A new addition to the cockpit?

Something you may want to read, an apt climbing story of sorts from Dick Dorworth, and EBM with an interesting link...

Stewmac has an interesting workbench I keep coming back to.

 

A big problem on any 40-foot or less sailboat is it's really difficult to have a real workshop or decent workbench where you can build hatches, various boat wood butchery projects or the odd twelve-string guitar. In my case the last couple of days I've been rebuilding some hatches which has me working, mostly on my knees doing the needful joinery and fiberglass work.

I'll go on record here and say that if you're six foot five working on your knees in the cockpit really sucks.

Which brings me to the Stewmac guitar workstation which has a form factor that would allow one to work standing up with the added advantage of being fairly easy to modify to allow it to be demountable and would not take up too much room in a cockpit locker when not in use.

Better yet, for those of us on a budget and adverse to Stewmac prices, it's not exactly a difficult chore to backwards engineer the concept and build an even better for your own needs version. Hell if I can build a guitar building a better work bench is child's play. 

Hell, with a better bench I could save time and with that extra time might actually be able to start building Cruisercasters because no one's building a do everything boat friendly electric guitar for boatfolk who can't quite get in sync with so-called travel guitars.

Listening to Los Lobos

So it goes...

Persona Non Grata...

How running a country during a pandemic should be done, How running a country during a pandemic should not be done, and in the "Well we all shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun Yeah we all shine on" department...

CNN has an article and a map of places Americans are unwelcome in these days of COVID.

The new normal for folks with an inclination to go cruising these days is, at best, all kinds of problematic.

Maybe it's time to start looking for interdimensional portal waypoints.

Listening to some covers David Byrne picked

So it goes...

On spending a lot of money on something simple or getting creative...

Inspired timing, some interesting numbers, and something interesting about coral...

Here's a question you might want to ponder while you go about your daily business...

Why does this...

Cost so much more than this...

Now, it may just be me looking for a new project to waste time on but, if I were considering an electric outboard motor for a dinghy, I'd get one of these lawn mowers on sale, tear it apart and reconfigure the bits into a dinghy propulsion device.

Just saying...

Listening to Banta

So it goes...

Danger, danger Will Robinson someone has a cunning plan...

A whole lot of sense being made, about that 2013 word of the year, and today in the "bought and paid for" department...

Oh, oh... a new cunning plan!

I just mentioned over on VolksCruiser that one of my favorite designs is Harle's Tonic design and, in doing so, I realized that the only real way to improve on it is adding more stowage to the mix... I don't need more berths.

So, what if you put the accommodation from say Harle's Tonic or Fantasia and installed it (without making it any bigger) in a 30 to 35 foot hull keeping the excess space as a dedicated cargo hold?

The advantages are many with few downsides...

Maybe I should be looking for an older fixer upper with a trashed interior to try out the concept with?

Listening to Kind of Like Spitting cover Elvis Costello

So it goes

Anyone looking for a West Coat CAL 34?

Just a quick note to mention there's a pretty nice CAL 34 looking for a home...

...by the name of Moonrise and there's a lot more information about it on the excellent Little Cunning Plan blog.

Check it out!

On listening to your inner spidey sense...

Hey, here's an idea, dealing with a sad little bigot, and Derek Silvers makes an empowering connection...

So...

I've been gravitating towards a new test bed project to test some theories regarding cruising sail design and recently a boat that seemed perfect came on the market locally for very cheap.

Now, I tend to be wary around sentences that contain both the word "boat" and "perfect" but my spidey sense had not kicked in and it was cheap (a word that certainly plucks my heart strings). Cheap enough, in fact, to fix a helluva a lot of imperfection.

So, yeah, I'll admit that my rose tinted Vuarnets (and everyone knows how Vuarnets make the world look great) were very much part of the mix...

But (and you know there is always a "but") a couple days back my spidey sense started kicking in. It started with the odd stray thought about the time the new project might take up and once that thought took hold there was a flood of other little things when added together had the spidey sense going at full tilt boogie.

I almost always listen to the spidey sense when it talks above a whisper and the few times I have ignored it... Well, let's just say I have always found myself wishing I had.

So, the junk/balanced lug schooner test bed ain't going to be happening...

That said, anyone know where I can find a pair of CAL 20's?

Listening to It's A Beautiful Day

So it goes...

In need of a cunning plan...

Interesting numbers, this explains a lot, and did someone say "Beefheart"...

Some areas of boatbuilding and fit out I find less than interesting... Headlining for instance, or hull insulation are not exactly the sort of subjects I find myself musing about. That said, of late, I've been thinking a lot about clever and affordable ways to make "So It Goes" better insulated for more southern latitudes.

The upside is that while sailing in colder places we'd hope to avoid the dread condensation and once back to our normal tropical haunts to have a cooler boat as well... Sort of a win/win situation. All that's missing is a cunning plan to bring it all together!

You'd be surprised how hard it is to find insulation materials in the Caribbean...

Just a quick heads up: I noticed that today (June 11) Amazon has a killer special on the Gerber Crucial Tool and, as it is one of the few multi-tools out there that actually makes some sense (I've mentioned it before on the blog), thought you might want to check it out...

Listening to the Tedeschi Trucks Band cover the Lovin' Spoonful.

So it goes...

Harrier jump jets and the less/more conundrum...

Something of interest, a blog I read every day, and over at Clusterfuck the words "neo-medieval socio-economic model of daily life" resonate...

My brain hurts...


Which, I suppose, is what I should expect to get looking at copious arches on a plethora of sailboats trying to come up with a cunning solution to the whole arch or no arch conundrum.

Yesterday we had a big Southerly anchored next to us whose arch/davit/solar installation was of such magnitude that you could have used it to land a helicopter, Harrier jump jet, or use it to hold ballroom dancing competitions... Not a big help to my cunning low key arch search as it happens.

But, looking at what seems like hundreds of pictures of various arches I've come to the conclusion that less is very much the way to go and, apparently, how easy it is for folks to slip down the primrose path of MORE...

Here, on the other hand, is a very interesting and clean minimal arch on a Roberto Barros Kiribati 36 which you can't land a Harrier jump jet on...

Listening to Renaud

So it goes...

It's not all bunnies and ducks...

More on politicians and drug testing, OMG a politician with a conscious (I'm buying my season lift tickets for Hades!), and my favorite in the Mr Compassion sweepstakes...

Building a dinghy on a boat can be something of a, let's just say an interesting experience...

For a start, there's the lack of space to work on an eight-foot dinghy aboard a CAL 34. Once the hull gets stitched together the ventilation down below goes all to hell because two of the hatches become non-opening for the duration and getting to the front of the boat means doing a lateral limbo.

Then there is the ever present swell, which makes doing fillets something of a comedy routine from an old silent movie as the dinghy becomes something of a moving target as the swell has it gyrating within a four foot eccentric arc. Made even worse by the sports fishermen doing their best to launch you off the boat when they power through the anchorage at speed pulling a six-foot wake...

Fun stuff!

Anyway, yesterday I did the interior fillets and the skies were clear so I left the dinghy right side up to cure and just after midnight we got a bit of a squall which in the course of ten minutes seemed to put one hellacious amount of water in the dinghy. Trust me, nothing says fun like bailing a dinghy on your hands an knees with a four foot swell running and 30+ knots of wind...

Listening to The Wailin' Jennys

So it goes...

Well of course he's nuts though not crazy...

The return on some investment, government Enron style, and rebuilding East Baltimore...

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
                                                                                          Frank Zappa

Sven Yrvind is a man with a plan.

Admittedly, most folk would take half a look at Sven's agenda and the words bugfuck and crazy very likely would come to mind... Now, here on the good ship "So It Goes", we have developed a great appreciation of things Yrvind over the years and, while I'll admit to a WTF moment, I have no doubt that if anyone can pull off a non-stop round the world circumnavigation in a ten-foot sailing vessel, Sven is just the guy to do it.

Crazy has nothing to do with it...

Personally I'm going to be paying close attention to this project as to make it work Mr Yrvind is going to go all cunning-plan-on-steroids-creative and the spillover is going to improve my cruising to no end. The how and what of those improvements are a mystery at the moment but they will happen... Maybe a better/simpler/less expensive water maker or maybe something so out in left field that I can't even imagine it but there will be spinoffs and they will be good for all of us who sail long distances in small boats...

How cool is that?

Listening to Los Lonely Boys

So it goes...

Reflections on a cunning plan...

A really good interview, Elvis Costello just achieved Hero status (as far as I'm concerned), and no wonder the bankers were screaming...

I'm about to rip out a goodly section of the interior of "So It Goes" and make some changes to the galley and move the 48V battery bank for easier access and better weight distribution... Pretty much undoing all the changes I made to Mr Lapworth's interior in the past.

I mention this because one alters a designers work at some risk and what may seem like a cunning plan at the time may, set in concrete, be anything but cunning... Designers in most cases have put a lot of thought into what works and more than likely they did it the way they did because it works better.

Which is not to say changing stuff is wrong but simply to keep in mind that sometimes you'll wish you had left it as it was...



Listening to 10CC

So it goes...

Some excellent customer service...

Resilient Manufacturing (well worth a read), why it might not be a good thing that our economy is now based on Wall Street, and as long as we're speaking of Wall Street...

So far, this morning has been akin to wifi hell... Well, not wifi hell exactly as we have a good signal strength, acceptable ping times and decent packet loss figures but when all is said and done no email or web access...

Aaarrrrggghhh...

So, we call the folks who provide the service and tell them they seem to have a problem and, as par for the course, he tells us everything is peachy keen and it must be "our" problem. When we point out that, in point of fact, it is not our system that seems to be at fault but theirs, he goes all passive aggressive and offers us a refund (which we'd take in a shot if there was another source of wifi on the island). Of course, now that the offer of a refund is on the table there is no longer any pretense that the company involved will make any effort to fix the problem as their company policy seems to be if you don't like crappy service simply go away...

I bring this up because it is not at all unlike dealing with a lot of marine industry business whose modus operandi when dealing with a client is concerned is...

1. It's always the client's fault.

2. If we say sorry that does not mean we have any intention of fixing the problem.

3. We'd rather have you go away then do our job.

Makes you kind of wonder how some folks stay in business...

Like a lot of boatfolk, I'm always researching new products for "So It Goes" (call it the perpetual upgrade syndrome) and it is surprising just how seldom an email to a company making electronics or other high-ticket boat gear gets answered or, if answered, having it be something useless like telling me to go check out their website (I should point this out because so many websites tell you to contact the company for more information so sending you back to the website is akin to a kind of infinite loop purgatory).

Which in a roundabout way brings me to paint...

One of my projects in the not too distant future is a new paint job for "So It Goes". Since I have some "special" plans (OK yes a CUNNING PLAN) to do something a whole lot different than the norm, I have some questions about paint, comparability, and methodology that I need answers to before I spent a small fortune on paint. Now, in these dire economic times, you'd expect that my mailbox would be overflowing in replies of helpful marine painting info and advice...

Yet, for some reason my paint file remains empty... Yep, that would be zero (nada, rien, 沒什麼) responses from folks I want to buy paint from (well, in truth, that would be from folks I DON"T want to buy stuff from now). Kinda makes you wonder if their sales force can be so inept how they do on the after-sales service... Ya think?

The thing is, every time I talk to someone in the marine industry I hear much moaning and gnashing of teeth about just how dire the current economic situation is but they simply do not get the fact that part of the problem happens to be of their own making...

Yesterday, I saw that a bike maker had used an interesting coating on their new bike model so dropped the shop a quick email and lo and behold a couple of hours later I got an answer to my question, some thoughts on why it is a great coating for bicycles but not so much for boats, and a link to the company that provided the coating material in case I might want to give it a try or research it further... Just imagine if I had asked them a question about buying a bike!

Now, for those not up on bikes and the cycling industry, I should point out that while most industries in the US of A are dying or in need of some serious life support, the cycling industry is in growth mode and doing just fine. I won't go into all of the reasons for this as there are simply too many but one of the most important factors is good customer service... Something the marine industry should take note of.

Rant over

Listening to Crazy Horse

So it goes...

A lazy (and cheap) guide to solving a rigging problem...

The only production catamaran I'd consider owning these days (because a reader asked), a pretty cool LED tie kit which might be of interest to very confused boat folk that actually still wear ties, and maybe it's just me, but does this send a message or what?

Being a lazy guy, I decided that it would be no bad thing to add another purchase to my mainsail halyard but finding just the right block to do it has been somewhat problematic, as most blocks were just a little too long for the small space between the head of the sail and the existing halyard sheave.

Lucky for me, serendipity is my friend and as I was looking for something else at an online chandler and scanned past a small soft snatch block that would do the job just fine...

Equiplite makes it, and while it does the job I need doing, it is a whole lot of expensive at around $300 for what is essentially just a sheave, a soft shackle, and a bit of velcro.

Maybe I should rephrase that opening statement...

Being a lazy and cheap guy.

Yeah, ain't no way this boy is spending $300 on a bit of rope and a sheave when I can buy the makings for a whole lot less...

How much less you ask?

Well, a soft shackle of the right size for this enterprise uses a kiss less than 38 inches of Amsteel or Dynex. If I bought the line at Defender today it would cost me a little over $9 for Dynex or a bit over $6 for the Amsteel. The sheave I could pick up from someone like Petzl  or Camp (climbing gear folks) who make rescue pulleys whose sheaves are just the right size for a project like this for maybe $10, throw in half hour of sweat equity to do the soft shackle splice and hey presto a reasonable facsimile of the Equiplite soft snatch block for less that $25... Seems to me we could all come up with a use for that $275 of savings...

Kind of makes you think.

As it happens, I'm not going to make my own snatch block because as I was perusing various rescue pulleys it made me realize that the Camp rescue pulley would work just as well as the soft snatch block for my purpose, if not better, and I could buy one for even less ($14!) than making my own. What do you think this melon farmer is going to do? Didn't I mention I'm a lazy guy?

Is not serendipity a wonderful thing?

Listening to Lee Rude

So it goes...

Yet another cunning plan...

Horse's Mouth has an interesting post (warning no wahine content), something well worth reading, and the new WoodenBoat has an article about Phil Thiel's designs...

Today I have some work to do on a new recently purchased wind generator I bought on something of a whim.

The wind gen in question is low output (and for those interested in such things seriously CHEAP) and the thought process behind installing it on "So It Goes" is to prove a point (or not prove) to myself on the whole bigger and more expensive makes/does not make sense conundrum.

Yep, another cunning plan...

The worst part of the operation is I have to take everything out of one of the cockpit lockers and pull some wire in an enclosed and way too small space for my 6'5" body...

So hopefully I'll have some results in the not too distant future.

Listening to Sister Hazel

So it goes...

The project list just got a lttle longer...

Krugman says some important stuff about Texas, Vigor offers some good advice, and Adafruit points us to a great op-ed on ideas...

I've been thinking...

Yeah, I know thinking is something of questionable activity these days (apparently soon to be made illegal in some states) but it sometimes does come in handy.

Case in point, I've been reading way too much about single speed bikes (the new hip thing for those cyclists who need a quiver) as you simply can't get away from them on the cycle circuit. A lot of my dissatisfaction with the idea of single speeds is the common thread that going to a single speed (and I won't even begin to go into the nether regions of things Sturmey-Archer) is that you can use a belt because chains and derailleurs apparently are such a hassle. Just for the record, there are no plans in my future to ever have a single speed.

As it happens, a friend was telling me how neat the new Native Watercraft Ultimate kayak was and that it sported a Propel drive...



Folks may also remember I'm a big fan of the Hobie Mirage drive and how I wish more folks would design dinghies around the drive (right now there is only one that I know of). Part of the reason for the lack of designs is that the Mirage is not well suited to boats that have a lot of rocker and it has occurred to me that the Propel drive or a DIY version might be more readily adaptable...

So, we were talking about thinking... right?  As it happens, while I think a single speed bike with a belt drive is dumb as a box of hammers, I do get a tingle when I look at the Propel drive while thinking DIY thoughts along with dinghies and off-the-shelf bike parts.

Houston, we just added another project to the list...

Listening to BTO

So it goes...

Box-vision and dinghy design...

As the quest for a new primary dinghy for "So It Goes" continues, I find that as "out of the box" as I pride myself being, I still suffer from "box-vision" more often than I care to admit...

For instance...

Part of my thinking process recognizes that the ubiquitous RIB that passes for a standard dinghy these days is a long way from being an optimum choice but still I find myself continuing to include a RIB in my thought process, simply because everyone else does.

RIB's have all of the disadvantages of a rigid dinghy, as well as all of the disadvantages of an inflatable dinghy and, in the matrix of the two types, keeps bloody few of either's advantages.

Face it, your basic RIB has some issues... RIBs are actually heavier and take up as much or more space than a hard dinghy, they are inefficient in terms of power use to the point that most are simply impossible to row, and should I mention that they are EXPENSIVE? I won't even bother to talk about various repair & upkeep issues, and the dreaded dinghy butt.

The more I look at the problems associated with RIBs the more I know that they are sorta/kinda the worst way to go...

The problem is that being the de facto standard, everyone assumes they are the right choice and that any other choice becomes a sort of heresy.

I noticed that someone is selling a used Hobie Mirage locally for $1600 (about $1000 off the new price) and when I saw the ad my first reaction was "It's expensive". Having thought about it for a while, it is actually a whole lot better deal than any of the RIBs or inflatables around so in bang-for-the-buck terms, the two-person kayak with the Mirage drives is actually something of a killer deal... So why the "It's expensive" vibe?

We don't see kayaks being a real boat but more of a "toy", so as a result don't see a "toy" being able to pull its weight in the workaday world that is the lot of the cruising dinghy.  Add in the fact that for us to see a kayak's potential we have to be able to look outside that box and admit that the best possible dinghy may not look exactly like what we think it should.

The Hobies are really a bad example, as they are just one avenue of many kayak designs that are out there... The kayak world is something of a hotbed of new ideas, niche markets and real competition which means you'll find your buying dollar goes a lot further than in the RIB world.

Outside of misconceptions about what a dinghy should look like, we have the very real issue of how in the hell do you store something nearly fifteen feet in length on a 34-foot boat? Which is why I'm not buying that Hobie for $1600...

So, I keep coming back to this conundrum and hoping that someone (a Boat Bits reader perhaps) will come up with some cunning plan regarding a more sensible dinghy/kayak that makes sense in a way we have all missed because most of us are too far inside the box to see outside of it.

Listening to Les Cris de Paris

So it goes...

On five years plans and other nonsense...

Lifehacker had an excellent article yesterday that, while not being about moving on to a boat and sailing off to the sunset, has everything to do with moving on to a boat and sailing off to the sunset, and it got me thinking...

Folks we have come across who devise cunning and detailed escape plans to go cruising seldom (if ever) actually get to go cruising and, those few who do manage it, seldom stick it out. Which from where I sit (anchored in eighteen feet of water in the Caribbean) is a kind of a bummer. All those plans and effort to no avail is just sort of depressing!

What may surprise some, is that once upon a time I was one of those folks with a cunning plan to take off and go after I had done a rather insurmountable list of things which were must do's before I could do the deed... In hindsight, I realize that if I were to have waited to do the plan and all my t's were crossed and i's dotted I'd still be sitting in France doing the same old same and making plans while not doing what I wanted.

So, the question is, what happened that made me lose the plan/list and retire at forty to go cruising?

Well, part of the plan involved doing lots of research and part of that was joining the most excellent Seven Seas Cruising Association and getting their monthly newsletter which was a font of information on cruising by folks currently out there doing it and by all accounts doing it well. While most of the content of the newsletters dealt with cruising, anchorages, and various tech issues of the cruising gig, there was also the occasional obituary of members who had passed on...

I'm not sure exactly how you see things, but I tend to notice patterns in news and suchlike and it did not take me long to notice that a lot of the members whose deaths were being reported at the time in the SSCA newsletters were passing away at the start of their proposed voyages due to natural causes of one sort or another. That John Doe at the age of sixty-five had a heart attack in Miami three hundred miles into their proposed circumnavigation... Which is not to fault them as they had done everything right and by the book... raised their kids, seen them through college and into their new lives, waited till they could afford and get the right boat and everything was perfect and left. Only to meet the grim reaper a couple of stops into their voyage... Death not being something the "list" and five-year plan had factored in. Serious bummer that!

Which is why we took off and went sailing when we did just shy of forty and somewhat more under capitalized than we would have preferred but in apparent good health and a lot younger than most of our cruising brethren from the USA we would meet for the next few years in the Med and points west.

Looking back we might have done a few things a bit differently but we still did the right thing by not waiting for "the plan" or "the list" to get finished and I'm content in our choices. Which when you think about it, is no bad thing...

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!

Electric fences and cunning plans

Since we were speaking of things pyratical and as it is more than problematic to do the razor concertina wire thing to most sailboats... What's a poor boy to do?

Here in the Caribbean most thefts from boats seem to be of the swim/row out and pilfer variety, though sadly, there seems to be a trend towards a more boat-invasion model.

The only thing we have had stolen off of "So It Goes" since we have had it was a mask and snorkel of mine which I am pretty sure I must have left on the side deck instead of putting it away in the dive locker (my bad). I would not be surprised if the reason for the theft was the fact that I left our boarding ladder down rather than stowed on the lifeline... again my fault.

Of course, we make an effort to keep "So It Goes" less than pristine as the last thing we want to look like in an anchorage is well off or rich and simply prefer the boat to blend in with all the others without any signs that there is anything worth stealing aboard. For the most part, we always anchor as far out as possible and away from the herd as in my experience, having known no shortage of villains, I do know that in most cases your average thief prefers less work rather than more and won't make the effort to swim/row out to us if there are closer (and more lucrative) targets about.

Since "So It Goes" is an older (1969) sailboat we also do not have the sugar scoop stern so popular these days, which just screams stealthy easy-on/easy-off access to villains. To board us they have to come over the side which is more likely to let us know someone has come aboard and is much more visible from a distance.

The only other real precaution we take is that we do not have a name on our dinghy as nothing says "Come Out and Steal Stuff" as your boats name on the dinghy sitting all day at a dinghy dock!

Which is not to say we have not had the odd cunning plans to make "So It Goes" even safer but so far nothing that has quite worked. Though the exclusion zone by radio controlled model boat seemed to have promise, and to be honest, the one with the anvil from the masthead WAS something of a disaster!

The current plan of teaching Ninja repel-boarders-martial-art-techniques to Buffy and Willow has not yet seemed to get past the wax off wax on stage but we are working on it.

On the other hand, while not quite so cunning, the idea of making your lifelines do double duty by turning them into an electric fence actually does seem like a reasonable approach and solar powered systems are both cheap and workable... In my case of course, I'd be much more likely to forget to turn it off and do myself some damage coming back to the boat but it is a thought that just might work.

Barter... Or making money while you cruise... the chicken chronicles

Way back, when we first got into this sail-away-into-the-sunset gig, there was much discussion of helping make ends meet doing the barter thing. The idea that with a stock of fish hooks, fishing line and a cornucopia of t-shirts you could trade for the needful things in life and even make a profit process.

Over the years the subject still comes up from time to time with newbie folks and armchair sailors, but in truth, I have never met anyone who pulled it off. Maybe it is a different world, but when you are in the San Blas islands and they paddle out to sell you Molas the fact that they also come equipped these days with a credit card machine and take AMEX kind of puts a damper on trading a few fish hooks for the Mola idea...

A whole different world...

Then again, some folks in the USA think it is no bad idea to bring barter back in a big way as a way of dealing with the out of control health costs by putting it back on a barter level... Sort of a chicken standard.

As it happens, my brother-in-law has been raising chickens and building a chicken coop which is a project I've found very interesting and the odd "cunning plan" of livestock on "So It Goes" has flitted through my thoughts the last week or so...

The feline crew (Buffy and Willow) I think would be all over the idea as they are big fans of c-h-i-c-k-e-n and with the price of cat food being what it is, I can see a certain appeal in the overall budget.

Of course, figuring out the right size of chicken coop is no small feat as if it is going to provide for meals, trade goods and health care it becomes a rather significant project... scarily so!

As it turns out, the average cost per person of health care in the US of A is $7681 and as the current average cost of a chicken is $5.02, that means we would have to raise 1,530 chickens per person just to cover health care... YOWZA, we are going to need a bigger boat! For more on the cost of the whole chicken barter thing you might want to read it here.

So, obviously, turning "So It Goes" into a chicken farm would only work if I apply a Republican mindset to it and take collective leave of my senses... Damn, I was really looking forward to building a chicken coop.

Then again, I suppose there is still Chincilla Ranching