Friday, August 11, 2006

It is a coin toss

It's funny how things evolve... A couple of weeks ago Sheila and I were talking about how maybe we should cruise out of the Caribbean for a while. We've been talking about whether to take a left through the Panama canal and off to the South Pacific or, take a right and head for Europe and possibly Africa again... The other option of course, is to build the new boat.

Sheila has been leaning towards a return to Europe which makes a lot of sense for our charter business as tt would allow us to get back in tune with the European boats and some of the Chartering areas... On the film side, not such a bad idea either.. I have been kinda thinking about the Pacific as I would really like to spend some time in Japan and Korea as they are both places that I feel drawn to as a filmmaker. I have always had a deep respect for Japanese cinema and the new emerging juggernaut which is Korean cinema is something I would like to see up close and personal, as well as be a part of. The fact is you can get to Japan and Korea if you take a left or a right....

It may just involve flipping a coin or perhaps one day the wind will be blowing a certain direction and we'll be on our way...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Marine FOUL Weather Gear (Rant warning)

OK... the saying goes that "If we can put men on the moon, why can't we (fill in the blank)". In this case, why can't we come up with some decent, user-friendly, foul-weather gear?

Over the years I have used various foul weather gear from hyper-expensive to cheap-as-it-gets and, the fact is it all works about the same... BADLY. It's either too heavy to the point of not being able to work on deck and less than waterproof or, it is less heavy and not very waterproof. The few designs that seem to get the waterproof thing right, apparently forget that the human body sweats and so in essence, create a portable sauna and the end result is that you still wind up soaking wet (and thus FOUL - Sheila's note)...

It really does not have to be that way. Ages ago, the mountaineering industry sorted out decent rainwear that you can climb in. Though in my opinion, they took the wrong road in buying the hype of the breathable-fabric lobby which was OK as long as they were working to the old designs which allowed for freedom of movement and enough room within to allow some air circulation. But, in these days of form-fitting, stretchy, "breathable" fabrics it is back to the sauna... Another reason (which is totally unrelated to sailing/climbing) that I am not a huge fan of the breathable fabrics, is that I work in the film industry. As a camera operator I have had numerous complaints from the sound department who have an aversion to the sound of people wearing goretex moving through a shot.

Sure you say... a lot of people say their (insert hyper expensive foul weather brand name here) works just fine... Well they would say that because they just spent five hundred frigging dollars on something that does not quite deliver... "Hey Bob I just spent $600 on this jacket and guess what? It works piss poor and I'm a dummy for buying it!" Not bloody likely. Truth be told most folk never use their foul weather gear in foul weather and have a real surprise in store for them faster than you can spell Musto when the going gets wet... But hey, they look good and that is all that counts... Right?

I used to own a truly wonderful piece of gear made by the North Face simply called the Cagoule. In essence, this was an oversized, pullover anorak of very waterproof nylon that reached near-knee length when fully extended but could be snapped up to hip level. It was waterproof and baggy enough that some air circulation kept humidity at bay. In fact, one of its design briefs was that in a bivouac situation you could pull up your knees and the Cagoule became a tent covering you from head to ankles while sitting down. Actually quite handy when having to hand steer in the cockpit when the weather was ugly. It worked and weighed in at a quarter of what Yachty foul weather gear did and kept me much drier and, just as important, allowed me to work the boat without having to fight the foul weather gear in the process.

When my North Face Cagoule finally gave up the ghost after several years of climbing expeditions, several trans-Pacific passages, and just around town wear when it was raining, I switched to a similar cagoule design (North Face had discontinued theirs) made by Patagonia. They used a foam backed material that also worked great, though I have to admit it was sort of... well, UGLY... and was something of an acquired taste. Sadly, both companies long ago quit making these items but if they ever came back on the market, I'd buy a half dozen sets!

Campmoor seems to have something in their catalog that looks like the old North Face, but the price is a bit too little so I doubt it uses the same sort of material that made the North Face Cagoule such a winner. But, if anyone has experience with it, I would love to hear about how it works...

As it happens I'm in need of new foul weather gear and studying all of what is available shows me that there's not a lot available for something that works the way I think it should... One possible exception I have my eye on is the Skanorak by Patagonia that is designed for Sea Kayakers who need to be able to paddle while dealing with some serious water from time to time and perhaps, even the odd Eskimo roll... Seems like just the thing for a transatlantic jaunt!

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Australian catamaran designs and refrigeration systems

The web can be a funny place... In my search for the new Loose Moose design I kept hearing about a designer down in Oz by the name of Bob Oram who I might like but, as much as I searched, the best I could do was to find enticing snippets about his designs and nothing that was by the designer or actually about the boats... Frustrating with a capital F.

I had a nice note from Ali and Pat of Bumfuzzle fame (or infamy?) the other day, who pointed me in the direction of a pair of couples who were building cats in Oz. And, as it happened, one of the couples was building a boat by the designer in question and had a link to his site. Before you can spell serendipity I finally had an introduction to the designs of Bob Oram which bear some serious looking at.

One thing I have noticed is that there seems to be some serious boat building going on down in Australia and it makes me wonder why boat building seems to be on the rise in Oz and on the wane in the US of A? George Buehler had some interesting questions on this subject in his book about boat building but no answers as to the why... Maybe someone out there has a clue?

One thing I can tell you about the Antipodeans is that they seem to have a practical tilt that makes for successful cruising and boat building. And, if I may digress a bit, here is a small story to illustrate the point...

When Sheila and I arrived in the Med, we found it almost impossible to find ice for our icebox on Loose Moose 2 so we started looking into refrigeration systems. I was quite boring asking every fellow cruiser we met how they liked their system and how often it broke down, etc. To make a long story shorter, most of the cruisers we met seemed to sail from one anchorage or marina to the next in search of getting their fridge systems serviced. So much so, that it was not surprising if the first question you had from a fellow cruiser was "IS there a good fridge mechanic here"? Of course, Sheila and I had lived in Europe for so long that we thought for awhile that in sailing circles "Could you tell me where to find a refrigeration guy" had become the new "Hello, glad to meet you " back home in the USA...

The surprising thing was that most of the cruisers in the USA fleet seemed to think that their fridge systems worked just fine and getting them worked on in every port was just a normal part of having refrigeration on boats. All these years later we have noticed that this is still true in the Caribbean.

The Aussies on the other hand, seemed to understand that beer was meant to be cooler than ambient temperature and seemed seriously surprised that I would be asking questions about how often their fridges were down as all of their's seemed to work just fine. And, as one Aussie cruiser pointed out to me, it was just a refrigerator and not a lot of rocket science involved! The fact of the matter was that in that particular group of Antipodean cruisers, they all seemed to be using portable fridges designed for the outback and they all worked like all the time... This is certainly a practical approach to the whole keeping stuff cold philosophy and one that we have followed, as the factory-built and -shipped units seem to be gas tight, don't leak, use less power, and run pretty much like the fridges most of us grew up with at home, in that they work and work and work... keeping those Polar beers cold cold cold which is how it is meant to be! How many times have you had to get your home fridge or freezer serviced in the last year?... decade? I rest my point.

We really like our Coleman Stirling Power Electric Cooler which is a proper fridge/freezer using the Sterling engine to produce cold with no ozone-destroying gases to leak out and power frugal to the point of 0.9 amp an hour. Better yet, the sucker is available at Costco etc. for under $400 which makes it an incredible bargain. As a matter of fact, the small unit we have is also sold under the name Tropikool who specializes in Sterling-driven marine refrigeration. They also do a build-in unit for existing ice boxes for those who need more capacity.

Now, if I could just find a working email address for Bob Oram...

Thursday, August 03, 2006

A Mutant YELLOW Loose Moose Sighting

There are some very special days attached to building a boat big enough to live in and call home. Most of them sort of sneak up on you like the day you step into the hull and it "clicks" and you realize that it really is a boat and it will carry you to far away places...

There are, of course, a few of those days which are special for bad reasons: the "how could I have been so bloody stupid to build this thing" and "what was I thinking of" days. But on the day you actually launch the boat, all of the bad stuff becomes faint memories. It is a special day and anyone who launches deserves a bit of time to enjoy the feeling that comes from building a really nice boat.

Jean and Gaby just launched their new boat, Anemone, which is a bit of an evolution of the Loose Moose 2 design Phil Bolger drew up for us (sometimes referred to as "AS-39" as dubbed by Bernie), and by all accounts they did a most excellent job. You have to love the color scheme and, am I the only person who thinks about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when the word YELLOW comes to mind?

The new interesting bow design purports to solve problems that we never ran into with our Loose Moose 2 while sailing in the Med, East Africa, across the Atlantic, and in the Caribbean, but it does seem to have that "NEW" Bolger look I see pervading the newer designs. Whether it really is an improvement remains to be seen. The boat will work just fine just like our Loose Moose 2 did. Just my take, but the only problem we did have appears not to have been addressed as the rudder still looks a little small... but hey, that's what sea trials are all about!

Here are a couple of photos taken by Peter Lenihan who helped with the launching of Anemone. He's a fellow boat builder up there in the frozen north. Anemone's a pretty cool boat and just for comparison purposes, here's a couple of photos of Loose Moose 2 (not yellow)...










Click on photos for larger image.