Other peoples boat projects...

I've been helping a friend with a Catalina 38 sort out his wandering bulkhead and chainplate situation. As long as we were at it, the decision to dump the starboard settee in favor of a galley which would better suit their lifestyle and remake the old galley as a dedicated sleeping berth for their youngest daughter...

The thing is, with the older classic plastic, it really is pretty easy to change things around if one feels the need. The hard part is simply making the decision and doing the deed. In this case, the actual labor was less than a couple of days but took more like a week. The hard part was simply sorting out what was really wanted and getting past the having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too syndrome we all fall err to from time to time.

All in all, the new galley works with a big increase in accessible storage which the original C38 layout was sorely lacking in. While maybe a trick of scale, the entire salon now seems quite a bit larger as well...

You might notice the Camp chef stove which is easily the best bang for the buck that you can find with a boat friendly stove at less than $200... One of the new galley tasks was to sort out a gimbal for it which was quite an easy process and the stove balances quite easily with its new gimbal with no added weight needed.

You'd think I was nuts or something... Warning Zombie content!

We all have our fears and worries... Apparently no small number of folks back home find the idea of affordable and accessible health care a very scary scenario and, while I understand it where CEO's of medical concerns and insurance companies should be quaking in their shoes, I don't quite get it when it's folks who actually work for a living. Then again, I'm zombie phobic and some people think I'm nuts...

Different strokes for different folks right?

Truth is, being zombie phobic is a pretty good thing to be phobic about as there aren't really any zombies of the brain-eating variety (well we hope that's the case) and most zombie infestations are confined to republicans, blue dog democrats and Joe "walking dead" Lieberman... So not a whole lot to worry about outside D.C. and high end strip clubs...

On the other hand, I am really lucky I don't have a phobia about pregnant women as apparently up there in my old home of Seattle, the problem has become so bad that pregnant women need to be tasered for not signing a traffic ticket...

One boat guy I know with a Hogfish has it really bad, as he is something of an expert in the breakdown of society in the old USSR and he seems to think that the US of A is next for a total breakdown and even seems to make a lot of sense in the process... Way too scary for me!

So, I'll just sit on my boat down here in some tropical paradise and worry about zombies and leave the more important and much more real phobias to those who deal with stress a lot better than I do...

Some folks say I'm simple minded... A couple of cool rigs!

Actually we had a bunch of people who asked about just what a  proto-Simplicity rig actually is. Short form, I guess, is that I'm doing a bit of beta testing for Mark Smaalders on the rig he has planned for his new Simplicity design series to help sort out any wrinkles...

On "So It Goes" it will look something like this... 

 While on the new Simplicity 42/43 it will look like this...

Kinda cool...Huh?

It gets better, check out the gaff version of the Simplicity 42/43...

Yeah... Seriously sexy! Truth be told if I thought our CAL 34 could pull off the gaff rig and keep some street cred in the process I'd be all over it! A gaff rigged CAL 34 would certainly surprise some folks who think gaff sails don't go to weather and we'd be showing a lot of transom to a lot of Bendytoys on all points of sail...

Fun stuff!

A Pinky of note... "Time of Wonder"

I've always liked Pinky schooners and Ted Brewer's  "Time of Wonder" is one which I keep coming back to...

It's a great design and avoids the "looking-like-a-theme-park" problem which some full dress schooners fall prey to in the under fifty-foot bracket.

At under fifty-foot, it is also quite handy for a couple as no one sail is more than I'd care to raise with a bit of simple mechanical aid whether block and tackle or a manual winch, which is one of the great advantages of a split rig.

Pinkies are the stuff of legend in terms of sea-keeping and heavy weather going and you'd have to look long and hard for a better go anywhere boat...

Way back when, when I first looked at this plan I was not so enamoured with the interior but as time goes by the living arangement has really grown on me... It makes a lot of sense when you consider that you could really LIVE in a boat like this.

For me the only drawback of this design is just that kiss too much draft at 6'3" making the waterways of Europe a bit problematic. I'd be all over this design if the draft could get down to 5'5"! That said, since most of the ballast for "Time of Wonder" is interior it would be no great problem to make part of it fluid ballast (water) and for a canal stint simply pump the excess overboard till back in open water...

Hmmmm...

A cool seagoing garden...

An anchor and a novel promotion method...

Everyone has an opinion on anchors and these days there are a lot of anchors to have opinions about...

Down in Oz, Cooper Anchors are making what looks to be an interesting anchor that looks like it could walk the talk.

Of course, it appears that the Cooper folks don't know a heck of a lot about marketing anchors as I've yet to see them trash talking their competitors on various forums and suchlike. Apparently deciding to just build a good anchor and let it stand on its merits and avoiding the mean and nasty.

Kind of refreshing that...

Water, water, everywhere...

One of the first things that living on a small boat teaches you is your place in the eco-system... Unlike most land dwellers, you know exactly how much stuff you consume, how much waste you generate, how much electricity you use and how many hours of sun/wind or generator used to replace it. In other words, living on a boat gives you a clue (which I guess makes most land-dwellers clueless?).

Water for most newbies on boats is something of a panic-attack inducing conundrum as the wasteful practices ingrained in the resource wasting land dwelling model is very hard to break and trying to make these ingrained bad habits work on a cruising boat... Well, that way lies madness!

On the other hand, water IS serious stuff. We need water to live so it is something that does need to be factored in terms of how much you use, how much you actually need, how to obtain it, and how to keep it.

Throwing money at the situation with something like a watermaker or turning your boat into a sailing tanker truck seems to be the two most popular initial answers to the problem of having enough water. The real answer is getting in touch with the need/want equation and begin using what you need, rather than what you want or think you need or, in other words, get smart and waste less...


Speaking of waste and water, here is a great presentation on a perfect example of silly waste/being dumb where water is concerned and a great example on how what we think is true, simply is not.

Who'd have thought... More micro gardening

It's funny which Boat Bits posts strike a chord with readers and yesterday's post really filled up the mail bag...

Eric over in France sent a couple of links including this one from Inka Biospheric Systems. Who seem to have some neat wall garden stuff...

Another reader, Neil, sent a couple of great links from Container Gardening which looks like an awesome source for someone doing a serious garden in a very limited place...

There was also a link to a book "Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting" which had me at the "Square inch" in the title...

A garden on a boat in the shadow of the Zombie apocolypse...

One thing I miss living on a smallish boat is not having a small garden and with the ever increasing cost and ever decreasing quality of produce the idea of adding a mini garden of some sort would be no bad thing. But hardly easy in a maximum garden space of four square feet...

"Sailing the Farm" addressed the whole idea of being able to grow your own food but at best "STF" was a seriously flawed book based more on best case scenarios and wishful thinking then actually putting food on the table.

In my current quest for an ongoing supply of cherry tomatos that actually taste like something, I have started following an interesting blog Homegrown Evolution by the authors of the most excellent "The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City" which in turn has turned me on to Plants are the Strangest People. 

Is not the web a wonderful thing?

To come full circle, it's hardly surprising that both Homegrown Evolution and Plants are the Strangest People  are hip to the coming zombie apocolypse is it?

A really great post... That someone else did!

SV Macha (a great blog) pretty much nails the engine/no engine debate and takes it home...

I often go on about the need for folks sailing to put less emphasis on things of a horsepower nature and much more emphasis on basic sailing skills which always results in a mailbag of a negative nature.

So It Goes...

Now we're talking... fuel cells start making sense!

As an electric propulsion guy I've been following various fuel cell systems but so far they have been expensive with a high kludge factor and either too big or too small to make sense on a boat...

Oorja Protonics, has a methanol model set to hit the streets in a few months that looks very interesting being no bigger than a comparable marine gen set (5KW) and with a rumoured price of less than $15,000.

Do I hear an AMEN?

A needful tool for the rigging kit...

Since I have a whole lot of rigging to do in the not too distant future using Dynex Dux, I've been looking for an affordable folding ceramic blade knife as Dynex tends to dull steel knife blades in a hurry.

Ceramic blades by their nature can be sharper than steel as well as keep their edge longer, but like anything, you tend to pay for the advantage. Lucky for us as ceramic blades become more popular the economics of scale and competition should bring the prices down to a reasonable level.

This knife by Meyer looks to be just the sort of thing I'm looking to add to the rigging kit and it will be interesting to see how it holds up against the rigors of Dynex...

More zombie apocalypse... and a kick ass flare gun!

One of our favorite blogs pointed me over to this flare gun on steroids...

Based on the Viet Nam era M-79 grenade launcher and chambered for 37MM projectiles by Bates & Dittus it is one real serious way of getting seen! Being that I have more than a passing up-close-and-personal experience with the old M-79, it most certainly caught my attention.

Now Navagear, was pointing out that the TBL-37 had potential use as a deterrent for those of a pyratical nature but in truth this looks to be an outstanding bit of anti-zombie ordnance...

Don't believe me? Well I'll just quote from the Bates & Dittus info sheet on the TBL-37...

..."The TBL-37 has been shown to be particularly effective during troublesome Zombie outbreaks. Many wise people have purchased them for insurance against the coming Zombie apocalypse. Remember: The TBL-37 and Zombies don’t mix."

I'm getting a pair of these... Yowza!

You have to admire this guy... Budget roller reefing set up

One of our regular readers Neil, sent this way cool link to a guy who built his own roller reefing system for less than $53...

YES, less than $53! More than likely it works just as well as one that costs ver $1000... Kinda makes you think!

The thing is, sailing is affordable as long as you don't spend silly money for stuff and are open to the odd bit of DIY. A lot of things (like roller reefing or watermakeres for example) are dead simple to build and cost pennies on the dollar if you build them from off the shelf stuff.

If more people took the DIY option companies would have to return to a sensible pricing structure and we'd all be better off. The main thing is to know there's always a creative affordable answer to those pesky boating budget problems!

By the way, this is such a great link we are sending Neil some Glowfast glow in the dark labels for his boat... Anyone else have any great DIY links to share?

Loose ends...

I've been helping a friend with re-seating a bulkhead and doing the as-long-as-we-have-the-tools-out-why-not-a-whole-new-galley two step... It's a good feeling to help a friend and even more interesting, working on a friends boat is a neat way to bring perspective to your own. I highly recommend it!

As soon as the new galley is sorted out, I now have all the bits to build the new mast and should soon be up to my elbows in wood shavings, epoxy, biaxial glass, carbon and the odd bit of kevlar, which is some kind of wonderful as I am soooo tired of living on a motorboat (albeit a non-polluting one)!

We don't have the Dynex Dux for the rigging yet and while I do have the materials to build the dead-eyes I have not quite got around to building them yet, but more than likely the coming weekend will be doing the dead-eye ting.

You can almost smell progress in the air...

One seriously cool ride... The perfect boat bike?

While the mast-fall-down-go-boom-splash has put the new bikes planned for "So It Goes" on hold for the moment, I am still keeping an eye out for the perfect bike...

My preference in bike frames has always been steel and while I have built and used both carbon and alloy frames, when it comes to utility and ride comfort, steel kicks some serious ass and will always be my first choice.

Reynolds, mega-purveyor of frame materials has had a stainless frame tubing (953) for a while now and to say it would make all kinds of sense for a ocean-going bike would be some kind of understatement.

Bob Brown is one of the few frame builders around who is rolling with the Reynold's 953 and for more information on what makes for a successful 953 frame, you should check out his site...

Florida gets funky... and the thought of Anita Bryant spinning like a top

Over the years Florida has been known to be one of those... well, the word dumbass does come to mind but let's use the word "special" places where anchoring is concerned and while last year they passed an almost cruiser-friendly anchoring law it seems like the Powers That Be want the same old silliness back in place.

As it happens, some state lawmakers also want to kill incentives for film and video production if the film or TV show in question has a gay character...

As a film guy, a boater, and a semi-evolved human being, this does not fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling toward the state that gave us that Gandhi-like milestone of Anita Bryant   (and we won't even begin to delve into the murkiness of Jeb "hanging chad" Bush).

Fact is, over the next few days I'm going to be letting a lot of Florida business interests know just why "So It Goes" will not be visiting Florida and why I won't be buying stuff from chandleries, sail lofts and suchlike who are from the state that houses the Orange Bowl. Just call it my Don't-ask-for-stuff-from-Florida-and-Tell-everyone-I-know-to-go-someplace-more-civilized rag!

Just to be fair... I'll be more than happy to go back to Florida to shoot a remake of "Queer as Folk" set within the boating community, if only to hear the evil whining sound of Anita Bryant spinning like a top...

The simple solution to perfecto scarfs...

One of the things about tools is that they can vastly improve your workmanship and in some cases really save a lot of time. I can't think of a better example than the West System Scarfer which fits on your circular saw only does one thing but it sure does it well.

Of course, you can set up a jig for your router or electric plane and some of us have been known to simply just do it by eye, but for plywood 10mm and under the scarfer simply kicks some serious butt...

On the future not being what you expected it to be...

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"... Hunter S. Thompson

Being the guy in the anchorage with an electric propulsion system is something of an eye-opener in more ways than one, the saddest of which, is people simply don't get it...

And, it's just not on electric propulsion, it's about the way we tend to think dumb and not see the BIG PICTURE. It's almost like people want to get it wrong as the same old same old is comfortable.

When I was a kid in third grade, I remember learning about how the internal combustion engine was polluting, inefficient and dependent on fossil fuels (which were finite) and that the future needed some other form of power. Fast forward almost fifty years (man, you don't know how much it hurts to write that...) to the future and you'd think that we'd all be driving jet packs, hydrogen cars and suchlike.

But, nope, apparently the future cuts into rich peoples profits and as a result has been cancelled. Well, to be truthful, they want to cancel it but they only did it in a sorta/kinda way because people want to grow and learn and in spite of a real and serious attempt to dumb down the population. There are a lot of real bright people doing smart things on a cottage industry level as the tools to take on big business are now mostly acccessible and in spite of the dour economy, a lowest common denominator press, and bought and paid for politicians, we are actually living in a time of great opportunity and excitement... If only you know where to look!

But to find it you have to look in a different place as the future is most certainly not the same old same or business as usual... but it is here and it is accessible if maybe hiding just around the corner or much more likely in plain sight.

It's a future of choice and as all futures it is uncharted territory, scary and fraught with danger just as it is filled with promise and reward. You simply have to  get with the program and start moving forward.

Dicken's pretty much said it all in "A Tale of Two Cities"...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."

A film you should see... "The Cove"

It was so nice to see that "The Cove" won a well deserved Academy Award, as it is both a good film and an important one...

 

See it, or better yet get a copy, and show it to friends and then do something about it!

Steampunk anyone?

There are times when being on a sailboat in paradise is somewhat problematic...

For certain, there is not a lot of art, music or much in the way of reading material you do not bring down yourself in one way or another. Or, to put it another way, most cruising grounds are something of a cultural boondocks.

Which is not to say the various cruising grounds do not have their own culture which is both enticing and interesting, but when we leave the docklines behind one of the things we give up is that broad cultural smorgasbord too many of us take for granted. Some of us miss that. So it is something you might want to factor in before leaving.

Which brings me to the subject of Steampunk (any Steampunkish readers out there?). Just yesterday I saw there was a Steampunk film festival in San Francisco and it made me think how neat an event it would be to attend. Then with a great sigh, realized that not one of the films shown would ever make it to the Caribbean unless carried as a DVD by a cruiser which would mean they would arrive down here some time in 2014...

So it goes!

Changing directions... A gray day in paradise

Yesterday I was helping a friend realign and reseat a bulkhead and sort out the foundation of his new galley. While we worked, the conversation was all over the place (as it tends to be) and included plans for "where next"...

My friend, who needs to go back up to the east coast realized he needed to start looking for a couple of folks interested in getting some blue water experience for the sail from St Martin to NYC/Montauk and while we talked about his plans, I realized I simply had no idea where my plans would lead for the upcoming "H' season.

We've been hearing a steady stream of unhappy static regarding Trinidad on the coconut telegraph, which makes us favor Bequia or the ABC's (Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao) but truth be told, once we have the mast up and sea trials finished it will be more than likely that the choice of where to spend "H" season will be based on which way the wind is blowing on the day we want to leave...

Kinda works for me!

A boat with no masts...

We were planning on crossing over to the Med in the upcoming crossing window but as various things seemed to get in the way it makes sense to hang around the Caribbean for another year...

One of the reasons for going over to Europe (other than torturing French folks with my Spanish cow rendition of their language) is the fact that a good chunk of our charter business is derived from peniche charters on the canals of Europe and it is no bad thing to spend time on the canals from time to time both from a business and simple enjoyment level as the canals of Europe simply are one of the great places to be...

Having done the whole mast on the deck craziness of cruising the canals with a sailboat before, I had a... well, the words cunning plan sort of sums it up, where I would build a tiny canal boat that we could use instead of having to drop the mast, put it on the deck, and later put it up again. Plus, the idea of having a small "pied-à-eau" on the canals would make it much easier to pop back and forth for visits and suchlike... Fact is I was really looking forward to building a non-sail boat for a change and seeing just how efficient I could get in terms of the most living space I could get into a smallest possible envelope...

The design I have in mind is the "Jolly Boat", a 22'9" little canal cruiser from the drawing board of Philip Thiel who is best known for his bicycle powered canal cruiser "Escargot" which always reminded me of a mini waterborne gypsy caravan crossed with a British narrow boat. While small the interior is both sensible and very livable.

What's more, is for those obsessed with building stuff themselves, it is so easily built and affordable that it makes all kinds of sense for someone who needs a design that could be built in a hurry and put to use in the minimum amount of time.

Not enough hours in a day department...

What with building a new mast, sails and getting this rolling assemballage of projects to some place safe for "H" season has me wondering where all of the time goes... So, truth be told, I'm not all warm and fuzzy about the fact that the recent 8.8 scale earthquake has shortened our days!

While the shortening of our days (1.26 microseconds) is real tiny the earthquake also has shifted the axis of the Earth by about three inches...

Scary just how fragile our Spaceship Earth is!

Not your everyday nesting dinghy... YOWZA!

Benjy over at Wooden Widget  just dropped me a line about his new dinghy design...

Now, you may remember I was some kind of impressed with his little "Deckster" dinghy based on the Hobie Mirage drive, as well as his very neat and practical folding "Origami" dinghy. Being a Flicka guy, I guess, just makes Benjy want to come up with ever more cunning and clever dinghy solutions for the deck-space impaired!

The newbie design in the Wooden Widget stable, called the "Stasha", is all kinds of interesting as it takes off where Platt Monfort left off and becomes the lightest (at 22 pounds) nesting dinghy you are likely to find anywhere!

I mean does this seriously rock or what?