A film I've been waiting for...

An excellent post on the subject of marinas, good point being made, and in the "So this is what thoughts and prayers accomplish" department... 

What I'll be watching tonight.

Listening to five good covers  

So it goes...

Friday the 13th and a bad moon rising...

Interesting, an important question, and some insightful words about what's happened to country music...

Anyone who's crossed an ocean under sail, while they may not admit it, has some up-close-and-personal experience with things that go bump in the night... and we're not talking about containers.

There's some weird shit out there.

Now, as to what that weird shit might be I don't really know what it is (nor do I care to) but there are places far from land where it seems that the fabric of reality gets stretched a little thin and all of sudden, if but for a moment, you're sailing on some other world entirely. Which can be exhilarating/scary or scary/exhilarating but either way for most it is an experience best taken in smallish doses and, for others (I suspect you know who you are), best avoided entirely.

Not listening to Taylor Swift

So it goes...

armchairs and suchlike...

How not to engender respect for authority, something to think about, and this might make a lot of sense on a boat...

This morning I had several emails asking me what I thought about the Rebel Heart saga...

Boy, talk about a whole lot of Monday morning quarterbacking... The bandwidth on the rescue and loss of Rebel Heart is simply staggering.The internet is a scary thing.

Scary, I might add, in a very negative way.

The fact is: no matter what boat you choose, how well prepared you are, or how many i's dotted and t's crossed Murphy's law is a major force to be reckoned with. No one is immune.

No one...

More importantly armchairs seldom, if ever, give you the sort of vantage point to understand how clusterfucks happen, what someone should have done to avoid said clusterfuck, and what they should have done to sort things out once the clusterfuck was in play.

So, nope I've nothing to really say on the subject...

Listening to Jethro Tull

So it goes...

Stuff that goes bump in the night

Boys will be boys (an apparently not uncommon attitude), worth reading, and if you're not worried you're not paying attention...

Meanwhile, over in the Bay of Biscay, watchkeeping just got a whole lot more interesting... The Old Salt Blog (a blog I read every day) has the story.

Listening to the Bonzo Dog Band

So it goes...

Just another day in paradise...

Today's dose of "Crap like this", about losing hope, and something you should read if you're considering using titanium bits in your standing rigging...

Storms make me nervous. Seriously, shit can happen to you in a storm... Doesn't matter how well prepared you are there's always something that can bite you on the ass that is lurking out of your control just around the corner.

As for this storm it looks like it will pass safely to the south of us but we'll have some wind and it's only prudent to put another anchor down just in case. As long as we're being prudent, I'll also have a few fenders ready for other boats that might decide to go walkies and get up close and personal in the middle of the night.

Might be a good time to chase down that leak on the coach roof where the solar wires come through as well...

Listening to the Del Lords

So it goes...

Things that go bump in the night...

This sort of stupidity could make your brain explode, it's always more complicated than those in favor of the death penalty pretend, and, I never thought I'd ever say this, but Rick Santorum makes a rather astute observation (smart folks aren't on their side)...

When I got up this morning there was a new addition to the anchorage. A big honking white buoy. Luckily it did not bump into us on its way in but it does give pause to think of the number of things that you can bump into that are not where they should be...

One year making the crossing from the Canaries to Martinique we happened to be following a mega-sailboat that had loaded up with 55-gallon oil drums of fuel as they planned to motor across. So, for several days every few hours we'd come across a semi-floating bright yellow steel 55-gallon oil drum right on the nose... Sorta of a slalom course with teeth.

Lots of stuff to bump into...

Listening to the Alabama Shakes

So it goes...

Zombie anti-boarding tools...

Banks just can't help themselves, something about ALEC, and this morning zombies walk the green fields of Iowa...

I'll be the first to admit that keeping the boat zombie free is something of a chore and every once and awhile it is needful to rethink your various zombie defense tools and procedures...

The first line of defense is, of course, the required zombie anti-boarding placard...

...Which is about as effective as those other USCG placards we all use to cover holes in bulkheads. Readers may remember that my personal preference in anti-boarding tools is the Poleaxe (my trebuchet experiments not having been all that successful as of yet) and machete.

But don't you think it is about time that someone came up with a multi-tool for zombie defense?

Guess what?!



Listening to the Texas Tornados

So it goes...

Things that go bump and some trust issues...

Regarding the current "Big Lie",  some surfboard porn, and this is going to cause me some sleepless nights...

I woke up this morning thinking about a chunk of rock the size of an aircraft carrier and I would not be telling the truth if I did not mention the fact that I find it just a little nervous making.

I'm pretty sure I'd feel a lot better about it if we still had a real space program as the cutting of funds for space, weather, and other important programs has, more than likely, not left the best and brightest minds watching the skies for things that might go bump or doing calculations on trajectories for things they do see...

Then there is that little fact that we get lied to a lot these days by people who we elect into office. We keep seeing a trend of the powers that be doctoring the work of scientists because it gets in the way of various agendas... The Texas approach to climate change pops to mind. True, I do have some serious trust issues but in my defense, I have good reason to.

Not that this big chunk of rock is going to... you know, destroy the world, end civilization, or even ruin anyone's day but folks win lotteries all the time and the chances of that are not too different than two astronomical bodies bumping into each other...

Me, I'm off to go buy a couple of lottery tickets...

Listening to Dan Bern

So it goes...

October already? How the frell did that happen?

Mark Corke makes an excellent point about anti-fouling, Lectronic Latitude gives us the bottom line on cruising Mexico, and Black Mountain Cycles talks about instant gratification making some sense in the process...

Is it really October already?

Time... Well, time is a seriously scary thing and like a lot of things that are fearsome have a way of sneaking up on you. For instance, a lot of long time readers of Boat Bits have written from time to time and mentioned that they had long term plans and goals to get a boat and go cruising. I often wonder just how well those plans are going... Best not to wait too long or you may find that time is more than just scary and has something of a fast gait with wicked sharp teeth.

A short while ago I ran a poll on what our readers think a cruising boat should cost these days. The results (while not as numerous as I'd hoped) did show a trend and it would appear that Boat Bits readers have their collective shit together in terms of what a boat should actually cost.

Of course, it should also be said that any of the budgets listed in no way reflect what the folks in the marine industry and press suggest "You" spend for cruising boat... Might want to think about what that has to say about you and your (or our) relationship with the status quo...

For our next poll (and trust me there is some method to our madness in all of this) we are going to be asking just how big a boat you think a cruising couple actually needs to get out there and actually do the deed... We'd appreciate it if you could take the time and share your opinion.

Time, as they say, is a wasting...

Listening to Henry Kaiser and David Lindley

So it goes...

speaking of dumb and dangerous...

This guy is all about supporting the troops (not), villains in St. Vincent & The Grenadines, and a bit of dumb and dangerous project news...

Well, since I mentioned a "dumb and dangerous" laser that is powerful enough to blind someone and set things on fire (including human skin), and be cobbled from off the shelf bits and pieces, I should, perhaps, issue some sort of warning... 

Dumb and dangerous projects by their very nature are, in point of fact, dumb and dangerous and should not be done while drinking, otherwise impaired, or by those whose IQ tops out at less than the temperature on a brisk winters eve in Wisconsin.

That said, having an Iron Man laser on board is more than likely a whole lot safer and more legal than having a gun or guns aboard...

Just saying...

Now, if I were one to consider something akin to a weapon for defending a boat... I'd still give serious consideration to the medieval poleaxe (hey even Amazon has them). The poleaxe has both reach and pointy bits and was the medieval equivalent to the bazooka (the knight in armor being the tank). The downside is that pointy and sharp things needs some serious training...



... Of course, I should point out that the winners of altercations that involve pointy bits and sharp edges often wind up in the same emergency room as the losers, which you might want to keep in mind!

So, for the moment, my plan of action is still to stay as far away as possible from places where villains ply their trade on a regular basis, and hopefully getting around to building a "Bedazzler" because, maybe it's just me, but a little puke on the floor trumps blood any day...

Listening to Mr Buffett

So it goes...

A sad story and some boat projects it inspires...

Moldy chum gets political and gives an award, a history lesson from Crooks and Liars, and Lectronic Latitude tells a sad story...

As someone who has lost a boat myself, I found the story in Lectronic Latitude about the loss of Ka-Em-Te deeply depressing and something of a wake up call where "So It Goes" is concerned.

In most modern boats, rudders are something of a weak point with the current fashion being trusting to good luck rather than designing rudders to actually survive serious contact with something other than water... You know, the whistling as you walk through a graveyard approach.

While "So It Goes" (a CAL 34 for those new to Boat Bits) has an unsupported rudder without a skeg...

... it could be a lot worse than many of the same ilk. Luckily the larger-than-many fin keel does a pretty good job of protecting the rudder from things that go bump in the night. The fairly solid tube for the rudder stock is dead simple (no bearings or stuffing boxes to leak or be compromised in a collision) and if we were to hit something hard the chances are that the rudder would fail before the hull/rudder tube.

I've spent a lot of time crawling around in boats looking at steering systems and the Cal is as bombproof as you can get without resorting to a rudder protected by a full keel or some serious skeg in the mix...

Now, I have actually considered adding a small skeg from time to time and come the next haul out may actually do it. If for no other reason, it would make the chance of snagging fish traps a kiss less likely with the bonus of, just maybe, keeping things that go bump in the night a bit less catastrophic...

Another improvement to the system would be the addition to the laminate structure around the rudder tube, the actual rudder tube and the area area below the cockpit and the hull area around it... Since I have a couple of meters of carbon biaxial cloth taking up space in a locker just waiting for a project, it is something of a no-brainer and just got moved way up the list on things that need to be done.

The other project to improve the situation is already in progress and this involves switching from our servo-pendulum (Atoms) self steering back to an auxiliary rudder system (we used to have an RVG) which would be capable of working as an emergency rudder if the rudder were to be lost entirely.

Since the common sense of both belt and braces is not lost on me, we also have the various components to fabricate a rudder just in case whatever takes off our rudder also takes off the self-steering gear.

Just something to think about if you intend to sail further offshore than you care to swim back from...

Listening to White Rabbits

So it goes...

Zombie madness, or just call it denial...

A reader asked the other day why the zombie content on a boat blog... Why indeed?

Well, it has a lot to do with the fact that zombies...

... are not nearly as gut-churning scary or likely to happen as the future presented to us by Chris Hedges (author of "The World As It Is": Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress) in his recent article "Endgame Strategy".



Scary reading/listening for a very scary world...

Listening to Great Big Sea

So it goes...

Orlov talking sailboats...

... And making sense!

Sort of a restatement of purpose...

Some food for thought before you dust off the BBQ and get to the holidaze ting...

Robert Reich brings clarity to the economy circa 2011, Skippy points out some things regarding the environment and it's scary, good men and women in uniform continue to die in needless wars, and the rich just keep getting richer...

Same as it ever was... you'd really think we'd get a clue.

Which, of course, has bugger all to do with boats, boatbuilding, and cruising... Except for the fact that what's going on in the world affects us big time whether we are anchored in (insert your most dreamed about or favorite anchorage here), and if you do not believe, just look at how much it costs you to fill a grocery basket with provisions, fill your fuel tanks, or get a new sail.

Which is why I subtitled this blog "Sailing in Hard Times" to try and be a small link to the real world and not just another escapist let's-party-till-the-lights-go-out and adopt an Alfred E.Newman take on sailing...

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day.

Listening to Crooked Still

So it goes...

Just when you thought it was safe to go shopping...

Yesterday we had to do some shopping and when we left the boat there was not so much as a breath of wind, the sky was an azure blue and the water was as smooth as glass...

A couple hours later, while we contemplated whether to buy a large box of Oreos or Famous Amos cookies, our cell phone rang.

The boat moored next to us was calling to tell us that a waterspout seemed to be forming less than a hundred feet away from us and that maybe we should know...

Being that we were in a store, and, at best, a half hour from our dinghy, this was something of a can't really do anything but pray to the PTB"s situation. So we got a play by play commentary of all hell breaking loose while we stood in a supermarket aisle powerless to do anything.

The next five minutes seemed to last forever...

The water spout formed between us and two other boats (So It Goes is just out of frame to the left in the picture). As we listened, we heard how one boat was enveloped and then that it appeared that one boat had come loose from its mooring (luckily it did not). The ensuing mayhem had all of the boats in touch with the spout in unnatural positions to each other. The spout then went through the anchorage nearly causing a collision between two boats as they were both sucked towards each other then it continued to the launching ramp and dissipated as it came into contact with the land...

"So It Goes" did not sustain any damage nor did anyone else in the anchorage but it was a very close thing and it could have been very ugly. After we returned I dived on my ground tackle to find that our bow was nearly on top of the anchor and that our chain was laid out in two nearly perfect circles around it... Pretty impressive considering I have nearly 150' of chain out.

Our cats (Buffy and Willow) were a little shell shocked having been inside while "So It Goes" did, or so I'm told, a fairly convincing imitation of a dradle. Both Buffy and Willow appear to believe this is not what they signed up for and can we spell c-o-m-p-e-n-s-a-t-i-o-n? It appears that many cat treats and string time is the order of the day.

Listening to a Buffet clone

So it goes...

An area of confusion...

Maybe it's just that we just attract folks with a different view of anchoring methodology but is was hardly a surprise that I had to get up from my watching the tsunami coverage on CNN to go up to my bow in preparation to fend off a boat that had just laid or dragged their anchor into a let's bump "So It Goes" situation...

Anyone who spends most of their time at anchor quickly learn that the actual location of their anchor is seldom in the most obvious place. You don't always pivot on the anchor but some intermediate point in your chain and as that point can shift on an hourly basis due to wind strength and direction... Well, it gets complicated. Mostly at any given moment we know the anchor is "out there" in a forty-five degree cone off the bow. Well, except when it's not...

This is one reason it makes more sense to anchor behind a boat in an anchorage rather than in front or to the side but even so, anchoring behind a boat is no surety that everything is as it should be. A large wind shift may have all the boats pointing in the same direction but it takes time for the various boats to move their chains to the new orientation, and in such a case anchoring behind someone might actually mean you're dropping your anchor right on top of theirs.

Confused yet?

The easiest way to avoid anchor induced mayhem is to simply anchor as far as possible from anyone. I might add this is no bad thing in a social context as you don't have to listen to them bicker in their cockpit (or them hear you), spend a night listening to their genset, or Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" at 3AM...

No matter where I anchor, I make a point of doing a quick dive to make sure my ground tackle is not in danger of fouling a wreck or some-such, crossed someone's chain, and that all is as it should be.

Not currently listening to Captain Beefheart's "Lick my Decals off, Baby"

So it goes...

Stephen King making some sense...

... and kicking some butt.

Self induced mayhem...

“It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

I'm not one of those guys who subscribe to the whole macho man against sea head-space and I prefer my days at sea to be sedate and untroubled by mind-numbing terror or assorted mayhem. That said, shit, as they say, does happen.

The trick is simply to do the best you can to make sure that stupid mistakes are not a part of the scenario and be able to deal with those stupid mistakes when you make them. People very rarely get into trouble at sea without there being a stupid mistake somewhere in the equation... Fact is, stupid mistakes are something of the bottom line in the sort of nautical mayhem we all hope to avoid.

Don't believe me?

Take the last sea story that someone told you where someone damaged/lost a boat, got hurt, or died, give it the Joe Friday treatment (just the facts Ma'am) and you will find a mistake or series of mistakes that led to whatever mayhem ensued.

We all make mistakes... A couple of years back we found ourselves dragging across Simpson Bay Lagoon in a category 3 hurricane, it was all about mistakes and flawed judgment... Mea culpa. I could list all of the various mistakes I made in that event but this is a blog and I'd need a very long novel format (think The Dome) to list and explain them all...

None of us like to admit we make mistakes, so around boats you hear a lot of excuses when things come to grief: it was someone else's fault, the weather report was wrong, I had right of way... The list goes on and on and on!

But the thing is, to fix a mistake or avoid one, you have to acknowledge that they exist...

Listening to Cat Stevens

So it goes

Apocalypse and silver linings...

Some folks seem to have a preconceived idea of what the future is going to be. Some think the future will continue just like it is while others are thinking "Mad Max" dune buggies will be the order of the day...

Off hand, I'd say both of those camps are a few sandwiches short of a full tilt picnic and my guess is that in the not too distant future things are just going to be different (though, just maybe different with a capital "D"). Different is not always an apocalyptic thing but can be if you are incapable of rolling with the flow and not take advantage of opportunities presented...

 
Technology is a wonderful thing and for anyone who's been watching the tech world there is ample evidence of multiple glimmering silver linings in the approaching storm...

Way back when, JFK used a mistranslation of the Chinese word for crisis (wei-chi) in a speech because it contained the "wei" (a word that could mean danger)  and "chi" (a word that could be construed to mean opportunity but only in a kinda/sorta way) and as a result everyone now thinks that the Chinese word for crisis or danger also means opportunity. The fact that it does not (without some serious massaging) hardly matters as JFK simply gave it a new meaning and it stuck. I only mention this because... Well, some of our Boat Bits readers can be seriously nit-picky folks... and it's fun to beat them to the punch!

But, in truth, crisis, danger, and even apocalypse always ride with opportunity of one sort or another and there will be silver linings. The trick is simply to be able to see and take advantage of them when they arrive...

So it goes...

Listening to Michael Nesmith make some sense (Roll With The Flow) on "Live at the Palais"

A must read...

Clusterfuck looks at the year to come...