I want!!!

Having two battery banks (Propulsion and house) consisting of sixteen golf cart batteries I have quite an investment involved and it makes sense to keep them watered properly... Which is no easy job as access is somewhat problematic and problematic access means I may not do it as often as I should. I have good intentions but as they say the path to hell...

In the past I have seen a couple of auto filler systems for battery banks but the were kludgy and expensive as well as being less than boat friendly. Which is why I was so excited to see on Cool Tools the mention of the affordable Pro-Fill system by Flow-Rite who seem to have got it just right.

This system makes a lot of sense and makes topping up the batteries so easy with not related muss and fuss (what the hell is muss anyway?) that it solves all the hassle factor.

Which translates to longer battery life which means lowering the cost of operating an electric propulsion and onboard power system, which makes me one seriously happy camper!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One of the Boat Bits readers sent a note on the Pro-Fill system...

"I've got it, and it works exactly as advertised.
While my bank is much smaller than yours it is not in a location that invites maintenance, this system is great. It takes me about three minutes to insure that the electrolyte level is correct."

Other peoples money...

In the mountaineering and sailing world the sponsorship game has been around for ages...

Over at Latitude 38 letters (see Works Hard for Her Money Thread) there has been some discordant notes in regards to Liz Clark and her CAL 40 based surfing safari. But my take is the nay sayers are simply pissed that they did not think of it first!

There is nothing wrong with getting someone to foot the bill for your cruising or climbing adventures and the fact of the matter is I am surprised more don't find sponsorship in the other than racing sailing adventure gig.

I'm no stranger to sponsored endeavors having found that I could do a lot more climbing if someone else was paying for it than if I had to work at some minimum wage job... Luckily as a result I was able to climb in the Himalaya, Pakistan/Afghanistan, Europe, South America and Alaska... Not a bad gig at all.

Of course there is no such thing as free money (well so far I have yet to find any but I do keep looking) and sponsorship for adventures exacts some work on your part and a tangible payback for those who invest in your dreams. Fair is fair!

Which brings us to "You Want To Go Where" by Jeff Blumenfeld which is a very concise and entertaining guide to the world of getting someone else to pay for your adventure... A book I wish I'd had a whole bunch of years ago!

Someone likes the hard Dodger....

Well it has to be said that the hard dodger seems to meet the Buffy and Willow test...

A must read for composting head info...

While not what you might call a good read in the Stephen King sense, if you have an interest in composting toilets and boats "The Humanure Handbook" is a serious must read...

What's even better is while you can buy the book if you need to have a "real" book but if you are ok with reading it on your computer you can download the whole thing for free as a PDF.

We've now had our home brew composting toilet on "So It Goes" and it is working out just fine. No muss, no fuss and no smell! Throw in the bonus of one less thru-hull to have to worry about and it is a winner all around!

How cool is this?

Some time ago I mentioned the Camp Chef stove as a great example of stuff that works on boats as well or better than marine stuff... I also pointed out that it was a whole lot cheaper!

A couple days back I got an email from one of the Boat Bits faithful with the picture and a note that told me that he was happy with his Camp Chef and he had baked a chicken... HE went on to say the chicken was good!

Color me all warm and fuzzy...

A folder of note...

Lapierre has a pretty neat folding mountain bike called the Passport that should be a must see for those looking for a decent stowable bike for the boat... I have heard great things but I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually put some miles on the beast!

I'll pass on the rant and pass it on...

Being that I am a cruiser sitting in the real world where health care is not silly expensive and the world health statistics say thet it is better than what you get in the US of A, the whole crazed argument against any progress towards affordable health care in the USA seems rather odd and very sad.

I've been meaning to write something on the subject... Luckily Eric over at Sarana's Slog beat me to it so I can just point you over to his rant on the subject as he makes all the sense in the world!

One of our favorite bands... Los Lobos

I grew up in Los Angeles. The real LA, not the suburbs but central LA which is maybe why I like Los Lobos so much is that they sound a lot like home. David Hidalgo went to Garfield High and my band used to play dances there... an early incarnation of Los Lobos played at Belmont (my high school) and we both grew up listening to the Midnighters... "Let's Take a Walk Down Whittier Blvd!"

Like I said... Home.

If you don't really know Los Lobos you really should be nice to yourself and listen to one of their albums start to finish or check out their DVD of them at the Fillmore.


Simply an awesome band...

Small Generators for cruising...

I've been hearing a LOT of good buzz about the Honeywell 2000 watt generator...

In specs and suchlike it seems an awful lot like the Honda 2000 which we have been using for years with great results. Judging from the number of other boats with the Honda 2000 it has become something of the standard for cruising boats and as we have had such good luck I'd be inclined to go with the Honda again.

That said, I'm still very interested in taking a look at the new Honeywell as well as the Kipor 2000 ( which for all practical purposes is a straight up clone of the Honda) and as Kipor has a 2600 watt generator which just might be of interest as it has just that little extra oomph and that would be no bad thing for us electric propulsion folks.

A new French wave...

The French tend to be on a slightly different time-line on the sailboat design front. I won't go so far as to say they are out in front but I will say that they do go their own way and a few years from now you will be seeing a lot of new features and trends which are commonplace already on a lot of French designs.

Designers like Phillip Harlé, while sadly no longer with us, opened the doors for many NA's to as the saying goes.. "Do their thing", and boy do they do it.

A while back I wrote about the Souriceau micro cruiser design by Eric Henseval but looking at what he does in a ten meter (about 33 feet) design the LDM 33, shows a lot of the same thought processes and innovation. I'd really like to see what he would do with an 11.5 meter (38 feet) hull...

What is also interesting is these days a LOT of the most interesting designs coming out of France are in plywood, and as plywood, in my opinion, is one of the best materials for a home builder or one-off boat shop to build in and this is somewhat happy making!

Real sea dangers....

Most folks seem to have an idea that being on a sailboat is some sort of dangerous enterprise and while bad stuff can happen, the odds that you will come to grief are much less than, say ...

Getting run over while crossing the street or, for that matter, just about anything involving automobiles. Fact of the matter is, shore-side life comes with some serious hazard territory! Face it, you are a lot safer in mid-Atlantic than you are on the Hollywood freeway!

Then again stuff does happen on the water but most of it involves engines, stupidity and drinking... Like this penis extension!

Be smart, stay safe and keep a weather eye out for folks dead set on cleansing the gene pool...

On less being more... Micro cruising

While cruising in tiny boats might not be for everybody it does go to show that voyaging can be done with a lot less than some think...

Whenever I hear someone telling me that you need a fifty foot boat to go cruising I always think of Matt Layden's designs and I take comfort in those thoughts.

But the beauty of micro cruising is that while not all of us care to partake in the exercise we still all benefit from those who do. Whenever I find myself looking for cunning plans to make "So It Goes" more seaworthy, comfortable or fix a niggling problem I look to smaller boats for the answer as just as in low budget movies when you can't throw money at a problem you have to get CLEVER!

The Micro Cruising website has lots of info and is a great resource for anyone who wants to see a different angle on the cruising and sailing experience.

The "H" ting... Bill

We pay a price living on a boat in places with mostly perfect weather because when the weather gets bad it gets REALLY BAD! Hurricane Bill, now cruising the neighborhood as a category FOUR hurricane, is a good example. Luckily Bill is tracking to miss us but at a projected 290 miles away at its closest is far too close for comfort.

Made worse of course by various nightmares...


A Mooring's boat looking for a place to anchor which is a nightmare anytime but worse when there might be bad weather...


The fact that the nearest boat to us spent the night of TD Ana dragging around...


Finally when you notice that this is the sort of marlin-spike wonderfulness that some people in the lagoon are betting is "good enough" to stand-up to a Hurricane of wet-your-pants proportions.

Smart money...

I know I have been known to rant on the subject of consumer yachting from time to time.. But here's another tack.

The need to spend money by many is also confused with the flip side of saving money while doing so and trying to float both sides of that equation is both crazy making and self defeating.

We pimp boats... Which is an apt description of what a charter broker does. Someone comes to us and wants to do a yacht charter and we find a selection of boats fitting their needs, tastes, budget and time frame. A lot of variables so a bit more complicated than it sounds but you get the idea...

Now, these days almost everyone wants a discount, but in the real world discounts almost always come with a measurable cost. You might get a 20% discount but then again the boat in question will most likely cut back on the service, menu and activities (they won't mention this of course) so more than likely for your 20% discount you will be getting a 20% less charter. Of course that is not always the case as some boats are simply over priced, so a 20% discount might actually bring them down to a fair rate. Unlike a lot of industries, the yacht charter business is not a cookie cutter affair and you have all sorts of boats and crews from superb to truly horrid... So a fifty foot yacht may equate to the Ritz or Motel Six.

Fact of the matter is, that right now there are simply not enough great yachts and crews to cover demand so you have to wonder about discounts in general because if there are not enough good yachts to fill demand then why is this one discounting?

Sadly the demand from consumers on all fronts means that we have sort of lost our way in the whole value vs discount mindset and whether we are buying boat gear or a yacht charter, if we pay cheap it is not really surprising we get cheap...

"Cheap... The High Cost of Discount Culture" explains a lot of what is wrong on many levels and more importantly why nothing ever seems to work like it should these days and is a very important read.

On the concept of sailing towards....

Right now I should be halfway to Curacao and if there was a God I'd also be filleting a nice size tuna for lunch... But nope I'm sitting in the Simpson Bay Lagoon after an uncomfortable night at anchor watching an inter-island cargo boat not quite drag down on top of us as demoted tropical storm Ana turned tropical depression went past.

So it goes...

There is a bit of nautical trivia and superstition where you never say "I'm sailing to Curacao" but instead say you are sailing "towards Curacao" and it underlines a very important part of the whole sailing gig in that it is never a precise enterprise. Face it, if you are someone who goes into a tizzy when your flight is boarding fifteen minutes late the sailing lifestyle is most certainly not for you.

In this case we were all ready to sail off towards Curacao on Sunday morning but the two weather updates previous had shown that Tropical storm Ana was heading more south than expected and in the general scheme of things this made our route one of possible convergence with the storm rather than one taking us away from Ana. The decision to abort was hardly rocket science and brings into focus the need to be flexible and pay attention to what the conditions are rather than set a plan and stick to it.

But the blue hued liqueur is still in short supply on "So It Goes" so Curacao is still on the sail towards list, but for the moment we are now watching/waiting as Hurricane Bill does its thing.

180 South...

Another film to look forward to... "180 South"

Going sailing...

One of the nice things about being on a sailboat is that you can leave when things get nasty... Well if you are paying attention as to which way the wind is blowing that is.

So far, we've had a pretty zip hurricane season but right now it seems intent on making up for lost time with tropical storm Ana doing it's thing closesly followed by two other systems that also look to becoming something you'd rather view from a distance and my gut reaction at the moment is, the greater the distance the better!

What better time to go sailing then and sail towards Curacao! It's not all that far as a straight shot of just under five-hundred miles and (more or less) out of the Hurricane zone. The added advantage is we can always stock up on blue hued liqueur!

Always look at the silver linings...

Good film coming... Dear & Yonder

Surfing, Sailing, Cruising and a CAL 40... "Dear & Yonder"!

How could it not rock?

We've been following the adventures of Liz Clark for some time now and we are really looking forward to this one!

Better gear through backpacking...

I've mentioned before that boat folk would be smart to look outside the marine gear world for a lot of reasons. And, while I am one seriously frugal dude, there are more important reasons than just cost...

Take backpacking and climbing gear for instance. A lot of work goes into designing gear for many of the very same needs we have on boats. Yet, more often than not, there is very little crossover between the backpacking camping world and sailing. My coming from the climbing world (I used to design climbing gear for a living) this has always surprised me, especially so, as so many climbing and backpacking products work well on boats.

Sadly when they do tend to crossover it is in the guise of a rip off of some marine trader selling off a stock $29 climbing harness for $129 as a "Bosuns harness" or "Foredeck harness". Or even worse, a "marine" company making a climbing harness knockoff in some third world sweatshop that simply falls apart like my Harken Bosuns chair... As the adage goes... Buyer Beware!

So a lot of the stuff on the boat tends to come from places like REI, EMS and, as we have a serious Moose hangup on our boats, it's not surprising that Moosejaw is a much shopped location.

For those not in the know about Moosejaw, now is a great time to check them out as they have a killer deal on their rewards program which is one of the best around at anytime but seriously PFA at the moment...

Check it out: CLICK HERE. Coupon Code: 3XREWARD

LED worklamp followup...

A while back I mentioned I was getting one of these LED work lamps to try and having had a couple of days to play with it I'll go over my first impressions...

The unit puts out a lot of light. This would make an excellent light to use under the bimini for sitting around the cockpit and reading or whatever. It is also very well suited for mounting as the two "hooks" allow for various mounting scenarios as does the supplied magnet clamp. By the way if you lose the magnet the remaining clamp makes a great bulkhead mount...

The build quality is not bad and while the wall wart charger and the 12V charger cord are a little flimsy for my tastes they are no different than any marine item I have encountered over the last few years as it seems everyone cheaps down on cords and cables.

I should also point out that it is a great work light which (surprise,surprise) is what it is actually designed to be!

The jury is still out on how long the rechargeable battery section will work but my past experience of rechargeable spotlights has been good, so color me optimistic!

So far so good as they say and certainly not bad for less than $40! Fact is I am buying a couple more...

Going around...

I'm not real big on goals where you do something for the sole purpose of doing something in the sense that I don't see crossing the Atlantic because "it's there" but I do understand that crossing the Atlantic because you want to sip Pastis in a sidewalk cafe overlooking an anchored "So It Goes" and watch the world go by. Makes all kinda sense!

Last year, we sat out Hurricane Omar in St Martin and as we were hard aground and watching a 200-foot ship drag down on top of us, I remember quite clearly saying to myself next season I will be in the Med sipping Pastis... The fact that the dragging ship ran aground just forty feet from turning "So It Goes" into fiberglass mulch, just shows that a greater force protects fools, drunks and little children.


Stuff happens... And I find myself once again in the hurricane zone looking at the weather as Tropical depression #2 is looking like it may be the first Tropical storm or hurricane of the season.


Bummer!

But it has focused my plans for the next couple of years and while drinking Pastis on the foredeck last evening we were discussing places we'd like to visit and things we'd like to do. Which had me thinking if you connect the dots on the globe you have a nearly perfect circumnavigation. So it goes... and since I want to go back to Europe sooner rather than later it would appear that an ass-backwards circumnavigation is more than a possible scenario.

Figures...

Building the new dinghy...

I love building dinghies... There is something so easy and direct about building a small boat in a few days that has all the fun and accomplishment without the mind numbing complexity and mayhem that a big cruising boat build entails.

I actually have a list of dinghy projects I have been itching to get to and the biggest problem is which one to do first?

I have a couple of plans from Wooden Widget that I have been waiting to build but admit to having difficulty choosing between the two as they are both excellent, One being the Hobie Mirage powered Deckster that I was ready to build (and still will)... But in talking with Wooden Widget I also discovered their neat folding Origami which is also very nice and makes all kinds of sense... I mean, What's a poor boy to do?

Throw in the fact that all this time I have been very interested in the Portland Pudgy concept of a lifeboat/dinghy but as no one seems to have designed a lifeboat/dinghy for us DIY folk the only solution was to design one myself. Not needing to re-invent the wheel as there are so many great dinghy designs out there already, the sensible solution seems to be using an available design and then designing the needful modules to make it into a lifeboat/dinghy which has been my approach and I'm now at the point of building the first prototype based on one of Phil Bolgers designs (available from Dynamite Payson). I'll be updating the progress soonish...

Socks on steroids yet again...

I was just reading an article about the whole running barefoot thing ... Interesting stuff!

The Vibram Five Finger shoes/sandals/whatever you call them all of a sudden just got a whole lot more interesting than a while back when I was bemoaning the lack of decent affordable sandals.

I'd really love to hear from someone who is actually using the Five Fingers...

A great resource en français

One thing you can say about the French is that they know something about boats and sailing. Over the years the steady stream of innovation coming from France in sailboat design and construction techniques has been something of a silent wave... Silent because we tend to be English language centric so we never notice anything much past our borders.

For those lucky enough to read French there is a real cornucopia of books published by the Loisirs Nautiques Magazine.

"Construction en contreplaqué" by Jean-Pierre Villenave or "Le Composite Bois/Epoxy" by Jean-Yves Poirier are easily two of the best books I have ever come across in the boat building genre... and most certainly not the same old, same old!


It might interest some that the boat I featured a while back as a sweet (the Turbo 950) ride was one of Jean-Pierre Villenave's designs.

I'm lucky in that I am able to get by in French (plodding like a Spanish cow...) but I often wonder just what great designs and building techniques I'm missing out on because I don't speak or read German or Swedish...

A small folding bike...

It has been pointed out to me that not everyone needs or desires a full on touring bike. Some folks apparently don't care to bike further than the environs of their marina or local pub...

Point taken!

For those looking for a neat little folder for just such a purpose you may be interested in knowing that West Marine has their little Jetty folder on sale...

Save $100 on Jetty express folding bike - Only $199.99

Marine VS real world pricing... Water filters

I've been meaning to install a new water filter on So It Goes and while exploring the various contenders it came to me that it is something of a perfect example of the difference between real world and marine pricing...

Let's take a marine water filter that gets rid on most of the "nasties" that make you sick, the Seagull is stainless and quite popular with cruisers...

It really is a pretty good water filter and it will keep your water potable and safe which after all is the whole point. It is stainless steel and well built but it also costs $500... Made worse as the filters need replacing on a regular basis (around 1000 gallons of use best case scenario) and the filters are also not cheap. for those who don't have a pressure system on their boat and use foot or hand pumps (a very sensible approach) the Seagull won't work as it needs more pressure than most manual pumps provide which becomes somewhat problematic.

On the other hand the Sawyer, which is coming from the backpacking world, does the same job getting the nasty critters out of your water and in comparison to the Seagull at less than $50 it has to have some serious drawbacks or so one would think. Fact is, as much as I look, I find the Sawyer is way ahead of the Seagull any way you can look at it.


While not built of stainless (it's plastic) it is just as Marine environment friendly as the Seagull. It does not need replacement filters as the unit is guaranteed for one million gallons of throughput before you need to replace it. You may need to clean the filter from time to time but this is a simple two minute affair and as the whole Sawyer unit is cheaper than the Seagull replacement filters, it is pretty easy to do the math...

What is even better is that low pressure systems and those of us using hand or foot pumps are covered as it does not require more pressure than can be provided by your basic Whale foot pump which is all kinds of good.

So here's the test... Do you spend $500 or $50 for something that does more or less the exact same thing? Just how important is the word "MARINE"?

Folding bike of interest...

Now some time ago I bashed Inhabitat for being just a little too upscale trendy and hip when reviewing green trends and gear... Too much form and not enough function.

And I'll stand by my claim that real "green" progress is only going to come when folks realize that smaller is better and for "green" products to become the norm they simply have to work... Hip is cool and all, but really hip stuff really has to fulfill a function (other than a high price tag and being trendy).


That said, Inhabitat does find a lot of neat stuff... Case in point is their catch of a very interesting folding bike design concept by a British design student Dominic Hargreaves.

The bike in question folds up within the diameter of the wheels and I'd love to see what could be done with this in the hands of a real bike builder like Bike Friday or Rodriguez. Of course Rodriguez already makes a bike, the UTB, which demounts into a wheel sized package...

New Hogfish Blog...

Chris Morejohn of Hogfish design infamy and family are blogging...

Hopefully in the not too distant future I'll be talking a lot more about the Hogfish design as it is right at the top of the short list for the new Loose Moose...

In the meantime enjoy what promises to be a very interesting blog!

Rock and roll...

Musical instruments and such things like electric guitars and basses are at best, a bit problematic on a boat...

That said, having a means of making music on a boat that is your home in my view is just as important as any other system on the boat. Needful. Plus they have their uses when folks insist on anchoring TOO close!


Luckily, these days, they are finally making some decent small amplifiers that are boat friendly. I currenly have a small Crate Profiler 5 for guitar use and a Roland Microcube Amp for bass... All in all not a bad combination and they stow quite nicely in the settee seat back.

The problem, of course, is that neither of these has the needful kick ass to go out and gig if the need were to manifest itself. So I do keep looking for something that goes a little further to bridge the gap between the small cube amp and the Marshall stack...

Enter Electro Harmonix who is one of my favorite effect folk and they have recently come up with a new tiny power amp with the clever moniker of 22 Cal.... From the video, this amp actually has some serious oomph and I have a very clever and "cunning" plan that involves a pair of these and a couple of small marinized rear loaded horn cabinets. Now all that remains is to work out a means of shrinking a Leslie rotating speaker down to a manageable size...

A great article in the new Latitude 38...

The new Latitude 38 is out and as usual it is a great issue...

One article on the must read list is "Traditional Values" which is pure gold for anyone thinking of taking off into the sunset on a budget and pretty much puts a stake in the heart of the you-must-spend-lots-and-lots-of-money-need-bigger-to-cruise argument.

For those who are unaware Latitude 38 is free.Either pick it up at your local West marine or suchlike (if you are on the west coast) or download it!