A great resource...

Jamestown Distributors is really an amazing store as they pretty much have it all and actually know the gear and boatbuilding supplies they sell. Fact is when we were building our various cruising boats in France we ordered all of our fastenings (bronze ring nails), hinges and quite a few tools from them and always got great service...

They also have a great boat building blog in the JD Workshop Weblog which is a excellent place to learn new boat building tricks and methods. They currently are rebuilding an old Mako center console but a lot of the content is just as relevant to rebuilding a classic plastic sailboat as well... Good stuff!

Real world lighting costs...LED

Yesterday I was at the local marine store and spent some time looking at various LED lights for the boat and was not overly impressed by the quality of the various LED light fixtures but was impressed by the hig prices... and not in a good way!

Why is it that a so-called, made in China marine unit with three LED's not using tinned wire or marine friendly materials, costs over $100?

While at the same time I can buy a rechargable LED worklight with 78 LED's with charger for less than $40?

This worklight looks kind of neat and I will be getting one or two to play with and see how they work...

the whale it was that died...

Much interest in the recent Whale VS Cruise ship fatality (the whale it was that died) and more than a bit of finger pointing.

Fact is that according to the World Wildlife Fund 90% of whales that die due to unnatural causes are ship whale collisions. I've heard of various ways that these numbers could be cut but almost all involve ships installing stuff that costs money and that would cut into profits so I expect that whales being run down by ships is going to be an ongoing thing... If you'd like to keep score NOAA keeps a Whale Ship Strike Database.

The cruise ship companies know a little something about profit and the sucking of money in the piratical sense so if anyone ever gets around to installing anti-whale strike systems on boats I'd wager my bottom dollar the cruise ships will be the last one to the party (kicking and screaming all the way).

Since we were going into rantish mode and the subject was cruise ships you might want to take a look at "Cruise Ship Blues" and "Cruise Ship Squeeze: The New Pirates of the Seven Seas" which paint sadly accurate and scary pictures of the cruise ship industry.

Not quite so super a yacht after all...

Tom Perkins' much touted Maltese Falcon, the yacht "that all other yachts will be measured against" has been for sale for a while now and the "greatest" yacht ever designed does not quite have folks lining up to buy it...

Fact of the matter is, with all those Goldman Sachs big bonuses and all those billions in TARP money that no one seems to have kept track of, you'd think someone would be able to meet the asking price. But no, it seems not, and a 40-MILLION dollar cut on the asking price shows that the greatest yacht ever might just be changing its name to "White Elephant".

Music for the dog watch...

One of my favorite blogs has a sea themed mix of songs! Just the thing to put on your Ipod for the dog watch...

Now where is my old Walker Log...

On "So It Goes" we are in the process of updating and upgrading various systems and the next on the list is doing something about the awful Raymarine Bidata depth/log which has simply never worked very well. Hardly surprising as everything we have ever had on our boat that has had the moniker of Raymarine stamped on it has been, shall we say, less than advertised... When the Bidata comes out we will finally be a Raymarine free boat...Oh happy, happy day!

The plan is to replace the sounder with a small fishfinder (more about that another day) but the log and speed thing is still up in the air...


I still quite like the hockey puck styled Speed Puck by Velocitek but I don't like the battery as power source and while I have been waiting for sometime for them to (hopefully) come up with a unit that could be plugged into the ships power system so far I am still waiting which is a shame as I know a lot of cruising sailors who think this unit is the Bee's knees and would buy it in a shot with a different power source.

So I am still looking for a decent speed/log and almost feeling nostalgic for my old Walker log...

On a whole different tack is the very cool new App for an IPhone called the Sail Master which for $12. (really!) does just about everything one would need on a boat except make toast and walk the dog! VERY COOL!

Of course it is not suitable for cruising as battery problems and the fact that an IPhone is just not built to live in a cockpit for days on end and all the other abuse that is the day to day norm for gear on a voyaging sailboat.

That said if I actually had a phone (Globalstar certainly does not count as a phone but it is good for cracking nuts) I'd have an iPhone and I'd be all over this! The important bit though is it gives me hope... I've pretty much given up on the sailing gear big business folks actually coming up with any real innovation for the cruising sailor and it will be folks like Sail Master and Velocitek who will lead the way to better and more affordable nav products if they ever realized that the only folks sailing were not just racers...

Things that work when it gets ugly ... another guy dragging.

Steve Roberts of the blog Nomadness (always an interesting read) had his turn at dragging as well...

Like I said everyone drags at some time or other!

Yesterday's view at anchor...

Who'd want to be in a marina?

Since we were talking about bikes...

One of the things that makes the whole boats on bike thing work is that it gives you the ability to get around and when you add the ability to carry stuff it all comes together.

Backpacks simply do not do the trick.. They certainly have their place but when you need to move stuff from one place to another you have to have that "Sure another case of beer is no problem" ability!

While we were in France and on the canal lateral we'd refill our water tanks from a natural spring and bike the water a few miles.. What made it really neat was that the spring in question was the same water as Perrier and free for the taking!

But the fact was it made shopping easy and gave us a range to be able to find the bargains that would be unavailable to us if we had been confined to foot or public transport. Being able to ride twenty-five miles, do some shopping, have lunch, and ride back without it being a drudge made all the difference.

Like any tool on a boat though, some care has to be taken with gear. Those days of humping jerry cans and cases of wine with the panniers and various bike bags available which were not quite up to the task or boat-friendly were the only hassle. Which is why I'm very happy that Seattle Sports is making bike bags and panniers these days. Seattle Sports stuff is tough and seriously waterproof. In fact one of our ongoing upgrades is replacing all our various waterproof bags with Seattle Sports stuff as the old bags on the boat reach their sell by dates.

The pannier that I'm partial to is the Fast pack simple, bombproof and cheap! While not on your bike they will happily do double duty as waterproof bags for things that need to be kept dry or stowed away.

Need/want and a wonderful design... Flicka!

The other day I was listening to someone new to the whole idea of cruising and living aboard who as a single guy had decided that he needed "at least" a fifty footer...

The problem is that as boats get bigger costs have a way of expanding at a exponential rate so a fifty footer does not cost or take twice as much money to keep up it is a LOT more. Exactly how much more depends on a lot of factors but my rule of thumb has always been for every three feet over thirty feet LOA the cost of upkeep doubles!

With that in mind and the world in a recession with no apparent end in sight if any, maybe it's time to re-examine just how big a boat people actually need in the need as opposed to want equation.

Katy Burke penned what just may be the best book on living aboard a boat ages ago and her "The Complete Live-Aboard Book" was based on her experiences living on a Flicka (a twenty foot boat) and to this day remains in my mind the best of the bunch in the live-aboard-a-boat book genre.

While small, the Bruce Bingham designed Flicka is a real blue water cruising boat with more ocean crossings to its credit than I can keep track of, as well a long history of people living-aboard quite comfortably. Kawabunga just being just one such example...


Which brings us back to the need/want thing... You may want a fifty footer, but just maybe what you really need is a twenty footer. Then again, maybe not. But it is something to keep in mind and even if you opt for a bigger boat there is a great deal to be learned from those who live and sail across big oceans on small boats.

Speaking of the Flicka... CKD is expecting the molds for the Flicka in the very near future and will be able to provide hull and deck kits for home builders. They are also working on a wood kit if you feel the urge to build a Flicka in wood... How cool is that?

For more information on the Flicka you might want to peruse Flicka20.com a great resource for anyone!

Just an aside, but the first boat I ever actually built was a ferro cement Flicka back when I was doing boat work to pay for college... Loved the boat then and still think it is one of the best designs ever!

Attainable Adventure Cruising...

A really good website to keep an eye on is Attainable Adventure Cruising-Morgan's Cloud which is a great resource for anyone wanting to go to sea in a sail boat. Always interesting and filled with take-it-to-the-bank info from folks who walk the talk!

For example, take a look at a post about boats and pounding... Good stuff!

"Eco chic" my ass...

From the title of this post one might surmise that there is more than the odd chance that there is a rant in store, and dear reader you would be right...

Inhabitat is a website of note and a lot of interesting and wonderful things find their place there. Sadly, just as often they also get it completely wrong and their most recent foray into things cycling "Top Five Eco Chic Bicycles" is a perfect example of one of the main failings of "Green Culture" is that they don't get the form follows function and not the other way around. To be hip it is going to have to do the job and not just have a cool press release!

I've never been a fan of "best of" type of statements or journalism. Saying that five bikes represent the "best of" to be accurate would mean you have tested and researched the thousands of bikes out there and actually know of what you speak... Really what they should have done in this case is maybe titled it five bike we think are kinda hip or some such. But when you use that word TOP I expect it to actually mean something.

The only thing that I can see about the assembled selection of bikes in question is that none of them are bikes I'd choose to ride (or buy). They are all kinda neat and have some interesting features, gimmicks or connections but none of them are, to put it simply, good bikes and all have a high humiliation factor. I mean seriously can you see yourself going off to the store a couple miles away on a Strida and riding back with thirty pounds of shopping?

Yeah... I thought not.

Pretty much the same for the other bikes as well ( though they would all work better than the Strida but than just about anything with wheels would. (and yes I HAVE ridden a Strida)! The point is with bikes is they are not adornments or examples of cool design features. They are tools and for any tool to fulfill its function it has to work... That form follows function thing really makes sense.

What I find really rant-worthy is that there is no shortage of truly excellent innovative bike designs out there and in production that need promotion in the whole "lets get people out of cars and on two wheels" and promoting half-assed bikes because they are cute, clever or chic is not going to advance that agenda in anyway I can think of.

On the other hand the Bike Friday, Swiss Bike, UTB or that new Salsa Fargo I'm in love with (and hundreds of others that are too numerous to mention) would promote the whole idea of two wheels in a way that makes sense.

Rant over...

Things that work when it gets ugly...

We had an evil tropical wave blow through over the weekend...



According to the weather wonks we had winds of 40 knots and lots of rain. The winds were seriously evil as they gusted in short bursts and changed directions with a whim and vigor. Just the sort of situation that is perfect for dragging anchor!

Two things everyone should know who plans to sail off into the sunset and spend a lot of time at anchor is that...

A. Everyone drags (at some time or other)
B. Anchor tests never quite get it right.

So, being no different than anyone else, we dragged (apparently our turn yet again). The holding in the lagoon is always iffy but we have been sitting here for awhile and the anchor was well dug in but the erratic wind gusts did their thing and there we were dragging at speed towards shore.

This is where all the anchor tests get it wrong as every bit of foul weather and mayhem I have experienced in anchorages has always been most evil when the wind and wave action made for an erratic motion. Which makes you wonder about just how accurate all the straight pull tests done on anchors are... Just something to keep in mind when you read that X anchor has Y amount of pounds of holding power!


Luckily we were onboard at the time or it could have become a messy situation, but being that we are experienced at handling scenery changing without permission situations the drill is pretty clear cut. First step is always to let out more scope in the hope that it will stop "that dragging feeling" (apologies to the Righteous Brothers) and in this case as it did not, the next step is to up anchor and re-anchor.

I should add at this point its blowing like hell and pouring a Noah's worth deluge! I can't hear whats going on in the cockpit and the cockpit can't hear me. Taking care of the anchor is easy as we have a Simpson Lawernce manual windless also known as the Anchorman (which very sadly is no longer made). Easy because as it is manual I can crank the anchor up without worrying if it will work. The SL is bombproof and fueled by a soaked pissed off guy like me with an adrenalin rush the anchor comes in FAST!

Back in the cockpit the smarter half (remember I'm the one on the foredeck looking like a drowned rat) under the new hard dodger turns on the motor and we move the boat up to re-anchor. The fact that moving the boat against 35ish knots of wind does not even have our Electric Yacht motor breathing hard and using 35 amps an hour in the process. Color us very, very happy campers!

The whole point of course is you really need to be able to depend on the stuff you bolt to your boat. I don't fault our anchor as most likely we would have dragged with any type of anchor in the same situation or maybe not. Which is something of the conundrum factor of anchors in that there are just so many variables ... anchor type, scope, bottom, wind , wave, current, windage and just plain luck that it is almost impossible to always get it right which brings us back to the "Everyone drags" and "Anchor tests never get it right".

Bareboat training school...

Not really... but watching bareboaters down here on their vacations you might think so though!

Dehler makes tough yachts and what better way to show it than to sail into stuff and hit rocks at full tilt boogie?

Crappy sandals and a sock on steroids...

Jimmy Buffett (as I recall) made a joke in concert about shoes these days costing more than his first pickup...

Just for the record, I paid $200 for my first car and the thought of paying that sort of money for shoes does make me go just a little... bonkers.

Of course, down here living on a boat, I hardly ever wear "shoes" in the accepted sense and socks are something that one must search out as they are stored in inaccessible nooks on the boat when socks are needful for trips to the real world. In my world, such as it is, we wear sandals!

But it is getting harder and harder to find decent sandals these days as the costs keep going up with what appears to be a corresponding decline in quality.

Teva's for a long time were the gold standard but I began to find that they seemed to be on the prices go up quality goes down spiral. So I switched to Columbia Sportswear sandals which impressed me greatly and I had a couple of pairs that were both super comfortable, gave lots of support and were non-skid in all the right ways...

As soon as I got used to the Columbia Sportswear sandals, lo and behold now it seems that every sandal I buy winds up self-destructing halfway into it's break-in period. The sole unglues and then I wind up walking around making silly slapping noises... Is this anyway for an $80 sandal to behave?

Of course, I could always send it back but shipping stuff back from the Caribbean almost always costs more than the item in question. So it's out with the 3M 5200 which will hold anything together... Except sandals! Throw in that the weird flocking stuff they put on these sandals to make them look like imitation leather of some sort wears off faster than you can say... WTF!

So the current quest and Holy Grail is a decent sandal for life on a boat that does not cost silly money... Help would be appreciated!
One sandal that I find super interesting but no one has for sale anywhere I can actually try them on is the Vibram sandal/shoe that has toes! They are just weird enough to actually work but have any of the Boat Blog readership actually used them? Still they do go for silly prices...$75 or more for a sock on steroids?

Some thoughts on how not to do business in the sailmaking trade...

As happens from time to time, it was needful to have our jib restitched and wanting to get maximum bang for the buck decided it would be a great opportunity to get some draft tape and new telltales as long as the sail was going to be worked on...

I mentioned Glowfast some time ago in a previous post and have been waiting for just such an opportunity to try out their glow in the dark products as we do more than our fair share of sailing at night and I always feel a little more information regarding sail shape in the dark would be no bad thing! The added bonus of making the boat that much more visible makes it something of a slam dunk.

So while we were at the loft I asked if they had any of the Glowfast tape in stock and was met not just with a "No, but we'd be happy to get some in for you!" but instead "No, it does not really work and won't last in tropical conditions here in the Caribbean" instead.

I then asked if they had experience with the product and got a "no".

Now as far as I recollect, folks downunder have a whole lot more UV than we do here in the tropics and it seemed to me that a product from downunder just might have factored UV wear and tear into the equation... Well, I know I would.

So Email being a wonderful thing, I dropped Jason at Glowfast Marine a note and got this back lickity split...

It's a problem when people talk about things they don't know about, they should just say they don't know. In regards to our products, the actual glow material we use has no life expectancy it loves the UV and has been tested in labs for over 50 years. We have had it on sails for 6 years and still and they are still as bright as the day they were put on.

The only thing that limits the life expectancy is the material we put it into, in this case it is an insignia cloth similar to standard draft stripes used at the moment. So presuming they are installed correctly they should last the life of your sails.

So there you have it... Someone who actually has some experience with the product (albeit that he wants to sell you the product) and someone who does not have a clue (who I should also point out would make a profit in selling/installing the product).

So it goes... For the record I am still very pumped about installing the Glowfast draft tape and telltales!

I'll be honest and say I hate when folks who don't know stuff just make it up on the fly. In this case, the loft in question won't be making the new Genoa I had them quote for me. Trust is a somewhat elusive bugger and it flew out the window the minute the BS came in.

Why not a viking cruising boat?

Over in Iceland they recently launched the Langskip a modern day rendering of a viking cruising boat...

I like people who do stuff like this!

At 55 feet and with a beam of 14 feet this is one big boat. Throw in the fact that its draft of around a meter and there are very few places this boat cannot go.

Skipavik is a shipyard which has plenty of experience building boats and they have been doing plank on frame for the Icelandic fishing fleet whose day in day out sailing is in some of the toughest most extreme weather anywhere in the world. Which in my book tells me they know how to build boats!

The Langskip is their first "yacht" and unlike most people getting their toe wet in a new market, it is refreshing to see that they did not decide to build a clone of a Bendytoy fifty something or yet another Swan derivative. Nope, they decided to make a statement and a pretty awesome boat is the result...

Did I say I really like these guys?


Looking at how the boat is set up it is easy to see that while it wears its Viking heritage proudly, a lot of thought was put into upgrading and bringing the design into the current time zone (that being 2009 AD) with state of the art winches and a carbon fibre spar.

Most certainly not the same old same!


They are open to building bigger or smaller versions which opens a lot of possible scenarios for some very interesting boats.

On a related note, our cats, who we are pretty sure have some viking genes in their makeup (being berserkers of the first order) would be right at home on the Langskip...

A sweet ride...

Just take a moment and look at one seriously sweet ride...


Lots to be learned in the details...

More bikes on boats...

I have always been a bit leery of the whole love-at-first-sight camp but having just seen this new bike by Salsa, I have to admit that the old Monkee's song "I'm a believer" is starting to make all kinds of sense!

So, you may remember me considering various folders and small wheel offerings in a recent post and while I still think they have their place, I have not been able to find one that actually walked the talk. I'll admit that I'm not the average guy where bikes and touring are concerned, as all of my best memories of bike touring have been in the 100-200 miles a day zone and the further away such silliness as sag wagons are the better.

Mountain bikes with their various suspension systems have never quite felt right for me partly because it makes bags and panniers problematic but it always seemed to me that a well designed frame should absorb most shocks and that suspension for a bike used for hard touring was just too "mushy" with a load on.

Which brings us the the object of my affection which Salsa is aptly calling the Fargo (as in Go Far). No little toy wheels but 700C or 29" wheels and as I'm 6'5" there are all sorts of reasons that big wheels make sense. Throw in disc brakes and drop bars and you have a bike that really is a go anywhere machine.

Since we mentioned drop bars as being a good thing, which it is, it's just another example of popular opinion being way off base and for the life of me I have never been able to fathom where the whole drop bars are uncomfortable came from as one of the big advantages of drop bars is that you have so many possible hand positions and that spells comfort in my book.

Of course trying to find a means of storing a couple of these beasts on a thirty-four foot sailboat is no easy matter and I can detect all sorts of cunning plans and projects to be able to make a pair of these part of the So It Goes experience... Oh well what's another project or three in the name of true love and sweet rides?

Bastille day...

I really should be putting the finishng touches on the hard dodger, tuning the rig and adding a couple more bookshelves to "So It Goes"...

But they had shrimp on sale and a new beer to try. Got to love the name but with a 9% beer the name might be more apt than some might expect!

But since I am in France and it's a holiday I'll just go with the flow ...

Have a happy Bastille day!

Proa for sale...

I've always wanted a proa and over the years have come up with more than a few cunning plans that involved a proa...

Folks that understand the appeal of a proa know EXACTLY what I am talking about (the rest of you can simply go on to the next post).

A friend of ours (in fact after Hurricane Omar he pulled our boat off the beach) is getting ready to move over to Southeast Asia to open a boatyard doing big (70ish foot) cats and proas which is seriously fun stuff, but what may interest Boat Bits Proa folk is that he is going to be selling his fifty-eight foot proa which I have long admired and with good reason! The boat designed by Daniel Charles was a cutting edge racer which held one of the world speed records in Brest and you might have known it as "Tahiti Douche" or "Lessives Saint Marc" which were names it campaigned under.

To say this is a seriously cool boat and a living, breathing bit of nautical history is something of an understatement...

Seriously, the boat needs a good home and at 40,000 Euros it's a steal.

Conundrum...

Why is it folks who tell me that schooners don't make sense because of "supposed" poor windward performance the very same folks who NEVER sail to windward and resort to power instead?

Just wondering...

Speaking of schooners...

A reader recently hipped me to the most excellent design work being done by Garry Lidgard down in OZ...

The concept in Garry's words "This design was originally for myself, basic concept was for a build of minimum cost and effort for maximum vessel!" and from the looks of the study plans it would seem that he pretty much nailed it!

When NA's design for themselves they very often do their best work... No throwing in too many berths or keeping options open for possible bareboat fleet usage and the like. Even better is that for their own projects the budgets are a bit more... shall we say... realistic.

On schooner plans, the first place I look is the rig and this boats rig is a wonderful example how you can get the most out of a modern schooner rig without being silly... A lot of bang for the buck in what really is a very affordable and powerful rig. A lot of folks should note that single spreader rigs make a LOT of sense and this rig is the best example I've seen in ages!



The interior is livable without the extra berths that so many feel they have to include, though for a voyaging/liveaboard boat I'd be remiss in not mentioning that stowage/capacity could be greater but it is doable though some hoops would be jumped through and cunning plans needed!

All in all this is one neat boat and just the sort of stock plan that makes sense!

Good news and a sad reflection

I just recently heard that Spike Africa has been having lot of work done and is now in Friday Harbor. Bought by Schooners North, I'm guessing that the plan is for Spike Africa to be a daysailer...

A long time ago I promised myself if I ever built a schooner that it would be named "Stone County Road" after the John Stewart song "Pirates of Stone County Road" which for me is the sailing song that tugs the heart strings and takes me back to those days when I was a kid dreaming of sailing further to strange and wonderful places.

John Stewart was a huge influence on my life from the moment my Mom brought home that first Kingston Trio record. His songwriting is the standard I hold all songs up to. Over the years he has written so many great songs that it is almost impossible to point at any one song or album as they all have that special something and the songs of John Stewart have always been my moral compass. They still are...

Sadly, John Stewart died last year...

What's up with the Walker Bays...

I actually quite like the Walker Bay hard dinghies... We used to have one of their eight footers but it was just that little bit too small to allow us to use it for the purpose of rowing and the ten footer would have been a better choice.

I always liked that the Walker Bays had a neat inflatable collar making for a neat niche between hard dinghy and inflatable that would actually row. I should add that while I gave a lot of thought to purchasing a ten footer the deciding factor was that the inflatable collar seemed to be somewhat excessive in price costing more than some dinghies.

In hind sight I'm glad that we never bought the ten footer with the collar as over the last couple of years we have seen many sad specimens of the collars looking much the worse for wear with leaking and with what appears to be excessive UV degradation (in comparison to hypalon dinghies made by Caribe and AB) and in fact they don't seem to keep up with the PVC dinghies by Plastimo in the UV area which were cheaper (for the whole dinghy) than the Walker Bay collars.

Anyway, for anyone considering the Walker Bays for sailing in the tropics you might want to think long and hard before buying the collar...

Cockpit reading... The sailing rags

I know I spend far too much time bemoaning the state of the yachting press and their pimpish ways but fair is fair and I really should point out that they do get it right from time to time as well...

"Latitude 38" in my books is easily the best sailing mag out there and when I sat down to try and find a good article to mention in this blog the fact is that there were so many goodies all I can say is simply to point out that it's best to simply read the whole issue. For those not in the know Latitude 38 is FREE!

"Sail Magazine" has a wonderful editorial this month (July 09) entitled "All We Really Need To Know About Being Green We Learned At Sea" by Clark Beek that is so right you might want to make copies and send it to friends, family and political hacks....

The new "Wooden Boat" has a very neat dinghy plan that is worth the cost of admission. Throw in a very good article about a Dutch Sharpie design and you are well on your way to an excellent issue but then again, I don't ever recall a bad issue of Wooden Boat!

While the current issue of "Cruising World" is of the big pimping ilk (so they can sell all sorts of advertising from Catamaran builders/sellers/charter co's) it does have a great little article from Fatty Goodlander about guns on boats or some such "Unarmed but Uneasy"... Borrow a copy or read it while in line at West Marine (It's a short article)!

For those who read French, the new "Voiles" has a wonderful series of articles about anchors and anchoring which is just the sort of thing we could use in American magazines long on content and short of tests done to favor folks who take out big ads... Fact is the French magazines Bateaux, Loisirs Nautiques and Voiles all kick some serious ass so you might want to check them out if you have a chance!

SSCA...

Formed in 1952, the Seven Seas Cruising Association has long been one of the best resources for the cruising sailor. Period!

Membership includes what is easily the best cruising info available anywhere in the guise of its monthly newsletter which is written by members. These days where most "cruising" articles in the yachting press are simply bareboat charter accounts which have very little to do with cruising and a lot to do with pimping their advertisers. The monthly newsletters by the SSCA being written by people who are out there and doing it in a timely manner is truly the gold standard and if you join only to be able to get the newsletter you are way ahead of the game.

I'd go on as there are many more reasons you should join but the SSCA can do it a lot better so I will just let you take a look at the SSCA!

Really it is not rocket science... JOIN!

Surf city...

One of our favorite blogs here at Boat Bits central is 70.8% (which is one year old today!) and as always whenever I go there I find neat stuff...

Case in point, they recently did a great post on Brian Schultz and his kayaks.

Being that I really like skin on frame kayaks, I spent quite a bit of time perusing the various designs on Brian's site... Cowabunga, I see easily the neatest surf kayak I have come across in ages!

Rhino!

Nuff said....

masts and rigging for the real world...

Sadly these days a lot of things cost silly money and more than their share has the word "marine" attached!

For those of us firmly in the cheap seats, there are a lot of ways to bring costs down but I'm always surprised at just how expensive some stuff can be...

Take masts and rigging for instance! Seriously silly prices get thrown around for what is really just aluminum tubes and wire. Now in the cheap seats of course we know that we NEVER buy industrial stuff (like wire) from a purveyor of marine goods. Buying it from Acme wire who may not know a boat from a hole in the wall but certainly DO KNOW wire, is even more important because they are not in the world of silly marine pricing. They sell wire and other rigging stuff for what it's worth not what they can gouge which is often a huge difference!

The same line of thinking goes for chainplates and suchlike... Now that just about every city has some sort of CNC metal cutting operation you can make a drawing give it to a guy and have a perfectly cut and polished chainplate for just a little more than the cost of the metal value. I won't even mention the obscene pricing the last time I looked at chainplates from a marine store...

Masts, being low volume products with seriously high tooling costs are pretty silly price wise but you have to wonder how various mast builders always seem to have brand name masts with maybe a little scratch or cosmetic blemish in the anodizing for 10% of the retail price. Of course with masts being just hollow tubes there are all sorts of alternatives to marine industry spars... I've known more folks who built boats and wound up with light poles and suchlike that worked out just fine at a fraction of what it would cost to buy something from Francespar or the like.

Dudley Dix and CKD boats are even doing mast kits in... (Dare I say it?) ... Wood!

It might suprise a lot of folks but wood works real well for masts and in these days of epoxy and other evil chemicals, no longer falls prey to 99% of all the negative press... Check it out!

since we're talking Tiki...

On the Tiki thing... Seriously I've always felt it was a good thing to have Tikis on boats. They feel right.

For those of a like mind you really should take a look at the work by the Southern California artist Bosko who really has an excellent handle on the whole Tiki thing. Not only does he do stuff like Tiki mugs but does custom Tiki moldings which would look awesome on "So It Goes"

Lots and lots of neat stuff...

Plus don't miss the short film about Bosko as well.

Have a happy Tiki 4th of July...

The 4th of July for me has always meant beach, surfboards and Tiki drinks...

When I was a kid, the whole Tiki bar thing was quite the rage and seriously hip. In these modern times the whole Tiki fad is looked down on by many as a pinnacle of kitsch but it was a LOT of fun, and I'll go on record as saying we could always use a whole lot more FUN!

Plus let's get real... What better place to have your very own movable Tiki Bar than an ocean-going sail boat?

Of course to do it right you need LOTS of RUM! Lucky for us that down here in the Caribbean you can buy a good rum for less than $4 a liter (and you'd be dumb-as-nails to use anything better for Tiki drinks) various fruit juices and some serious Tiki mugs...

I mean you really do need the Tiki mugs as they strike just the right note and the whole point of the excercise is striking the right note! Of course you can always use coconuts and hollowed out pineapples but for me Tiki mugs are the serious stuff (and who wants to waste good drinking time hollowing out a pineapple?).

Of course you need the recipes because, while most things on boats are not rocket science, mixology of the Tiki variety IS and before you are ready to come up with your own special signature Tiki/Boat drink it is best to spend a bit of time learning from the masters and working on the classics!

"Sipping Safari" is a great place to start but any of the Beachbum Berry books will do...

I would be remiss in not mentioning that for a proper on-board Tiki party that the old T-shirt is something of a faux pas and that at the least a real Aloha shirt is the minimum for Tiki chic (leis however are considered to be something of an over kill)!

Have a happy 4th...

a call to action...

Latitude 38 and Sailing Anarchy have both been fighting the good fight where the case of Bismarck Dinius is concerned but things are getting down to the crunch and it is time for the rest of us boat-folk to help pull the weight...

Bismark Dinius support group

My diesel mechanic says electric propulsion sucks...

The other day I got that message from a reader...

When you think about it, it's hardly surprising that the internal combustion posse would be less than enthused about electric propulsion. If I made my living repairing people's diesel engines and drive trains I'm sure I would not be the biggest booster of electric propulsion solutions as I'd have an agenda.

Keep that in mind when someone is offering advice!

Just for the record I do have an agenda as well and while its not about "money" in my pocket I see electric propulsion as a very good thing for some sailors and I'm stoked and enthused. I realize EP is not for everyone but I think folks should make up their own minds on the subject and need real info to work it out. Real info so you can make that choice is my agenda...

One of the best parts of electric propulsion is how little there is to go wrong and how easy it is to fix or replace problematic bits when it does. Bringing repair and maintenance within the skill set of all but the most ham fisted tyros. Throw in the fact that replacing a motor (if needful) costs less than most "small" diesel repairs and it gets even more attractive.

Spares being both cheap and light... The Mars motor used by Electric Yacht in my system only weighs 36 pounds and as it is available for around $500 you could find space and budget for a spare motor if you planned to be sailing the Ultima thule!

Hard dodger progress...

So work continues... Now we have the windows cut and most of the exterior glass work done...

I'm not over the top about what the dodger does to the lines of the boat but dodgers always take their toll. On the plus side, when it is painted it will be a lot better and not quite as jarring to the eye.






Now it's time to flip the sucker and glass the interior... No rest for the wicked!