On drinking Sake, topless women and the suit mentality...Plus a good book or two

Way back when, a guy named Hal Painter got me fired...

I was working as a buyer for a big mountaineering and ski store and I had met Hal while out skiing in the Sierras. He had mentioned he was coming out with a book on X-Country skiing and we drank Sake under the stars and swapped stories. A few months later I got a note in the mail telling me about his X-Country skiing book The Cross-Country Ski, Cook, Look and Pleasure Book: And Welcome to the Alice in Snowpeople Land and so remembering the great conversation and enjoyable discourse (though by that time the world class Sake induced epic hangover was only a faint memory) bought a bunch for the store...

A couple of weeks later the books were on the shelf and they were selling surprisingly well which was good but the book in question had a nifty cover with a cut out that showed a woman who was topless (well there was also a chicken but that is a whole different story...). Needless to say, the folks in the big office took the whole affair of breasts on a book IN THEIR STORE as a crime, right up there with playing Barry Manilow or other such unnatural acts.

So, I was told to send them back pronto "or else"... Well, I can take a hint so went back to the store and went to gather up the books to send them back but found out that they had actually sold out. I then remarked to the suits in charge that the book had sold out and I could not as a result send them back... Now, this is where I should mention that in general you will never go too far wrong in under estimating the IQ of people in suits... They had a meeting and in that meeting it was decided that I should personally contact every single buyer of said book and try to get it back... "Or else!"

Like I said, I can take a hint but I also should add that I have a very low "or else" threshold...

I actually did try to contact folks who had bought the book except I found that they did not want to return it... They liked it, and half the people I talked to actually wanted to buy more for friends because it was "The best damned book I have ever read about X-Country skiing" was what they were telling me...

I trundled back and reported once again to the suits and they had another series of meetings. They then decided that I should write a formal letter of apology to said buyers of books just in case they had somehow not yet noticed the fact that the topless woman had nipples and to avoid a possible lawsuit or some such... Oh yeah, they did not forget to use the "Or else" line in their discourse.

Being that I can take a hint and Mom did not raise a fool, I realized that I was in fact working for fools, incompetents, and people of somewhat limited vision who said "or else" far too often... I told them so and they pointed out that there were a million folks who could do my job better for cheaper thank you very much... So, I was history and took the unexpected "vacation" and sailed down to Baja Mexico for awhile and never heard the words "Or else" the whole time I was there... I had a LOT of fun!

While I was surfing in Baja I guess the suits did whatever suits do... If it is of any interest.

Of course the reason I mention all of this is not because of topless women or even chickens for that matter, but that sometimes the very best book or source for information does not fit into any cookie cutter view of what people think is right (much less people in suits..) and that The Captain Nemo Cookbook Papers: Everyone's Guide to Zen and the Art of Boating in Hard Times Illustrated, A Nautical Fantasy would be no bad thing on your bookshelf...

A quick projects update and a couple of blog notes...

Trying to get all the various projects up and running while preparing to go to the Med in the not too distant future has me doing the "run in circles, scream and shout" mode. Not that it is too much to do but simply that I'd really like to be project free for a bit to concentrate on film making, making music and the writing gig... So it goes indeed!

Also, it has come to my attention that a lot of the Boat Bits readers have areas that they would like me to get to, like yesterday! Most vocal are the cheap watermaker project aficionados followed by the self-steering crowd and the lifeboat/dinghy project fans. All those are on the short list and will be done soonish! We also have a couple of other interesting projects yet to be revealed...

For those who keep writing asking why no food or fishing posts these days that is because both subjects now have their own blogs... Island Gourmand for folk of a foodie nature and Fishing Under Sail for those of a fishing bent.

We will also be doing what we expect to be the first of many Boat Bits contests... I can't say too much at the moment except to say it involves design and dinghies! More soon come on that!

What's wrong with dinghies and a very SWEET ride...

I've been sailing and around boats nearly my whole life and I have to say over the years I have seen bugger all real development in dinghies of the tender sort. Sure we now have RIB's and suchlike but truth be told, tenders are not all that different from when I first started sailing on boats.

So why no development?

Well, some might say that dinghy evolution is at its peak and it is simply a matter of no more development is possible... In other words perfection has been achieved!

Yeah, right...

On the other hand, we might just be at the evolutionary level of fishing with clubs and are simply so lazy and have so little imagination that the same old same is all we can manage. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Now, one does wonder, just what a dinghy would look like if someone with some cutting edge smarts and vision would design and build one... You know, someone like Hobie! Take a look at what they are working on for folks who fish...



MauroMedia/Fishshtick is an awesome resource and well worth keeping an eye on...

Self-Steering project...

Currently we have a Atoms (well a clone of sorts) self steering gear onboard "So It Goes" and it works well enough... So why have I decided to replace it?

Well, part of the reason is that I'd love to get back to the ease of use that we had with our old much missed vertical axis RVG and, as our boat has a spade rudder, the whole idea of an auxiliary rudder system just makes me feel better.

I'll be the first to admit that a system like the Aries/Monitor/Atoms sort is more powerful and has some advantages, but I have always found the horizontal vanes fiddly and as a result they don't quite get adjusted as often as the vertical axis systems (well I am lazy after all!)

So the design brief for the new system breaks down to an auxiliary rudder with a trim tab and a vertical vane... No rocket science!

Of course, being a lazy guy, I love that there is already a great amount of good info on design and building of vanes... So it is needful to dust off that section of the bookshelf and no self-respecting builder of vanes would be without the classics...

Wind-Vane Self Steering by Bill Belcher, Self-Steering for Sailing Craft by John S. Letcher Jr and Self-Steering for Sailboats by Gerard Dikjstra. All good books and taken together pretty much all you need for building and using a wind vane system.

Another great resource on my Self-steering shelf is written by Eric from the excellent blog Sarana at Sea and is available for download for the outrageous price of $5! It is excellent and well worth your pennies. Seriously just get it!

So for the moment I'm making sketches and taking measurements and I have a couple of ideas in the "cunning plan" department which may or may not work out but for the moment all systems are go!

More on the Portland Pudgy...

I've mentioned the Portland Pudgy on a couple of occasions on Boat Bits and I think the proactive sort of life boat has merit. That said like all things for us boat folk everything always boils down to some sort of compromise.

Attainable Adventure Cruising recently blogged on the subject of the Portland Pudgy and the Portland Pudgy folks responded...

Now I'll throw my two cents in as well... 'We have actually seen the Pudgy up close and personal and it is a very well made and thought out boat. Other cruisers I have ran into with Pudgies like them a LOT... What is more they perform as a dinghy well enough that more often than not the cruisers we met using them actually rowed (this is no small thing). The down side is like the folks at Attainable Adventure  Cruising I really don't like stuff on deck as it is simply a problem waiting to happen and with the Portland Pudgies high freeboard in my mind it takes up an unacceptable amount of space on the deck of a thirty-four foot boat. 

2009 you'd think we'd be further along... 88 Bikes

It's 2009 and the estimate worldwide is that there are twenty-seven million slaves... Some believe that number is actually a bit on the low side.

I don't know about your thoughts on the matter but you'd think that we'd be just a little further along on the evolutionary path... Don't you? Then again folks need cheap running shoes and t-shirts and there are profits to be made...

But yeah, twenty seven million folks as slaves and many of them children is not the stuff of the evening news. Of course if that does not make the evening news neither do programs to help people who have been rescued or escaped from slavery.

88 Bikes is just such a program... They deserve support. Check them out!

The list... new self steering

One of the first things you learn when you do the boat gig is that it comes with a "List"  and how you handle living with a list is one of the big factors if you are going to be a happy or not so happy camper... So it goes!

Lists are a fluid thing and sometimes they are happy making while other times they can be a drudge but it is all part of what makes life work on a boat so you just have to do what is needful. Of late my list has been more of the drudge variety but yesterday it turned the corner and morphed into the fun sort... Sure the drudge items are still on the list... but the difference is I now have a new item added that has me all kinds of excited and looking forward to getting to it (even the drudge stuff)!

So expect to hear a lot about things having to do with self steering from rants to "how to"!

More soon come...

Guitars for the non-obsessed...

Not everyone is willing to devote as much space onboard to guitars and related mayhem and I'll be the first to admit that I really do need to get a bigger boat or find a way to do without the not so needful stuff like the sextant, charts and water tankage... Did you really think that less guitars onboard "So It Goes" is any kind of an option, now did you?

For those a bit more sane on the guitar front but who still want a guitar or two onboard you might consider a travel or backpacker type guitar...


I first came across the little Martin backpacker guitar when I was in the Canary Islands when another cruiser dragged me to a guitar store to check it out and tell him if it was indeed something one could learn to play on and actually make music. One look at the odd shape and size and I was all set to suggest maybe a cheap "real" guitar would be better when as the salesman handed me the guitar I sat down and found it actually was a real guitar. It even felt like one. The sound was much better than expected and had surprising projection for such a little sound box. Of course you really can't expect Martin to do anything bad...

For those who just can't get past the slightly odd looks of the Martin Backpacker (but then again it can do double duty as a dinghy paddle!) you might want to check out the Martin LX or Taylor Baby travel guitars which look just that little bit more like what a lot of people think a guitar is supposed to look like.

Me? Hell I'm still trying to sort out a cunning plan to get a Hammond B3 organ on the boat...

Our friends a Moosejaw...

Just a quick note that our friends at Moosejaw who help support Boat Bits have a wicked offer though September 27...

Free $100 Mystery Gift with $75 purchase at Moosejaw.com. Use code 319. Coupon Code: 319

For those who think a CAL 20 is too small... Reality check.

I've always been interested in the whole living within our needs rather than wants thing and the whole small living spaces trend fills me with a certain amount of hope...

That said when I read about the project that Kevin Cyr is currently working on turning a shopping cart into a pop up camper I have to admire his thought process but the need for such a statement/project also fills me with no small amount of despair.

Anyone with half a brain who is not doing the Ostrich thing can see that more than a few systems are broken and FUBAR and SNAFU is the order of the day. So of course, designing for the homeless poor is something of a growth industry... Like I said despair.

There is hope of course and there are a lot of people doing the right thing (as opposed to our bought and paid for politicians) and they deserve our support.

Lin and Larry Pardey...

I'll admit that I have something of a love hate relationship thing going with Lin and Larry Pardey but I'll go out on a limb here and say if you are cruising or planning to cruise  and you have not read at least a couple of Lin and Larry's books you just may be interested in buying this really neat tower I can sell you in Paris, and if you buy it in the next 24 hours I'll throw in the London bridge for free!

Seriously, while I don't agree with everything L&L say, there is no denying that it has worked for them for something like 120,000 sea miles and we'd be foolish not to take advantage of their experience.

It takes a special kind of person who can pull off sailing 120,000 miles in boats less that thirty feet and do it with style and panache.

Of course, anyone as well known as the Pardeys, will have their share of detractors and I keep hearing the oft repeated story that somewhere at some time Lin and Larry accepted a tow to get into some harbor... Pointing out that as a result the whole engine-less thing is hokum and it does not work! Well they mention the odd tow here and there in their books so it is hardly a secret and not having an engine is not a religion, it is simply a choice they made and if you had the choice between sculling your boat a couple of miles when a tow in was offered it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what I'd do. That said, over the years I have seen no shortage of sailboats with engines being towed (often when the wind was favorable and they could easily sail to port) and what does that say?

Personally, I think a lot of the L&L detractors are simply unwilling to develop the skill set that any person sailing long distances should should have and aspire to and L&L are just too much of a reminder of that.

To put Electric propulsion into perspective....

Over the last year our two MacBooks and our iMac ate more amp hours then our electric propulsion on "So It Goes"!

We also used more amp hours running the fridge and as we plan to build a watermaker (the under $599 watermaker project) I'd bet that over the course of a year the watermaker will use more energy than electric propulsion.

So, for those folks wondering about just how much the yearly energy bill for Electric propulsion works out to, it's not nearly as bad as you might think!

Talk like a pirate day...

Since it is something of a day for Pirate conversation, what better subject to discuss than books of a pyratical nature?

Real pirates have always been a great interest of mine and the real deal makes any trumped up film based on a theme ride pale by comparison.

My personal favorite pirate, truth be told, is not even a pirate in the accepted sense. William Kidd was more the legal sort, yet found himself made an example and learned the hard way that far too often tools of big money and politicians find themselves paying the price... Richard Zacks "The Pirate Hunter" tells the tale and just may be one of the best books on the real deal I have ever read...

A quick side note on Kidd is there is a very strong case that he was never really executed and that he lived on under a different name in New York City... "Captain Kidd at St. Thomas Danish West Indies April 6 - April 8, 1699 and the Remarkable Things That Happened !"

Of course, the best means of reading about Pirates and things Pyratical is in fiction, but sadly since Robert Louis Stevenson (much more about RLS on a later date) passed on, most of what has passed for good Pyratical reads have been less than they could be...

So you might want to check out "On Stranger Tides" by Tim Powers (an awesome writer) who does it right in a tale that combines Black Beard, Ponce De Leon and no shortage of Voudou (It being the Caribbean after all!). Way better than a silly theme ride...

Of course, how was I going to do a Talk like a Pirate day post without mentioning "Treasure Island" and the actor Robert Newton who pretty much created the whole talk like a pirate gig?

So here is hoping you have an ample supply of rum and what better way to celebrate the whole talk like a pirate fest by sipping some Demerara as you watch "Treasure Island"... I will be!

Pilot charts and suchlike...

My friend who has been knee deep in projects getting ready to sail down to the Caribbean dropped me an email last night. He has now reached the actual point where it has become a reality and thoughts of the route, weather and the actual voyage details are coming into focus.

Progress is a good thing!

So this evening more than likely he will be studying the pilot charts to get a feel for just what to expect. Being a smart and frugal guy he also more than likely found them on the net for free! Life is good.

To save you the trouble of doing the search engine thing, pilot charts and sailing directions can be found over at "Adrift at Sea" (a pretty great blog) and Dan has links you'd need in downloadable form!

Free is good...

Silly pricing on boat stuff...

The other day I was wandering around the local so called discount marine store in the quest for a cunning plan to solve some problem or other on "So It Goes". In the process I found myself looking at their selection of sheaves which was pretty inadequate in even the most common sizes but with prices that simply took your breath away...

Seriously $79 for a 2 1/2" sheave? Well to steal a quote from one of my favorite films "Used Cars" that is simply "Too fucking high!" To add insult to injury they were seriously crappy sheaves (you know the sort that break under load so you have to replace them).

So what should a really good sheave cost? Well take a look at Zephyrwerks who makes really excellent sheaves on a semi-custom basis. They use top quality materials and their workmanship is first rate... A single sheave will run you $38. If you buy more the cost comes down...

So why does the discount marine store sell cheap injected plastic crap with sharp edges for $79? Well, just maybe, it is because we as boat folk are stupid and confuse a high price with quality or just don't know better... Either way it is in our own best interest to give a little more thought to the stuff we install in our boats and the prices we pay.

Over and over again I hear horrible stories about marine companies not building good stuff and when it fails not doing the right thing. On a regular basis I see marine retailers not accept their responsibility as a bridge between customer and the people who build this shoddy crap (you know like the Harken death trap Bosuns chair).

Sure they are scum for not doing their job but truth be told, we as consumers are as much at fault for putting up with it. There are good people making and selling excellent stuff and surprise, surprise they are most always cheaper than the lowest common denominator discount stores.

So if you need sheaves... Zephyrwerks!

Tools for bikes on boats...

Being able to work on your own boat and boat systems is a goodly thing. None of it is too difficult or rocket science and the reward of knowing you have done a good job combined with keeping the budget manageable can make you feel all warm and fuzzy!

As I consider a bike onboard to be just another boat system (the land dinghy if you will) having the proper tools aboard is just common sense and, as there are very few bike mechanics where you want to cruise, something of must have.

Both on boats and with bikes I am always surprised how some folks simply don't have much in the way of tools... If you think a couple of screwdrivers, a couple of vice grips, a pair wrenches and a leatherman (the wrong tool for every job) can be called a "tool kit" on a boat, well you are what folks in the marine trades call a paycheck.

But back to bikes and the tools you need to get by...

For starters, every bike needs a minimum bike kit even if it is just biking down to the pub and what I think of as a seat kit (a simple little bag small enough to velcro to the underside of your bike seat) is the first building block to being able to be the master of your own destiny!

Park, the toolmaker to just about every bike mechanic in the world, makes a nice little kit which is just the thing...
For those who are more the multitool type, Park also makes a very neat multitool for more or less the same purpose. Personally I would not bike to the pub without both!
Of course, this is the bare minimum and not up to really maintaining your bike but it will get you home... The next step is some real tools and Park makes any number of tools kits from simple to shop kits that cost thousands. Being that we are on a boat, small is better and the simple BK-2 roll up kit is a good place to start. You'll wind up wanting a few more tools as you get into it but it is a great place to start and for a boat it makes sense to have a roll up kit rather than a box.


The other two tools that make all the difference between a pleasurable experience or a pain in the butt is a proper work stand... I like the wall or bench sort as they are more compact and I mount mine to the front of the mast using my spinnaker track (rock solid) so I can pop it on and work on the bike on deck and watch the world go by... Of course, some might prefer the floor type and they do fold.

...and a truing jig for maintaining your wheels.


Another great resource is the Park website which has all manner of "how to" stuff and they do consumer bike mechanic workshops as well...

an awesome boat build...

This design by Jean-Pierre Tutard is just about the size of our first Loose Moose which we lived and sailed on for several years...

Like all Tutard designs there is a certain "something" that grabs me and makes me want to get building so I can go sailing... This one is no exception.

The French website Bateau Bois (Wooden Boat) has a great picture series of this design from near beginning to near launch, which is quite wonderful and anyone with an interest in how a modern wooden plywood boat goes together will find no shortage of good ideas and interesting tips there for the taking. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

and this has to do with boatbuilding and cruising?

I've always felt that whatever answers are out there in the world of import for pretty much all pursuits whether it be designing a boat, politics, or cruising solutions are simple...

If you really want to get up my nose there is no easier path than telling me "it's complicated". When I hear that phrase it is almost always (except the notable exception of brain surgery, for instance) used by someone who does not know the answer or, more likely someone trying to shuck and jive me. Politicians use it all the time, and if you want to see my head explode combine "it's complicated" and "Wall Street bailout" in the same sentence...

So, you want "simple" and, dear readers, simple is a GOOD thing... "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko" by Daniel Pink is some serious simple and what's more, it is the sort of simple you can take to the bank. This is the book I wish someone had slipped me when I was charting my adult life back in 11th grade and all I ever got was "it's complicated, just do what we tell you to!" All those years on the shuck and jive express...

Anyway, so what does this have to do with boat design, boat building or cruising? Well, for starters, it shows a slightly out of the box set of ideas and if you can transpose the thought processes involved to boat building, boat design or cruising you'll succeed... Then again, if you can't and you DON'T GET IT... well, maybe you should simply invest in an RV or buy a farm in Kansas.

Sorry, sometimes we all need a little tough love... Right?

Conundrum... Is building new green?

I've been having a lot of deep thought on (forgive the expression) the "Green" of things...

Having built several boats from the keel up, my first reaction to the problem of a bigger boat is always to build. Hell I like building boats!

Throw in the fact that I don't really think a lot of production boats solve the real problems of the voyaging family that lives aboard full time and want to not be camping or having to make decisions of the what we have to give away and do without scenario.

So building a new boat makes all kind of sense but I can't quite shake the niggling feeling that it might not be the right thing...

And as Spike Lee once said, "Do the right thing..." Spike Lee always makes a lot of sense!

There is a way of having your cake and eating it too... and the last couple of days my mind has been gnawing on the idea of not just rehabbing an older boat but the idea of really doing a radical re-design in the process. Throw out the old rig and gut the interior and simply rebuild it as something more suited to current needs and wants.

The Phoenix option if you will...

This approach would be no bad thing. Lord knows there are hundreds of cheap boats available that deserve a new lease on life and and a fate better than land-fill. The cost of doing a radical rebuild/redesign I'm thinking, would be no less costly at worst and more than likely, if done in a sensible and smart way (spelled cunning plan), could even be less expensive by a large factor.

The argument against, of course, is that you are only going to save the materials used in the hull (a few trees) and ballast but truth be told you are saving more than that when you think of it and the whole all or nothing idiocy we find ourselves in, where if you can't be 100% green, non-polluting, whatever you might as well go whole hog in the other direction just does not make a whole lot of sense. Right now we find ourselves in a world that needs all the help it can get and if you can't do a lot maybe you might as well do a little... It ALL adds up in the end.

So anyone know of a mastless CAL 40 in a field anywhere?

Pick up a surfer...

In the FYI department, the new issue of Surfer magazine has a really good profile on Liz Clark of the CAL 40 "Swell".

A new culinary pursuit...Solar!

One of our favorite blogs "The Adventures of Sailing Vessel Macha" just got a solar cooker and they are well...COOKING!

I've always wanted to sort out a solar cooker for "So It Goes" as they make all kinds of sense in the tropics and I like the idea that you can cook stuff without heating up the interior.

Of course, some folks who know me better might just say I'm really cheap and that's the attraction!

Hump day, it's all downhill from here!

For those of us in the Caribbean and NOT out of the hurricane zone it's nice to know that we are mid point in the season and from here on the chances of a storm becomes less rather than greater in something of a steep curve. Not that a hurricane still can't ruin our collective day but still it is a making happy sort of milestone...

"So far so good" said the man as he fell past the 23rd floor of the building towards the street below...

A must read for couples cruising...

The Women and Cruising blog has a must read for any couple cruising or thinking about cruising....

The hard part of converting to Electric propulsion is...

The hard part of electric propulsion is cleaning up the mess left when you take out the ICE... This CAL 34 is getting ready for a new Electric Yacht drive.

Life raft vs Dynamic rescue, advice to a friend...

A friend of mine is getting his boat ready for his first long bluewater passage and my mailbox as a result has a constant stream of questions regarding all manner of subjects relating to the exercise. The subject most recently has been focused on safety systems and suchlike... Truth be told, I think I am getting as much out of the ongoing correspondence as he is. Talking through stuff always makes me reevaluate my various opinions.

One of the things we have been talking about is the whole life raft vs some sort of dynamic rescue system and of course the conversation always comes around to Steve Callahan who spent seventy-six days drifting around awaiting rescue. His book Adrift is really a must read for anyone who sails out of sight of land as it will change your views about a lot of things.

The fact that Callahan had such problems with his liferaft is one of the reasons I always carry a couple of Clamseals (I wrote about them in detail a while back) in my ditch kit as the silly repair kits included with those very expensive life rafts don't actually work when the raft is wet. Which I guess is OK if you happen to have your ship go down in the desert but not so good if you happen to sink in an ocean! The fact that it's obvious if they include a repair kit that won't work in a wet environment that it is not a far reach to assume they may have other negative issues as well.

The dynamic sort of raft is really only represented by the Portland Pudgy these days. For my boat it is just a little big and heavier than I'd like but for those with a boat bigger than 34 feet it would seem to be a contender. For those of us with smaller boats it seems the dynamic option is a DIY affair!










The new generation of smaller and lighter life rafts like the new Revere Coastal series come in at under twenty pounds for a four person with canopy and is actually small enough to work as a back up to something like the Portland Pudgy.

Personally I'm very much on the fence with the whole life raft and dynamic rescue camps but lean towards the dynamic rescue with a small coastal life raft just in case... Belts and braces!

Since we were speaking of surfboards...

Not too long ago Clark Foam retired and threw the whole surfboard making world into something of a tizzy and it's taken a while for things to catch up. I mention this as several readers who have never had the pleasure of surfing have written asking about how one should go about learning to surf at a somewhat advanced age (spelled anyone older than Jr High school folks)...

Well, one advantage of learning to surf while cruising on a sailboat is that you can find a nice deserted break in the middle of nowhere and flail to your hearts content, knowing that your only audience is your significant other and the Royal Terns. Then again if you are keen in public humiliation greater than that presented by the Royal Terns (and they can be seriously wicked) by all means head down to the local surf spot and have at it!

As far as what sort of board to get... Well a basic mid-size fun board makes sense as they are cheapish and easy to ride. Down the line they make a good second board for your quiver.

Becker Surf has just the thing in their learn to surf package which include all you need (even the wax) and for not a lot of money...

Boats, Bikes and Boards...

I'm a big guy... Not big in the freakish sense but just somewhat bigger than average and it becomes problematic when buying jeans, bikes and surfboards. I guess we all have our own crosses to bear and being 6'5" in a 5' 10" world is mine.

Of course you notice the 5'10" real world view and dynamic when you do the boat thing right away as most yacht designers don't really design for people much above six feet (of course they think they do) headroom being the obvious area that comes to mind but as headroom is a much over-rated thing when it comes down to it, my area of contention is berth length. A couple of years back, I remember having a discussion with a multihull designer from Oz who could not compute why I wanted to move a couple of bulkheads a foot further apart as he just did not understand the reason anyone would actually need a berth longer than 6'2"... "Just bend your legs when you go to sleep"!

Yeah right!

Back when I was designing mountaineering and backpacking equipment I went to work for a company who had previously had a designer who was 5'4" and had designed the previous range around the world height average which made him at 5'4" "average" of course the backpacks in the line only fit kids, women and smallish men and they did that very well. But it goes to show that unless you actually experience something you may not get the need for something. So shortish yacht designers design in ample headroom but forget that folks of a certain stature just might need a longer bed...

Same on surfboards and bikes. as most of the great bike racers and top surfers are not very tall (that low center of gravity advantage rocks!) and as a result the tall folk get left out to an extent... You find bike frames geared towards that middle ground and the fix is simply to use a longer seat post which is all kinds of wrong but sadly a fact of life these days. Surfboards are problematic as well, every so often I find a board that I'd love to have only to find out they simply do not make it in a size that would fit...

Just something to think about for NA's, frame builders and surfboard shapers looking for a niche that needs dealing with!

One way of dealing with the guitar conundrum....

Yeah...

What just may be the perfect boat camera...

I keep looking for the perfect boat camera and the new Panasonic/Lumix is so damn close that I may actually have to quit looking...

The kicker here is it is pretty much the GH1 without the mirror system and in doing so the camera gets seriously SMALL!

Add to the fact that it shoots REAL (as opposed to faux) HD video and you have a camera that is a go anywhere and always available for those shots that always seem to happen when you don't have a camera in your pocket.

Another Bike for the shortlist... Surly!

There is something so right about the classic touring bike... For example, take a look at the pictured Surly "Long Haul Trucker" which gets it all kinds of right.

Of course, stowing the sucker becomes a little problematic, but Surly already has up close and personal experience with the "Travelers Check" frame which makes use of the S&S Couplers to make it a a break-down bike that will allow me to stow two of these in the cockpit locker and only add 8 ounces each in the process... Sweet!

On the other hand... I'm seriously enamoured of the "Karate Monkey" a 29'er of some serious appeal... I mean how can you resist a Chum Bucket RED bike?
So many bikes... So little time!

Old Spot..New Spot

The new improved Spot is very cool but there are some deals going with the remaining old Spot models which makes for some serious savings...

$50 OFF Spot Satellite Messenger - only $99!



We really like ours... and for these kind of prices it's cheap to be safe.