For those who prefer to spend their time on the open sea than the open road, here’s a refresher on how to hoist that foresail and get things happening:

STEP 1: Sail into open water - close hauled under mainsail only.
STEP 2: Pull the jib back along the leeward side of the deck if it has been stowed or temporarily tied into the bow pulpit. Keep your weight low for balance and avoid Stepping on the slippery sailcloth.
STEP 3: Free the halyard from its temporary tie-down if it was tied down.
STEP 4: Attach the halyard to the headboard. You may have to slacken the halyard enough to allow the shackle end to reach the headboard.
STEP 5: Look aloft to ensure the halyard can run free.
STEP 6: Run the jib sheets aft to the cockpit and make stopper knots in the bitter ends so they don’t escape through the running blocks. Secure the sheets by taking a single wrap around a cleat.
STEP 7: Return to the mast or cockpit area where the other end of the halyard was secured.
STEP 8: Turn the boat into the eye of the wind.
STEP 9: Release the sheets if they have been secured.
STEP 10: Raise the sail hand-over-hand until the load becomes too heavy. Then use a winch if one is provided. The jib will flap until you turn off the wind.
STEP 11: Tighten the headsail until a few wrinkles form along the leading edge.
STEP 12: Secure and coil the halyard.
STEP 13: Turn off the wind and haul in on the leeward jib sheet to adjust the sail. The windward sheet should be free of the shrouds and any deck gear.

Words like leeward, headsail and halyard really need to find a place in the world of us landlubbers. We’re poorer for not using them everyday.

How to Raise a Jib When Sailing [eHow]

All that time in Rome seems to have had a strange effect on Morrissey. Speculation today is that the former Smiths frontman is keen to take his lifelong obsession with 1960’s British popstar Sandie Shaw one step further by following her footsteps to victory at the Eurovision Song Contest:

“Morrissey expressed an interest way back last year in writing for the contest and since then we have been in talks with him,” a BBC spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

She said no decision had yet been made and there were also discussions with other artists taking place. It was also unclear whether Morrissey would perform or merely write the song.

After the victory of Finnish monster-costumed metal band Lordi last year, perhaps the UK have decided to pull out all stops in a bid to out-weird the rest of Europe. Have they decided that melancholy homoeroticism is the new camp?

“Miserable” Morrissey may cheer up Eurovision [Reuters]

Despite many of the things we love around here being directly related to gold and oil, we rarely pay much attention to commodities prices. That’s all set to change, however, after the emergence of a new primary production crisis. Disturbing reports are emerging that price increases for many materials common to brewing may begin to drive up the cost of beer.

Falling barley production, skyrocketing transport and energy costs and increases in the price of other materials such as aluminum and glass bottles are identified as the main culprits in this financial disaster:

Barley prices have steadily inched up each month, ending 2006 averaging $3.19 per bushel in December — an increase of about 24 percent from December’s average price of $2.57 in 2005. Meanwhile, production has fallen 15 percent to 180 million bushels, down from 211.9 million in 2005, mainly due to droughts in Australia and the Midwest and more farmers choosing to grow different crops like corn and soybeans.

Bernstein Research analyst Robert van Brugge forecast that this year’s barley price increases will impact brewers’ cost of goods sold — or the cost of the raw materials used in production — by 1 to 2 percent in 2007.

The analyst said he believes brewers will be forced to pass along some of that increase this year to consumers.

After the great hops blaze of last October, this couldn’t come at a worse time. For the first time since the dark ages, are we looking towards a world where beer is a luxury, rather than a staple?

Barley prices may push cost of a beer up [Business Week via A Good Beer Blog]