Don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave...

Today is a good day...

For one, it is the last day of the "H" word season and all aboard sailing vessel So It Goes are quite happy to see its backside going out the door.

Now, hopefully, we can fully get back into work mode and return So It Goes to the lean and mean sailing machine it is. Cunning plans aside, everything from here on out is both straightforward and simply depends on a few rain-free days to get back in the groove...

A bit of news of some interest is that NASA is having what should be a very interesting press conference on Thursday to "discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life". For those who find this sort of thing interesting, it will be at 2:00 PM EST on December 2 and will be streamed...

Of course, with the very real possibility that someone has found life (albeit a simple bacteria) on another planet, does not mean that intelligent life can be found in Washington DC... But we do live in hope!

Listening to Neil Innes and you can sing along...

(Intro: G  A   C   D   G)


   G                            A
   I'm the urban spaceman baby, I've got speed 

   C        D            G
   I've got everything I need 

   G                            A
   I'm the urban spaceman baby, I can fly 

         C    D     G
   I'm a supersonic guy

   Em
   I don't need pleasure

     C          G
   I don't feel pain

   C              G  
   If you were to knock me down

       A           D
   I'd just get up again

   G                          
   I'm the urban spaceman babe and 

   A
   I'm making out 

   C   D    G
   I'm all about 


   (G   A     C   D   G)

     Em
   I wake up every morning 

          C             G
   with a smile upon my face 

      C          G  
   My natural exuberance

          A                D
   spills out all over the place 


   (G    A     C    D    G)

   G             
   I'm the urban spaceman

       A  
   I'm intelligent and clean 

   C     D     G
   Know what I mean? 


   G                            A 
   I'm the urban spaceman, as a lover second to none 

   C      D      G
   It's a lot of fun 

   Em
   I never let my friends down

        C            G
   I've never made a boob 

   C            G
   I'm a glossy magazine

      A             D
   an advert in the tube 

   G                                A 
   I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist 

   C D        G
   I don't exist  
   
   (G   A   C  D  G)

So it does go...

Put not your faith in GPS trackers...

I'm not a huge fan of cruising rallies and think that they have ushered in a type of cruising that is less than it could be...

That said, I found yesterday's tracking for this years ARC a bit curious as apparently boat #89 (a French Dufour 525 by the name of Saya) is somewhere in the hinterlands of eastern Africa... Curious!

Beware of cunning plans...

'"Am I jumping the gun Baldric, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"
                                                                                                                  Black Adder

Yesterday I woke up with a certain word hovering around my head...

Tabernacle...

Heaven help us!

The self-steering conundrum...

The other day I posted a couple of links to a windvane self-steering project and as usual got a few emails telling me that windvane steering is a thing of the past and I should publish some proper electronic autopilot content to show my readers the one true path...

Off hand, I'd say that Boat Bits is a "fair" blog but it ain't ever going to be "balanced"! As far as electronic autopilots being the one true path I lost my faith having to hand steer from Gibraltar to Lanzarote  when our brand new autopilot quit working with less than a couple of hours of fair weather use.

I understand if someone might prefer not to use windvane self-steering as there are some passable reasons why it is not the optimum system for some people. Reasons such as...

• I don't know how to sail or balance my boat...
• I really enjoy hand steering and simply can't get enough of it...
• I motor all the time...
• I've never sorted out that the best way to get from point A to B on a sailboat is not always (if ever) a straight line...
• I have an irrational fear of simple technology that works and am phobic about such things as a manual can-opener...
• My IQ is a bit lower than room temperature in Cut Bank Montana in the dead of winter...
• I'm a Panbo sort of dude and if it does not have a touch screen, LCD's and beeps, it simply is not high tech enough to interest me...

But what I don't quite get is what actually motivates some of those who don't want to use windvane self-steering to campaign against a system that works so well for so many people with a zeal that makes me think of the word "zealot"! As for me I'm quite happy for those who don't see the merit in windvane self-steering to continue down their chosen path as testament that evolution is an ongoing process. Fact is, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!

Windvane self-steering works and since it is appropriate tech it has all sorts of advantages as it is repairable and excluding the silly pricing of new self-steering systems is very affordable (as many commercial gears are available used for pennies on the dollar) and since it is rather cheap and simple to build (by any except the most hopeless tyros)... What's not to like?

On the other hand, the real reason that windvane steering makes so much sense is it simply teaches you to sail better because it is a wind driven system, and that dear readers, is the thing that makes them special...


Listening to Jimmy...


So it goes...

Just for the surf set...

GreenLight Surfboard supply is having a 12% off deal for the T-Day ting if you use the super top secret code Green Turkey...

So many boards to build...

T-Day minus one...

It's kind of hard getting into the whole Thanksgiving thing when so many people in the US of A are unemployed and far too many are depending on a food bank to help provide whatever T-Day repast will be on the table...

Especially since it is the best year ever in terms of corporate profits...

Kinda sucks when you think about it...

Wouldn't it be a great thing while you are doing that last minute shopping to buy a little bit extra and drop it off at a local charity or food bank?

Hmmm...

Yesterday I became obsessed with an ongoing hardware problem we have been having on "So It Goes"...

CRAPPY HINGES...

I go to the chandler and buy the best I can find and make sure that the hinge in question is really stainless or bronze (they say it is) and pay silly prices as well only to find that after installing them that beneath the outward stainless sheen there lurks something not so stainless which in time will rust solid. Recently when I go to open my cockpit locker... Well it's not that pretty at all and involves having to do some re-glassing!

So yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking of various cunning plans that ranged from casting my own hardware to re-inventing the wheel (so to speak) and came to something of a conclusion... No more hardware on "So It Goes" where I can replace it with a simpler and better working alternative!

The solution is a page off of our old Wharram Tiki 31 where the rudders were lashed to the boat instead of using expensive and prone to failure gudgeons and pintles. If this sort of system is strong enough to withstand the wear and tear on a rudder, it stands to reason that a cockpit locker hatch should be well within its comfort zone. Fact is, as I plan to use Samson Amsteel for the cordage hinges, that comfort zone would somewhere in the vicinity of a breaking strength of 20,000 pounds per hinge using 1/8 inch Amsteel. Factor in that the cost to redo both of my cockpit lockers would be a fraction of what one less-than-great-quality-marine hinge would cost and you have something of a no-brainer!

My current mantra is "soft tech"...

A windvane of note...

Over at the SailFar forum one of the members  (Sugar Magnolia) just posted about his current windvane self-steering project based on the Walt Murray archives...

Which looks like a winner and just goes to show that home building and DIY make more than a lot of sense but can save a lot of money in the process!

A little learning never hurt anyone...

It's a sad but true fact that a lot of folks on sailboats simply do not have the required sailing skills that are needful to keep within the happy camper envelope. That said, I am still surprised at just how deficient some sailors happen to be even in the most basic sail handling, anchoring and navigation skills...

For those who want to stay in the happy camper bracket, an excellent slide show on how to reef while sailing downwind would be no bad thing to check out over at the always excellent Attainable Adventure Cruising.

Saving money...

While it is no secret that I am not a big fan of consumer yachting or spending more than needful for boat stuff, even I find myself spending money for stuff from time to time... albeit kicking and screaming!

There are ways to make the buying thing less painful to the pocketbook, such as is simply asking for a discount or being part of a group that has negotiated a discount (the SSCA or the Unite Amateur spring to mind). Bulk buying as a group is an exercise in power that is far and above simply asking for a discount.

For instance, some folks over at The Keel are looking to get a group of people together to do a group purchase of Portland Pudgy dinghies/life-boats which is a very smart approach, though it has been my experience that getting a group of boaters together to buy something together is akin to wrangling a herd of unhappy cats. That said, if you are interested in getting a Portland Pudgy I'd check them out and get with the program...

A downside of our discount/eBay society is, more often than not, prices are inflated just to be able to discount them and still make a full of inflated profit. That being the case, it is important to actually establish what something is actually worth before you get into buying mode. Knowing the worth or value of an item is the best tool in your quiver.

Insanity is a given, but maybe this will help...

I'll be the first to admit that living on a plastic classic (read old) boat and trying to run a couple of business concerns while afloat has its ups and downs... But, that said, it is mostly a win/win situation with only a few fear and loathing situations.

Over the years I have made no secret of my respect for our Honda 2000i which seems to have become as much a standard bit of equipage for cruising boats these days as baseball hats, solar panels and wind generators. I've been keeping an unofficial tally and it seems that the Honda 1000i and 2000i seem to be on 75% of cruising boats we run across and that says a lot...

What most people who own a Honda won't tell you is they also have their dark side and a couple of WTF design features that drive their owners nuts. Truth is, I often ponder how someone who designed such a fine machine could also design in such an awful situation where changing the oil is concerned. The words sadistic bastard comes to mind!

The problem is that the oil fill and drain spigot is in a place that makes pouring the used oil out nearly impossible without pouring it all over the cockpit and on your favorite pair of shorts while putting serious strain on your sanity. What's worse is that since the spigot is within the confines of the generator, part of the spill is always internal and hidden. So, after cleaning up the cockpit and suchlike, when you pick up the generator it favors you with a secondary spill just in case your favorite shorts had escaped being ruined in the first go round. But the fun is not over... because of its recessed position, filling the Honda with new oil is also seriously problematic...

How to cope? Well, I'm betting that a lot of Honda owners get by with fewer than needful oil changes and since the Honda is such a great machine, it seems to get by with a lot more abuse than other lesser generators but to an air cooled engine, oil is what makes it run and run.

Then there are those anal retentive types who have spreadsheeets that tell them exactly when an oil change is required and do them religiously at exactly the right time (you know I'm not that guy) usually breaking up a round of sundowners to hurry home to change the oil... Fact is, they are not often missed as they mostly bore you to death going on and on about next-gen-anchors and how superior they are...

So, what is a normal somewhat lazy guy supposed to do?

Well, you could buy one of these...

It simply screws into the existing fill/drain on the Honda 1000 or 2000 which results in no muss no fuss draining of the used oil...

Need I say more?

At $15 this will pay for itself on "So It Goes" in paper towels alone (not to mention the cost of spilled oil or shorts) and just perfect for that sanity clause upkeep!

A few words of social and political import...

Isn't it about time we took our lives back and lose the silly security theatre?

A catamaran design I'd build...

Some of our readers seem to have a difficult time understanding how someone (me in this case) who was a passionate advocate for multihulls back in the day is mostly lukewarm on the subject in 2010...

It's not that I'm anti-multihulls these days, it's simply that as far as I am concerned, a lot of the promise of multihulls has been squandered in pandering to the greed factor, resulting in much of what passes for cruising multihulls not making a lot of sense.

In the not so long distant past there were a lot of designers who saw multihulls as a way of doing more with less, as opposed to how to get the maximum income and hype out of a project. I'm pretty sure in the late 70's if I told James Wharram or Jim Brown that the average fifty-foot cruising cat would now cost nearly a million dollars, they'd have pointed me to the nearest facility with padded rooms and a detox center... How times change!

An oft repeated reason for losing the ballast in those days and going with a cat or a tri was that they were more easily driven and you needed less sail or horsepower to drive them, which in my mind still makes a lot of sense... Fast forward to today and I notice that a forty-foot cat is more likely to have a taller rig, more sail area, and more HP than a forty-something monohull that they are anchored next to. Kind of makes you think...

Actually I'm not here today to rant about what is wrong with cats and tris but to point out a neat project that Eric Henseval has on his drawing board and a cat design that show great promise...

Mr Henseval, obviously influenced by the great Phillipe Harlé (can you spell PUNCH?), lays out a very neat catamaran that just says to me "Let's go sailing". Like all of Eric's plywood designs, this looks like it would go together quickly and with a minimum of waste and there is nothing un-needful in its make up... Which in my opinion is the difference between an OK design and a great design.

This design is sensible in packing in what you need in an eight-meter envelope and for a couple with simple tastes would be a magic carpet both willing and able to take them wherever they wanted to go... Kinda says it all!

Sadly, there is no rig shown and this is an area that I usually find problematic on designs vectored at home builders, as the designer after drawing a great hull and interior throws it all away by designing an expensive higher-tech-than-needful rig that winds up making the homebuilt boat simply unaffordable or impractical for the sort of people who'd actually build one. Hopefully Mr Henseval will not follow suit and come up with a reasonable and simple rig that such a simple catamaran cries out for...

The question I know I'll get in the mailbag tomorrow is would I build and cruise one of these? The short answer is if there was a 10-meter version (we need the space for guitars) with a simple, sensible, and able to be self built rig, it would be right at the top of my list...

Why the cost of rum in St Thomas is important...

Over on one of the forums there has been a discussion on the USVI and St Thomas in particular... One of the things that stands out is just how much misinformation is being thrown around within the discussion which leaves me to believe that some so-called experts on the subject of St Thomas have:
a) Never been there, or
b) Last visited when Jimmy Carter was President.

For instance, one expert pointed out that Cruzan dark rum cost $2.00 a liter and as I had just gone shopping and bought a liter of Cruzan for $5.99 I can attest to the fact that $2 rum in the USVI is just not happening. Fact is, when we first arrived in St Thomas back in 1996, Cruzan rum was cheap at $2.77 a liter but still a long way from that $2 mark.

Sadly, rum prices were not all that seemed to be wrong in the discussion as tales of crime and facilities were also mostly wrong or so dated as to be useless. But, of course, that's just a little discussion on a forum and no big deal... Or, is it?

The problem is that next year or whenever someone will be planning their cruise of the Caribbean and do a Google search. Up will pop this forum thread with all its incorrect information or, even worse, someone writing an article or cruising guide will use said thread as a source and it will become FACT...

In getting "So It Goes" ready to do some serious cruising again, a lot of work is spent researching those locations we are planning on going to. While the web makes it easier on one hand, we keep finding more and more seriously incorrect information that seems to have a life of its own once released. As time goes on, it is getting harder and harder to sift between what is real and what is just so much nonsense as the GIGO (garbage in garbage out) takes its toll.

Here at Boat Bits Central we have a project that we will be unveiling in the new year and hope it will in some small way help stem the growth of misinformation about cruising and cruising areas. A lot of it will be our own research but we are going to need help from Boat Bits readers as well to be successful...

Listening to Dawn Landes

So it goes...

A very cool little saw...

I've mentioned before that I use Japanese hand saws and that they are well worth having a couple in your tool bag... That said, most of the Japanese hand saws are less than happy in western tool boxes and I keep meaning to sew up a suitable scabbard to protect both my saws and my toolbox-questing-fingers (FYI, Japanese saws are wicked sharp).

This pull saw by FastCap, on the other hand, is set up like a butterfly pocket knife and the handle folds to cover the blade... No muss no fuss and no blood dripping off the ends of your fingers!

Not much bigger than a pocket knife, it is just the thing for the sort of trim work most of us on boats tend to pick up the hand saw for and also looks like just the thing for dovetails and other wood butchery.

Better yet it's cheap at less than $10!

Why no hacker spaces for boat stuff?

One of the problems with the marine industry as it exists today is that it is simply about selling you stuff in an already defined market. New products that come in are mostly rehashed old products with little or no real development except in the guise of marketing to get you to toss out your old gear so you can replace it with the new version of the same old same...

For instance, my old Barient winches (circa 1969) work just as well, if not better, than the pair of Harken winches I bought a couple of years back. I'd wager big money that my Barients will still be going strong long after the Harkens have failed and become so much scrap aluminum.

Pretty much any "new" sailing product I come across is the same old same with a lot of hype. The sailing press which should be critical of new products and actually review them has taken the "We'll just print the companies press release" approach because pointing out that the new hyped product is simply the same old same might upset their advertisers. Of course, that is not to say that the cruising press cannot be hyper critical when there is no advertising revenue in the picture... Remember when all the various sailing mags hated catamarans? Touted as unsafe and a crime against nautical tradition until the amazing 180° turn they made as soon as companies making and selling cats found advertising budgets?

So where do we find progress of the real sort if not from the industry that is supposed to serve us?

Get hacking!

VIMBY - Take on the Machine: The Decision

This is the sort of thing we need to shake up the same old same... Get your geek on!

What we do when it rains...

While the weather has been doing it's Biblical deluge/ Monsoon ting I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how to fit a small surfboard shop into a 34 foot boat that is already bursting at the seams with what some might consider too many guitars... Just for the record, it is impossible to ever have too many guitars!

The funny thing is I think I've more or less cracked the problem through a fusion of boatbuilding methodology, standard surfboard construction, a dash of guitar building trickery and some next gen rigging materials... More than likely I'll be writing about this in the not too far distant future as first I have to finish turning "So It Goes" from the mastless shadow of itself back to the sailing vessel it's supposed to be.

Right now we are at the rigging stage and  we will be doing a lot of splicing over the next couple of weeks as well as finishing the various mast cleats for said rigging to interact with... Our upcoming mantra aboard "So It Goes" is about to become...

" Pass the carbon fiber and praise the Dynex Dux"

The reason for the too long lag  of going from mast building to mast rigging has simply been that it seemed to make sense to keep the mast down for hurricane season and now that we see light at the end of that tunnel it is time to get back to work mode... Well, if it ever stops raining...

Right on!

Pretty much says it all...

Get connected!

Some music for the night watch...

Mavis Staples... covers Creedence!




Mavis seems to be in most of my playlists and for good reason, Mavis Staples keeps singing and makes the world a little better, all you have to do is listen.

Listening to... What do you think?

So it goes...

A workshop I'd like to attend...

Brion Toss, everyone's favorite rigging guru, is on something of a blitz at the moment with boat shows and suchlike. We sure wish we could attend the following workshop (Hey, being at anchor in the Caribbean does have its downsides)...

Handwork for the Modern Sailor Substituting Skills for Hardware in Modern and Traditional Rigs


Lashings, seizings and grommets - they are not just for ye olde rigs anymore. Modern materials like Spectra and Vectran have brought marlingspike skills into the new age. We will get you started on fabricating block attachments, standing rigging emergency gear, race boat gear and much more!


Noon, Wednesday, December 1, 2010 Northwest Maritime Center in the Chandlery Port Townsend.

If any Boat Bits readers attend, we'd love to hear all about it....

Thinking outside the box and a bit of insight to the charter world...

It's scary just how easy it is to fall into lock-step with the prevailing winds of opinion and the pressure to conform is something of a relentless beast. We see it all the time in the cruising community, our film work, and the charter business...

Which is why it is such a delight when we do see people doing things a bit outside the box whether it is a different slant on cruising or a novel approach to the business of filmmaking or chartering...

Having a charter business ourselves, we have been aware for a long time that the world is changing but by and large the business of chartering boats has been in something of a rut simply doing the same old same over and over again and marketing itself in a manner that is equivalent with the evolutionary state of fishing with clubs. Which is not to say that the industry does not provide a good value or level of enjoyment, but it does miss a lot of potential clients by ignoring all but the same old niche they have been mining for the last fifty or so years.

But things change and not always for the better. The current economic crunch has seriously cut a swath through the niche's ability to afford to charter and instead of looking outside the accepted niche for a different sort of client looking for a different sort of charter vacation all, efforts seem to be focused on doing the same old same and praying a lot. Which is why I like to see boats that see new niches and go after them by providing a vacation that adds value and brings in a wider range of clients. Last year a filmmaker friend and I were discussing doing a series of week long filmmaking workshop as a week long sailing trip which would include an intensive film & video workshop mixed with sailing and diving... Not just the same old same yacht charter.

One boat that seems to have a found a similar niche is Good Medicine which provides ongoing medical training (CME) program for Doctors and Dentists as part of their charter possibilities. What better venue for a class than on a sailboat in paradise?

Here in the Caribbean it constantly astounds me that no one is doing sea-kayaking, surfing or cycling charters as these sports have a base that is travel oriented and with a proven record of being more than willing to spend serious money on their sport. Truth is, there are any number of niches from rum and culinary to historical and education that are really crying out to be served if anyone would take a moment to listen...



The thing is that we need to look outside the box and see what we are missing...

Some seriously scary mayhem and idiocy...

I saw this over on Sailing Anarchy yesterday and thought this sort of cleansing-the-gene-pool sort of hijinks deserved to both be shared and commented on...



Over the years I have seen this sort of madness stunt more than I should and more often than not it ends in tears with someone getting hurt or the loss of the boat.

When things turn to shit on the water the last place you want to go is someplace that is even more dangerous! I don't care how great a helmsman you might be in a situation like this hoving to outside with some sea room is the prudent course and the fact this boat pulled it off is just simple luck and that OMO protects drunks, fools, and little children from time to time.

When it gets ugly, "sea and sea room are your friends" is not a bad mantra...

Listening to Neil Innes

So it goes...

Surfboards to build...

One of my favorite daily cyber-stops is Wooden Surfboards which is about making wood surfboards... Who'd have thought?

One of the things I'm really looking forward to is getting anchored someplace calm where the rum is cheap and building a couple of new boards to replenish the quiver. Wooden Surfboards is something of a "I must build new surfboards" inducing mantra.

Even if you don't surf (the mind boggles), Wooden Surfboards has been a great resource as various posts have tweaked how I've built my new wood/carbon composite mast and boom... It's good to look outside the box from time to time!


Check it out!

Listening to Junior Brown (I lust for this man's guitar!)

So it goes...

A most excellent composting head...

We've had our home brew DIY composting toilet for almost a couple of years now and our opinion is still that composting toilets on boats make a lot of sense...

On the hind-sight front, there is very little I'd do differently as everything works, smell is a non-issue and there is nothing involved that needs service or repair. What's not to like?

Over at The Tiny House Blog guest blogger Walt Barret talks about a very simple DIY system that would work quite well in most boats and includes an A to Z detailed account of how to build it as well as all the materials involved.

Fact is, Barret's system has has a couple of tweaks that will improve my composting head so I expect I will be incorporating them into my system in the not too distant future.


Check it out...

Listening to a still much missed Warren Zevon

So it goes...

On avoiding the negative...

No doubt, there are just as many reasons behind the impulse to move on to a boat and go cruising as the number of people doing it, but you can spot trends. Right now there seem to be two that stand out...

One being the current economic madness which has motivated a lot of people to take some time off and (hopefully) wait it out while cruising till things get better. For a lot of people this makes all kinds of sense as (for most) it's a way to save money and no real downside.

The other trend is beginning to look like something of a tidal wave and that is the fact that the simplicity movement has been discovering sailing in a big way. What better way to simplify your life than to move it into a realm where simplicity is something of a central mantra?

That said, why people do the cruising gig is always a much more complicated equation than simply waiting out the economy or wanting to get down to basics... People are never ever simple.

And that folks, is a GOOD thing...

Which brings me to a newish cruising forum... TheKeel.com which seems like something of a breath of fresh air amongst the same old same collection of sailing/cruising forums. The best way to describe it is excited and interested (kinda like a puppy) with zero negative content.

Yeah... zero negative content! For those just getting started having to run the gauntlet of self proclaimed experts, old boy networks or racist and political thuggery (can you spell kewl?) when all you want to know is how to keep the boat right side up with a smile on your face, a lot of the forums can be seriously daunting as well as a something of a downer.

While the Keel is young and still finding itself, it has a lot of potential and is certainly worth checking out as long as you leave the negative baggage behind...

Listening to Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals

So it goes...

On the need to buy some jigsaw blades...

It's a gray day here and I'm almost finished beating my head against the bulkhead over the recent zombie-fest election and apparent loss of sanity up there in the mainland. Another cup of coffee and I'll be ambulatory so can go off to buy some more jig saw blades...

One thing that worries me is that my current jig saw just may not be up to the current job at hand. Yesterday it was making less than pretty noises and had that smell that power tools get when working too hard and more than ready to meet their maker. Kind of a bummer!

On the other hand, getting a new tool is always a somewhat happy making experience and I am going to milk it for all I can as not a lot of happy making news coming any time soon...

Listening to Roky Erickson and The Explosives

So it goes...

Not the right tool two step...

I have gone on record more than a couple of times that multi-tools are more often than not the wrong tool for every job. Truth be told, I still think that is an apt description...

To answer the question on whether I have or use a multi-tool from time to time, the answer is yes. While never the right tool, they do come in handy. The thing is that I am not so much against multi-tools in general but I do find the current silly pricing of Leathermen and Gerber off-putting. For the most part, cheap Chinese $7.99 knockoffs do the same thing (that being the wrong tool for every job) just as well.

The other day I was checking out a Stanley that looked good and had everything I'd want with the exception of a serrated knife blade and, for less than $13, not so problematic when you drop it overboard...

Of course, it has all the faults of multi-tools but it is well built, stainless, and with the exception of a serrated blade, pretty much all the wrong tools I'd care to pack in a pocket. By the way, did I say it was cheap?

On the other hand, I came across another multi-tool by Smith and Wesson and damn if it did not have a serrated blade and is even cheaper than the Stanley... Yowza!  Just the wrong tool for every job that I want and it's less than $10!

Actually I'm buying a couple of the S&W's because I know exactly how it is when you drop one overboard...

Getting up to hull speed...

The last few days have been a wash in terms of getting anything done on the boat. The specter of Tomas and Halloween played a part, the anchorage has been something of a roll fest, and the politics of the moment has been something of a distraction...

The truth of it is that my head has simply not been in the right space to get up to speed with lots of little starts and stops that simply sap the will and defeat momentum.

Most folks don't understand that the best tool for boat and boatbuilding projects is momentum rather than cool saws or nifty epoxies... Not that tools and better glues don't play a part, but too often they can be a distraction to the job of simply building a boat.

In a moment of deja vu the other day, I remember when we were building our Tiki 31 (a Wharram design) and our chosen building space was without electricity. We looked at various generators to buy (so I could plug in my power tools) only to find that the generator we wanted was back-ordered everywhere in France. Then one day while I was kicking around my building site and looking at the eighty sheets of plywood and my bag of tools, I simply got going and thinking to myself that "well at least I can cut out a bulkhead or two just to be doing something" and got out a couple of saws and started cutting... A couple of 10-hour days later, I had a very sore arm, some world class blisters, and all of the bulkheads and hull panels cut out. I now had a complete catamaran kit!

I mention this story as it is easy to fall into the trap of "needing" that one more thing or tool to get into a job rather than simply getting to it and doing it. In current hindsight, I am as apt to fall into the trap as anyone and sometime forget that the trick is simply to get to doing.