A book...

Krugman is on to something, taking care of the troops, and about that letter...

Today's a little busy here on the good ship "So It Goes". So much to do and so little time as the phrase goes. "H" season being just around the corner, I have projects that need doing that should have been done already.

Such is life!

In the meantime, you might want to check out a book I just read, "For Those In Peril On The Sea".  It's about boats, apocalypse, and no small shortage of mayhem... Oh yeah, I should mention there are z-o-m-b-i-e-s!

What's not to like?

Listening to the Talking Heads

So it goes...

Ok, I'm not wild about painting...

The importance of history (the true sort), Joe making some sense, and a book that just might be worth reading...

I like boat projects.

Which, you might say, is no bad thing as living on a forty-four going on forty-five year old sailboat gives one ample opportunity for any number of boat projects. You might say I don't just own an old boat, I own a cornucopia of projects!

Of course, I'll be the first to admit, I like some projects a whole lot more than others. Painting, for instance, does not as a rule make for a warm and fuzzy feeling when it's on the list...

Know what... Guess what's on the list?

As it happens, I've been doing a lot of research into vinyl and vinyl wrapping as an alternative to painting. It looks interesting and a lot of the round-the-world race boats seem to be using it and it seems like it holds up...



It does seem tempting...

Listening to Julien Clerc

So it goes...

A bit more on making money...

Anyone check out the Eurovision song contest (Romania had me the moment they picked up those angle grinders), on being screwed, and another cool Simmons...

Since we were speaking of making money while cruising....

Admittedly not everyone is going to want to make handlines or fishing lures and some might eschew the whole manual labor thing because it doesn't fit their self-image or are less than handy... What to do?

Well, a lot of folks gravitate towards doing the charter gig. What's not to like... The whole charter captain gig or charter chef has a certain romantic appeal plus you get to sail and someone pays you lots of money to do it!

As it happens, we have a charter business and we book and have booked charters for over a decade. We don't do charters on our own boat but we're an agent for boats that do... In other words, we're boat pimps.

It is a good job as it goes. We get to sell our clients fun and a great vacation but it is hard work because the charter industry, on a whole, is pretty seriously screwed. So, while we pimp boats the hard part is more of a match-making and keeping our clients away from the bad boats and crews exercise. Sadly, the charter biz is a great example of "Sturgeon's Law" (ninety percent of everything is crap.).

Of course, not everyone is cut out for the charter business and, for example, if you think being a charter crew is "romantic" well, you're already excluded from those who should. For a quick reality check think about the romantic appeal of rebuilding a marine toilet in a head that has had repeated incidence of projectile vomiting recently. Then factor in that the clients have managed to take down every toilet on the boat so you need to fix them all amidst a group keen on projectile vomiting...

A quick hint to charter chefs everywhere... BEWARE THE FROZEN SHRIMP!

Yep, and that's not even a worse case scenario...

There are a lot of reasons you should consider anything else but charter and they range from the simple (you may not be a people person) to the mundane (you're useless around boats) on to the very real fact that the charter guest from hell really does exist and they are legion (see Sturgeon's Law).

Listening to Boz Scaggs

So it goes...

Making money or something like it...

George Takei always brings a smile with a thought, something about people stealing (who won't go to jail), and this is not where I'd be trippin...

Over the years I've seen a variety of folk eke out a comfortable cruising income as they cruised... Off hand, I'd say it is not that hard.

That said, those who are successful at it seem to fall within a certain mindset of not concentrating on a single thing (it seems that multiple small income streams work better than one big one), they're not reinventing the wheel, keep a low profile, and, most importantly, they're not greedheads. They also can tell when/where a need needs filling...

Then again, there are exceptions but the folks we've encountered who were making money and happy seemed to fall into that group.

A case in point: we knew a couple who were nearly flat broke in the Canaries and when a group of us were talking about fishing and handlines they seemed to take a keen interest. Next thing I knew he was asking me where to find the bits to make a handline...

As it happened, there used to be a fishermen's coop in Las Palmas that sold cheap commercial fishing line, rubber squids, associated hardware, and suchlike. So I took him to the coop and he bought enough stuff for a couple of handlines and lures...

A couple of days later, there he was by the ARC boats sitting on a bench making handlines like an old pro while a half dozen ARC folks stood in line with money in hand waiting to buy one.

A couple of weeks later they sailed off headed towards the Caribbean fully provisioned, cash enough for a while, and a whole lot of handline/lure making materials in a locker...

Listening to Telephone

So it goes...

Yet another dinghy dilemma...

About that debt crisis, something interesting from a young Kurt Vonnegut, and a really good post on why rollup dinghies make a lot of sense...

Speaking of rollup dinghies, we've been considering shelling out for a new inflatable for a while now. The problem is that we're just that little bit leery because the last three dinghies of the inflatable variety really sucked.

It's not like we skimped and went with a cheap seats dinghy either but bought established brands (AB and Caribe) but it just seems that top quality these days is more about the price you pay rather than utility...

Want to know what's really frustrating? Having to pump up your expensive hypalon dinghy every time you use it while folks on cheaper PVC dinghies just hop in theirs and use them.

A couple days ago walking by the dinghy dock I noticed of the half-dozen inflatables tied to the dock, the only one that looked properly inflated was a PVC... This no longer seems to be an unusual experience but something approaching the norm.

So much for the whole you get what you pay for thang...

Anyway, West Marine has their cheap rollup, the RU3, on sale for the moment at a pretty unbeatable price so we may just bite the bullet and buy one. It's quite an improvement on the old model it replaces with bigger tubes and a much better UV resistant Heytex fabric. So, it is tempting.

Then again maybe we won't... I expect it will all depend on shipping.

Listening to Ryan Bingham

So it goes...

another good boatbuilding material...

I find this bothersome, so much for one justice for all, and something you might want to ponder...

I suspect I surprised a few folks yesterday when I mentioned ferro-cement as being sorta kinda equal with other boat building materials. So, let me say this...

Ferro-cement is a pretty good material to build boats. Now you know that I'm tragically unhip.

In my defense, I do have quite a bit of experience with ferro-cement as, while I was in college, I worked for a yard that was building ferro-cement boats back when ferro-cement was considered a cool way to build boats.

The main advantages of ferro-cement is that it is strong, inexpensive, quick to build, and a fairly easy way to build a boat. The downside is that done badly you wind up with a bad boat... But, then again, you can say that about any boat built of any material.

Back in the days when ferro-cement was popular, a lot of folks (and not a few companies) built some really awful boats in ferro and these heinous examples of the boatbuilding trade pretty much sealed the fate of ferro-cement as a non-acceptable way of building boats.

Sad that...

Because, when you actually look at the advantages of ferro-cement it makes a lot of sense and, even more, if you were to bring it into the current century by taking advantage of such things as epoxy, for example or other modern materials.

Peter Ibold Endurance

The fact is, there are a lot of 30-50 year old, well built ferro-cement boats happily sailing all over the world. They don't look any different than non-ferro boats and, due to the pariah status of ferro boats, owners tend to keep a low profile when it comes to advertising what their boats are built of.

Bruce Bingham was my introduction and mentor where things ferro were concerned and, in my neck of the woods, his book "Ferro-cement: design, techniques, and application" was everyone's go-to guide. It might be a book you want to keep an eye out for if you care to read about how to build a good boat in cement.

The sad part of the whole ferro-cement story is that when it became unpopular and something of a pariah boatbuilding material, development simply ceased and those who may have improved and evolved materials and techniques were drawn to other materials and methods like cold-molding wood, steel/alloy, and stitch & glue...

Maybe it's about time to take another look at ferro and do some thinking.


Listening to the Turtles

So it goes...

What about steel...

This got me thinking, obviously not a bank with a warm fuzzy feeling, and why the words "brominated flame retardant" scare me...

Where materials to build boats are concerned I'm of the opinion that pretty much anything works and when you factor in the plus and minuses, glass, wood, composites, steel, aluminum, and ferro-cement all work out about the same.

The question is really more about what sort of maintenance you prefer...

Steel rusts. So, if you have a steel boat it is going to rust and your maintenance program is going to be rust related. If you're not big on the whole dealing with and preventing rust thing steel is just not going to make you a happy camper.

The real advantage of steel is welding is a pretty easy skill to acquire and steel is cheaper than a lot of other materials so it is a good choice for home builders. Back when we lived in France I'd guess that 60% of the cruising boats being built were steel.

That said, a steel boat is not really any cheaper in the long run as the savings in the hull are mostly negated by the need to insulate the hull and the fit out of most steel boats is akin to building a boat within a boat.

As to the strength issue so often touted as the real advantage of steel... Well, I've seen far too many steel boats on reefs with big holes in them to buy into the whole steel makes you bulletproof club.

Where steel would be awesome is for sharpies... Colvin and Bolger both drew some interesting boats in steel that made sense of the sharpie variety...

Phil Bolger's Lion's Paw

Listening to Chris Knight

So it goes...

When refitting a boat quits being a refit and morphs into out of control consumerism...

An organization worth checking out, today's educational shell game, and cheap clothes/outsize profits...

I've been following the adventures of a very nice couple refitting a good boat and it's just that little bit depressing.

The problem is they're spending a fortune doing it and, when the dust settles, they'll have a boat worth a lot less than they've invested in the project. More problematic is all of that money they should not have spent on the rehab would have paid for a three to five year cruise.

It's not just a need/want thing either. It's the pervasive attitude that it is normal, if not required, to pour silly amounts of money and labor into a perfectly good boat to make it a "yacht"...

Of course, this is not an unusual situation. For a lot of people it seems to be standard operating procedure and I see it over and over again but that does not make it any less depressing...

Just saying.

Listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard

So it goes...

A boat I still really like...

Be wary of folks who profess their faith when asking for something, I guess someone doesn't want us reminded of Bobby Sands, and speaking of iconic...

Back when we we're living on a peniche outside of Paris and looking for a boat to buy there were only two boats, of the new variety, that we considered and both of them were designed by Philippe Harlé...

One, the Fantasia (an evolved version of the famous Sangria/Sangria NV) I've talked about before, was both too expensive for us at the time and actually seemed bigger than we needed. For those who keep track of such things, the Fantasia was was all of twenty-seven feet long.

The truth is, the boat we really wanted was the  Philippe Harlé designed Tonic...

The Tonic was all of twenty-three feet but seemed a lot bigger than Harlé's Sangria which was top of our list for used boats to buy.

It was pretty much love at first sight...

It was small and simple but it was comfortable and fit like a glove. Which, I might add, considering that I'm 6'5", is not something that was easy to find in boats at any size.

Of course, in those days, I had fewer guitars...

Harlé got it right because he put in everything a couple might need and left off the stuff that was surplus to requirements. No rocket science involved, just good simple boat design. It should be noted though that Harlé was a true master of the form and, as a real sailor/cruiser himself, he knew what worked and what didn't.

Looking for used examples of the design I notice two things... One, that not a lot are for sale and two, they have held their value far more than a lot of other boats from those days. Both positive factors in my book.

Well, as it happened, we decided to build rather than buy but I've always wondered what would have happened and where we'd be today if we had purchased a Tonic and pointed it towards the Caribbean...

Listening to Lee Michaels

So it goes...

You're on your own...

Maybe not everyone's mother-of-the-year candidate, Crooks & Liars kicks some butt, and a non-happy making "don't-worry-it-won't-ever-happen" milestone...

Some stuff works better than other stuff.

For us boatfolk it really is to our advantage to know which is which but, and there seems always to be a "but", it's not always easy to ascertain what is what.

Different folks use different criteria...

A great many seem to think that the cost of something is the best measure. Those that hold this opinion are fond of the phrase "you get what you pay for" and often quote how much they paid for something when discussing stuff. Off hand, I have to say that these folks are way off base but they do come in handy when you have something you want to sell.

Others think that whatever the "experts" say is the way to go but, and there's that "but" again, more often than not those "experts" have an agenda or work for someone who has an agenda so this can be problematic especially if your "expert" of choice is involved in the yachting press. Face it, when was the last time you read a review of a marine product where they said it was crap?

Not a bad boat if you like the pregnant guppy look

Then there is the coconut telegraph/word of mouth thing... For instance, mention to someone you want to buy a used Hunter and people will come out of the woodwork to tell you (in a scornful manner) that it is an awful, badly built, and not suitable for real cruising boat. Of course, if you ask these people for more info you'll get "everyone says" and "everyone knows" sort of answers and you'll be hard pressed to find someone who has any real experience with an actual Hunter. As it happens, I'm not a real big fan of Hunter sailboats (I think they look like pregnant guppies) but they are much better boats than the coconut telegraph/word of mouth would lead you to believe...

Some people even make their decisions about stuff based on advertising... Do I even need to address this bit of folly?

So, where does that leave us since you can't trust the regular information streams?

It's a bummer but the answer is you have to do your own homework and really look at stuff with a very critical eye. It's that simple.

Listening to Jerry Jeff (seems apt today) 

So it goes...