Someone making some sense...

Dudley Dix gets political, a report some folks would rather have you not read, and so much for "safe and sane"...

I've been spending quite a bit of time over at the TriloBoat blog as Dave seems to be making a lot of sense these days and face it, folks who make sense are in short supply!

The Trilo Boat concept is sort of an Advanced sharpie meets raft/catamaran and, for the way 90% of people use cruising boats, it would work just fine... With the bonus that it would not take years of saving and work to get on the water. Like I said, it makes some sense!

Actually, of late, I've been thinking just how nice such a boat would be for hanging out in the Caribbean... Someone could hop on a airplane with a trunk of tools and the plans, then once here find someone with a backyard you could rent for a couple of months. Almost all of the needful materials could be found at the local lumberyard...

The resulting boat would be quite happy sailing from island to island and hanging out, sort of a movable condo/RV with a seafront view on a budget...

While you could safely sail such a boat over to the Med or someplace further if the urge set in and the Caribbean got boring (it does happen), but I'd consider just selling it and then fly to wherever I wanted to be and simply build another... Hell, you might even make a profit in the process!

I've been thinking (always a dangerous pastime) how cool a boat Dave Z's little B'Tugly (a riff on the old Bolger Super Brick) would be down here...

Makes all kinds of sense!

Listening to Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

So it goes...

Apparently not exactly the case...

So much for perp walks and the rule of law, no rule of law no trust, and yet another reason there is a lack of respect or trust for those who should be upholding the rule of law...

"Something happening here..."  - Stephen Stills

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman had an interesting post yesterday and it contained some surprising facts... Trust me, this will actually get around to boat stuff sooner or later.

One of those facts, that violent crime was way down, flies in the face of everything the media/politicians/etc are throwing at you as we are constantly being told we live in an unsafe world that is getting less safe everyday...

Which is apparently not the case.

You might want to pause and reflect on that for a moment or two...

I bring this up in a boat blog of all things because every time you open a sailing magazine you are confronted with a whole lot of hype that is all about selling you stuff and like a lot of things hype driven, it might not actually be true...

The thing about hype is that it is insidious and it creeps into the common knowledge base so even folks who should know better start taking for granted that it's real. Where blue water boats, related systems, and seaworthiness are concerned there is just so much hype and misinformation that it is nearly impossible to tell one from the other without stepping WAY  back and asking yourself some close to primal questions about how boats work and what makes a boat safe...

For instance, ask why deep draft is considered more seaworthy or safer than shoal or moderate draft and try and find some answers that are more than "Because". To quote Jack Webb (a guy who went to my high school), "Just the facts ma'am".

Personally, I'd like to see a sailing magazine that put some more effort into the education of its readers (WoodenBoat is a good example of a magazine that does so without pandering to its advertisers) and not only when it is convenient to help pimp advertising... To tell you the truth, I'm so tired of reading yet another "Cats are the Future of Cruising" article that are completely empty of facts or educational value except the ongoing message of Catamarans are hip and here are some you can buy...

Which, I might add, is coming from someone who really likes multihulls but who thinks the sailing community is ill served by hype rather than real hard info.

So next time around show me some graphs and some facts... Actually explain why the new flavor of the month cruising design deserves to be the flavor of the month. Is it because it is safer, easier to sail, has a Paisley paint job, or is it simply because they took two full pages of advertising in the current issue?

Of course, it is partly our fault as we don't ask the sort of questions we should be asking... You know, the why sort.

Rant over.

Listening to Bob Marley

So it goes...

So, what exactly resides in our goop locker?

An obituary of note, in the poor baby department, and I agree 100% with this poll!

John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot" has, over the years, been one of the most influential books in terms of sailing and cruising on my bookshelf... Which, considering it has bugger all boat content may surprise a few folks.

I mention this because a friend and I have been discussing such things as tools and the sort of repair materials that one should carry aboard at any given time. John Muir in his discussion of needful tools hit the nail on the head when he said something to the effect that he would not even consider a trip to the local liquor store without some serious tool inventory that to most folk would seem excessive.

On Loose Moose 2 we took a certain comfort that pretty much all of the tools used to build her were aboard when we sailed away from France. Truth is, having those tools both saved us a lot of money over the years but also allowed us to make money from time to time as well... No bad thing at all.

We feel the same about having a certain amount of glass fiber supplies onboard because you never know when you might want to build a new dinghy or repair a three foot hole when a frisky power boater has a lapse of common sense/attention while you sit happily at anchor...

,

Which is why at any given time aboard "So It Goes" you'll find at least three gallons of epoxy, five yards of 10 oz glass cloth, several full rolls of both Biax and normal woven glass tape (in 3", 6", 12" widths), various fillers (wood fiber, silica, micro spheres, carbon powder), as well as a moderate assortment of carbon tape, cloth, and roving/tow to add some real muscle to what I can build when needful.

The interesting fact is that all of that does not take up very much room, more or less about the same cubic area as a case of Racor filters and as I have electric propulsion, I certainly don't need a case of filters and assorted internal combustion spares so everything works out just fine.

Listening to The Volunteers

So it goes...

Some reading...

Zandar makes a point, rampant stupidity continues to be the big growth industry, and we call this a democracy...

I like to read.

When you think about it, the whole boat gig is a very reader-friendly environment with a lack of distractions that just lends itself to picking up a good book and getting into it. Face it, half the attraction of the cruising life is that I can sit on the foredeck and read to my heart's content!

A while back I read a book by Neil Gaiman and, for some reason or other, it keeps resonating in my thoughts so I'm really looking forward to reading it again. I'm sure there is something important I missed...

The other books I'm currently looking forward to reading is the latest in the Game of Thrones series and the new offering from Stephen King.

Life is good!

Listening to Ox

So it goes...

On publishing progress or something like it...

A scary thought, an idea, "walking for respect" whose time has come, and in the blindingly obvious department...

I keep getting these emails from Zinio and Cruising World telling me my subscription has run out and that I should get back with the program and reup ASAP so as not to miss a single issue...

Ain't going to happen!

Part of the reason for my not caring to resubscribe is the horrible service currently provided by Zinio... For those unaware of what Zinio is, they do e-book versions of magazines and for those of us on a boat where space is tight having several years of magazines on a hard drive makes way more sense than taking up space on your boat...

Well, that would be the case if you could actually read the magazines in question! In our case, Zinio kept tweaking their program until we were simply unable to read or download the magazines as their current program no longer supports our three-year old computer and its operating system.

Want to know what frustrating is? It's having over five years of magazines on your hard drive that you cannot read...

Zinio is well aware of the problem and every time we ask if the new version of the program is available yet we are told that they are working on it, how sorry they are, and here's a free year's subscription to a magazine (which I still can't read) to make up for it. Apparently all of their tech folks are busy working on the new emerging platforms (Android/iPad) and too busy to deal with folks who are long time customers and just have a laptop. The attitude I get is that the problem is actually ours for not upgrading computers every time they upgrade their programming.

Color me not exactly a happy camper...

Of course, I could still subscribe to Cruising World as a paper magazine but, really, why bother? All of the good content is simply recycled stuff they've done again and again and all the current stuff is either about gear or boats that only the wealthy can afford. Face it, the real business of a sailing magazine is not to write about sailing but maximize advertising revenue...

So, truth is, I don't think I'm going to miss Cruising World at all!

By the way, a couple of magazines I really would miss are WoodenBoat  and Latitude 38. Unlike most boat magazines these days, they are not pandering tabloids. Their electronic issues are delivered simply and easily as a PDF file, problem free and can be read on any computer (something the folks at Zinio should take a lesson from).

As it happens, I have several sailing magazines due to run out in the not too distant future and unless Zinio or Sail/PBO/Blue Water Sailing start doing something competent/interesting they will all go the way of Cruising World and lose another reader.

Listening to The Volunteers

So it goes...

Exploring options...

It's a whole new world out there, $6 a pound, and, is it just me, or does this news story need a Theremin in the soundtrack?

So, it appears that the new 90/180 tourist visas for Turkey are now a done deal and a lot of folks cruising the Med are going to have to look elsewhere for a place to hang out...

Italy with it's new tax on boats is starting to make the whole Med thing look problematic. With the already ingrained hassles of the Schengen Agreement/Treaty making Europe look less and less desirable as a cruising destination, it's time to start re-thinking our options...

Repeat after me...

Ushuaia

Kinda has a nice ring, does it not?

Listening to Ox

So it goes...

Hell-on-wheels...

Dave over at TriloBoats has something to say, Lloyd Kahn has a new project (which includes boats), and, sadly, this sort of thing is no longer news...

Way back when I was a student at Virgil Jr High School, my orchestra teacher and sometimes mentor, John Deichman (a truly exceptional man and musician), threw a chop stick at me and told the rest of my fellow orchestral compatriots that I was a very dangerous man, and that they all should take note of folks like me who ask too many questions...

He was right. As it happens, I'm not so much the guy with answers but I'm hell-on-wheels in the question department.

Of course, around boats, asking questions, especially that one about why stuff costs so much, is often construed as a rather anti-social activity and not a way to win a popularity contest...

On the other hand, as a rule, most folks don't throw chop sticks at you either...

Listening to Jennifer O'Connor

So it goes...

It's not all bunnies and ducks...

More on politicians and drug testing, OMG a politician with a conscious (I'm buying my season lift tickets for Hades!), and my favorite in the Mr Compassion sweepstakes...

Building a dinghy on a boat can be something of a, let's just say an interesting experience...

For a start, there's the lack of space to work on an eight-foot dinghy aboard a CAL 34. Once the hull gets stitched together the ventilation down below goes all to hell because two of the hatches become non-opening for the duration and getting to the front of the boat means doing a lateral limbo.

Then there is the ever present swell, which makes doing fillets something of a comedy routine from an old silent movie as the dinghy becomes something of a moving target as the swell has it gyrating within a four foot eccentric arc. Made even worse by the sports fishermen doing their best to launch you off the boat when they power through the anchorage at speed pulling a six-foot wake...

Fun stuff!

Anyway, yesterday I did the interior fillets and the skies were clear so I left the dinghy right side up to cure and just after midnight we got a bit of a squall which in the course of ten minutes seemed to put one hellacious amount of water in the dinghy. Trust me, nothing says fun like bailing a dinghy on your hands an knees with a four foot swell running and 30+ knots of wind...

Listening to The Wailin' Jennys

So it goes...

Quick question about where home is...

Something about our open government, you might want to send your Rep a note after reading this, and an important note for those with guitars on board...

It's interesting what/how people worry about moving aboard...

Most folks considering moving onto a boat have a lot of issues/worries with the whole living in a small space, lack of mod cons, and trying to bring their "normal" life along in the process. A lot of those folks write to Boat Bits from time to time and ask about those questions and mostly seem a little put off when I tell them it is not a problem and it will all work out... Apparently "No problem, mon" is not a sentence a lot of folks understand.

One advantage to hitting a certain age is that you have enough life experience to step back and see how things work and having watched lots of people move onto boats and cruise both successfully or having it become a clusterfuck, I've noted that the very act of moving onto that boat is such a sea change that it simply evolves you to a different level and things that you worried about are no longer an issue...

Of course, if you have not moved onto that boat you can't understand that. It's a leap of faith thing. I might add, that when I say moving aboard I mean something other than just the physical act of taking up residence on a boat and there are no half measures in the process.

Folks who decide to live aboard and cruise but want to keep their options open (translated as keeping their shore bound life in stasis or worse, keeping it in full tilt boogie and trying to jump between the two) are not going to get into that headspace needed for a successful transition because they simply have not made the leap of faith needful to evolve to that next level. Face it, it is hard to enjoy your life at anchor somewhere beautiful if you are worried about whether your lawn back "home" is getting watered enough.

Actually, "home" is the key word to a successful transition to life aboard as you simply don't start really living aboard until you think of your boat as your home and that, not whether or not you can live without a washer/dryer, is the key make or break issue.

Like the man said... "Home is where the heart is"

Listening to Mylene Farmer

So it goes...

On being a cheap cruiser...

Just one link this morning as it's quite a chunk of very worthwhile reading...

Here in St Croix we have one of the worst chandlers and marinas I've had the displeasure of coming across in more than four decades of dealing with some pretty awful marine business concerns... Which, when you come to think of it, is actually pretty impressive.

It's not just the overly surly verging on openly hostile attitude, the heart attack inducing pricing structure, the overpriced fuel, or water that comes out of the hose looking like strong tea that keeps folks away because, sadly, that just seems the norm in the marine trades down here these days.

When they give you water that's brown you don't even bother to complain, we simply buy a better filter... Cruisers are, if anything, adaptive.

Nope, the reason we don't shop or spend our dollars there is simply that they don't want our business and as there are any number of folks who do, it's an easy decision as there are non-marine businesses, as well as West and Defender that actually care about keeping our business and have a clue.

One of the local bars on the waterfront sells water (for less) that actually comes out of the hose looking like water as opposed to industrial waste. While you are filling up the folks who work there are friendly, chat with you, and when you've filled up with water the general ambiance is just the sort that sitting down at the bar to have a beer or a slice of pizza seems like a good idea.

Of course, the clueless marina in question just thinks we are "cheap" cruisers and "boat scum" so simply do not have a clue as to why we no longer bother to spend our money with them. Which is really too bad as St Croix and the USVI just took a death dealing hit to the economy with the local refinery shutting down with a loss of nearly 2000 jobs. For those aware of what happens to a company town when the company shuts its gates you just know the blow back to every business on island is going to get hit hard...

The thing is, next time we come to St Croix I expect to find the marina in question either closed or under new ownership as its near the end of its downward spiral. On the other hand, I expect to be able to buy water and get a beer or pizza (maybe even all three) at a thriving business on the boardwalk... But, what the hell do I know? I'm just a cheap cruiser.

Listening to Renaud

So it Goes...