tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661089149022716292024-03-14T02:32:57.779-07:00John Vigor's BlogAn entertaining and informative series of columns by an exerienced professional journalist, book author, and amateur sailor. They deal mainly with small-boat sailing -- racing and cruising -- but can take some surprising turns occasionally.John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.comBlogger1230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-10085267330715091212016-11-01T19:40:00.002-07:002017-06-15T16:12:21.013-07:00One last word<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">IT’S AN AUSPICIOUS DAY. This blog has just notched up a
million page views since its inception on October 20, 2008. Actually 1,000,116
page views as I write this, according to my Blogger statistics page. More than
1,230 columns altogether.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My grateful thanks are due to you, my loyal readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know what makes you choose this blog
from all the hundreds or thousands that now inhabit the boating blogosphere, although
I have to admit it is unusual<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in some
ways. It appears three times a week. There are no ads flashing for your
attention. There is no begging for beers. It’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not larded with bling or eye candy for
entertainment. It’s just for sensible people who love boats and who are
content<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to read plain words. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One strange thing I might mention is that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the name of the column is Mainly about Boats
but nobody calls it that. It’s just known as John Vigor’s Blog, a name I
wouldn’t have chosen myself because few people know how to pronounce Vigor.
It’s not your fault, or even mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wasn’t around when that pronunciation was first decided upon and passed down
through the ages. For the record, it’s VIGH-gore. but I have learned to respond
amiably to anything from VEE-gore to Vigger.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That millionth page view has come just in time. I fear I am
about written out. Almost everything I know about boats has been discussed in
this column, but I’ve always been concerned about being boring or appearing to
be a know-all. Meanwhile, I am getting long in the tooth, so my thoughts now
are turning toward quitting while the going is good; that is, before WikiLeaks
releases my secret e-mails and I find myself accused<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of sexting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>pictures of boats rather than girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How will you live without me, you ask? (Yes you did. I
distinctly heard you.) Well, there are archives over there on the right, of
course. More than twelve hundred columns preserved for posterity.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how long posterity might be, according to
Blogger. I’m sure they need the space for other bloggers, so if you want to
riffle through the assembled collection, now’s your chance.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once again,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my
heartfelt gratitude to all of you who have accompanied me on my little blogging
adventure over the years; and a special word of thanks to the billions of
members of Vigor’s Silent Fan Club who have so faithfully kept their promise
never to praise me. Your task will be much easier now.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fair winds and good landfalls,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">John V. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Cogito, ergo sum</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Sum, ergo velo</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Velo, ergo nutso</span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-90896256720138107352016-10-31T09:54:00.000-07:002020-05-13T11:19:29.030-07:00The nose always remembers<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">I WELL REMEMBER the first time I smelled a
yacht. I was 14, and because of a lucky meeting on the beach beneath our
small-town home, I was the caretaker of a 28-foot, hard-chine wooden sloop
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Albatross</i>. (Rich people from
the big city 30 miles to the north. Weekenders.) I had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Albatross</i> to myself after school all week.</span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Every afternoon I'd row out to the moorings
in the dinghy and just sit in wonderment in the cramped cabin. It was all new
to me, the teak-and-holly sole, the mysterious quarterberths, the V-berth in
the forepeak, and the gasoline engine hidden under the companionway ladder. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">But it's the smells I remember now, many
decades later. It's the smells that jar my memory of that sweet little boat
bobbing on her mooring in the hot sunshine.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Tarred hemp from the forecastle, kerosene
from the galley, along with denatured alcohol. The subtle aroma of teak
bulkheads and old white paint overhead. Faint smells of gasoline from the
engine compartment, and that peculiar smell of damp sailcloth that no sailor
will ever forget, coming from the V-berth where the spinnaker was stored in its
bag. Coffee from the food locker, and a metallic tang from the galvanized
anchor chain. And if you pressed your nose to the bronze portholes you
recognized a link back through the centuries to the Vikings and beyond.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">All these scents mingled with salt-laden
sea air in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Albatross</i>'s cabin and I
was entranced and bewitched. It was sheer magic, and I was never to forget it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">And just the other day I was reading
Maurice Griffiths, the well-known British sailor and author. He, too, knew
about the smell of a yacht:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">"There is indeed something about the
smell of ship that stirs a man's blood, a seductive, persuasive odor of oak and
tarred rope and canvas and paint, of varnish and oil and galley smoke and rust,
that exciting scent that clings like an aura to every shapely little schooner
with her jib-boom steeved above the quays, and drifts on the breeze from every
fishing smack that puts to sea; a haunting smell that goes to a man's head like
wine and makes him yearn for a free life, open air and a wide horizon, and
above all for the kick of a tiller under his arm and the scend of a stout
little ship beneath his feet . . . Oh, I know."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Today's
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">There
is nothing like an odor to stir memories. </span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">— William McFee, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Market</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“You need glasses.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“How do you know?”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“I could tell as soon as you walked through
the window.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;"><strong><br /></strong></span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-60438700701607046852016-10-27T19:25:00.000-07:002016-10-27T19:25:23.919-07:00Lack of sleep -- the danger<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">CRUISING
SAILORS undertaking long voyages need to be aware of the dangers of sleep loss.
Apparently, a surprising number of sailors suffer from hallucinations caused by
fatigue. And fatigue comes about when you don’t get a long enough stretch of
deep, dreaming sleep.</span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Now
I know that many long-distance sailors, particularly singlehanders, somehow
manage to get by with many short snatches of sleep. Often they sleep for only
20 minutes and then get up to have a look around the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But
psychologist Dr. Glin Bennet, who interviewed competitors in a singlehanded
race across the North Atlantic, discovered that 50 percent of them experienced
one or more illusions or hallucinations.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I
remember Frank Robb telling me of his experience. Frank was an intrepid seaman,
a fisherman and a sailboat owner who learned his lessons in the stormy waters
of the Cape of Good Hope, and who sometimes voyaged rather farther afield.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">He
was once singlehanding in his old gaffer when he encountered four days of rough
weather in the Caribbean. As usual, he was deprived of wholesome sleep during
that time, and when the storm subsided he wasn’t too sure of his position. But
soon he spotted a fishing boat, and, in the distance, an island with a
protected harbor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">He
sailed in, waving to a launch crowded with sightseers, and found a good
anchorage. With the last of his energy he lowered his anchor and went down
below, where he passed out on the saloon floor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Twelve
hours later he woke up and went on deck. There was no land in sight, There were
no boats around. Nothing but sea. The anchor was down, however, dangling
uselessly at the end of a mere eight fathoms of rode.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Luckily,
he felt no anxiety about his hallucination. He realized that sleep deprivation
had affected his judgment, and that his overtired mind had invented the island
to relieve him of the anxiety that was preventing him from getting healing
sleep.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">We
now know that dreams are important. Fatigue affects you mentally as well as
physically. It’s dangerous. And if storms prevent you from dreaming, your mind
will eventually compensate with a parade of waking dreams called
hallucinations. The good news is that hallucinations leave no permanent bad
effects on the mind, so there is nothing to be frightened of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To prevent hallucinations, it seems, you need
an occasional uninterrupted sleep of six hours or more. And that’s not
something that can ever be guaranteed for a singlehander.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Dreams are true while they last, and
do we not live in dreams?</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">—
Tennyson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Higher Pantheism</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Boy
we had some excitement at our place last night. We had a burglar in the house.
You should have seen my husband coming down the stairs three at a time!”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Did
he catch the burglar?”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Hell
no, the burglar was upstairs.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Drop by every Monday,
Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></span></sup></b></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-57062440612695478382016-10-25T19:24:00.000-07:002016-10-25T19:24:29.932-07:00What about hand tools?<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">SOMETIMES I FEEL VERY UNEASY
when I see how dependent we have become on machines. Have we lost the art of
working on boats with hand tools, or have we simply lost the will?</span><br />
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I mention this because I
watched with fascination a discussion on a boating bulletin board. A poster
wanted to know how best to cut through a small stainless-steel pin, one that
looked about 3/16-inch in diameter. “Get an abrasive wheel,” someone advised
him. “Or get a large bolt cutter with hardened steel jaws.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“No, no, said another. Get a 4
1/2-inch angle grinder.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I shoved my oar in: “Use a
hacksaw,” I said. “It’s simple. It’s easy.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Big mistake. A quick rebuttal
followed: Cutting 416 stainless steel with a hacksaw would be incredibly
difficult, said a boat owner who appears to be speaking more from hearsay than
experience, and who has apparently invented a new grade of stainless steel. “Get
a cheap 4-inch angle grinder and some metal-cutting blades. And safety goggles,
of course.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“No, no,” said the next poster
in line. “An angle grinder can cause a lot of collateral damage. Use bolt
cutters.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“No, no,” came the follow-up. “Bolt
cutters will crush the pin and you may not be able to get it out of the hole.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And so it went on. The
collective wisdom of the bulletin board ground away, taking longer than it
would have taken me to cut the damn pin with my little hacksaw.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I grew up in an era when boat
people used hand tools not only because they were cheaper and simpler but
because they would work on boats in mid-ocean as well as they would on boats
with umbilical cords plugged in to shore power. It is revealing to me that the
first reaction now is to rush out and buy a power tool.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I built a wooden one-design
racing dinghy with no power tools whatsoever. I had a beautifully made Stanley
hand drill, which I loved dearly, and still have. And I had screwdrivers, saws
and planes, files and sandpaper, and a large supply of elbow grease. I’m no
shipwright, nor even a good carpenter, but it gave me great pleasure and
satisfaction to work simply and quietly with my bare hands; so much pleasure,
in fact that I went on to build another three dinghies of the same design —
only for those I used just one power tool, an electric drill. I still have
that, too.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">When I lived in San Diego, I
bought a wreck of an International Mirror dinghy that needed a lot of work. The
only place I had to work on it was in a garage I rented under an occupied
apartment. I rebuilt that boat with hand tools in almost complete silence so
that the occupants of the apartment wouldn’t hear me and have me thrown out. I
secretly sawed and sanded and repainted and glued and screwed while listening
to the noise of the television above, and they never found out.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The famous American
round-the-worlder Jean Gau, the Waldorf-Astoria chef, used a hacksaw to clear
his stainless-steel rigging after he lost his bolt cutter overboard when his
30-foot Tahiti ketch, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Atom</i>, was
dismasted while rounding the Cape of Good Hope.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">My boyhood hero, Henry Wakelam,
built himself a small ocean-going yacht, a Thuella design by Harrison-Butler,
without any power tools at all. He was working out in the open, in the bush.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">There is great pleasure to be
had in working slowly but effectively. There is deep satisfaction in developing
the skills and patience to work with hand planes knives, saws and (if you have
some toes left) the adze. The smell of curly new wood shavings thrills me
still, as does the lack of noise, that infernal, unnecessary noise. It’s sad
that too many people are now scared to do anything by hand, scared even to
contemplate cutting a thin rod of stainless steel with a hacksaw. I can only
hope this is a passing phase and that sailors will one day learn to use their
hands again, just as their ancestors did.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">There is a period of life when we go back as we advance.</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Rousseau, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Émile</i></span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Does your husband
always speak to himself like that when he’s alone?”</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Dunno.
I’ve never been with him when he’s alone.” </span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 200%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for another
Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-32619117275747345892016-10-23T17:16:00.000-07:002016-10-23T17:16:41.627-07:00Driving designers crazy<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">NAVAL ARCHITECTS tell me
that nothing drives them crazy more than a client who wants “small changes”
made to an existing design. “Just another three feet in length,” some hopeful
says, “and she’d be perfect for me.”</span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Just six inches less
draft and I’d be able to get across the sandbar.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I understand that yacht
designers receive special counseling about this. They’re taught not to pull
their hair out, or strangle the potential customer, even if the latter move
would improve the human gene pool. They have to explain, as gently as they can,
that changes like that mean starting all over from the very beginning.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">People who want to build
their own boats are especially vexing. Because venturesome sailors have such
individual requirements and are usually close to broke, they are often tempted
to buy stock plans that a designer has drawn up for a small boat and enlarge
them on a photocopier. And when disaster looms, as it will sooner or later,
they blame the designer. What they don’t know about is the law of mechanical
similitude, a very interesting law that applies to boats of similar shape.
Interesting things happen when you alter the size of a boat.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Let’s say you double the
size of a vessel evenly all around. Here’s what happens:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Length, beam and draft
increase 2 times.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Wetted surface area
increases by 4 times.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Interior volume
increases by 8 times.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Weight increases by 8
times.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Stability increases by
16 times.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Now think about that. The
new boat would be 41 per cent faster and could carry four times as much sail.
But the point is that even small changes in proportion cause large changes in
stability, buoyancy, maneuverability, accommodation, handling, and
seaworthiness.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">So if you want a boat
that’s five feet longer, remember the law of mechanical similitude. Find a boat
that was designed from scratch to be five feet longer in the first place. Don’t
be tempted to economize with the stretch of doom.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Architects
are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can
turn down some clients, but we’ve both got to say yes to someone if we want to
stay in business.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Philip Johnson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Esquire,</i> Dec 80</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“My neighbor’s dog keeps
barking all night. I can’t sleep. I’m at my wits’ end. What can I do?”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Buy it from him. Then HE
won’t be able to sleep.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 150%;"><strong>(Drop
by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for another </strong><strong>Mainly about Boats c</strong><strong>olumn.)</strong></span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-28866282132146378872016-10-20T19:31:00.000-07:002016-10-20T19:31:30.771-07:00Not always a sailor's delight<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I BELIEVE IT WAS JESUS who spread the
unconvincing rumor about a red sky at night being a sailor’s delight.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> In the Bible, (Matthew XVI: 2-3,) Jesus said, “When in evening,
ye say, it will be fair weather: For the sky is red. And in the morning, it
will be foul weather today; for the sky is red and lowering.” Ever since, His
followers have done their best to make a convincing case for this
meteorological mythology. But they haven’t convinced me. Like most met.
forecasts, even those from the highest and most impeccable sources in Heaven,
this one is as likely to be wrong as right.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I mean, just think about it. Why should a red sky at night mean
good weather the next day? What if there’s a cold front lurking just over the
western horizon and it comes screaming through at 5 a.m.? Is that would you’d
call a sailor’s delight?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And yet this old canard is quoted as gospel in all kinds of
sailing circles. Wikipedia, the self-professed font all knowledge says: “I</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">n order to see red clouds in the evening,
sunlight must have a clear path from the west in order to illuminate
moisture-bearing clouds moving off to the east.” So what? What about the new
storm system roaring in from the west overnight?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Weather systems typically move from west
to east,” says Wiki. Yeah, right. Tell that to anyone in the path of a
hurricane racing from Africa to America. Tell that to anyone cruising in the
northeast or southeast trades. Typically, Wiki? Typically? Hardly. Only in a
few places.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The same kind of brainless forecasting results from a red sky in
the morning being a sailor’s warning, of course. And why always a red sky? I’m
sure most of us have seen sunrises and sunsets where clouds were reflected in
all kinds of gaudy colors.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Pink
sky at night,</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Gay
sailors’ delight.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Orange
sky at night,</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Fruit-lover’s
delight.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Almost any color of sky at night would be somebody’s delight.
But not necessarily a sailor’s, no matter what the Bible says and Wiki
regurgitates.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">To talk of
the weather, it’s nothing but folly,</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">For when it
rains on the hill, it shines in the valley.</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— R. H. Barham, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Nurse’s Story</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“How do you like
your new doctor, Ethel?”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“He’s great. So
sympathetic. He makes you feel really ill.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;">(Drop
by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-60303249008809563292016-10-18T19:50:00.000-07:002016-10-18T19:50:40.492-07:00When a mast drives you mad<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">WHEN YOU’RE THINKING about
buying a boat there’s always something you think of too late. Something that
will keep you awake all night the very first time you drop the hook in a
beautiful anchorage. </span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Slap! Clang! Slap! It’s
the noise of the loose wires in the mast. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">incessant</i> noise of the loose wires in the mast. The noise that
drives you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mad with frustration</i> as
you lie wide awake at 3 a.m. in your nice cozy bunk wanting to tear the mast
open with your bare hands and strangle those damn wires that go clang with
every little movement of the boat.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I have seen instructions
from the experts showing how to pop-rivet a small-diameter plastic pipe along
one side of the mast. Apparently, if you thread all the wires and cables
through that pipe they can’t move around enough to make a noise.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The other way, which is a
whole lot easier, is to fit those nylon zip ties used to bundle up electrical
wiring. You’re supposed to use extra-long ones, so that the stiff ends
protrude, and place groups of four of them together so they stick out at right
angles to each other. The ends should protrude more than the diameter of the
mast, so they will bend in place with enough spring to hold the wires in the
middle of the mast. The groups of four need to be about 6 inches apart all the
way up the bundle. You then haul the wires up through the mast on your
messenger line, fix them in place, and hope for the best.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I don’t know how long this
arrangement will last. I can’t guarantee that the stiff nylon ends won’t make
squeaky dozens of little scritching noises in the middle of the night, which
might be more annoying than a few honest-to-god hearty slaps, but people who’ve
done it assure me they’ve enjoyed nothing but silence.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">On a long cruise, you’ll
probably find that you don’t notice the slapping noises after the second or
third night. Your brain just tunes them out. But the first night is always
hell, no matter how calm the anchorage seems, and no matter how many Dark ’n
Stormies you’ve taken as a medicinal aid to sleep.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">So before you buy your
next boat, put an ear to the mast and get someone to rock the boat from side to
side. Then get a quote for dropping the mast and fixing the slap. Subtract it
from the purchase price. No seller with the faintest modicum of conscience will
object.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night,
and then the nap takes me.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Samuel
Johnson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boswell, Life,</i> 1775</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“I find you guilty and
sentence you to a fine of $250 and 30 days in jail.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Oh, please Your Honor,
please I beg of you, please reverse my sentence.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Very well. I sentence you
to a fine of $30 and 250 days in jail.”</span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-28866157095054710242016-10-17T09:51:00.001-07:002016-10-17T09:51:51.240-07:00Reversing magnetic north and south<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">DEEP DOWN
in the southern hemisphere scientists are trying to find out when the North
Pole is suddenly going to become the South Pole.</span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">According
to the British Geological Survey, a world-renowned geoscience center, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“The Earth’s magnetic field has had many highs, lows, and reversals in
its past. The last reversal was around 800,000 years ago. So the Earth is known
to be able to re-generate its field and has done so during human pre-history.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">A report from the
scientific body says that South Georgia sits within a weak spot in the Earth's
magnetic field known as the “South Atlantic Anomaly” (SAA). In this area,
radiation from space penetrates deeper into the atmosphere. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“The SAA is growing
and spreading westwards from South Africa as the Earth’s internal magnetic
field rapidly weakens in this region. Scientist believe this may be evidence of
a coming reversal in the direction of the Earth’s internal magnetic field,”
says the report.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Well, I knew that
scientists had examined ancient rocks whose construction revealed that the
magnetic field was once reversed, but I never realized it had happened several
times, and I never thought it would occur again in my lifetime. Can you imagine
what’s going to happen?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">All our maps,
charts, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>atlases will have to be
redrawn with a new north at the top, a north that we call the south at the
moment. Geographic globes will have to be remade upside down. You can throw
away your GPS and compasses<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because the
sun will rise in the west and set in the east. The blue bits on bar magnets
will have to be painted over with red, and vice versa.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Antarctica and
the penguins will be at the North Pole and all the polar bears will have to
move to the South Pole. The South Pacific will swop names with the North
Atlantic. The Northwest Passage will become the Southeast Passage and the trade
winds will blow northwest and southwest.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">South Carolina
and North Dakota will have to change to North Carolina and South Dakota. Google
Earth will have to turn upside down and have all its lettering changed. And
lord knows what-all else. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Gawd, what a
mess. I can’t believe those secretive scientists are springing this on us at
the last moment. I’m having a hard enough time coping with the concept of
global warming. The idea of turning the whole world on its magnetic head is
overwhelming. I think I need to lie down for a while. Either that or drink a
beer. I think I’ll try the beer first.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The more science learns what life is , the more reluctant
scientists are to define it.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Leila M.
Coyne, San Jose State University </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">An Italian immigrant was
having trouble with English irregular verbs.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“I can’ta weara my wool
skirt anymore,” she said. “I have send it to the cleaners and they shrinked ...
shrank ... shrunk ... Oh!” she broke off in desperation. “I putted on weight.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">(Drop
by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> </span></sup></b></span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-7086391480797470622016-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:002016-10-14T08:42:09.699-07:00Sinning and loving it<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">SOME
OF MY BEST memories of cruising under sail go back to times when I woke up well
after dawn and let my eyes dwell on the moving light show overhead.</span>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The
water is sparkling this sunny morning in this quiet cove. It throws its
dazzling reflections onto the white fiberglass over my head in the V-berth. And
a deep feeling of bliss suffuses my body. There is simply nothing more
luxurious or blissful than lying late in bed on a small boat, knowing that
people on other boats in the anchorage are dutifully scrubbing their decks,
wiping the dew off their varnish, and generally hopping around attending to the
tasks of the day.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But
it wasn’t always thus. I was brought up by proverb, idiom, maxim, and
commandment, both Biblical and parental. (“Thou shalt not question the hour of
bedtime.”) It was a time and place when Puritan virtues were esteemed. I never
took too much food and I always cleaned my plate. I never talked to an adult
until spoken to. I was taught to submerge myself in the team, never to stand
out from the crowd. I washed behind my ears because cleanliness was next to
godliness. I always went to bed on time. I never argued back. I would never
have dreamed of having my nose pierced or my navel tattooed. Punctuality was
the courtesy of kings, of course, and lying abed in the morning equated to
sloth, one of the deadly sins. Early to bed, early to rise, on the other hand,
made a man healthy, wealthy and wise.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Actually,
I couldn’t tell if it made me healthy, but I certainly became suspicious, years
later, when it failed to make me wealthy or wise. I eventually had a serious
talk with my conscience, which agreed (though rather reluctantly) that lying
abed in the morning, though possibly sluggish, unproductive, and anti-social,
should not be classified as one of the seven deadly sins.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Nevertheless,
deep in the folds of my grey matter there still lurks a primeval suspicion that
my parents were right. And that’s what makes things so delightful. There is
simply no bliss greater, no pleasure more profound, than that which springs
from sin. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I
draw the sleeping bag up around my chin and shut my eyes. A happy smile parts
my lips. It’s morning. It’s late. I’m still in bed. It’s wonderful. I’m
probably sinning, and will be for another half-hour at least. And I don’t give
a damn.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The avenues in my
neighborhood are Pride, Covetousness and Lust; the cross streets are Anger,
Gluttony, Envy and Sloth. I live over on Sloth, and the style on our street is
to avoid the other thoroughfares.</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">—
John Chancellor, New York, 24 Dec 84</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Please
tell His Honor what the man said when you opened the door.”</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Your
Honor, he said he hadn’t had a bite for five days.”</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“And
what did you do?”</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“I
bit him.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<sup><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;">(Drop by every Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></sup></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-46669499534987810852016-10-11T16:45:00.000-07:002016-10-11T16:45:19.083-07:00How to write a best-seller<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">WHEN
PEOPLE ASK ME how to write a best-seller, I usually point them at E. Annie
Proulx, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994 for her novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shipping News</i>.</span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">This
book deals with the two subjects I know best, boats and newspapers. Here’s what
I learned from E. Annie:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">First
you have to look up a lot of obscure little words that will impress the
Pulitzer Prize committee with your knowledge of obscure little words. Here are
some examples that E. Annie scattered around in her book: Ruvid, plangent,
nacre, vetrid, thunge, drenty, sadiron, pelm, caliginous, strigil, and ichor.
That’s just for starters. You need lots more than that.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Next
you have to persuade your readers to suspend disbelief. There are those of us
cynics who find it very hard to believe that the main character, a non-swimmer,
learned to swim in 15 seconds after his dinghy capsized in the remote freezing
waters of Newfoundland and was rescued six hours later by his boss who just
happened to be out fishing in his own skiff.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Equally,
it would be hard to persuade us that another man, who was drowned, found,
declared dead, and later placed in his coffin for the wake, woke up when his
wife accidently stuck him with a pin, started coughing up water and came back
to life.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And
then there was the man who had a farewell party that got so out of hand that a
mob of his drunken friends took axes to his seagoing yacht in the harbor and
actually sank it — and he didn’t mind. Didn’t mind. I ask you.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Furthermore,
there’s this thing about knots that goes through the whole book. I have to
admit that I believe Turk’s Heads bring good luck, but I simply can’t swallow
the notion that knotted strings can cast witching spells, influence events, and
foment bad occurrences.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">So
how you make your readers believe these things — or, at least not mind being
told such big fibs? Well, it seems that you have to bombard them with facts.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">E.
Annie obviously did extensive research into Newfoundland fisheries,
boatbuilding, weather, weak jokes, and the staggering incidence of incest and
sexual assault in the region. And she never leaves out a fact she researched.
Line after line of facts, real facts, whether they have anything to do with the
plot or not. Well researched facts are plainly the things that earn Brownie
points for pusillanimous Pulitzer wannabees. They cover up the pusillanimity,
if you see what I mean. As far as the author is concerned, such lists of boring
facts may well be no more than</span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> corroborative detail, intended to lend artistic verisimilitude
to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative (as Mr. Gilbert put it) but
they do serve very well the task of pulling the wool over the eyes of the
Pulitzer prize committee, and I commend this strategy to you.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But wait. There is
more. If you are writing a love story, as this is, you must be careful not to
make your main characters too lovable. I presume the Pulitzer people must have
become too jaded after reading so many love stories about curvaceous blonde
bombshells and handsome, dashing, muscle men. E. Annie must have known this
because she was careful to describe her hero (um, well, main character, anyway)
as fat and disheveled, with a hideous prognathous jaw — a man, moreover, of
“cringing hesitancy.” And who was attracted to this timid tub of lard? A
middle-aged woman with calloused hands, gray, mended dresses, and “taut thighs
like Chinese bridges.” Holy cow. Chinese bridges?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Finally, here’s a hot
tip from E. Annie: learn to write shorthand, diary style, in between the long
lists of facts and lengthy paragraphs of dialogue. Leave out verbs and other
important words, and let your readers make up their own sentences. Here’s what
I mean:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Saw her. The tall
woman in the green slicker. Marching along ... A calm almost handsome face,
ruddy hair ... Looked right at him.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Well, that’s the most
of it. That’s how you write a Pulitzer winner. There’s only one more thing. You
also need to be a genius like Ms. Proulx. You have to understand human nature
and the subtle relationships between people; and you need the skill to convey
their emotions to your readers, especially the PP committee members who are
struggling to see through the wool.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I’ll never win a
Pulitzer prize, that’s quite certain, but there may be some of you out there
who will benefit from the advice here, and that is sufficient reward for me. I
wish you the best of luck.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Excellence is the perfect excuse. Do it well, and it little
matters what.</span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— R. W. Emerson </span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“What’s
that mark on your nose?”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“It’s
from my glasses.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Why
don’t you try contacts?”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 2.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“They
don’t hold enough beer.” </span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-7527443088682769452016-10-10T10:05:00.000-07:002016-10-10T10:05:29.942-07:00Knowing when to give way<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">EVERY NOW
AND THEN we come across a situation under sail where someone has to give way to
someone else, but nobody really knows who has to do what.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Imagine, for
example, if you are sailing on port tack when you spot another sailboat way up
to windward. The only sail he has up is a spinnaker, and it’s obvious from your
angles of approach that if you each hold your course you will be in a collision
situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a situation like this, how
do you tell who has right of way?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The rules
say that If <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you're both on the same
tack, the windward boat should keep clear of the leeward vessel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you're on opposite tacks, and he's on
starboard, you have to keep clear of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And the trouble is, you can't tell if he's on port or starboard.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So let's go
back and start from the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here
are my usual steps:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1. Try to
ascertain if he's under power as well as sail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If he is, he should be exhibiting a black cone, point down, in the
bow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most amateur sailors ignore this
rule, so check for exhaust smoke or engine cooling water instead.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">If
he's under power (even if he has sails up) he must keep clear of you.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2. If it's
another sailboat under sail only, check which tack he's on.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> If he's on the
opposite tack to you it's simple: port tack gives way to starboard tack.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> If he's on the same
tack, the windward boat must keep out of the way of the leeward boat.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3. But
here's the interesting bit: </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> If you're on port
tack, and you see a sailing vessel to windward and cannot determine with
certainty whether the windward vessel has the wind on the port side or the
starboard side, you shall keep out of the way of the windward vessel.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The rule
doesn't address what happens if the situation becomes clearer to you at the
last minute, and you suddenly decide that he is the one who should be keeping
clear. But common sense should tell you that if you've already made an obvious
move to keep clear of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>him, he will
expect you to follow through and not create a last-minute emergency.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But the
question remains: How were you to know what tack he was on, when he was flying
only a spinnaker?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well, the
rules define the windward side as the side opposite that on which the mainsail
is carried, OR the side opposite that on which the largest fore-and-aft sail is
carried.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But this
situation is ambiguous, since no mainsail is being carried by the windward
boat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the spinnaker was boomed out to
port, I would say that the mainsail, if it were being flown, would be deployed
to starboard. That would put the windward boat on port tack and he'd have to
keep out of your way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If a
boomless cruising spinnaker were being flown from the starboard side, I'd say
the boat was on port tack and the same situation would apply.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nevertheless,
if there's any doubt in your mind about any of this, you must revert to the
rule under 3 above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play it safe.
Presume he is the stand-on vessel and that you should keep out of his way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then make an large and obvious course
correction so that he, too, knows what's in your mind. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Today's Thought</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If a man will begin with certainties, he
will end with doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall
end in certainties.</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">— Bacon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Advancement of Learning</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Wanna
lift home? I like giving rides to experienced girls."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"But
I'm not experienced."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">"You're
not home yet."</span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-83979931486800121612016-10-06T17:25:00.000-07:002016-10-06T17:25:33.477-07:00Rig tuning the cheaper way<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">HOW DO YOU TUNE your standing
rigging if you can’t afford those expensive tension gauges? Well, there is a
way.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">It just so happens that
the elastic stretch of stainless-steel wire increases in rough linear
proportion to the load, up to about half the wire's breaking strength.
Therefore, stretch is a good indication of load.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Thus, when a
33-foot-long 1 x 19 stainless-steel wire (of any thickness) is loaded to half
its breaking strength, it will stretch 2 inches. Little wonder, then, that the
leeward shrouds sometimes look a little slack.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Nevertheless, you can
use this principle to tune your rig. Here's how:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Take all the load off a
wire and mark on it as accurately as possible with tape or a marking pen a
length of 1,980 mm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do this anywhere
along the wire, where it's most convenient. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Now tighten the
turnbuckle and measure the length again as you do so. You will find that every
extra millimeter of stretch (up and above 1,980 mm) induces a load in the wire
of 5 percent of its breaking strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, an increase of 2 mm, with a space between your marks now
of 1,982 mm, indicates a 10 percent load.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">You can find out the
breaking strength of the wire from the manufacturer's or retailer's catalog,
and from that you can calculate the load in actual pounds or kilograms if you
like. But it's just as easy to reckon that a moderate pre-load for the average
rig is about 25 percent of the breaking strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In which case, you need to stretch your
marked length by 5 mm to 1,985 mm. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">That's it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No need for expensive tension gauges. All you
need is a tape marked in millimeters and you’re good to go. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Today's
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Often ornateness goes
with greatness;</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Oftener felicity comes
of simplicity.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">— William Watson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Art Maxims.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Doctor, I think I’ve
got water on the knee.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“No problem, Mrs Jones, I’ll
just give it a tap.”</span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></span></sup></b>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-76897095094028311372016-10-05T13:58:00.000-07:002016-10-05T13:58:15.255-07:00The puzzle that is leeway<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">EVER WONDERED WHY it is
that the magnetic courses shown by your compass and your GPS never seem to
agree? It’s something that has puzzled most of us in the past, but there is a
simple answer. It comes about because sailboats slip sideways through the water
almost all the time, except when they’re on a dead run.</span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">What we’re talking about
here is leeway. Now, leeway is really hard for ordinary mortals to detect. Even
if there is land behind the forestay when you look ahead, it’s almost
impossible to detect that the boat is slipping sideways while making forward
progress.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">So, although your compass
shows the boat to be on a steady course of 090 degrees, your GPS might be
showing your course to be 095 degrees. That’s because your compass shows your
magnetic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">heading</i>, not your course.
And your GPS shows your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">course over the
ground</i>, not your magnetic heading.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">In the absence of current,
the difference between the two is leeway, the sideways slippage of the whole
boat, which is at its maximum when you’re sailing against the wind and
non-existent when you’re running dead before the wind.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Interestingly, your boat
wouldn’t be able to sail to windward if leeway didn’t exist. The keel has to be
angled slightly to one side or other of your direction of travel before it can
provide “lift.” You can test this next time you’re motoring on the freeway by
putting your hand out of the window. Note how it moves up or down as you move it
from horizontal toward vertical. The same holds true for an airplane wing, of
course. It has to be angled slightly as it moves through the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Many factors affect leeway
but the rule of thumb is that a sailboat beating to windward will make between
3 and 5 degrees of leeway in a breeze of 7 knots. As the wind increases, so
does leeway, until it reaches about 8 degrees in 20 knots.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Short deep keels, known as
fin keels and shaped like airplane wings, are more efficient than
old-fashioned, long, shallow keels at providing lift to windward. Fin keels
depend on forward motion for their efficiency, however. When starting to sail
from a standstill, a fin keel will often allow a boat to slide sideways,
providing no lift at all until forward speed is gained. Full-keeled cruisers,
with their larger surface area, are more resistant to being pushed sideways at
very low speeds, and have other advantages in survival weather on the open
ocean, but they are less efficient at sailing against the wind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Unless your destination
lies dead downwind, it’s usually wise to point up into the wind 5 degrees or so
to compensate for leeway. Then you will achieve your planned course over the
ground and your GPS will be very happy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The oldtimers had an
expression for it. They said a boat wasn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">going</i>
where she was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">looking</i>. But she’ll go
where you want her to if you understand and anticipate the effect of leeway.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Where
lies the land to which the ship would go?</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Far,
far ahead, is all her seamen know.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And
where the land she travels from? Away,</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Far,
far behind, is all they can say. </span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">—Arthur Hugh Clough</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Neil
Diamond was once well into his act in a Chicago theater when four women held up
a poster reading: “Will you sleep with me tonight?”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 200%;">Neil didn’t falter.
“Ladies,” he announced, “I can perform only once a night — and this is it.”</span>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-29937724755125097982016-10-03T11:52:00.000-07:002016-10-03T11:52:16.593-07:00First time coming last<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">CAN THERE BE ANYTHING
WORSE than coming stone last in a sailboat race?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">I had finished way down
the list before in all sorts of boats from 30 Square Meters to sliding seat
canoes,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but never, ever, had I come
last.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">But there we were on a
perfectly normal day, a nice warm northeasterly blowing 10 to 15, no tide to
speak of, flat water in the protected bay and a decent start at the windward
end of the line — and everybody started to come past us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">It was the brutal
simplicity that attracted me to the Mirror class. My boat weighed a little over
100 pounds, and there were hardly any strings to pull, just a gunter-rigged
mainsail and a tiny jib with fixed fairleads. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">What it boils down to in
international one-design classes like this is the skill of the helmsman and
crew — basic<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>human cunning, strategy,
and experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's like a cross
between chess and poker on water. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">We had always done well
before. Won the offshore series outright, in fact. Came second in the
nationals. Now this.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">A boat skippered by a
man we all called The Bumbling Idiot came up astern, then pointed up
unbelievably high and promptly started to overtake us to windward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I luffed him immediately, of course. Pure
reflex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He didn't respond. I hit the
moron amidships and shouted "Go home!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He smiled and shouted, "It's OK, John,
don't worry about it. Carry on. I won't protest."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">HE wouldn't protest. For
God's sake, HE wouldn't protest. I couldn't believe my ears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn't believe my eyes, either. He was
disappearing ahead of us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">They all came past us on
that first leg to windward, singly and in groups, going faster and pointing
higher. The last one to overtake us was manned by two very large men,
250-pounders at least. Their jib was sheeted so tight it couldn't possibly
contribute to forward drive. Their mainsail was backwinding at the mast and
flopping all over the place at the leech. And still they came past,
foot-by-foot they came past to leeward , two fat men laughing and chatting to
each other and drinking beer out of tall cans, and when they hit our lee they
simply bore off, gained speed, got ahead of us, and luffed up again to show us
their transom. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">By now, things were
pretty desperate. "Sheet in the jib," I cried to my wide-eye crew. I
slacked the mainsail until it, too, was flogging uselessly like the one ahead
of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But nothing helped. We fell
farther back. We finished last, five minutes behind the boat ahead, when the
committee boat was already weighing anchor. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">To my dismay, I never
found out what went wrong that day. We checked the daggerboard and rudder for
plastic bags and seaweed. Nothing. The sails looked the same as they always
did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We weren't carrying any excess
weight. It was a total mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a
long time I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suspected the intervention
of some supernatural power. Maybe someone like The Bumbling Idiot had consulted
a witchdoctor and put a spell on us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">But it never happened
again, I'm happy to say. We eventually won the nationals, and The Bumbling
Idiot became the Class Secretary and learned some of the basic rules, and best
of all we never had to luff him again because he was always behind us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Today's
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">If
you go directly at the heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and
becomes only a question of drainage.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">— Christopher Morley, Where
the Blue Begins.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“I see your husband
finally gave up smoking.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“That’s correct.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“It must have taken a
lot of willpower.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Yes, I have a lot of
willpower.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;">(Drop
by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-5882727916135406242016-09-29T17:32:00.001-07:002016-09-29T17:34:00.724-07:00The heater that made ice<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">PEOPLE HAVE TRIED to
persuade me that if you have a heater on your boat you can extend your sailing
season by six weeks or so at each end. I have never been swayed by that
argument. Having spent a great deal of my life in the sub-tropics, I have no
love of sailing in the cold. Or the cold-and-rain, as often happens around
here. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">There was a heater of
sorts on a boat I once had, a little Cape Dory 25D. My wife and I found her on
an island in north Puget Sound, and sailed her home one bitter-cold day in
February, when there was ice on deck. We had an overnight stop in a marina in
Anacortes, where we ran into an old sailing friend. He offered us an electric
heater because he said a cold night was forecast, but we scoffed and turned him
away. “We have a nice Force 10 heater installed,” we said.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">After a meal ashore, we
came back to the boat and lit the heater. It had started life as a kerosene
model, but the previous owner had converted it to gas. A small can of propane
screwed onto the bottom.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">We soon noticed something
strange. It didn’t seem to be producing a lot of heat, and what heat it did
produce rose to the top of the cabin and stayed there. What was even stranger
was the fact that the can of propane was collecting a coat of ice. If we stood
up in the cabin, the air was luke-warm from the belly-button up, and freezing
cold from the belly-button down. As the layer of ice on the can grew thicker,
we shut the heater off, fearing that it was actually producing more cold than
heat on average. Our bunks were below belly-button level, so we spent a very
cold night aboard, having brought only light-weight sleeping bags with us, and
regretted having turned away the offer of the electric heater.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">One of the first jobs I
did on that boat was to convert the Force 10 back to kerosene heat.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">It was a fairly easy job
once I’d bought the right tools for flaring the copper tubing and so on. The
new burner put out a lot more heat and never tried to make ice, but the hot air
still hung around above belly-button level until we bought a 12-volt fan and
mounted it where a reading lamp used to be. That stirred the air up nicely,
distributing warmth all over the cabin from head to toe.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But we rarely used that
heater because the fan used electricity, and I was scared we might flatten the
battery overnight and not be able to start the diesel engine on a cold morning.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I have learned over the
years that very little is simple on a boat, and the less you have to go wrong
the better off you are. So I’m not overly enthusiastic about heaters on boats
in our part of the world. That of course provides me with a very handy excuse
for not sailing when the weather gets cold, which is fine with me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Today’s Thought</strong></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">What
is true, simple and sincere is most congenial to man’s nature.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Cicero, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">De Officiis</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><strong>Tailpiece</strong></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Who gave you that black
eye?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“My wife.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“I thought she was out of
town.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“So did I.”</span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-92161082392240915442016-09-27T16:51:00.003-07:002016-09-27T17:03:29.661-07:00The importance of a compass<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: normal;">IF
I WERE TO GUESS, I’d say the fixed steering compass is the most important
navigational instrument on a boat. I know that GPS has tried to steal this
title ever since it was invented, but I don’t think it has earned that honor
yet.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">The
wonderful thing about a compass is that it points the way to go, day and night
and in all weathers. GPS can’t point the way to go because it only takes
snapshots of where you’ve been in the past, and uses that information to tell
you what your course was a few moments ago, and presumably will be in the
future, if you keep going straight.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">The
compass is a beautifully simple piece of equipment that needs no electrical
power and has hardly anything to go wrong. It does need to be lit at night, I
admit, and an electric bulb is a good way to do this, but they also used small
kerosene lanterns on square-riggers, before Mr. Edison came along with his
new-fangled light bulb. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Oh,
and sometimes, after a lot of exposure to hot sunshine, a compass will develop
bubbles. In the old days, when the damping fluid was alcohol, you used to top
up the compass with gin, if there was any left after the skipper had been at
the bottle. Nowadays they use a petroleum-based fluid that is about 10 times as
expensive, but you can get away with using odor-free, water-clear kerosene if
the bubbles aren’t too big.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">With
compasses, as with most other things in life, you get what you pay for. If
you’re buying a new one, here are two simple tests that will give you an idea
of its quality:</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana;">►</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"> The test for
pivot friction: Use a small magnet or a piece of ferrous metal to deflect the
compass about 5 degrees to one side, then quickly remove the magnet or metal.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">The
compass should return to the previous position exactly. Do a similar test from
the other side.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana;">►</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"> The damping
test: Deflect the compass card again, but this time let the card pivot through
about 30 degrees. When it returns, see how far it overshoots the original mark.
A quality compass with proper damping has minimum overshoot and will regain its
original position with quick authority — that is, without excessive hunting
backward and forward. A cheap compass that hunts endlessly will drive a
helmsman nuts in a seaway. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Incidentally,
don’t think you can cure bad deviation by installing a new compass. The new
compass will have exactly the same deviation as the old one because deviation
is caused by external factors on the boat around it. And if deviation is more
than 5 degrees on any heading, don’t hesitate to call in a professional compass
adjuster.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Today’s Thought</span></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Change as ye list, ye winds! my
heart shall be</span></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">The faithful compass that still
points to thee.</span></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">—
John Gay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sweet William’s Farewell to
Black-Eyed Susan</i></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Tailpiece</span></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Books
I’d like to find in my library:</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Mother
and Child, by Polly Anderson</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">The
Appointment, by Simeon Mundy</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Ceaseless
Fall, by Eileen Dover</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Shattered
Window, by Eva Brick</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Front
Row of the Stalls, by Seymour Legge</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: xx-normal;">Droopy
Drawers, by Lucie l’Astique</span></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 200%;">(Drop
by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for another Mainly about Boats column.) </span></b>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-58630636030024075712016-09-26T10:28:00.000-07:002016-09-26T10:28:13.783-07:00Time for some potty talk<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">WE DON’T OFTEN talk about heads
around here, but Harrison Butler did. Quite a lot.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">T. Harrison Butler was the famous
British naval architect perhaps best known for his metacentric theory of yacht
design. But in his 1945 book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cruising
Yachts</i>, he also includes a delightful passage about toilet arrangements on
small boats, which he refers to in his delicate way as "sanitary
accommodation."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here's what he had
to say:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"This is a most important
question which, perhaps for reasons of modesty, is generally most inadequately
dealt with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accommodation is necessary
even in small day-boats . . .</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"I am inclined to think that
the ability to lodge the sanitation in the forecastle, apart from the main
cabin, decides what must be the smallest size of a cruising yacht.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am utterly opposed to a separate
compartment in any yacht under about 12 tons.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"In the first place, it is
absurd to sacrifice two-and-a-half feet of valuable space in the best part of
the hull for functions which are limited to a few minutes a day;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the second place, these small
compartments, ill-ventilated, smelly and difficult to clean, have no advantages
from the standpoint of privacy. A mere thickness of wood does not comprise
seclusion, and for all practical purposes of concealment, apart from the visual,
might not be there.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"Now, if the sanitation is
lodged in the forecastle, there is considerable secrecy, for one can enter the
forecastle from the saloon for a variety of purposes. Never forget that that,
even when anchored head to wind, the current of air is from the stern forwards,
and with an open forehatch the use of the convenience is attended with no
unpleasantness.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"Again, these contrivances have
to be used at sea, when there may be a considerable motion. An arrangement
that, with skilled acrobatics, can be made to function in harbour may be quite
useless at sea. With a mixed crew of four, I have never, either in Vindilis or
Sandook, found the forecastle lavatory any detriment, except once or twice at
night. Under these circumstances, a bucket in the cockpit has sufficed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"The under-water machines [1]
are not suitable for a very small craft; they are too heavy and too high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nearly three feet sitting room must be
allowed, but part of it can be gained by utilizing the extra height given by
the forehatch. In such craft, a bucket will be used. The compartment in which
the bucket stands ought to be lined with lead or other metal, otherwise in time
there will be a chronic smell, for with a wood lining adequate cleansing is
impossible."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">The bucket-and-chuck-it toilet
system that Harrison Butler aadvocated is now illegal in U.S. coastal waters,
of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to be several miles
away from the land before you can do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We now have to pump our waste into holding tanks or else install Porta
Pottis. Either way, it's pretty disgusting to have to carry your sewage around
with you, but it's a penalty we have to accept in the name of creating a
greener earth;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>although I have to admit
it makes me quite mad when I pass a whale, and think of the massive amounts of
effluent he and his pals dump into the water, apparently<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>without upsetting Nature in any way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">[1] I presume he means the old fixed
toilets, flushed with sea water, that discharged directly through the hull into
the surrounding water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>—JV </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Today's
Thought</b></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Out
of the world's way, out of the light,</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Out
of the ages of worldly weather,</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Forgotten
of all men altogether.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">— Swinburne, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Triumph of Time</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"How's your new computer system
working?"</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"It's wonderful. Works like a
charm."</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"Great. And how's
business?"</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">"Dunno. We had to close down
the business to run the computer system."</span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a
new Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-80119934697331407482016-09-23T10:26:00.000-07:002016-09-23T10:26:37.416-07:00We're no longer trucking<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">IF YOU READ a lot of books about
sailboats you will surely come across mention of a part of the boat called the
truck. Quite often it’s in a phase such as: “She is a real sea-going vessel
from truck to keel.” This might puzzle you because most sailboats don’t have trucks
these days.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">There are, in fact several meanings
of the word truck. There’s the vehicle, for a start, such as the well-known
pick-up truck. There’s also the noun that indicates “dealings with” someone:
“That boatyard robbed me blind. I’ll have no truck with them in future.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">But the truck we’re concerned with
here is a flat disk of wood fitted horizontally on the extreme upper end of a
mast of a sailing ship. On ships with more than one mast, it was found on the
tallest mast.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">It usually had holes bored down
through it for flag signal halyards, or small sheaves instead, if it was a
fancy truck. In old navy days men used to man the yards as a salute in honor of
a visiting sovereign or high official, or in celebration of a national event.
In ships of the line this display was topped off by a man standing on each
truck.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">If you know how the movement of a
ship is exaggerated and quickened at the top of a mast, you’ll understand that
this was an onerous duty for the poor soul chosen to man the truck, especially
when you consider that the only way he could stand on this lofty perch for
hours at a time was by steadying himself with the help of a small iron rod
temporarily inserted in a hole between his feet.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">There are very few sovereigns who
need saluting these days, and probably just as few private yachts<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with mast trucks big enough for a person to
stand on — but I think that’s something for which we can all be truly grateful.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get him
into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being
drowned.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— Dr. Samuel
Johnson</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Any sovereigns in your family?”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“No,
but I had an uncle who was a Peer.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">“Really? I had an uncle with bladder trouble, too.”</span>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-58491896390157446702016-09-21T09:49:00.001-07:002016-09-21T09:49:53.547-07:00When might ain't right<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">AUSTRALIANS cruising under sail have
developed a well-earned reputation for contempt of authority. One lovely
example I came across involved an Aussie yacht and an American warship.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not many of us realize it, but American warships
roam freely over all the oceans of the world, bossing other vessels around,
including small sailboats.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I myself was highly indignant when, in a
British-flagged 30-footer, I was stopped by a U.S. guided missile cruiser while
I was minding my own business in international waters 200 miles off Puerto
Rico, en route from the British Virgin Islands to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I
was sailing with my wife and my 17-year-old son.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The 548-foot-long <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">USS Wainwright</i> came roaring down on us out of the path of the sun
and scared the life out of us. They made us all line up in the cockpit and
grilled us about who we were, where we were going, what passports we held, and
a whole lot more. They had no good reason to stop us, and they had no right to
ask those questions. We were angry and resentful, but we were so intimidated we
didn’t even dare take a photograph of them. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But the Aussies, aboard the 45-foot steel
ketch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hinewa</i> in their own waters,
weren’t so easily intimidated. Here’s what they reported on a sailing bulletin
board:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“We were off the Queensland
coast, just outside the exclusion zone for a joint Aussie/U.S. landing exercise
— just around dinner time. The weather was pretty dull so we decided to heave
to for the meal and watch the show by eye, night-vision glasses, and radar.<br />
“All of a sudden, ‘American Warship 123’ challenged us on Channel 16 by name,
warned that we were close to the exclusion zone and that the boat would be
seized if we entered it — and asked our intentions. <br />
“We thanked them for the call, explained we were half a mile from the exclusion
zone, hove to, and were in fact slowly moving away from the zone.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“With
respect to our intentions, we then advised that we were still considering what
pudding to have, but that we would definitely be having coffee afterwards.<br />
“They don’t have a great sense of humor.<br />
“I must admit we were a little miffed that we, an Australian-flagged yacht in
Australian waters, could be challenged by a U.S. warship. <br />
“But the scariest thing was, they must have been close enough to read our name
on the bow (in the dark), yet we never saw them — no lights, no radar return
near-by and nothing through the night vision.” </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Today’s
Thought</span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He who is too powerful seeks power beyond
his power.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">— Seneca, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hippolytus</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tailpiece</span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Have your eyes ever been checked before?”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“No, doctor, they’ve always been brown.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 150%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another
Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b></span>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-5403219158506217542016-09-18T17:44:00.000-07:002016-09-18T17:44:03.569-07:00Voyaging across Europe<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">EVERY NOW AND THEN I come across
someone who has never heard of Negley Farson. So I have to do my duty and
educate them, as I have done with others many times before.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Farson was an early 20th century
American author, adventurer, war correspondent and (more relevant to this column)
a sailor. In the 1920s, he and his English wife, Eve, sailed a 26-foot wooden
centerboard yawl called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flame</i> from
England, through the canals, rivers, and lakes of Europe, over the Alps and right
down to the Black Sea. It was an extraordinary voyage that took them eight
months.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">He describes it briefly in his
famous autobiography, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Way of a
Transgressor</i>, although he did in fact devote a whole book to this boating
trip. It’s called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sailing Across Europe</i>.
Both books are still in print, together with many others of his, including a
classic on fishing, which he loved dearly.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Flame</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"> was probably the first boat of its
kind to go through what was then the only freshwater link across Europe
connecting the North and Black Seas. It climbed over the beautiful Frankischer
Jura mountains in a series of steps — 101 locks in 107 miles.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“So shallow and so overgrown with
weeds was it, that we could not use our motor,” Farson reported, “and I hauled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flame</i>, with a rope around my waist, over
the Frankischer Jura range! As soon as breakfast was over, I would go out on
the towpath and turn myself into a horse. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flame</i>
was 2 1/2 tons deadweight, and it took me three weeks to pull her over the
mountains for 107 miles.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">They were now over the backbone of
Europe, beginning the long descent to the Black Sea, but they missed disaster
by inches at Ratisbon, where they shot beneath a bridge built in the year 1300.
“Once out in that swift current of the Danube pouring out from its gorge above
Kelheim, we were helpless. The steeples and roofs of Ratisbon simply raced at
us as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flame</i> hurled her weight at the
one navigable arch of the bridge. We had taken out masts out to get under this
arch.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Not until the last minute did I see
that the peasants at Kelheim had directed us to steer through the wrong arch.
It was choked with rocks so that a white froth of rapids was sluicing through
it. I had to swing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flame</i> sharply to
the right and try to hit a small open hole of arch by the town wall.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“We just made it, grazing it as we
shot through. All I saw of it was a row of open mouths from the Ratisboners
wondering what on earth was this little craft doing up above the bridge, some
yells as we shot perilously at the bridge — and then the sun was shining on the
back of my head again. The bridge was being snatched away into the distance
behind us, Ratisboners wildly waving us a goodbye salute.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">On their way to the Black Sea,
Farson and his wife experienced many more hair-raising adventures (some even
life-threatening)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in countries recently
destabilized by the Great War, and their journey makes wonderfully exciting
reading. Great stuff for the cold winter nights that surely must be coming
soon.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Traveling
is not just seeing the new; it is also leaving behind. Not just opening doors;
also closing them behind you, never to return. But the place you have left
forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes. And the
cities you see most clearly at night are the cities you have left and will
never see again.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">— Jan Myrdal, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Silk Road</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Do you prefer American girls,
Canadian girls, Mexican girls, French girls, or German girls?”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">“Yes.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for another mainly about Boats column.)</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-63628830075739418222016-09-13T18:25:00.000-07:002016-09-13T18:25:18.724-07:00What to expect from a boat<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">ARE
YOU A SAILOR who is happily agreeable to being overtaken? If so, you are a rare
bird, for when another sailboat comes shimmying past it’s not easy to remain
calm and let that little smile of insouciance play on your lips. It’s not easy
to keep the knuckles from going white while gripping the helm, or the teeth
from grinding themselves down to the gums.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But
the sailors who can do this most successfully are those who have come to an
agreement with themselves about what they expect from a boat. Most often, they
are cruising sailors who, knowing that all boats are compromises, have decided
that seaworthiness, interior space, ease of handling and seakindliness are more
important to them than speed and the ability to point higher than anybody else.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">This
is not to say that all cruising sailors have the steely self-control not to
hurl insults at the boat that overtakes to windward, but on the whole they are
more even-tempered than the excitable racing types who, having spent large
fortunes on boats and gear with the express aim of going faster than anyone
else, may be excused for getting their wimmies in a froth when some rotten
so-and-so comes past them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The
point of all this is to know before you buy a boat exactly what you want to do
with it, and then to find out what kind of boat will fulfill your requirements.
If you omit these vital steps in successful boat purchase you will surely be
disappointed, and your boat will join the thousands that sit in their slips
week in and week out.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Modern
wide, shallow boats with fin keels go fast and have bountiful accommodation.
Old fashioned skinny boats with low profiles, pretty sheerlines, and modified
full keels, will look after you in a storm at sea.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Fin-keel
boats will be faster in light weather, because at low speeds, the majority of
resistance comes from skin friction, and they don’t have much skin down there.
But at higher speeds, when the wind pipes up, the main resistance comes from
making waves, so old fashioned designs are at less of a disadvantage, and in fact
will often outperform beamy shallow boats to windward in choppy seas. The
skinny oldsters can slither snake-like through the chop while the fin-keelers
bang and slam and pound their speed away.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">One
of the most experienced small-boat sailors was the British ocean racer and
publisher, K. Adlard Coles, who said: “A good heavy-displacement yacht is at
least as equally able as a light one at sea. I used to be a light-displacement
fan, but I have been converted to heavier displacement by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cohoe III</i>, which I have found to be a better sea boat ... the
principal difference is the immeasurably improved windward performance in
really heavy weather. She can stand up to much higher winds.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The race by vigor, not by
vaunts, is won.</span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">—
Pope, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dunciad.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 4pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Basil,
you’ve been drinking beer again!”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“No
my love, not a drop of booze has passed my lips.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“What
have you been up to, then?”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“I’ve
been eating frogs’ legs at the club.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">“Oh,
sorry, it must be the hops I can smell.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Drop by every Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 4pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-55934638688594434982016-09-11T17:32:00.000-07:002016-09-11T17:32:53.255-07:00Darwin, and yacht evolution<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I SOMETIMES WONDER how yachts fit in with Darwin’s theory of evolution. I
guess it’s fairly obvious that really bad yachts will sink and automatically remove
themselves from the gene pool. Or they will be so slow and clumsy to windward,
or so skittish downwind, that their owners will take an ax and chop them to
bits.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
B</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ut what distinguishes a good modern sailboat from a bad old one?
I can think of seven areas: ease of handling, seaworthiness, comfortable
accommodation, seakindliness, speed, weatherliness, and affordability.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ease of handling?
Lighter, stronger fabrics for sails and lines have made handling much easier
(along with fancier winches and line stoppers).</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Seaworthiness? I'd call
it a slight improvement. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Accommodation?
Definitely better.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Seakindliness? Probably
no improvement on the whole.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Speed? If we leave
aside the ultra-lights and multihulls, perhaps just a little improvement.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Weatherliness? Much
better, through improved rig and keel design, and better sails.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Verdana; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">Ø</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Affordability? Yes,
more affordable now because of mass production.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So I think we have to agree that on the whole sailboats have
indeed evolved for the better. They're living longer, too. Fiberglass is
turning out to have a very long life, despite a few outbreaks of bottom pox
here and there.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Today's Thought</span></b><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I have called this principle, by which each slight
variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">— Charles Darwin, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Origin of
Species</i>.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Tailpiece</span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></i><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Blessed are the pure in mind, for they shall inhibit the earth.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about
Boats column.)</span></b></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-46420002826278965702016-09-09T09:13:00.000-07:002016-09-09T09:13:04.005-07:00Let's get flapping again<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I’VE MENTIONED this before, but I still don’t see enough flags
flying on small boats these days. Hardly anyone even flies a burgee at the
masthead any more, which is a great shame because that colorful little triangle
of fluttering cloth denotes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pride of
ownership and bestows a disciplined liveliness on a boat.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And as for signaling flags, we might as well be talking about
dodos, or pterodactyls, or home-based land-line telephones. And that’s another
pity, because there is a huge section of the International Code of Signals
devoted to the ancient art of sending messages by flags.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">You can signal with one flag, or two, or three. There are
literally hundreds of coded messages waiting to be sent, and anybody with a set
of code flags ought to be absolutely itching to send a few. I mean, imagine you
spot some old friends aboard a far-flung yacht in an anchorage —<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but you don’t carry a VHF radio (because you
don’t have to) and you don’t have their cell-phone number because you never
wrote it down like you were supposed to. So now what? Well, code flags to the
rescue, of course. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Get out the signal book. Look up the right signal and hoist the
flags. Simple. There are codes for every occasion. For example, here’s a handy
three-flag hoist: MEG. It means “Bowels are regular.” That’s a message your
friends are always happy to receive. And relieved, you might say. Of course,
that might not always be the case, so the people who drew up the international
code cunningly also provided MJD (“Patient has flatulence.”) and MIO (“Patient
has clay-colored stool.”) There are other codes describing sailors with other
delicate variations of tummy problems, but we don’t need to dwell on that now.
You can look them up for yourself in private after dinner.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">One two-flag signal of particular interest is XP. It is not
clear why the compilers of the signal book thought fit to include this hoist,
since it means “I am in thick fog.” But perhaps they needed a belly laugh after
dealing with all that sordid stool business. In any case, if you ever come
across a vessel flying XP, if you can read it, it’s already too late.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">One signal you might want to memorize is SN. It means “You
should stop immediately. Do not scuttle. Do not lower boats. Do not use the
wireless. If you disobey I shall open fire on you.” Heavens, what a vicious and
belligerent message for two little flags to convey. The only reply I can think
of is MEG flown in reverse order, which should be read as “My bowels are NOT
regular.” Not now, anyhow.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The
international code does not deal with flags alone, of course. All other forms
of signaling by sea are covered, including the use of the human voice as
transmitted by radio waves. It seems that radio waves may sometimes distort the
human voice so much as to make it intelligible without the help of the
international code. Now I fear very few of my sailing friends practice this,
but it’s not sufficient to say “One, two, three and four” over the radio. The
code insists that you say <b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>unaone
(oo-nah-wun),<b> </b>bissotwo (bees-soh-too), <b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>terrathree (tay-rah-tree) and<b> </b>kartefour
(kar-tay-fower.) In fact, here is the full list, just in case you want to
impress the Coasties when they ask to come aboard and inspect your potty
arrangements:</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Figure
spelling table</span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Figure
or Mark to be Transmitted</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">(Code
Word Pronunciation)</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">0
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">NADAZERO (NAH-DAH-ZAY-ROH)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">1
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">UNAONE (OO-NAH-WUN)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">2
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">BISSOTWO (BEES-SOH-TOO)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">3
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">TERRATHREE (TAY-RAH-TREE)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">4
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">KARTEFOUR (KAR-TAY-FOWER)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">5
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">PANTAFIVE (PAN-TAH-FIVE)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">6
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">SOXISIX (SOK-SEE-SIX)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">7
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">SETTESEVEN (SAY-TAY-SEVEN)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">8
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">OKTOEIGHT (OK-TOH-AIT)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">9
</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">NOVENINE (NO-VAY-NINER)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Decimal
point</span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">DECIMAL (DAY-SEE-MAL)</span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">What harm in getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot,
a fool, a mitten or a slipper?</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Rabelais, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Works</i></span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The luckiest man is
the one who has a wife and an outboard motor that both work.</span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 200%;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></b>John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-81201186906848548632016-09-06T19:39:00.000-07:002016-09-06T19:41:35.511-07:00How to fall out of love<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">ARE YOU IN LOVE with your boat? I ask because love is
temporary insanity. Love is hormones out of control. But above all, love is
giving. </span><br />
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">It means new sails, new winches, new electronics, a new
engine, new everything you can imagine to make your boat happy and love you
back. </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Love is Nature’s way of separating a yachtsman from his
money. Love is Nature’s way of making a sailor go bankrupt. By my reckoning,
too many of you are going to end up in debtor’s prison where no boats are
allowed. </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">But I can help you here. I can tell you how to fall <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">out</i> of love with your boat. It’s all to
do with remembering.</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember the time she wouldn’t tack, got into stays
and embarrassed you in front of the yacht club that wouldn’t accept you as a
member? </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when the engine quit just as you were about
to pick up the mooring buoy and the cover was still on the mainsail and you hit
three boats sideways-on before you could get the anchor overboard?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when you got seasick and your mother-in-law
didn’t? Remember how she laughed?</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when you came last in the Wednesday evening
race because your boat ran into a big submerged plastic bag and deliberately
wrapped it around the keel? </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when the oil pipe split and spewed hot oil
all over the engine compartment?</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when the alcohol stove flared up, removed
your eyebrows, and burned the galley curtains? </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Remember when your cousin with diarrhea blocked the
head with wodges of toilet paper? </span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Think on these things, my friend.
Remember the bad times. Ask yourself why you’re in love. Ask yourself if you
really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> be. And stop buying
presents. Enough already. It’s only a boat.</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Today’s
Thought</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">But
he who stems a stream with sand,</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">And
fetters flame with flaxen band,</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Has
yet a harder task to prove —</span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">By
firm resolve to conquer love! </span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">— Scott, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lady of the Lake</i></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt 0in; tab-stops: 6.0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">I
believe it was Kierkegaard who once remarked that the trouble with life is that
it can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.</span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Nevertheless, some people do live in
the past and they tell me it has one great advantage — it’s a lot cheaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266108914902271629.post-33007944037318622502016-09-04T20:55:00.000-07:002016-09-04T20:55:47.163-07:00The beauty of simplicity<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">IT
OCCURS TO ME that we’d be better off if typewriters hadn’t been replaced by
computers. I mean, it’s thanks to computers that government departments are
getting hacked. Airline computer systems are falling down dead. Banks, whose
greatest responsibility is keeping your money safe, are putting you at risk
because their defenses against hackers simply aren’t good enough.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">What
we need is fewer computers and more typewriters. I mention this because most of
my readers are sailors, and you will appreciate that sailboats are the
typewriters of modern transportation systems.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Sailboats,
like typewriters, don’t need silicon chips and intricate circuits to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>make them work. They don’t need gasoline or
steam. They don’t even need electricity. You can circumnavigate the Earth under
sail alone. It has been done many times. Some sailboats have auxiliary engines,
to be sure, but you don’t actually need an engine to cross an ocean.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">It’s
a fallacy of modern thinking that computers are needed to run airlines. I can
remember the days before computers, when airline offices (and all major
businesses) had typists’ pools instead of keyboards and monitors. Typists had
nice legs clad in silk stockings in those days, which made it a particular
pleasure to take your notes into the typists’ pool to be typed up. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Those
old airlines ran just fine without computers. They never came to a standstill
because the stupid computers had broken down. And when you think of all the
Allied bombers that made combined runs over Europe in World War II, hundreds
and hundreds of them wing-tip to wing-tip, and all organized by typewriters and
typists with pretty legs, you have to wonder about the alleged advantages of
computers.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">And
just imagine if the Allied landings in France on D-Day had been scheduled on a
computer whose hard-drive had crashed at D minus two hours, because one of Herr
Hitler’s hackers had penetrated the firewall.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">I
like simple boats and simple systems. And there’s very little that’s simpler
and purer than a nicely designed sailboat. All it needs is a rudder, a keel, a
mast, a couple of sails, and some sort of shelter to sleep and cook in, and
you’re in business. And if anything goes wrong, you can fix it yourself. That’s
one of the most marvelous things about sailboats. Just like typewriters. You
can spill a whole cup of coffee over a typewriter and it will still work. You
can dig the gunk out of the keys with a paper clip and it will perform like
new. The greatest technological challenge in keeping a typewriter working is
changing the ribbon, just as the greatest challenge in a keeping a sailboat
working is finding money for the marina fees.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Airlines
and banks who really care about their customers, rather than their own bottom
lines, would do well to study the simplicity, efficiency, and reliability of
sailboats and typewriters. But that won’t happen, of course, because no matter
what they say, money is more important to them than people.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Today’s Thought</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Blissful are the simple, for they
shall have much peace.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="FR" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">— Thomas à Kempis, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">De
Imitatione Christi.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Tailpiece</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">A
friend of mine is set to make a fortune. He’s working on a dog food that tastes
like a mailman’s leg.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)</span></span></b></div>
John Vigorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215080385571534292noreply@blogger.com0