THERE ARE TIMES during the dog days of summer when I ache with longing for a sweet little powerboat. When my mainsail is slatting uselessly and the boom is sulkily flinging itself back and forth, it’s inevitable that a powerboat will happen along, looking purposeful and efficient.
I always lie back casually with one foot cocked over the tiller. I compose a blissful smile on my face and rake my floppy sunhat at a saucy angle. I like to make the motorboater feel green with envy.
But sometimes I’m not as patient and content as I look. I’m fascinated by engines, especially the quiet, slow-revving ones, and I love round-bilged, single-screw displacement hulls. There’s also a place in my heart for boats like the hard-chine Maine lobster boat with its planing hull and sharp, clean lines.
One day, when I’m too old to sail, I’m going to get me one of those cocky little Northwestern cuddy-cabin cruisers with a beetle brow to keep the rain off its face and a fierce little diesel heater to chase away the January chill.
And in summer, when I come across one of those becalmed sailors in a saucy sunhat with a leg draped over the tiller, I won’t feel envious at all. No sir. I’ll just laugh in his face and chug merrily on my way.
Today’s Thought
You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both. —Emerson, Journals.
Tailpiece
Sad story about the commodore of the local yacht club. He went to Victoria’s Secret to buy a birthday present for his wife and was shown some beautiful negligées ranging from $250 to $500. He noticed that the sheerer the negligée, the higher the price, but in the end he opted for the sheerest one, paid the $500 and took it home.
He presented it to his wife and suggested she might like to go upstairs and model it for him.
While she was changing, his wife had an idea. “It’s so sheer that it might as well be nothing. I won't put it on; instead I'll do the modeling naked, return the negligée tomorrow and keep the $500 refund for myself.”
So she appeared naked on the balcony and struck a pose.
“Good grief,” cried the commodore, “you'd think for $500 they would at least iron it!”
He never heard the shot. They’re scattering his ashes at sea next Friday.
January 16, 2009
January 13, 2009
Virtual ladies’ underwear
THEY SAY THERE ARE thousands of Americans playing the Virtual Vendée Globe game on their computers, but I’m quite sure the great majority of competitors are French. I have deduced this from the names they’ve given to their virtual boats.
Nearly 300,000 players are steering their boats singlehanded in a non-stop voyage around the world. They are following in the wake of the skippers in the real Vendée Globe and competing for prizes worth more than 10,000 euros ($13,400).
For someone like me, who doesn’t speak more than a couple of words of parly-voo, the names in the list of entries sound like those from an alien planet, though now and then you can recognize something that makes at least a little sense, like Le Titanic 38. I don’t know what the 38 might refer to, but I have heard of the Titanic. Luckily, the race committee has set a course free of icebergs.
I can also see some sense in 81bacchus, no doubt a hearty party boat, and certainly in beuf, which I take to be a simple French sailor’s misspelling of his favorite meal, boeuf, or beef. But I don’t know what to make of xtcx8888 (ecstasy something?)or Ew1w1 (eeuw!?). I suppose there is some sense to le virus if you’re playing a sneaky game on a computer, but I notice it’s nowhere near the frontrunners.
Some of the names are commendably short, like Zax, some are long, like Maxarochrispi, and now and then you’ll find a lonely Anglo-Saxon entrant with a name like nowornever. With my senses dulled by deciphering so much French, I first read this as No Worn Ever. English, certainly, I eventually realized, but very puzzling.
As I write this, there is a fierce fight going on among the leaders, who are in the South Atlantic on their way home after having rounded Cape Horn. The first three, in order, are mets du bras, Dhlombre, and le dub, with fumator close behind. Something about the name mets du bras attracted my attention, so I got out my trusty Larousse French dictionary and discovered that mets means a dish (culinary). So presumably the leader of the Virtual Vendée Globe is sailing around the world in a dish of ladies’ underwear. You can’t hardly get more French than that.
Today’s Thought
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. —Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
Tailpiece
“How do you know that the Muppet frog is Jewish?”
“I just got an invitation to his Kermitzvah.”
Nearly 300,000 players are steering their boats singlehanded in a non-stop voyage around the world. They are following in the wake of the skippers in the real Vendée Globe and competing for prizes worth more than 10,000 euros ($13,400).
For someone like me, who doesn’t speak more than a couple of words of parly-voo, the names in the list of entries sound like those from an alien planet, though now and then you can recognize something that makes at least a little sense, like Le Titanic 38. I don’t know what the 38 might refer to, but I have heard of the Titanic. Luckily, the race committee has set a course free of icebergs.
I can also see some sense in 81bacchus, no doubt a hearty party boat, and certainly in beuf, which I take to be a simple French sailor’s misspelling of his favorite meal, boeuf, or beef. But I don’t know what to make of xtcx8888 (ecstasy something?)or Ew1w1 (eeuw!?). I suppose there is some sense to le virus if you’re playing a sneaky game on a computer, but I notice it’s nowhere near the frontrunners.
Some of the names are commendably short, like Zax, some are long, like Maxarochrispi, and now and then you’ll find a lonely Anglo-Saxon entrant with a name like nowornever. With my senses dulled by deciphering so much French, I first read this as No Worn Ever. English, certainly, I eventually realized, but very puzzling.
As I write this, there is a fierce fight going on among the leaders, who are in the South Atlantic on their way home after having rounded Cape Horn. The first three, in order, are mets du bras, Dhlombre, and le dub, with fumator close behind. Something about the name mets du bras attracted my attention, so I got out my trusty Larousse French dictionary and discovered that mets means a dish (culinary). So presumably the leader of the Virtual Vendée Globe is sailing around the world in a dish of ladies’ underwear. You can’t hardly get more French than that.
Today’s Thought
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. —Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
Tailpiece
“How do you know that the Muppet frog is Jewish?”
“I just got an invitation to his Kermitzvah.”
January 11, 2009
One strike is enough
ONE OF THE MOST frightening experiences I’ve ever had on a small sailboat was a violent night thunderstorm in the South Atlantic. We were many hundreds of miles from the nearest land at the time and our shiny aluminum mast was the highest thing sticking up in the air from horizon to horizon.
I doused all sail and we lay drifting broadside on, heeled over in gale-force gusts while bolts of lightning crashed,flashed, and sizzled all around us like lethal blue strobe lights.
I followed the advice of the British sailor and author, Eric Hiscock. I wrapped a fathom of chain around the backstay, which ran to the top of the mast, and let it trail in the sea astern. I don’t know whether that helped, or whether it was just one of your everyday simple miracles that we avoided getting struck, but I still remember how scared I was for the hour or so until it blew over.
What do you do in these circumstances to calm the intense apprehension, the awful conviction that you’re going to be blown to smithereens at any moment? There’s always the bottle of rum in the medicine cabinet, of course, but I read a better (well, alternative) method on the Cape Dory bulletin board the other day.
Duncan Cameron is a Cape Dory 27 sailor from Montreal, Quebec. He lectures in Strategy at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, in Montreal. He once got caught in a series of squalls between Point Judith and Fisher's Island while he was sailing between Rhode Island Sound and Long Island Sound.
“I'm going to guess the swells were up to 10 feet,” he said, “and I had to squint sideways to see in the rain and spray. There was lightning all around, more than I've ever seen, huge purplish forks at times. I fell off a couple of waves, and was clawing off a lee shore most of the way.
“The boat seemed to take the weather pretty well, and I was towing the dinghy too, but that worked out OK. I did wish I had full lifelines and a stern pushpit, because I was worried about trying to stay in the cockpit some of the time.
“As far as the lightning went, I just decided I was an ant in a big field, with a farmer walking around it. That way, I reckoned my chances of getting stepped on weren't that high. But there were times when the farmer walked all around me in me in a big circle, and he was stomping his feet pretty hard at times.”
Duncan was adopting the fatalist’s approach, of course, and frankly I can’t think of a better way to keep calm in the face of calamity — especially if you have saved up a few points in your black box. Remember Duncan’s method next time you get caught out in a lightning storm.
Remember, you’re the ant. The lightning is the farmer. Don’t get stomped on. Good luck.
Today’s Thought
Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be, and be this so. —Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.
Tailpiece
’Twas in the tropic latitudes
While we were talking platitudes,
As any sailor might.
We forgot to take our longitude,
Which was a grievous wrongitude,
So we did not reach Hong Kongitude
’Til very late that night.
I doused all sail and we lay drifting broadside on, heeled over in gale-force gusts while bolts of lightning crashed,flashed, and sizzled all around us like lethal blue strobe lights.
I followed the advice of the British sailor and author, Eric Hiscock. I wrapped a fathom of chain around the backstay, which ran to the top of the mast, and let it trail in the sea astern. I don’t know whether that helped, or whether it was just one of your everyday simple miracles that we avoided getting struck, but I still remember how scared I was for the hour or so until it blew over.
What do you do in these circumstances to calm the intense apprehension, the awful conviction that you’re going to be blown to smithereens at any moment? There’s always the bottle of rum in the medicine cabinet, of course, but I read a better (well, alternative) method on the Cape Dory bulletin board the other day.
Duncan Cameron is a Cape Dory 27 sailor from Montreal, Quebec. He lectures in Strategy at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, in Montreal. He once got caught in a series of squalls between Point Judith and Fisher's Island while he was sailing between Rhode Island Sound and Long Island Sound.
“I'm going to guess the swells were up to 10 feet,” he said, “and I had to squint sideways to see in the rain and spray. There was lightning all around, more than I've ever seen, huge purplish forks at times. I fell off a couple of waves, and was clawing off a lee shore most of the way.
“The boat seemed to take the weather pretty well, and I was towing the dinghy too, but that worked out OK. I did wish I had full lifelines and a stern pushpit, because I was worried about trying to stay in the cockpit some of the time.
“As far as the lightning went, I just decided I was an ant in a big field, with a farmer walking around it. That way, I reckoned my chances of getting stepped on weren't that high. But there were times when the farmer walked all around me in me in a big circle, and he was stomping his feet pretty hard at times.”
Duncan was adopting the fatalist’s approach, of course, and frankly I can’t think of a better way to keep calm in the face of calamity — especially if you have saved up a few points in your black box. Remember Duncan’s method next time you get caught out in a lightning storm.
Remember, you’re the ant. The lightning is the farmer. Don’t get stomped on. Good luck.
Today’s Thought
Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be, and be this so. —Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.
Tailpiece
’Twas in the tropic latitudes
While we were talking platitudes,
As any sailor might.
We forgot to take our longitude,
Which was a grievous wrongitude,
So we did not reach Hong Kongitude
’Til very late that night.
January 8, 2009
Beautiful overhangs
I WAS LOOKING at a profile of a Pearson Vanguard the other day and thinking how beautiful she was. That man Philip Rhodes could design a mean sheerline. Combined with low freeboard, Vanguards still look gorgeous nearly 50 years after they were built.
The bow, in particular, has a cocky sheer and a rounded profile that seems just right for a seagoing boat, while the stern rises just enough to complement the wonderful curve that sweeps from fore to aft as befits a creature intended to live among waves.
By today’s standards, the overhangs are excessive. The bow and the stern overhangs measure more than 10 feet combined on a boat only 32 feet 7 inches overall. But today’s boats have traded beauty for utility and interior space, which is a compromise not necessarily for the better.
Designers tell us that overhangs enable a boat to go faster. They increase the boat’s waterline length as she heels, and waterline length, as we all know, is the major factor affecting the maximum speed of displacement boats. I have never been convinced of this alleged benefit. Not for any good mathematical reason but just because I can’t believe it makes enough difference to matter. I’m also suspicious about the claim that heeling adds to waterline length. Some boats roll buoyantly upward, out of the water, as they heel. I bet they don’t add much to the wetted waterline. And besides, when you’re running downwind, and not heeling, there is no gain in waterline length at all.
I personally don’t think the Vanguard’s overhangs are excessive. Another famous and very handsome design of that period, the Camper & Nicholson 32, had overhangs totaling 9 feet. Furthermore, L. Francis Herreshoff, the great master, designed what he called “sensible cruising boats” with overhangs very much like the Vanguard’s. His famous H-28 ketch, at 28 feet overall, had a waterline of just over 23 feet.
There’s no doubt, though, that very long overhangs are dangerous at sea. They’re very elegant, but on smaller boats they’re suited only to sheltered waters. They cause pounding at the bow and slamming at the stern.
A friend of mine once took his 30-Square Meter to sea. This was a narrow-gutted formula racing class with very long overhangs, because the goal for naval architects was to design the fastest sailboat you could build with a maximum of 30 square meters of sail area. My friend got caught in quartering seas and found that the leverage afforded by the long stern overhang caused each overtaking swell to spin the boat almost broadside on, into a dangerous broach. Those 30 Squares were gorgeous to look at, and extremely satisfying to sail to weather, but they were lousy seaboats in bad weather.
The Vanguard was designed in the days when the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule applied, of course. When that rule was superseded by the International Offshore Rule (IOR), the rear ends of racing boats suddenly changed from generous, flowing, well-rounded buttocks to mean and tight pinched-in haunches, often with unsightly reverse-sheer transoms. This did nothing for seaworthiness or looks. It just helped a boat get a better handicap under the IOR formula.
Manufacturers of cruising boats, like lemmings flowing over the cliff, followed the style of the racers, of course, in the hope that prospective clients would be impressed. So we had a very ugly production run of racer/cruisers in the 1970s and early ’80s. Happily, though, there were the occasional standouts, like Pearson and Philip Rhodes.
I take my hat off to them every time I see a Vanguard.
Today’s Thought
Perhaps the greatest difference between the beautiful yacht and the plain one is the way their crews treat them, for the crew of the beautiful yacht usually gives her tender loving care. —L. Francis Herreshoff.
Tailpiece
Overheard at the yacht club bar:
“My dirty bottom is really wreaking havoc with my performance.”
“Yeah, just imagine what that would do to a boat.”
The bow, in particular, has a cocky sheer and a rounded profile that seems just right for a seagoing boat, while the stern rises just enough to complement the wonderful curve that sweeps from fore to aft as befits a creature intended to live among waves.
By today’s standards, the overhangs are excessive. The bow and the stern overhangs measure more than 10 feet combined on a boat only 32 feet 7 inches overall. But today’s boats have traded beauty for utility and interior space, which is a compromise not necessarily for the better.
Designers tell us that overhangs enable a boat to go faster. They increase the boat’s waterline length as she heels, and waterline length, as we all know, is the major factor affecting the maximum speed of displacement boats. I have never been convinced of this alleged benefit. Not for any good mathematical reason but just because I can’t believe it makes enough difference to matter. I’m also suspicious about the claim that heeling adds to waterline length. Some boats roll buoyantly upward, out of the water, as they heel. I bet they don’t add much to the wetted waterline. And besides, when you’re running downwind, and not heeling, there is no gain in waterline length at all.
I personally don’t think the Vanguard’s overhangs are excessive. Another famous and very handsome design of that period, the Camper & Nicholson 32, had overhangs totaling 9 feet. Furthermore, L. Francis Herreshoff, the great master, designed what he called “sensible cruising boats” with overhangs very much like the Vanguard’s. His famous H-28 ketch, at 28 feet overall, had a waterline of just over 23 feet.
There’s no doubt, though, that very long overhangs are dangerous at sea. They’re very elegant, but on smaller boats they’re suited only to sheltered waters. They cause pounding at the bow and slamming at the stern.
A friend of mine once took his 30-Square Meter to sea. This was a narrow-gutted formula racing class with very long overhangs, because the goal for naval architects was to design the fastest sailboat you could build with a maximum of 30 square meters of sail area. My friend got caught in quartering seas and found that the leverage afforded by the long stern overhang caused each overtaking swell to spin the boat almost broadside on, into a dangerous broach. Those 30 Squares were gorgeous to look at, and extremely satisfying to sail to weather, but they were lousy seaboats in bad weather.
The Vanguard was designed in the days when the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule applied, of course. When that rule was superseded by the International Offshore Rule (IOR), the rear ends of racing boats suddenly changed from generous, flowing, well-rounded buttocks to mean and tight pinched-in haunches, often with unsightly reverse-sheer transoms. This did nothing for seaworthiness or looks. It just helped a boat get a better handicap under the IOR formula.
Manufacturers of cruising boats, like lemmings flowing over the cliff, followed the style of the racers, of course, in the hope that prospective clients would be impressed. So we had a very ugly production run of racer/cruisers in the 1970s and early ’80s. Happily, though, there were the occasional standouts, like Pearson and Philip Rhodes.
I take my hat off to them every time I see a Vanguard.
Today’s Thought
Perhaps the greatest difference between the beautiful yacht and the plain one is the way their crews treat them, for the crew of the beautiful yacht usually gives her tender loving care. —L. Francis Herreshoff.
Tailpiece
Overheard at the yacht club bar:
“My dirty bottom is really wreaking havoc with my performance.”
“Yeah, just imagine what that would do to a boat.”
January 6, 2009
The Shame of Secret Racing
OLD WOTSISNAME, who moors just down the row from me, doesn’t look like a racing type. But in fact he was quite a hotshot racer in one-design keelboats in his middle age. After winning a cupboard full of silver mugs and trophies he gave up racing one day when he realized it was obsessing him.
“We used to race on Saturday afternoons,” he told me. “By Friday afternoon my guts was in a knot. I never slept a wink on the night before a race. And by the time we started racing I was a wreck. I survived on adrenaline. It wasn’t worth it.”
OW didn’t lose his love of sailing. He became a cruiser instead, unconcerned about speed, wind angles, and velocity made good. In fact he became a cruiser with a vengeance. He bought himself an old ferro-concrete boat that has deteriorated along with him over the years. It must weigh as much as a minor pyramid, and it possesses similar sailing qualities.
I, too, have a cruising boat for much the same reason. Like OW, I am a recovering racer. But the urge to race is still very strong in me. I always regard it as a sign of maturity, mental stability, and even true wisdom, when I can let another boat go past me without feeling the urge to race it.
But most of the time I’m too weak to resist. Most of the time I will sneakily adjust the jib, tweak the main, and send someone below to make sure the propeller shaft is correctly fixed in the position that makes the boat go faster. All this, while casually looking the other way and pretending not to have noticed the other boat.
It’s a disease. I still suffer from it and I’m not proud of it because I recognize that I’m seeking the self-gratification of winning a race without facing the risk of losing it in public. If, despite my clandestine efforts, the other boat overtakes me, they’ll never have the satisfaction of jeering at me and making rude remarks about my helmsmanship, like the real racers do, because they’ll never know they were racing me.
I admit it: to pursue glory without the risk of failure is morally indefensible. It’s contemptible to believe a hollow victory under sail is better than none at all. It’s a shameful vice, and I’d like to conquer it, but I tell you frankly I’m not hopeful.
OW is not very helpful. He says I should buy a concrete boat because nothing is slower than a concrete boat so there’s no point in your trying to pass anything. But I can’t do that. He is farther along the road to recovery than I am. I fear I shall just have to suffer and be ashamed of myself for a few years more, and then I’ll stop racing. Truly. Honestly I will.
Today’s Thought
Rivalry is good for mortals. —Hesiod, Works and Days.
Tailpiece
A baby sardine off the Californian coast was badly frightened yesterday by its first sight of a submarine.
But its mother calmed the little fellow down. "Don’t be alarmed, dear," she said, "it’s just a can of people."
“We used to race on Saturday afternoons,” he told me. “By Friday afternoon my guts was in a knot. I never slept a wink on the night before a race. And by the time we started racing I was a wreck. I survived on adrenaline. It wasn’t worth it.”
OW didn’t lose his love of sailing. He became a cruiser instead, unconcerned about speed, wind angles, and velocity made good. In fact he became a cruiser with a vengeance. He bought himself an old ferro-concrete boat that has deteriorated along with him over the years. It must weigh as much as a minor pyramid, and it possesses similar sailing qualities.
I, too, have a cruising boat for much the same reason. Like OW, I am a recovering racer. But the urge to race is still very strong in me. I always regard it as a sign of maturity, mental stability, and even true wisdom, when I can let another boat go past me without feeling the urge to race it.
But most of the time I’m too weak to resist. Most of the time I will sneakily adjust the jib, tweak the main, and send someone below to make sure the propeller shaft is correctly fixed in the position that makes the boat go faster. All this, while casually looking the other way and pretending not to have noticed the other boat.
It’s a disease. I still suffer from it and I’m not proud of it because I recognize that I’m seeking the self-gratification of winning a race without facing the risk of losing it in public. If, despite my clandestine efforts, the other boat overtakes me, they’ll never have the satisfaction of jeering at me and making rude remarks about my helmsmanship, like the real racers do, because they’ll never know they were racing me.
I admit it: to pursue glory without the risk of failure is morally indefensible. It’s contemptible to believe a hollow victory under sail is better than none at all. It’s a shameful vice, and I’d like to conquer it, but I tell you frankly I’m not hopeful.
OW is not very helpful. He says I should buy a concrete boat because nothing is slower than a concrete boat so there’s no point in your trying to pass anything. But I can’t do that. He is farther along the road to recovery than I am. I fear I shall just have to suffer and be ashamed of myself for a few years more, and then I’ll stop racing. Truly. Honestly I will.
Today’s Thought
Rivalry is good for mortals. —Hesiod, Works and Days.
Tailpiece
A baby sardine off the Californian coast was badly frightened yesterday by its first sight of a submarine.
But its mother calmed the little fellow down. "Don’t be alarmed, dear," she said, "it’s just a can of people."
January 4, 2009
Love me tender
CRUISERS UNDER SAIL spend a lot of time searching for the perfect dinghy. A dinghy, for the benefit of those of you who might not know, is the small boat that takes you to shore from your bigger boat. It’s also known as a yacht’s tender.
Tenders are like wives or husbands. None is perfect. There are always others that look more attractive from a distance. But as soon as you try them out you discover that they’re just as full of faults as the one you’ve already got.
After all is said and done, lusting after another one never did anybody any good. It’s more sensible to get used to the one you’ve got and make the most of it.
Let’s face it, you can’t do without one, unless you’re prepared to swim ashore every time you anchor out. But very few of us acquire the one of our dreams. Usually, we just end up with one we can tolerate. Mine, for example, came with a boat I bought. (Yes, yes, tender, not wife.)
But if you don’t have a tender yet, the world is your oyster. There are two major groups, hard or soft, solid or pneumatic. Some are sleek and glamorous and attract a lot of attention, but they’ll cost you an arm and a leg.
What you really need is a sturdy, beamy little workhorse able to carry a large anchor or a week’s provisions with ease. She should be able to take a great deal of abuse and snuggle quietly on your cabin trunk when you’re through with her.
And, of course, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t also be cute and good-looking, in a snub-nosed kind of way.
Today’s Thought
Great Estates may venture more,
But little Boats must keep near Shore. –Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard.
Tailpiece
A sailor, a doctor and a priest were waiting for a particularly slow group of golfers.
“What’s taking these idiots so long?” the sailor asked.
“I’ve never seen such terrible golf,” grumbled the doctor.
“Here comes the greens keeper,” said the priest. “Let’s ask him.”
“Oh, that’s a group of blind firefighters,” the keeper explained. “They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a big blaze last year, so we always let them play free any time they want.”
The priest said: “That’s so sad. “I’m going to say a special prayer for them tonight.
The doctor said: “Good idea. I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do for them or their families.”
The sailor said: “Why the hell can’t they play at night?”
Tenders are like wives or husbands. None is perfect. There are always others that look more attractive from a distance. But as soon as you try them out you discover that they’re just as full of faults as the one you’ve already got.
After all is said and done, lusting after another one never did anybody any good. It’s more sensible to get used to the one you’ve got and make the most of it.
Let’s face it, you can’t do without one, unless you’re prepared to swim ashore every time you anchor out. But very few of us acquire the one of our dreams. Usually, we just end up with one we can tolerate. Mine, for example, came with a boat I bought. (Yes, yes, tender, not wife.)
But if you don’t have a tender yet, the world is your oyster. There are two major groups, hard or soft, solid or pneumatic. Some are sleek and glamorous and attract a lot of attention, but they’ll cost you an arm and a leg.
What you really need is a sturdy, beamy little workhorse able to carry a large anchor or a week’s provisions with ease. She should be able to take a great deal of abuse and snuggle quietly on your cabin trunk when you’re through with her.
And, of course, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t also be cute and good-looking, in a snub-nosed kind of way.
Today’s Thought
Great Estates may venture more,
But little Boats must keep near Shore. –Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard.
Tailpiece
A sailor, a doctor and a priest were waiting for a particularly slow group of golfers.
“What’s taking these idiots so long?” the sailor asked.
“I’ve never seen such terrible golf,” grumbled the doctor.
“Here comes the greens keeper,” said the priest. “Let’s ask him.”
“Oh, that’s a group of blind firefighters,” the keeper explained. “They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a big blaze last year, so we always let them play free any time they want.”
The priest said: “That’s so sad. “I’m going to say a special prayer for them tonight.
The doctor said: “Good idea. I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do for them or their families.”
The sailor said: “Why the hell can’t they play at night?”
January 1, 2009
How to choose a boat
Happy New Year to you. I hope 2009 brings health and happiness to your life. And I hope it makes you content with your choice of boat.
This is the time of year when sailors suffering from winter cabin fever hie themselves off to boat shows and start lusting after new boats. It’s a strange thing, but an extraordinary number of boat owners start feeling the seven-year itch after only a couple of years. They start feeling unhappy about their choice of boat and some — the ones with finer feelings — might even begin to feel guilt and remorse about wanting something younger, faster, more attractive, and more accommodating.
New York naval architect Dave Gerr says one of the most common requests he gets is to take a given hull and make it either larger or smaller. Which leads me to ask: Why are people so seldom satisfied with they’ve got?
The answer, it seems to me, is that they did things in the wrong order. They first bought the boat, and only later decided what they wanted it for.
For beginners, especially, it’s difficult to know what boat will suit you best, and even experienced yacht brokers will occasionally try to sell you an unsuitable boat for reasons of stupidity, cupidity, or both.
When you think about it, there are boats dedicated to a wide variety of uses, and a boat that’s best for one thing is often not even adequate for other uses. So someone itching to buy a boat should first scratch himself and find out why he wants a boat. Here are a few possible reasons:
—Board sailing/fishing/gunkholing and exploring/kayaking and canoeing.
—Making a lot of irritating noise, speeding in small circles, jumping other people’s wakes, and generally showing off.
—Motor-sailing/power cruising/power racing.
—Rowing or paddling for fun.
—Rum running/drug smuggling/illegal immigrant conveyance.
—Sail racing/sail cruising/sail camping/trailer sailing.
—Scuba diving/water skiing/sunbathing/bikini displaying and cocktail drinking.
There are boats specially designed for all these activities — and these are only the major categories. When it comes to fishing, or sailing, for example, there are many sub-categories designed for special purposes, and they’re very different boats.
Happiness comes from having the right boat for what you want to do, and the single most important step to selecting a boat is to deliniate clearly your personal and financial constraints, and the kind of boating you hope to do, now and in the future.
Chuck Gustafson, author of How to Buy the Best Sailboat,says: “If you take this first step seriously, you will dramatically increase the probability of a good match between your boat and you.”
So if you’re planning to divorce your present boat, do the clever thing. Before you find yourself in the same bind a second time, do your homework. Think first. Act later. The more work you do now, the longer the bliss that will follow.
Today’s Thought
The difficulty in life is the choice. –George Moore, Bending of the Bough.
Tailpiece
The Federal Bureau of Statistics reports that the average time between throwing something out and needing it again is two weeks.
This is the time of year when sailors suffering from winter cabin fever hie themselves off to boat shows and start lusting after new boats. It’s a strange thing, but an extraordinary number of boat owners start feeling the seven-year itch after only a couple of years. They start feeling unhappy about their choice of boat and some — the ones with finer feelings — might even begin to feel guilt and remorse about wanting something younger, faster, more attractive, and more accommodating.
New York naval architect Dave Gerr says one of the most common requests he gets is to take a given hull and make it either larger or smaller. Which leads me to ask: Why are people so seldom satisfied with they’ve got?
The answer, it seems to me, is that they did things in the wrong order. They first bought the boat, and only later decided what they wanted it for.
For beginners, especially, it’s difficult to know what boat will suit you best, and even experienced yacht brokers will occasionally try to sell you an unsuitable boat for reasons of stupidity, cupidity, or both.
When you think about it, there are boats dedicated to a wide variety of uses, and a boat that’s best for one thing is often not even adequate for other uses. So someone itching to buy a boat should first scratch himself and find out why he wants a boat. Here are a few possible reasons:
—Board sailing/fishing/gunkholing and exploring/kayaking and canoeing.
—Making a lot of irritating noise, speeding in small circles, jumping other people’s wakes, and generally showing off.
—Motor-sailing/power cruising/power racing.
—Rowing or paddling for fun.
—Rum running/drug smuggling/illegal immigrant conveyance.
—Sail racing/sail cruising/sail camping/trailer sailing.
—Scuba diving/water skiing/sunbathing/bikini displaying and cocktail drinking.
There are boats specially designed for all these activities — and these are only the major categories. When it comes to fishing, or sailing, for example, there are many sub-categories designed for special purposes, and they’re very different boats.
Happiness comes from having the right boat for what you want to do, and the single most important step to selecting a boat is to deliniate clearly your personal and financial constraints, and the kind of boating you hope to do, now and in the future.
Chuck Gustafson, author of How to Buy the Best Sailboat,says: “If you take this first step seriously, you will dramatically increase the probability of a good match between your boat and you.”
So if you’re planning to divorce your present boat, do the clever thing. Before you find yourself in the same bind a second time, do your homework. Think first. Act later. The more work you do now, the longer the bliss that will follow.
Today’s Thought
The difficulty in life is the choice. –George Moore, Bending of the Bough.
Tailpiece
The Federal Bureau of Statistics reports that the average time between throwing something out and needing it again is two weeks.
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