Something interesting...

An interesting must check out post on Sailing Anarchy, a good point, and something you may want/need to listen to...

A better than most YouTube channel you might want to check out.



Listening  my favorite Lee Michaels song

So it goes...

Just one (of many) reason you should be reading Webb Chiles...

About that Columbus dude, a handy primer on political correctness, and some needful reading about that Paul Theroux editorial...

Webb Chiles making a fair amount of sense over on his blog!

"I have sailed more engineless miles than some who have built their reputations and made a religion of it. I had EGREGIOUS built without an engine. CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE did not have one. The diesel on RESURGAM died on the Caribbean side of Panama and we sailed all the way to Australia before we replaced it. I’ve never powered more than an hour here and there at sea, and then usually only to stabilize a boat being thrown about in leftover seas with no wind. That you have to power through the doldrums is simply not true. I’ve crossed the Equator now, I think, thirteen times without motoring. If you are a sailor and have a boat that sails well, you only need an engine for the last hundred yards/meters in harbors that are set up with the expectation that all boats are powered."

                                                                                          
Listening to the Silversun Pickups

So it goes...

a minor/major change aboard "So It Goes"...

This just might make your head explode, hardly a surprise, and folks keep telling me things are looking up but not so much the numbers...

Some times change is hard and you find yourself jumping through all sorts of hoops to avoid the reality of the need/want voice that is whispering in your ear...

I'm pretty sure that anyone who has been reading this blog knows I'm a huge booster of the whole electric propulsion bandwagon. Fact is, I'm pretty sure I've been promoting and using electric propulsion even before the band got their wagon (so to speak). So, it might surprise you that I'm in the process of removing a perfectly good electric propulsion system on "So It Goes" in favor of a more engine-less approach.

Our current Electric Yacht system has worked flawlessly. It does everything a propulsion system should, has no real maintenance costs or issues, pretty much keeps itself charged through regeneration, and provides plenty of power when needed. What's not to like?

Liking my system, actually, is a big part of the problem. It is such an awesome piece of gear that even though I really don't use it, I want to keep it because not too many things on a boat work so well. As a result, I'm just that little bit reluctant to follow my rule that, if it's on the boat and I'm not using it, it should be gone.

We sail and never make passages under power. Which, as it happens, is not what I think YOU should do but it is what makes us happy. The downside of that is from time to time we find ourselves sitting with no wind... waiting and, I would be dishonest if I did not say that I hate sitting waiting for wind but since I actually hate motoring more it is the lesser evil. Then again we're not in any sort of a hurry to get anywhere so it is a lot easier for us to roll with the flow than for some.

When we have very little wind I actually enjoy it because it's a great game keeping the momentum going following the tiniest of wind shifts. It's good practice because it teaches you how to really sail with something approaching finesse and, dare I say it, art.

Of course, the fact is, the more you sail the less you need a motor and the less you need a motor the more you sail is a spiral that not everyone understands or appreciates. Or not until one day you realize that you have not turned on your motor for over a year and all of a sudden that motor and its related baggage is just taking up space and payload that could be better used in some other way.

Now I'm pretty sure some of the diesel heads who read this might jump to the conclusion that removing our motor is somehow a failure of electric propulsion and they would be wrong. The thing is, if we had a Saab diesel installed on the boat it would be getting the same exact treatment and be looking for a new home... It's not about the type of propulsion, it is simply about the fact that we simply don't need any sort of inboard propulsion system whether it be gas/diesel/electric.

We do have a 6HP outboard we can use if/when needed and I'm in the process of planning out some 16-18 foot sweeps and oarlocks so I can row or scull if needful but that's mostly because I've always been a belt and braces kind of guy.

For the next boat, if I were to put in an inboard propulsion system, I'm 99.99% sure it would be an electric system especially if I were building it myself because then I'd be able to design in the battery bank as an integral component of the ballast which would seriously rock... That said, I'm pretty sure it still would not get used very much.

Listening to David Bowie

So it goes...

A study in contrast...

Forty years and running, on how the new argument is as bad as the old one, and some rather depressing pictures of a ships graveyard...

Over at Cruisers Forum there's a thread about a sailboat with engine problems in the Bahamas needing to be towed back to Florida and various legal hassles. As things go, I came across that thread just after reading about an engineless Badger over at the Junk Rig Association website that had just completed a circumnavigation...

5th March 2013 - Alan Martienssen and engine-less Benford Dory 34 Zebedee (see the magazine cover above) have just completed their circumnavigation by arriving at Balboa after transiting the Panama Canal using a borrowed outboard. There's more about Zebedee here.

Kind of makes you think...

Listening to Chris Knight

So it goes...