Actually that is not CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, but a sister ship photographed a few mornings ago by Steve Earley in Maine, where he is presently sailing his almost-a-Drascombe Lugger, SPARTINA. When I bought the first CT in 1978 the standard Lugger hull color was a medium green. Although I prefer colored hulls, for some reason I thought white best for a Lugger and so they made me a white one. Obviously someone else thought so too because as far as I know CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I is still in Saudi Arabia and CT II in the Canary Islands. They are pretty boats and I am told excellent ocean voyagers. I thank Steve for permission to share the photo.
I have of course been watching the Women’s Football World Cup. Because the games are being played mostly at night my local time, I have them set to record and usually watch the key plays recap the following morning, though I have watched several complete games.
As you may have seen or read, the U.S. team, ranked number one in the world, has not been impressive, and Germany, the number two ranked team in the world, failed to make it out of the group stage for the first time ever. The U.S. team only made it through when a Portuguese shot in the closing minutes of their match hit a side goal posts. An inch or two to the left and the U.S. would be back home.
The U.S. team has been criticized, but maybe they are playing as well as they can. Maybe this group of U.S. women just isn’t that talented. We will see Sunday morning.
Diving is the disgrace of soccer. Diving is when a player after a minor collision with an opposing player—or as is often shown in replays only a near miss with no contact at all—falls on the ground as though he has been shot in an attempt to get a penalty called. I suspect that acting lessons are a standard part of soccer players’ training.
Diving can be penalized, but seldom is. It is more frequent in some leagues than others. There is less diving in the English Premier League and the German Bundesliga than in some countries farther south.
My conclusion after watching women’s soccer is that women don’t dive. I have not seen anything I thought a dive at this World Cup. In one match two women went up trying to head a ball. Their heads clearly collided. Had this happened in many men’s matches, both would have been writhing on the ground for minutes. The two women did fall to the ground, but one got up immediately and ran off. The other got up a few seconds later, rubbed the back of her head, grimaced, before she ran to continue play. Good for them. Good for soccer.
I have a humungous bandage on my forehead. I had to return to have the beautiful skin cancer doctor remove more of my flesh after the biopsy of my former horn revealed that it was cancerous. I have not yet seen under the bandage but from the time it took her to stitch it closed she has left a crater worthy of the moon. I could, of course, comb my hair to cover it. Or could if I had hair. You may never again see a photograph of me without a hat. Life may be the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue, but this is getting ridiculous.
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