you discover Sailor’s Cove Sims?

BB: That’s a bit of a yarn, so I’ll try to be brief (not). In my first week of SL I came across a Tako vendor somewhere out on the mainland. At that time I was still exploring by walking from place to place, mostly along shorelines. Having no money at the time, I picked up the free version of the Tako. Well, there was the hook – even sailing it in the dreaded SL-generated wind was a hoot for me. After that, I discovered that simulated sailing was available in SL and I began to scour the map for open waters to play in.

I discovered a lot of places, probably long since gone, on the continents. One day, using map search, I found Nantucket sim and, from there, Hollywood and Jacqui’s sims, etc. Also, I discovered there were actually clubs that could be joined, places that you could rent slips, racing – a whole community of sailing enthusiasts that I had no idea would exist here.

From group notices, I learned about the boat show held at Sailor’s Cove and completely fell in love with the look of it. I’d lived in places like that back in the 80’s and decided this was where I’d want to settle as a home base. We rented a slip and an apartment there in November, 2007 and have been Sailor’s Cove residents ever since.

RB: How did you come to be SCS Harbormaster and how long have you had that title?

BB: Well, my friend Runa and I (Contra) used to hang out on our Larinda quite a lot and talk with passers-by. Many people would inquire about renting slips or just generally want to jawbone about sailing in both the virtual and real worlds. So one day I suggested to the estate managers that they really could use a Harbormaster here to help people get set up on renting slips and to keep the harbor clear of prims (like mistakenly rezzed HUDs) or just strange objects in general. I was half-joking at the time, but the very next day they asked me if I’d like to do that.

I (Contra) said “I don’t think I’m the guy for that, but I know someone who is” and I logged in Benny. Benny’s avi is based on someone I knew in RL. He was the owner of a small marina and salvage yard in East Boston - a big, burly guy with an ever-present grin on his face. So I thought “hmm, this would be fun” and I was not mistaken.

RB: What are your duties as SCS Harbormaster?

BB: At first it was more or less a meet-and-greet kind of thing, in the harbor itself, telling people about slip rentals, helping them to contact the right person to set them up, etc. As the estate grew and I was given return objects permissions for Sailor’s Cove-owned land, I started prim hunts. A lot of the space didn’t have auto return set, so all sorts of stuff was left lying about.

I did have fun with it, though. I didn’t fly from sim to sim; I used my little Downeaster to cruise around. Sometimes, I’d sail and sometimes I’d SCUBA (yes, Benny has SCUBA and it’s quite a sight.) I still do that from time to time, with the help of some very nice residents as well. We try to keep the waters free from flotsam and ghost ships as best we can.

As auto return has now been set on most of the estate land, it’s a bit easier to maintain and not as time consuming these days. I still try to get out there a few times a week to dislodge and return lost boats or send a friendly IM to the owners to come retrieve them. Slip rentals are still my main function on the estate. Also, I check that the sims are operating correctly and keep a wary eye on the horizon for the rare griefer.

RB: Do you have any most or least favorite parts of your job?

BB: Well, firstly, I would never call it a “job”. It’s something I enjoy doing because I do like to be helpful when and where I can, naturally. So there are no least favorite parts. What I like best is being directly helpful to another person. This takes many forms but I’d have to say what makes Benny smile the most is helping the new player that’s just discovered sailing to get their first boat.

With all the great free boats available now, it’s easy to get even the newest of the new onto the water and hopefully hooked like the rest of us. I’ll never forget that I was once a newbie with no money walking on a deserted sim when I discovered sailing in SL and it’s brought me a lot of great online experiences and friends. I like passing that on.

RB: Do you have a favorite story or incident to tell?

There have been quite a lot over the years of doing this, but I’d think the day I discovered the undersea love nest has to be one of my favorites. There is a depression in the terraforming on one of our sims. It’s a hole about 5 meters deep and almost perfectly square and flat at the bottom. While I was on prim patrol, I found someone had rezzed their sexbed down there – possibly SCUBA enthusiasts or Merfolk. I thought that was clever, but I do have an evil mind sometimes.

RB: Benny, in what other ways are you involved in the Sailor’s Cove community?

BB: Aside from being chief cook and bottle washer, I have been involved in the Theater for some time as security and recently I’ve been helping out with hosting there a few times a week. I also DJ but that’s not limited to Sailor’s Cove. I’m hoping to do more impromptu parties at Cutwater – after all everyone likes a party.

RB: Where do you like to sail in SL and what is your favorite (type of) boat?

BB: I sail quite a bit in SL, most every day, really. I’m a cruiser, though, not much for racing. I have tried some racing and have a lot of respect for the people that can do it well. It’s just not my cup of tea.

For me, putting on some nice music and cruising around the USS and beyond is what I like. I sail without HUDs and in mouselook to try to get the best virtual experience I can from the simulation. It can be quite Zen-like, a great relaxer after a hard day of playing real life.

My favorite boats are Trudeau’s, without a doubt. The newest ones are very close to the real world experiences I’ve had sailing. And besides being very functional with well thought out features, they are great eye candy. Lately, I sail the Tahiti 2, Leetle Cat (a boat I owned in RL, actually) and the Twenty. I still love my Larinda and take her out now and then, as well.

There are so many great boat makers out there now and a lot that I haven’t tried. But I’m not one to go out and buy the latest thing. I tend to stick with what I know and JT boats suit my style, I guess.

RB: Do you have other hobbies or pastimes in SL?

BB: I’ve done a bit of modifying my boats, along with help from Runa. She’s quite good with making the textures and animations I need for my little projects. A couple of examples of this can be seen on Bartlett Narrows docks.
We try to get out often as well to see live music acts that we like and to explore new places around the grid. But sometimes we’re just as happy to stay at home on Race Rock and dance or fish. I see SL as a relaxing element in my life and have no desire to make it more intense than it needs to be. I just don’t have those ambitions and my real world is mentally taxing enough. SL is me time…he he.

RB: Your profile says “son of a son of a sailor." Would you tell us a bit about this part of your RL?

BB: That’s from the Jimmy Buffet song, of course, and this is a yarn, so here we go…..My earliest memories of boats are from going to visit my grandparent’s house. PopPop, as we called him, had a wooden sailboat on a cradle in his backyard that may have been there from the early 50’s as far as I knew. He’d worked on it for years, on and off. In his den he had a lot of books on seamanship, sailing, boatbuilding and lots and lots of scale models of sailing ships he’d built. There were all kinds of cool stuff, but the boat itself is what I remember best.

Now, this boat may have been no more than 20 feet, if that, but when you’re six years old and playing on it with your brothers and cousins, it’s a world cruiser, eh? We’d hang out for hours, talking about the places we’d sail to, far off in the tropics. My uncles would tell stories about pirates and south sea islands. You get the picture.

I think I was nine when I sailed for the first time. My Granddad bought a Sunfish for my uncles to sail. We sailed at the Cooper River Yacht Club here in South Jersey almost every weekend. As we got to know other folks there, we’d get to sail with them on larger dinghies and I learned the principles of sailing and found more and more literature about sailing. By the time I was 15, my father had bought a Hobie 16 that we sailed around the bays and estuaries at the Jersey shore. We also took it out off the beaches of Strathmere where we rented a summer house every June.

Sadly, my Grandpop's project boat never saw the water as he passed away before it was finished and it was hauled off or sold. I honestly can’t say if he was ever a real sailor or just a man with a dream about it. But I know for a fact, he was a sailor in his heart. Out of his passion for sailboats was grown mine….and so I am a son of a son of a sailor.

RB: Benny, is there anything else you’d like to add or have your Sailor’s Cove neighbors know about you?

BB: Well, really I’d like to say to the extended family that is all the great people that make up the USS and sailing community in SecondLife, that if you see me out cruising be sure to shout me “Ahoy” and realize that if I don’t answer I’ve probably got my head in the fridge getting a cold one – so gimme a wide berth! Peace ~