NEW SERIES:
COSMIC SAILING
PART I

11th edition , may 2016
​---------------------------------------------------------

WORDS FROM THE EDITOR :
Dear Reader,
I know you are angry with me , I can tell. And I know exactly why : You have been waiting again far too long for this new edition of the Munch report.
And you are right.
But, and here comes the good news :
I DON’T CARE .
And you know why ?
Well, I have been very busy with my new boat,
actually, with building my new boat,
or, being more precise, first of all designing my new boat,
or, no , even more precise than that, having it designed to my specification by somebody else.
Ghee, finally, took me some time to get here.You can read about the progress under the above section :
NEW BOAT.
Enjoy.

So yes, I mean no,
I did not forget you,
it is just that the moment for a new Home Page, or even better, a new series , should better be right.
The vision from beginning to the end, so to speak, must become clearer, and then rolled back into the first part , like this edition today,
so that you can follow the storyline, and I can follow my own odd ideas over some months to come.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT , OVER ?

Well, here we go, or better drive, or fly or….
sail.
But with a twist, a cosmic twist.

1.
I have a question for you,
yes, YOU, you city dwellers and school run drivers :
​What used to be say 10 years ago your worst nightmare when you had to drive through the traffic of London, or , to that extent through any rush hour traffic in a major city ?
Have a guess !
Exactly, “bikers” ,
on their Ducatis, Hondas, BMWs, or whatever brand there is.
​
( sorry , I only asked for money from the companies I mentioned above, although no payments have been received yet, and to all the others, who I have not mentioned here….: Tough Luck ! You will see your net sales decreasing, I am sure of it.)

old enemy : intense discussion between driver and biker in Paris.

typical bicycle rider ! ? ! Copenhagen

Anyway, let’s get back to the scheme.
So bikers then ok, but what about today,
in the years of political correctness and sportive excersises, 
even for the elderly :
Exactly, the car drivers worst nemesis has become the 
“bycicle rider” ,
the one who never stops at the red light,
who suddenly comes from nowhere,
and shows you driver the middle finger,
and when you complain about his ( cycling) antics, takes a video of you and
puts it on social media.

new enemy : typical bicycle rider ! ? ! Brisbane

How worse can the world become, is there no social competence anymore, no consideration for one another ,
no love 
WHERE WILL IT ALL END?????

2.
​So if you think I am only picking on one ( by now quite large ) part of society, you are wrong.
I can ask the same about airline pilots.
Yes, although there are not that many compared to the number of car drivers, they nevertheless have been experiencing the same kind of “uncertainty” by way of :
Who is the enemy ?

left: old enemy. above: new enemy

Where in the past it were the hobby pilots, flying their Cessnas , Remos’s, Jabirus ,
whatever manufacturer there is ( yes, there are more, but I only asked for…., anyway, let’s continue !),
you might think today it is the
MIG fighter Jets,
or the (russian)
ground -to-air missiles,
but sorry,
you are wrong :

.It is the drones,
again flown by Hobby Pilots, but now by those who hopp on their bycicles ,
never stop at a red light,
and show the middle finger to the airline pilots,
whilst flying the drones with the other hand remaining.
Same attitude !!
No wonder the near misses have and still are increasing rapidly.

"old" enemy : italian motorboat owners !?

3.

And now , finally, the zenit of this thought process, the culmination of hours of creative thinking on my part, combined with years and years of experience, here we go :

What do you think used to be  the nemesis of every decent wind depending sailing boat and its skipper  ??????

No, wrong, not german submarines ( any more ), but yes, more or less , when you sail in the mediterranean ,
italian motorboat owners.
( huuuuu, I love my prejudices !!!!!!! )

---

"like cats and dogs"

But I can assure you, the same happens whether you are in more northern , or western, or eastern, or southern waters, it is the motorboat. And they are definetly a certain type of human beings, wearing their captain’s hat, shouting a lot whilst their “wives” or else do the anchor or throw the line ( usually into the water ) and therefore messing up the in his eyes perfect handling of the boat whilst arriving in the marina, yes, this type I am talking about, who never ever misses the chance of driving full throttle towards you on the otherwise empty sea, in order to create such a big wave whilst passing that unless you have shouted beforehand “ Fasten Seat Belts”, all mayhem brakes out on your boat between crew and stored glasses in the cupboard.

And whilst you might rightly think that I carry a huge grudge against these “poor” motorboat owners, now finally, even on the seven seas,
when you think nothing can get worse,
it does get worse :
the “bicycle riders" have arrived "on the water" ! 

They come towards you on their surf boards, pulled by large kites , and reaching a speed, that you as a common sailor can only dream of. And whilst they know no red light, ie no “rules of the road”, showing you their middle finger, whilst speeding and passing just in front of you, they have the tendency to also just loose control of their damn kite, and drop “stone dead” in front of your boat into the water. I think only sailors can follow my thought when I say honestly :
How often in these situations did I want to close my eyes, go down with the “misses” into the saloon, and have at least one gin&tonic,
or…else.
​

kite surfer crashes into boat

new enemy : the "bicycle riders" of the sea

But, being a responsible skipper, one would never do that, of course, oh no.
One would only "scream and shout"
( reminds me of an old Beatles song, "Twist and Shout" ! ), 
​first at your crew not to be so lazy and get the sails under control whilst you manage to just avoid collision with the “poor” surfer in the water,
and then of course at the surfer himself , who by that time,
as if nothing has happened,
has regained either his composure or strengths , gets the kite out of the water into the wind again, and goes back with speed to where he came from.

"B.J." on his way to work

Whilst you might think I should go to a “ shrink” for proper treatment in my ranting against “ bicycles” I can assure you that I also make some exceptions. No, it is not Boris Johnson, the mayor of London,who once in a while gets caught whilst cycling and passing the red light, but it is
Sir RIchard Branson
who always carries a passenger with him whilst kite surfing, so I forgive him as he is somehow “handicapped”, so to speak, and in this situation, in case he should pass your boat with his passenger, what can one say when the “misses” turns around, follows your longing look ( of course for the sea) and says ”DREAM ON, DARLING”.

---

Sir Richard at his best : Kite Surfing

At this stage of my “philosophising” about the fundamentals of the “modern living challenges” I would not be surprised if you said :
What the “he..” is this guy on about ? I mean I accept that you could think :
But what is the conclusion of this all ? 

Well here it is,
and finally I will reveal why “on earth” I am so intrigued with
"the cyclists of this world".
Because not only that they mess up greatly here and now, in all shapes and forms, as described, but
now they also want to conquer the cosmos.

Let me explain !!! And read well, because you might never have guessed what I am on about !

"sail or not to sail, what is the question" (quote from one W.Shakespeare)

I was reading the other day an article about 
“COSMIC SAILING”.
And here in particular about a “joint venture” between the esteemed Physicist Professor Stephen Hawking and a (not yet) famous but in certain circles well known Juri Milner, a russian drop-out student for Physics who, nevertheless, became in the process of not more than 45 years a Billionaire in a way, only Russians can conquer.
In this illustrious group of the mega-rich and famous, also Mark Zuckerberg can’t be far away, and so it is :
He is on the advisory board of this
Project called : Starshot ,
applauded by many as the first “real” concept of interstellar travel, or in other words,a
​  “laser sail concept" for a “starchip” spaceship.

So far, so good, I thought. And in my dreams I was already designing
the first “cosmic sailing boat “ ,
the one that the new and future
 “Skywalker Columbus” could use to “go cosmic sailing” ,
and of course it would have been something like a “Caravelle” of the cosmic ocean,  but then……
when I continued reading, it said that 
“advanced laser arrays could combine with the solar sail concept to create a “laser-sail” -based spacecraft”, 
​which when looking at the picture is a low-mass microship ( = microchip ),
​ driven by 4 meters wide nano light sails. 

And whilst I looked at the picture again and again what did I see ????????????????

new enemy : cosmic kite surfer

Well, first , what I didn’t see was a sailing ’Ship’, but in my somewhat deranged way of thinking rather a 
“COSMIC CYCLIST” .
Yes, exactly, in all earnest, I see it in front of my eyes, a 
“ COSMIC KITE SURFER”. 
I can only turn away in disgust.
What used to be every astronaut’s previous enemy like good old space junk
( if you don't know, watch the movie “Gravity” again)
is now becoming the “cosmical bicycle riders" that finally have arrived in the outer sphere.
I can see it all in front of my “goggles for virtual reality",
 thousands of “cosmic kitesurfer” zoom around the traditional spacecrafts like bicycle riders around your car in London,
and whilst the astronauts can not see the controllers of these “spacechips”,
I bet with you these sit there laughing in front of their controls and showing them the middle finger.

WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE GETTING OURSELVES INTO !!!!!!!!!