I happen to love my Whale foot pump because it is the most simple, trouble free, affordable galley pump available... Love is not too strong of a word.
What I hate about this pump is that since the diaphragm needs replacing every nine-months or so you need to buy a service/repair kit that costs nearly as much or MORE than the actual pump and this is just frelling NUTS.
Want to know two things that really get "up my nose" as our British cousins say?
How about "BEST" and "X vs Y"...
Not a day goes by that that our mailbox does not get someone asking for our opinion on what's "best" or my opinion on the Pearson vs CAL, mono vs cat, or some-such other conundrum and it bothers me.
Really.
Which is not to say I mind answering questions or throwing some needful advice out from time to time but I simply think making a competition out of the decision making process is dumb and counterproductive to getting what you need.
Face it, it's hard enough just finding something that actually works and fulfills its function on a semi-regular basis without clouding the issue with, what is essentially, a popularity contest...
Yesterday's post was about an interesting rig... It was not saying that it was better (or worse) than a junk rig or, for that matter, my favorite the balanced lug rig. It was simply a heads up about a different way someone has dealt with propelling a boat using wind as a motive force and it is interesting information that you can use to aid (or not) in your decision making process.
From where I sit one of the few perks available to us as boat folks is we get to think and make our own decisions about stuff and you do yourself a great disservice by trying to turf it out to what everybody else thinks is "best"...
Remember, what "everybody" thinks is mostly wrong!
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...
I just spent the better part of my morning sorting out a cats cradle of anchor line under an acquaintance's boat and to quote the much missed Warren Zevon...
"and it ain't that pretty at all"
Made worse by the fact that he'd deployed a second anchor for Tropical Storm Irene and it has been tying itself in knots with his mooring for the duration, and to redeploy the anchor somewhere it might actually do him some good meant separating the rode from the mooring tackle on the bottom was something of a thankless task, but at least (for future reference I'm sure) it did give me the practice and knowledge that I could untie two and a half knots while threading a long rode through chain at a depth of twenty feet before I had to hit the surface for some air before doing it again, again, and yet again... After fifty free dives this morning I've got it down to something of a science.
So you might say that after spending my morning sorting out someone else's clusterfuck I'm not feeling particularly charitable with this morning's note on a new product from Colligo...
Now a while back, I pointed out that a certain sailing boutique was selling Dyneema sewn slings for daylight robbery prices and that folks might consider buying the same thing from other sources who are content with a reasonable profit and not gouging.
So you might understand why I'm not really impressed when someone comes out with a "grommet" (a spliced loop of rope in nautical parlance) with a trendy name of six-inch diameter in Dyneema for $37.33 when you can buy a sewn sling in Dyneema for less than ten bucks.
Of course, a sewn sling is is not exactly the same thing as a grommet... For example, a grommet should be less expensive and as it's a splice all you really need to do is to learn the splice, get some rope, make them yourself, and turn your back on silly prices forever.
Last night after dishing up dinner I popped out to do something in the cockpit and just as I was about to come back inside looked off the port side and saw about a four and a half foot wave entering the anchorage...
Next thing you know the wave is on top of us and the sound of plates flying off the table, books falling out of shelves, and various other objects going walkabout.
We had popcorn for dinner... That is, after cleaning up ribs, potatoes and suchlike off the floor, bulkheads and cats. Fun stuff!
The cause of said wave is hazy but it was most likely either a late leaving inter-island cargo boat or a sports fisherman getting in late and eager to get to the pub... Either way they should have known better.
Geez... What am I saying? Power boat folks knowing better is akin to my voting Republican.
Johnson Marine has come out with a pretty good idea in the form of a jack-line fairlead. Not that it's much of an original idea as sailors have been attaching their jack-lines to the standing rigging long before Columbus set sail...
But, I'll be the first to admit that the product is a rather clean design which is simply an eye that clamps to a stay and enables folks to avoid a bit of thought in doing it on their own. When I come to think of it, not a heck of a lot of thought, as there are many ways to attach a jack-line or additional life-line to a stay and most of them able to be done for a few dollars (my choice being a simple grommet or loop done up prusik fashion). That said, I prefer my jack-lines as close to the centerline as possible and leave outboard lines on stays as simply an extra handhold if needful.
I am also a little leery of things stainless that clamp to shrouds and stays though, as it produces a place for water and salt to collect and become yet another place to inspect for crevice corrosion... Having lost a rig not that long ago color me a little paranoid. In all future boats I sail on whatever is holding up the mast I want to be visible to inspection without having spots that need to be disassembled to check. Trust me, mast-fall-down-go-boom really sucks!
Want to know what else sucks? This simple clamp on eye is priced at around $169... and you need TWO! This scene from "Used Cars" pretty much says everything that needs to be said about that...
I saw this over on Sailing Anarchy yesterday and thought this sort of cleansing-the-gene-pool sort of hijinks deserved to both be shared and commented on...
Over the years I have seen this sort of madness stunt more than I should and more often than not it ends in tears with someone getting hurt or the loss of the boat.
When things turn to shit on the water the last place you want to go is someplace that is even more dangerous! I don't care how great a helmsman you might be in a situation like this hoving to outside with some sea room is the prudent course and the fact this boat pulled it off is just simple luck and that OMO protects drunks, fools, and little children from time to time.
When it gets ugly, "sea and sea room are your friends" is not a bad mantra...
I'm never sure whether to describe myself as a film maker who sails or a sailor/boatbuilder who makes films...Either way I'm a pretty happy camper when all is said and done.
