Regarding expert advice...

Kunstler on the foreseeable future, it just keeps getting worse, and Ian Welsh does the math...

For starters, you really need to read this post over at the Old Salt Blog. I'll wait...

Yesterday's post seemed to bring in a lot of advice of the "Do you know what the hell you're doing" sort.

The short form is yes I do.

The longer form is more complicated...

A long time ago Phil Bolger told me that since he did not have time to design Loose Moose 2 for me and, that I already knew pretty much what I wanted, I should just design it myself. He went on to say that when it comes down to it, designing or modifying a boat is not all that hard with a little common sense.

Phil Bolger was a smart guy...

That story about the Spanish submarine is interesting because it was designed by a lot of engineers and designers of some stature and it's not exactly a great moment in naval architecture is it?

Which is not to say that designers of boats are not a good thing when you need them... For instance, as I need a new rudder and as long as I'm going to build one I thought why not improve it while we're at it so commissioned Tad Roberts to design a new CAL 34 rudder for all of us folks with 40+ year old boats whose rudder stocks are all past their sell-by date. The fact is, I could easily build a clone of the original or designed one myself that would have worked as well as what I have. The reason I enlisted Tad was because I wanted better and did not want to have to build a half dozen prototypes to get it to the better point.

I'm looking forward to building that new rudder...

The thing is, we put far too much faith in "experts" and too little faith in our ability to do our own thinking and research. Modifying your boat has always been part of the thinking sailor's bag of tricks and is responsible for most of the evolution of sailing vessels that forms the basis of what we call naval architecture.

So, while I really appreciate the thoughts for my safety, I'm pretty sure that "So It Goes" will continue to float right side up and will not disintegrate like an AC72 (yet another not so great day in naval architecture)...

Listening to Mylène Farmer

So it goes...