A thought and a challenge...

In these dark days of out-of-control-consumerism, one of the few things that gives me hope is a small but growing trend of people who make things... You know, the sort of people who read Make magazine, go to Maker faires, and build Steam Punk stuff or robots on their days off (instead of going shopping at the Mall). You know, the sort of people who have the power to make a better world...

What makes it all even better in these days of computers and  spin-offs, it is now possible for individual people to actually set up small and efficient mini factories and workshops that gives them the ability to actually get their product to market in a cost-effective and professional manner if the need arises. What is even more exciting is that is is more than possible to do such a thing from (dare I say it) a sailboat!

Which is something that very well may come in handy as the marine trades seem less and less concerned with the likes of us, the cruising sailor, these days, and more concerned catering to the more wealthy sectors of the yachting world. Sadly I've been told by a couple of marine tradesmen that working on smaller cruising boats is simply a money losing proposition as there are bigger fish for them.

Personally, I'd much prefer to buy gear designed and built by someone who actually has a clue about sailing and the needs of the cruising sailor, as well as supporting said builder/designer while he cruises in the process. When you think of it's a no-brainer!

Boat Bits would love to hear from any such folks whether you have sorted out a better WIFI system, some sort of sailing gear or a product/design that makes life aboard a cruising boat better or safer. I know there are folks out there doing just this sort of stuff and for those who are not, the big question is... WHY THE HELL NOT?

So, if you are doing something cunning and clever or if you know someone who is doing the make-smart-stuff for folks on boats, send us info here and we will do what we can to spread the word...

To help get your juices flowing, check out this cool video from Kent Weakley
from a recent Maker Faire...

Talking about good times...

Hey yeah, I'll admit yesterday's posts were kind of downers... To be truthful, I am very near finishing the mast and the only thing keeping me from it has been this ongoing deluge of rain which has been sporadic for like 40 days... Just the sort of thing that makes you see all glasses as half full, bought & paid for politicians, and maggots in suits for what they really are... but I digress!

I'd much rather look at the positive side today...

... and speaking of positive, I can't think of anything more positive than getting together with your zombie-in-the-know-brethren at Zombie Con 2010! Sadly, I'll not be attending but it sure looks like a whole lot of fun for not a lot of money!Maybe they'll have Zombie CON 2011 in the Med...

Since we've touched on things Zombie... I should also point out that Walking Dead Volume 12 is almost out! Both a positive and happy making situation!

Not to mention the new June Latitude 38 is out and as always there is a lot of good stuff inside. Even better, Latitude 38 is FREE (and you all know that the best sailing magazine around being free always brings a smile to Mr Cheapseats!)

Plus, Sunday is Waffle day... Life (with the exception of the greatest ecological disaster in history) is good...

Dog and pony show...

So the President of the United States visited the oil spill and BP put on a dog and pony show, or maybe The President was part of it...

How dumb do they think we are?

Kind of like getting the lights of New Orleans up and running for the last President's visit back after Katrina and turning them off when he left...

Business as usual it would seem... S.N.A.F.U.

Like a good neighbor... Or some days I just give up hope

A truly uplifting story...

The travel element...

I've always loved to travel and some of my best memories are of airports and planes. Being a cameraman I have been lucky to be able to travel to exotic places as part of my job but then the future happened...

Travel quit being fun.

Air travel has become such an unhappy exercise these days that if I can't go someplace by boat or bike, of course, I'm not sure that I want to go at all. That said, as the world is 70.8% water, you can (with a little shuck and jive) pretty much get anywhere worth going by sailboat in a civilized manner (albeit not real quickly).  We have noticed it in our charter clients as well. These days too many of our clients simply balk at the hassle of flying and are choosing vacations closer to home that do not involve air travel.

Though having a charter business makes us part of the overall travel industry, we are lucky that as yet most charter boats have resisted the very strong and somewhat relentless forces to treat their clients like so much cattle and cash cows as the airlines/hotels/resorts seem to be doing with the spiral of higher prices and less service norm. We are fortunate that we can pick and choose only the best boats and crews and that the charter industry is still very much old school (spelled excellent service and fair pricing) and has not become the homogenized MacDonald's sort of profit-is-everything-lowest-common-denominator franchise some companies are trying to make it.

Sadly, there is some scary writing on the wall and "big changes come soon" as they say here in the islands... Hopefully the charter industry (or at least parts of it) will continue to survive, evolve and remain a viable alternative for those who want a better experience than what the tourism industry is trying to sell these days...

A lot of Boat Bits readers write (enough that we have actually considered doing a charter workshop) and ask about the possibility of charter as a means of keeping the cruising kitty topped up. While possible, it is a lot more work than most people think and nowhere near as lucrative... Then again, for those willing to do it right and with a positive attitude it can be a VERY rewarding experience in a way that cannot be measured solely in dollars and cents. For those considering this option there is a real need and  shortage of good boats and crews in the charter fleet who have what it takes and are able to look outside the box at the big picture in these "interesting times".

Like I said... Not for everyone!

A pretty awesome design... Territoire

One of the reasons we have kept our "only temporary" CAL 34 for so long has a lot to do with the fact that it is pretty close to perfect boat for a couple cruising... Albeit just a kiss small for a filmmaker and boatbuilder who feels he needs to travel with the tools of his trade.

Of course, for a lot of cruisers who don't feel the need to travel with their tools of the trade and simply go off cruising, the CAL or even something a bit smaller would be no bad choice. With some of the modern designs going a kiss smaller is not really going to be giving up anything as these days boats are a bit beamier and with added beam you can pick up a lot of interior space in a hurry!

Here is a good example... Territoire, designed by Eric Henseval at nine meters (just under 30 feet) and with a beam of 3.33 meters (just under 11 feet) has, if anything, a kiss more interior volume than our CAL 34 "So It Goes" in a very livable envelope.

Now the CAL has that old school interior which has both advantages and disadvantages... but when all is said and done, the interiors of both boats are equally livable. Though just a personal opinion, I do prefer the booth style dinette of the CAL...

Territoire, like the CAL 34, would be no slouch on performance as it has a lot in common with the Mini class and its heritage shows.

To say I like Territoire would be something of an understatement and from what I have seen, it would go together in a hurry the flat panel construction in 12MM and 15MM ply being both an easy and smart way to put a boat together... Then again, no boat is ever perfect, and if I were to build this I'd think long and hard about adding a hard dodger and in the process extend a lip from the coach roof to give just that little bit of space to hide from weather and suchlike.

One of the really nice things I find looking at designs coming from the board of Eric Henseval is that they strongly remind me of the work of the late Philip Harle who remains my favorite French designer of cruising boats. Harle always got the balance between livability and performance right which is no easy thing. Eric, from what I hear, is currently working up an 11 meter design which I have high hopes for... But more about that another day!

Watch the video...

Just as an aside oil from the Gulf disaster is expected to start showing up in the Bahamas this weekend....

The need/want conundrum...

When we were living on the peniche "Black Moon" on the Seine the peniche moored next to us was "Cornelia" and Guy and Ruth would have us over for Sunday dinner and a sauna...

Yes a sauna!

The sauna on "Cornelia" did double duty as the central heating system and made a whole lot of sense as Paris is not unknown for its chilly winters. More than once doing the "jump off the snow covered deck after sauna plunge" into the Seine, I was reminded just how cold Paris and environs can be... Or even the south of France on occasion as this picture of the peniche "Emma" shows...

Of course, the sauna on "Cornelia" was big enough to have a bunch of people and impossible to place within a sailboat of anything less than mega-yachtish proportions, but I have always had the wish of a small sauna that would fit into a cruising sailboat... Which is why I found these barrel saunas so interesting. You could almost fit them inside a sailboat!

Of course, I don't need a sauna on the boat but I sure as hell would like one and given that there is some high/low latitude cruising foreseen in the hopefully not too distant future... Just maybe I can massage it into the need vs want list...Chilean Fjords and a sauna do paint a nice picture...

Lost... or a problem of semi-epic proportions

Nobody ever tells you the real problems about living on a boat in paradise...

Just about everybody is aware that yesterday the last episode of Lost happened yesterday... The problem for the likes of us on sailing vessel "So It Goes" is that we are always about a year behind in watching our favorite shows like "Lost", "NCIS" and "House" as we have to wait for the DVD's to come out get them to wherever we happen to be...

Which is not so bad really, as watching the DVD version is a better experience all around (and no commercials) but the time lag, is at best, somewhat problematic!

Of course, this morning there is no end to articles and suchlike about "Lost". All containing various spoilers and other tidbits that I can't read as that would ruin the viewing experience next year when we finally are able to buy and watch the final series.

Something to consider when you write to friends on a boat someplace... Leave out the spoilers!

Sanding thoughts... The mast continues and the oil is still flowing.

Well, I wanted to be reflecting on surfboards and clever/cunning means of building them, but hand sanding thirty-seven odd feet of mast takes you to darker places...

Like the fact that in the Gulf of Mexico that well is still spewing an Exxon Valdez's worth of oil EVERY DAY and the powers that be are letting the folks who are responsible for it still call the shots... Some kind of scary.

I live on my boat and like anyone who spends 365 days a year floating on the ocean one develops a certain feel for OMO (Our Mother Ocean) and a certain anger or rage is not so much a surprise when folks in the name of greed, hurt it.

Then again, when sanding by hand, one can channel that anger into a very productive work day and today I have the blisters to prove it...

A decision has been made... The perfect dinghy cam!

Cleaning up the mast and getting it ready for carbon tows and glassing is a great way to clear your mind and sort out undecided issues as you work... There just seems to be something about the act of planing wood mixed with the output of the iPod  (Little Feat) to make all things clear!

Which is why I have finally come to the decison of the right camera for the sailing video project I'm doing which calls for something able to be mounted remotely, stuck on the end of a boat hook (for those up-close-and-personal shots of a shark or MahiMahi about to be landed) and as a general workhorse camera that will shoot HD video and be the perfect dinghy cam...

Hell, I might even mount it on a surfboard... Speaking of surfboards, I'm pretty sure I'll be thinking about which surfboard to build in today's mast travail...

Business is so good... rant on!

Boat Bits gets a lot of press releases for various new products which I just can't bring myself to pass on as almost all of them are... Well, the word "stupid" does come to mind... maybe the word I am really looking for is "superfluous" to actually sailing or living on a boat.

Which is really frustrating as I love gear that brings something positive to the party, so to speak, and I'd love to pass such things on to my readers... but all I seem to get is dumb stuff whose sole purpose seems to be in parting folks on boats with their hard earned dollars.

There also seems to be no shortage of gnashing of teeth and howling at the moon on how awful the marine trades and companies are doing these days (and yeah, I know the economy is a sinking ship with a clueless "can do" er, "can't really" crew at the helm more intent on rearranging the deck chairs rather than getting the frelling boat off the reef) but here's a thought...

Simply do your job...

Since we need a whole new suit of sails for the new proto-Simplicity rig and time is tight, we spent more than a little time sending emails and letters to various sail lofts asking for quotes on a new suit of sails (main/jib/staysail/Storm sails/drifter) which is no small chunk of money and as the marine industry is in such dire straights I expected to get back some pretty competitive quotes on new sails...

Guess what? Out of fifteen lofts I queried I got three back (and those three were all in Hong Kong) none of the USA lofts apparently needed the business or just maybe they did not get my mail?

So I queried again and only got a few quotes, all of which were wrong as apparently they had not read my letter or looked at the attached sail plan which just does not fill me with either a warm fuzzy feeling or C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-C-E!

Sadly, the fact is that all of the various lofts DID get my quote requests as now I find myself on their mailing lists and get no end of offers for various bits of sailing/logo bric and brac (hats, wallets, sunglasses croakies and briefcases) which they seem far more eager to sell than... SAILS!

Which brings us to the only real standout in the entire mix... Sailrite who got quotes to me within 24 hours and actually quoted on the sails I requested and got them right. What's more is that when we ordered a sail kit they sent it promptly and we had their product in our hands within ten days...

Which brings us around to the whole business thing again...  The sailing biz has lost its way, it would seem, and for the most part has forgot it is here to serve the client with quality products that we can depend on when we go offshore and in return they get our hard earned money... It's as simple as that. They do a good job and they get our money. If times are hard, maybe they should be looking at their customer service and the quality of their products, rather than finding new over-priced nautical sailing-themed bric a brac to separate us from our hard earned dollars.

Rant over.

Lifeboat stations...

I pretty much quit paying attention to yacht racing when guys like Ted Turner were replaced by the likes of Connors and suchlike... Without guys like Ted Turner, yacht racing became a boring corporate event.

Ted Turner has always been somewhat ahead of the curve in everything he's done and as such, has had no small number of people call him crazy in the process... As someone who worked in news, I remember very clearly how everyone in the industry was convinced that Ted Turner creating CNN was a project destined to abject failure.

Yeah, right...  Crazy like a fox.

Not only was Turner one of the all time great sailors, he seems to be one of those people who can see outside of the box while others don't even know they are in one...

So when Ted Turner says something I listen closely...

"Sad. It's sad. You know, I'm not a real religious person, but I'm somewhat religious. And I'm just wondering if God's telling us he doesn't want us to drill offshore, because it sure is setting back offshore drilling. And right before that, we had that coal mine disaster in West Virginia where we lost 29 miners. And last week -- or two days ago, the Chinese lost 29 miners, too, in another mine disaster over in China. It seems like there's one over there every week.

 "And maybe, you know, the Lord's tired of having the mountains of West Virginia, the tops knocked off of them so they can get more coal. I think maybe we ought to just leave the coal in the ground and go with solar and wind power and geothermal where it's applicable."

Yeah crazy... Right?

An excellent resource... Rowdy Kittens!

One of my daily reads is the Blog Rowdy Kittens, and while not about boats (though bikes often do get a mention) it has a whole lot to say about the whole "I-live-on-a-sailboat-and-sail-places" lifestyle.

Lots and lots... Check it out!

So what's a cruiser.... really

Over at a forum I follow there was some passing mention of "Real Cruisers" as opposed to those (who I guess) were not real cruisers...

The whole "I-live-on-a-sailboat-and-sail-places" gig is not the homogeneous group it once was and there are many sub-groups in the mix and, to put it bluntly, not all of them play well together.

So how do you define a real cruiser?

Some would say you are only a real cruiser if you are in the same socio-economic bracket... others would say that unless you sail hard and fast you don't quite belong... Others might say that being a WASP is a big part of it... I could go on but it gets both boring and depressing... Humans really do seem to love making categories and putting people in little boxes.

Our last boat, Loose Moose 2, was something of a freak show and really, really pissed off no small number of people. This situation often drove me nuts, but was a considerable blessing in disguise in that it was something of a bigot detector of the first order and to our benefit kept most of the fools, incompetents and people of limited vision on the other side of the anchorage.

 Life was good on Loose Moose 2...

The fact is that there are a lot of really good people out cruising and, as far as I'm concerned, if they are doing it on a beat up CAL 20 with super miniscule budget and having to work along the way to provide for their needs or on a Super Custom Whatever 65 with an overflowing trust fund, they are all the same to me (though truth be told more often than not I find the cheapseats cruisers to be a whole lot more interesting as those trust fund folks are always so depressed...).

Whatever group we folks on boats less than a mega-yacht fall into we still tend to be perceived as trailer trash (and face it, if I were living on land I'd be living in an Airstream) to those ashore whether it is a beat up old CAL 20 or an Amel Super Maramu ... Which is no bad thing to keep in mind when deciding that the new boat in the anchorage is "not one of us".

Another neat design from the board of Eric Henseval...

Yesterday I got a note from Eric Henseval who had just got back from a 1500-mile sail which took him from Brittany to the Baleric Islands in the Med via way of Gibraltar... You may remember Eric as the designer of the little 4.75 meter Souriceau.

Eric also mentioned that he had a couple new designs up his sleeve (always a good thing) as well as hints of things to come...

While a very cool design, the Souriceau is still a very, very small boat and I am sure that something along the same lines, if just that kiss bigger, would be no bad thing. Eric tells me that Souricea has a big brother, the Aviateur...

While still tiny by most peoples standards at 5.7 meters, the Aviateur is still a lot of boat and more than able to take you anywhere you might care to take it.

Like most of the exciting designs coming out of France these days, the boat is built in plywood and a great example of how to design an easily built hull. Throw in the fact that this minimum go anywhere boat can be put on a trailer and come home when needful... What's not to like?

I like the sound of "adventure bikes"...

The other day I was talking bikes with someone while working on the mast and I found myself in a quandary trying to find a term that fit the sort of bike I have in mind for the "NEXT" bike...

The sort of bike I have in mind is something of a hybrid but the term hybrid (or at least bikes associated with the term) these days seems to have a serious YUCK factor so coming to a term to describe the sort of bike that really makes sense for someone to use as one's sole ride for a cruising boat lifestyle has not been easy. Well, till today!

One of our favorite bicycle reads is the blog from Black Mountain Cycles who aptly nailed the term as "Adventure Bike" which makes all kinds of sense...

As it happens, Black Mountain Cycles has just about my whole short list of bikes that meet my needs in stock and priced to move...

Why ride a bike?

So how is the SPOT doing...

Just to answer a few readers questions about SPOT. Here is our friend's current position and SPOT track...

He seems to be making pretty good time and while there was one less Spot message a couple of days ago (which could have been a missed message or simply that they did not send one) it appears to be working just fine.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

There is a point on all boatbuilding projects where you reach that "is this job never going to end?" headbanging stage...

Only being able to work a couple of hours a day due to weather and demands of our charter clients has had us in the land of frustration and worse.

Luckily we turned the corner and there be some light (though dim) at the end of the tunnel...

Life is good!

Some thoughts on the mark 2 head for "So It Goes"

Having built our own semi-composting head for "So It Goes", I have been considering possible improvements to the system... The problem is that I can't really see any improvement to do except to design/build a better seat unit more oriented to life at sea rather than the Privy Kit seat we have been using. The new seat is no great priority and when I get around to it as it would be needful to build a mold I just might make a bunch... Anyone interested?

Which I guess means that all things considered the composting head project has been something of a success.

As long as we know where our towel is, there is no need to panic...

Since we were talking about SPOT yesterday, I think it is only fair to touch on a  subject that seems way too obvious to mention but looking at today's mailbag, apparently not so...

Communication while on passage is a somewhat dodgy affair at best. Once you get out of cellphone range (or in my view further, than you can yell) all bets are off and plans for your passage should reflect this.

It does not really matter whether you have SSB, HAM, Sat-Phone, SPOT, two-dixie-cups-and-a-very-very-long-string or whatever the flavor of the month communication device you might have can fail. If there is one law at sea that you should depend on it's Murphy's.

Being out of communication is not even a bad thing because we all are self-sufficient or should be. The fact that when setting off across the Atlantic or other long passage it should be planned for that (for instance) if the SSB (or whatever) packs up because you left a port open and it got wet and shorted out that your friends or family will not set off a giant search and rescue effort to find you simply because you missed a couple of radio check-ins...

When we do a long passage we tell those on our SPOT list that we are leaving towards (remember never to) X and if luck is with us that we should be somewhere or other by a certain date give or take a couple of weeks and whatever happens to the SPOT signal (short of the emergency message) not to worry and we will call you from someplace when we get there.

Schedules are hard to keep at sea. We once sat a hundred and fifty miles from the Cape Verde islands heading towards Martinique with not a breath of wind for over two weeks waiting for the trades to develop. This put our planned passage way behind schedule but that is just part of what sailing is about. We did not need rescuing, we were simply waiting for wind.

We once had a charter client's mother call us panicked out of her mind, because her daughter must have been abducted by pirates in the BVI. The reason she gave for this knowledge was that her daughter calls her everyday and as she missed a day we should call out the Marines or some-such... I'm not exactly sure why the daughter did not call but I'd hazard a guess that it being her honeymoon she may have had better things to do or had simply got a gander at the silly roaming charges that the Boat Phone folks charged... Anyway, whatever the reason for not calling, the Mom was seriously panicked and she was ready to call the Coast Guard and all the powers that be to save her daughter. I get that... It's scary being a parent.

So it is very important to let those close to us know just what is involved and explain that in a lot of places in the world you just can't always call home and not to worry when it happens.

So it goes...

It's cheap and it works... SPOT

A lot of people don't get the fact that there really is some good gear available to us that does not cost an arm and a leg. The home truth is that more often than not the cost of something has zip to do with its functionality.

For instance, over the years we have had ZERO problems with kludgey NASA Marine bits of gear we have owned (known far and wide as the cheapest of the cheap) and NOTHING but PROBLEMS with our Raymarine/Autohelm gear and awful customer service when it fails (and my friends so far they ALWAYS fail). So in our experience the true test of good gear is that if it works it's good and if it does not it's crap... Price is simply not a factor that carries any weight when you are further out than you'd care to swim home.

Which brings us to SPOT... Something of a favorite on the various forums to put down and dismiss as a "toy" or "dangerous" and "not nearly as good as a $1000 EPIRB"... Most of the people making said comments don't have a SPOT, have not used a SPOT and some of them have never even seen a SPOT... Am I making a point?

When we bought our SPOT it was with some serious reservations as we have not had the best run of luck with the parent company GlobalStar whose Sat Phone we have been using for years (the phone could have worked a whole lot better than it did but it did work... and just for the record we still have a GlobalStar with a lot of spares for sale if anyone is interested) so we bought our SPOT with the understanding that there was a strong possibility that it might not work as advertised... Luckily, the unit we bought worked very well and so far all of the people we have run into with SPOTs or who write us here at Boat Bits central seem to find the SPOT works just fine and dandy in spite of the fact that it does not cost an arm and a leg! Which, when all is said and done, is no bad thing...

On the other hand the SPOT does not have full world coverage but for most folks the coverage is ample and if you are going further you simply have to make allowances. The point is the SPOT is not an end all or replacement for an EPIRB but a way of keeping people in the know of where you are and it is important to school those on your contact list not to over react if you are out of range, forget to send or your batteries go down...You know the drill.

A friend is sailing up to NY from here and he left yesterday... Because he has a SPOT  I can keep track of where he is and what's up. Better yet, his wife and kids up in NY can keep track of him as well... Again, no bad thing!

It works...

Of course, for those who just can't take gear seriously unless it costs a truckload of money, I'll happily sell them my old Raymarine gear for an elevated silly price (as I can't seem to even give the crap away at swap meets) or maybe I can interest them in some Harken not-so-goodness and if either of those interest you, I still have that tower in Paris...

People doing it...

It's just so cool being able to be in contact and even blog while crossing the Pacific...

 Syzygy Sailing doing it in style!

Is not progress wonderful?

More drill baby drill... You turn on the greed switch the brain turns off

So you need to drill an oil well offshore... What better place to drill than a dumping ground for unexploded munitions (things that go boom)!

Didn't know that the Gulf of Mexico was the largest dumping ground for munitions?

Neither did I! Apparently it's just 30 million pounds of explosives so nothing to worry about I guess...

S.N.A.F.U

For more info check out Crooks and Liars...

Just as an aside, Moldy Chum points out that since this disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began, the powers that be have granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Makes all kinds of sense...

BS... some pithy thought from Sailing Anarchy!

Sailing Anarchy has something to say about Jessica Watson and the powers that be...

"what bullshit ... As you know, we loath the officious way much of this sport is run, and we speak out about it whenever warranted. So when we heard that Jessica Watson will be denied world record status of being the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, we took a look at it and are calling bullshit, not only on the facts, but the whiners who are complaining about Watson.

"It turns out that in order to meet the strict criteria of the record, she had to sail 21,600 miles, but apparently is going to come up short of that. So what? Did she not 'start and return from the same port, cross all meridians of longitude and cross the equator, as required to complete her journey'? The answer is yes, yes and yes. Yet in order to claim the record, she needed to add some 2,000 miles to her tally, miles which are extraneous, unnecessary and a perfect example of the officious aspect of which we speak.

"And we find it ridiculous that the wank from sail world is squawking the loudest about Watson's record not being valid. How about instead of whining like a little bitch about that the the 'official' rules were not met, just call it for what it is - she's the youngest to do what she did. Celebrate it, call it a record, and stop acting like a douche. A tall order, we know.

"But who cares what he says? We think, and we bet most of you do too, that Jessica kicked ass, will meet the definitions of being the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, and deserves official recognition for it. Screw the wankers who claim otherwise."

I could not have said it better myself as Sailing Anarchy said it so well!
RLW

A very cool guitar idea... Voyage-Air Guitars

For those of us guitar addicts who can't get their heads around the "travel guitar" solution and find that a quiver of full sized guitars take up far too much space, there may be another option...

 Looks like a normal full sized Dreadnought... Right?

How cool is this? A folding guitar that fits into a case that can be carried on an airplane!

What's better, from all reports, it is far from being a gimmick and is showing up in the hands of some very solid and savvy guitar players... a real guitar that folds.

I'd love to be able to find the room for a couple more acoustics and this one might be just the thing for a take-it-to-the-beach sort of guitar... or maybe this one for cockpit duty... Apparently they also have a "Les-Paulish" P90 pickup solid body...

...and nothing says slide to me like P-90 pickups.

The only thing that I find lacking in the line is NO 12 STRINGS... but it's early days yet and just maybe Voyage-Air will do the right thing and start building one because "So It Goes" could always use another 12 String!

Saving a few bucks is always nice...

We really like Harmony House products and they are the backbone of our long range provisioning plan. So it is always nice when you can save a bit when stocking the larder and as Harmony House is having a 15% discount through Sunday... It's kind of a no-brainer for us.



Just use the code MOM

What goes through your mind...Mast project Day 13

It's funny what goes through your mind when you are working on a boat project...

I really do need a new iPod... I have to get more music from Glossary, "Blood on the Knobs" is such a great song...

Hmmm... the boom conundrum... If I could swap this dimension for that, I could make that work, but I'd need more carbon... More carbon would allow me the scrap to do the "soft pad eyes" sort of thing for the lazy jacks... that they had in the last issue of "EpoxyWorks"...YES!

Jeez... Why the hell did I put that song on my iPod? Why is it when the song you want to skip comes up you have all sorts of wet epoxy on your hands? Crap, where's a paper towel... Will vinegar etch the iPod...

Would a center cockpit work out in the canal cruiser I'm designing? Need to talk to Scott at Electric Yacht about a canal propulsion system...

Cute lizard...

Ham and SSB goodness...

Yagi antennas on the whole are not so boat friendly but they could be useful so the idea of a collapsible Yagi makes all kinds of sense...

Diana Eng shows us how to make one... Great stuff!

Taking advantage of a slow pace... mast project day 10-12

I hate working on a project at a pace dictated by stuff I can't control (like the weather) which is one of the reasons I always try and have all the bits sorted and in hand so I don't find myself in that start/stop/wait cycle... So far in twelve days of working on the mast I've only been able to work one full day.

The "plan" was to have the bare mast finished within two weeks and while it most certainly will be finished within the two weeks of labor window the various bits of rain and so on has kind of thrown the whole two weeks window into a tizzy... So it goes.

On the other hand, waiting around to be able to get back to the mast (it is raining as I write this) has given me some time to come up with various mods and improvements to the project which is the sort of thing I normally come up with AFTER I've finished a project which goes into the "Jnana... I should have done it this way..."

That said and newly hatched cunning plans aside, the next mast I build will be inside a hanger and NOT done in a parking lot...

The worst part of cruising...

It may surprise some, but the single biggest hassle most folks on boats have to deal with is not fixing engines, repairing sails or dealing with problematic customs and immigration officials...

The really hard part of cruising on a sailboat is simply doing the laundry.

Not only is doing the laundry a hassle at the best of times but it eats up fresh water and anyone who has been on a boat for a while becomes seriously stingy about water usage which makes doing the laundry doubly frustrating... It's a yucky job at the best of times and all that water going down the drain!

Over the years we have tried just about every sort of hand washing regime including buckets with plungers, buckets with hands, washboards and suchlike and it just seems a little backwards in 2010 to be doing your wash in a bucket...

We've also tried manual pressure wash machines which sorta/kinda work and currently have a small electric agitate only machine which works but we never ever use so it just takes up room in the cockpit locker...

We have considered the various RV/Small apartment units but having noticed that most folks with these systems seem to be doing very expensive repairs on a regular basis and even when they work still wind up taking their laundry to the local laundry service if one is handy.

Actually the problem has never been about washing clothes, as washing is easy. The real problem is in the rinsing of said clothing and that is the difficult part of the equation as it is the part of the process that eats up water, time and energy.

I keep hoping for some sort of George Jetson harmonic dirt removing gun or robot thingy...

Not going to happen!

I do see just a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel with a new washing machine that Electrolux has up its sleeve though I'm afraid it is still in the concept stage.

Apparently this unit is so small you can hang it on a wall and while it only does small (cruiser sized?) loads, the important thing is it uses less than a gallon per load. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for this one when it comes to market...

On pissing people off... the bottom line

Every once in awhile, I touch on politics and consumer affairs of various sorts because, even as an itinerant boat pimp and filmmaker sitting on a boat in some anchorage, I am affected by what goes on in the world and it is my right (since I carry a passport of a free democracy) to give voice to those worries and thoughts.

If you don't like it, there is a plethora of other blogs and websites devoted to various nautical and sailing themes that not reading Boat Bits would be problematic in way of your nautical reading needs.

Yesterday's post apparently really pissed some people off, and that bothers me. Partly because it was something of a softball of the very mild variety and partly because those who got angry totally missed the point.

I could have gone on and on about how people running things lie, tell you something is SAFE and then when it all falls apart become mute or simply tell us that "accidents happen" when in fact the fact that accidents happen most often because proper precautions and planning were never part of the mix because that would impair profits...

The problem is not oil or the drilling of oil or transport... The problem is greed and the fact that those running the show lie to us more often than not. It would be no bad thing to read yesterdays/last weeks/last years news from time to time and see how the promises of safety and need jibe with the reality of today. Hindsight really is 20/20.

For those Boat Bits readers who simply don't want any reality checks thrown in with the  nautical and maritime ramblings the answer is really simple. Delete us from your RSS feed or simply don't come round anymore or, better yet, deal with what's here in an adult manner.

Boat Bits is simply going to continue to do what it does...