A ship worthy of awe

I’VE ALWAYS FELT A GREAT AWE for the Viking longship. It undertook some very ambitious trading voyages between Scandinavia and Constantinople; and, of course, it carried abroad fierce warriors bent on plunder and conquering. It enabled great voyages of exploration, and crossed the ocean to the North American continent long before Christopher Columbus came along and missed it.

In addition, apart from all its practical applications, the lapstrake-hulled Viking longship was one of mankind’s most beautiful creations, and technically one of his most complex at that time. 

Even so, the Viking ship was very simple at heart. It was really just an open rowing boat. Admittedly, it did have a squaresail that could be used when the wind was favorable, but basically it relied for power on men’s muscles. The fact that it achieved so much in so many different ways almost puts it in the realm of magic. But that description really belongs to the Skidbladnir.

She really was magic. In Scandinavian mythology, Skidbladnir was the ship belonging to Freyr, one of the most important of the pagan Norse gods. Freyr was the god of farming and fruitfulness. His portfolio also included the sun, the wind and the rain. And, just to add to his burden, Freyr was the Norse god of fertility and phallic worship, with a brief to bestow peace and pleasure on mortal beings. A tough gig, as they say.

Now it so happened that the sons of Ivaldi, who were dwarfs, built a very special boat for Freyr. It was big enough to accommodate all 12 of the most important Norse gods, with all their gear and weapons. It could also sail through both air and water, and it would go directly to its destination as soon as the sail was raised.

But here’s the even more magical part: it could be folded like a cloth and carried by Freyr in his pouch when it wasn’t needed.

Somehow, that particular marvel of Viking technology has been lost to us over the ages. Would that we could track down the sons of Ivaldi and put them to work for us now. Even working on a small scale, just think how many thousands of yacht owners would appreciate the convenience of tucking the ship’s tender into a pocket when it wasn’t needed.

There are times when I’m convinced that science is retrogressing. We can walk on the moon if we want to, but we can’t do a simple thing like making a fold-up Viking ship any longer. What’s the world coming to, I ask.

Today’s Thought

But beyond the bright searchlights of science,

Out of sight of the windows of sense,

Old riddles still bid us defiance,

Old questions of Why and of Whence.

— W. C. D. Whetham, Recent Developments of Physical Science

Tailpiece

“Paddy, you should be more careful about pulling your drapes at home. When I drove past your house last night I distinctly saw you kissing your wife.”

“Ha, well, then the joke’s on you, O’Riordan. I wasn’t home last night.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Do cruising men ever wash?

A READER IN OHIO is having wife trouble. “Old Salt” says his wife complains that cruising on their sailboat is hazardous to their health because Old Salt never washes, and he wears the same clothes day in and day out. “But I remember that you once wrote a column about sailing hygiene,” says Old Salt. “Would it be a good idea to repeat it, for my wife’s benefit?”

Oh my goodness yes, Old Salt. It would be a wonderful idea. It saves me having to think of a new idea.

So here it is, five years old now, but still pretty much up-to-date, I believe:

Cruising hygiene

DO MEN CHANGE THEIR UNDERPANTS while cruising? A young woman reader in Dade County, Florida, wants to know. Geraldine says her new boyfriend has invited her on a six-week cruise to the Bahamas on his Cape Dory 25D sailboat. She has not sailed before, but she is fine with everything — except what she suspects might be a hygiene problem.

Do men on small boats change their socks? she asks.

Do they EVER wash ANY clothes?

Do they wash their hands after going to the head?

Do men brush their teeth morning and night?

Do they ever change the bed sheets?

Do they even HAVE bed sheets?

Well, Geraldine, you have poked your little stick into a big hornets’ nest here. Obviously I can’t answer for all cruising men, and as far as I know nobody has conducted research into this subject. But if it’s any comfort, as far as I know, not many cruising men die from bubonic plague or big bad germs in the gut.

I can only tell you of my own experience of long-term cruising and the answer to your first question is yes, men do change their underpants every day, one pair a day for seven days. Then, on the eighth day they start over. The theory is that the underpants have aired for a whole week, which is plenty of time for any germs to jump off and go somewhere else.   

Socks? Mostly we don’t wear socks, but even if we do, we only have two pairs. They’re good for seven days before rotation. We don’t walk anywhere, you see, so there’s no sweat or anything objectionable. You’ll notice that no men ever complain about other men’s socks.

Washing clothes? Well that depends on the availability of fresh water (very rare) and a place to do the washing (also rare). It depends on the weather and the amount of rail space available for drying. It depends when you can find the time, when you have a whole lot of other things to do (such as steering around rocks and anchoring and reefing and navigation) that are a lot more important than washing clothes. So, in short, the answer is ... well I have known one or two men who have washed some cruising clothes, so it’s not completely unknown.

As for washing hands after using the head, I have to assure you that it’s a distinct possibility in a boat like yours that has a wash basin in the head. Of course, most men won’t use it for fear of running out of fresh water, but at least there is a definite possibility; and that surely must cut down on the odds of disease erupting.

Do men brush their teeth morning and night? Geraldine, I think it is a scientifically accepted fact that as long as you break up the plaque every 24 hours, one brushing a day is sufficient. And, by happy discovery, a large body of cruising men has found that swilling the mouth with gin just before bed is equally as efficient in the prevention of tooth decay as is brushing with toothpaste.

As for bed sheets, well that depends on the sissy factor. Real men don’t use bed sheets. They use rough, hairy, woolen blankets or sleeping bags designed for Mt. Everest. I confess that I have a sort of sheet for my sleeping bag, a removable cotton liner, but after you’ve slept in it for two months straight I’ve noticed that it seems to grow little lumps inside like a real woolen blanket, so it’s really quite macho and not as pooftah as you might think.

Geraldine, you can spend too much time worrying about hygiene. There are places in Europe where they only take a bath once a week. There are places in the Sahara where they never bathe. It’s true that their average lifespan is 23 years, but nobody has ever actually proved it’s because of lack of bathing.

On the whole, you will find that the cruising life is very healthy. Strong sunshine and salt water are very good at killing germs. And those few germs that don’t die immediately will surely succumb when they eventually drift down and get swallowed up by that seething, squirming mass of micro-wildlife in your bilge.

Go for it, Geraldine. Go for the beautiful beaches and the glorious crystal-clear water; go for the romantic tropical nights and the soft trade winds brushing the coconut palms in silver moonshine. And let hygiene take its chance, as Nature intended.

Today’s Thought

A man’s own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.

— Bacon, Essays: Of Regimen of Health

Tailpiece

A yacht club barman I know has invented a drink called the Block and Tackle. It’s one third whiskey, one third brandy, and one third vodka. After two of those you’re ready to run around the block and tackle anything.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Thinking about boat presents

I’M OF THE OPINION that you can never prepare too far ahead for Christmas. Furthermore, I have heard it said by both sexes that it’s very difficult to buy Christmas presents for men. That being the case, perhaps we men should do our bit to make this task easier, and, incidentally, thereby help the economy along.

One way to do this would be to make up a list of the Christmas presents we’d like to receive, and hand it out to friends, relatives, co-workers, and passers-by. Some of you will think this is a very crass thing to do, but it has occurred to me that a wish-list of this sort would be completely acceptable if it were presented in the form of a request for items for your boat.

You might think this a little strange at first, but it’s not really. It moves the guilt factor away from you to a third party. And people (even landlubbers) know instinctively that boats have souls. They realize that there are strong emotional ties between sailors and their boats that stop short only of kissing and hugging. Well, in most cases, anyway.

Now, you may be saying, “But people will surely query why a boat would need a new flat-screen, Internet-ready, 72-inch, plasma TV with icemaker.  Or a case of Johnny Walker Red Label whisky; or a five-year subscription to Playboy. How do you answer them?”

Well, use your common sense. Close your eyes slightly. Look wise and mysterious. Say: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Explain that the bond between a man and his boat is intimate and very private. Tell them you have this intuitive, exclusive insight into your boat’s true needs and desires.

And make sure they realize that every boat knows the difference between real Johnny Walker and the cheap hooch they distill up in those scruffy hills in Arkansas.

Today’s Thought

Ever since Eve gave Adam the apple, there has been a misunderstanding between the sexes about gifts

— Nan Robertson

Tailpiece

He asked her for a burning kiss;

She said in accents cruel:

“I may be called a red-hot babe

“But I’m still nobody’s fuel.”

What the boat ads really mean

IF YOU’VE EVER tried to buy a boat on Craigslist you’ll know that sometimes the description of the boat does not quite accord with reality.  It’s not that people selling boats actually tell lies in their advertisements, but as Poo-Bah said in The Mikado, their descriptions are often “merely corroborative detail, intended to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

What is needed, of course, is a translator, someone who can interpret the meaning of a boat advertisement into language the man on the dock can understand. Well, here I am. And here are phrases that you will often read on Craigslist, coupled with their hidden meanings:

— Perfect for liveaboards . . . If you dare set foot ashore, she’ll sink.

— A cockpit designed for blue-water voyaging . . . Room for just one person.
— Original sails . . . Has needed new main and jib for years.
—  Survey report from 2014 available . . . Just before the Travelift dropped her on the hard.

—  Engine regularly and meticulously serviced . . . That is, once every seven years, coinciding with every major breakdown.

— This one could do with a little TLC . . . Fell out of her cradle in the last hurricane.

— One owner from new . . . Hasn’t been able to sell her all these years.
— An early design by this famous naval architect  . . . The one from which he learned how not to design boats.
— Charming cabin with delightful decor . . . No room to swing a cat.

— Drifter rarely used . . . Not since the ship’s cat ripped a great tear in it, anyway.

— Built like a brick outhouse . . .  And makes comparable progress through the water.

— Excellent family cruiser . . . Kiddy goo everywhere. Two teddy bears and one plastic elephant blocking the head.
— Lovingly maintained and regularly  upgraded by owner . . . Owned by a chronic fiddler whose imprudent meddling has substantially lessened the boat’s value.
— Proven blue-water boat . . . Has lots of useless worn-out blue-water gear that needs replacing.

— Awesome finish . . . The owner has power-polished his way right through the gelcoat.

Today’s Thought

Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.

— J. Edgar Hoover, “What Would I Tell a Son,” Family Weekly, 14 Jul 63

Tailpiece

“Why are you stopping here?”

“This is Lovers’ Lane.”

“I suppose this is your ‘out of gas’ routine.”

“No, no, this is my ‘hereafter’ routine.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, if you’re not here after what I’m here after, you’ll be here after I’m gone.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

 

Is there mutiny on your boat?

I SOMETIMES WONDER how many acts of mutiny take place on small sailboats. How many times has a crewmember refused to follow the orders of the skipper? And, dare I say it, how often has a wife or girlfriend declined to do what her man has asked her to? Quite often, I suspect.

The definition of mutiny, among other things, is the refusal to obey the order of a legal authority such as a superior officer. But it is not necessarily restricted to naval and military forces. Mutiny applies to crews of merchant vessels, too, although such cases are heard by a civil court instead of a court martial.

I would like to know, then, that if I ask (order) my wife to varnish the cockpit coamings, or if I simply request her to bring me another beer from the cool box, and if she just laughs and says, “In your dreams, Captain Bligh,” is she guilty of mutiny?

I ask because this is a very serious business. Aboard a boat, there can be only one boss. During the days of the sailing navies, the penalty for mutiny was invariably hanging at the yardarm. Now I don’t have a yardarm; well not exactly, although I suppose I could rig up a spinnaker pole to serve the purpose.

In these enlightened days I suppose it would be frowned upon to hang one’s crew from a spinnaker pole, and I would guess that a case of mutiny would have to be handled by third parties in an admiralty court. I would further suppose that the penalty would consist of a fine and/or a number of years behind bars, rather than death by hanging.

What we all need to know is whether the skipper of a sailboat qualifies under the law as a “legal authority,” whose edicts must be carried out at all costs. And in order to know that, we first have to know what constitutes a skipper, a legal master of a vessel. (Or mistress.) It’s not necessarily the owner, we all know that, so if the skipper has no papers to prove his legality, who is legally in charge?  Can there be a mutiny, in fact, if the skipper can’t legally prove he’s the skipper? (Or she, of course, he or she.)

I have been faced in the past with what must be close to mutiny when my dear wife refused to sail across an ocean with me unless I provided a door to the head compartment. Unfortunately, I had no proof that I was the legal master of the yacht. I was, of course; I just didn’t have the proof. So, rather than confront her before an admiralty court, I bought a sheet of plywood and built her a loo door.

I don’t doubt that many similar acts of mutiny have been dealt with in the same namby-pamby manner since we lost the use of yardarms. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Just pointing it out in case you hadn’t noticed. Just sayin’.

Today’s Thought

The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board.

-- Grover Cleveland

Tailpiece

“Why did your algebra teacher confiscate your rubber-band pistol?”
"She said it was a weapon of math disruption."

The importance of cruising

JUDGING BY THE NUMBER of blogs they’re generating, there must be thousands of people out there cruising in small sailboats, just wandering around the world at a leisurely pace and taking their homes with them.

I often wonder what it is that motivates them.  After all, it’s not the easiest way to travel.

I once knew an airline pilot who was also a sailor. He said that yacht cruising was far more complicated than flying a passenger jet. “You have to know so much more in so many different areas,” he said. “A pilot doesn’t have to know how to fix the engine or make sure there’s enough food and water on board.  A pilot doesn’t have to know how to repair or maintain anything. A pilot doesn’t have to worry about the right bottom paint, electrolytic corrosion or the different between deep-cycle and starter batteries.”

One of the many charms of cruising is the way you find yourself learning all the different skills you need to be self-sufficient. It’s a feeling that takes modern men and women back to the days of the great explorers. Nothing daunted them.  When they were shipwrecked on a foreign shore they felled trees, built boats, somehow fashioned the thousand and one things they needed, and carried on exploring.

They went ashore for months at a time, cleared land, and sowed their seeds. When the crops were ready, off they went again.  The world has changed since then, of course, and modern cruising won’t make a Renaissance man or woman out of you — but it might get pretty close.

If you have the opportunity, or, more to the point, if you make the opportunity, go cruising.  Go as far as you can for as long as you can at any age you can. You’ll never regret it.

Do your homework first, of course, and make sure you have an objective of some kind. Then sail away. Just have faith and sail away. You’ll find help and friendly people everywhere you go.  You’ll travel vast areas of ocean where the voice of man has never been heard before and maybe never will be again.

Go cruising. Nothing is more fascinating than cruising. Maybe nothing’s more important.

Today’s Thought

Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.
— John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

Tailpiece

“Pardon me, sir, may I have your name?”
“But I just signed the register. Can’t you see my signature?”
“Yes sir, that’s precisely what aroused my curiosity.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Boats are full of hidden mysteries

YOUR newly acquired boat may look perfectly normal on the outside. But as soon as you start lifting hatches, opening lockers, pulling drawers, and peering into the engine compartment, an enigmatic new world will emerge.

It can take you months to discover how all the systems work, where all the seacocks are, and why the masthead light only comes on if you plug in the cabin fan as well.

 

Boat owners are a meddlesome lot. They can’t resist adding or altering things in their constant quest for perfection.

The engine compartment glows eerily with pale LEDs the previous owner failed to explain. They dimly outline a puzzling forest of pipes, wires, and levers. Under a companionway step, a lump of something grows a white fur coat with startling orange spots. Deep in the bilge a loose copper wire terminates in a halo of virulent green fuzz.

A bikini top lies insolently at the foot of the quarterberth and a sticky drawer delivers a crumpled receipt for repairs to bottom blisters you weren’t told about.

Even if you make notes while you sit down with the previous owner and go through everything from stem to stern, there are certain to be things that both of you forget to mention in the excitement of the moment.

But gradually, one-by-one, you will solve the mysteries. You just need patience.

Today’s Thought

If you go directly at the heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only a question of drainage.
— Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins

Tailpiece

An acquaintance who lives in one of the tougher areas of Detroit tells me his kids are now going to a really old-fashioned school.  They have to put up their hands before they can assault the teacher.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Dealing with exploding batteries

A SMALL GROUP OF US were sitting in the Bent Bollard Bar and Grill the other morning, savoring a quiet pint before breakfast, when Old Wotsisname with the concrete boat walked in. He had a few things tucked under his arm, including what looked like an old-fashioned cookie tin and a length of aluminum drain pipe.

“What’s all that?” I asked.

You can never get a quick, concise answer from OW, but the guts of it was that he had been reading about lithium-ion batteries, and how they’re susceptible to catching fire and exploding. His handheld VHF radio and cell phone and GPS and some other electronic gadgets are all powered by lithium-ion, so he planned to build a safe place to keep them on his boat.

“I’m using the Boeing approach,” he said. “They’re fixing the battery problem on the 787 Dreamliners by enclosing them in a steel box that is vented to the outside through a titanium pipe. That way, if the battery catches fire, there will be no smoke in the passenger compartment. The passengers won’t even know there’s been a fire.”

“What makes the batteries overheat?” I asked.

“Boeing doesn’t know yet,” said OW, who’d obviously been doing his homework, “but their priority is to get all those grounded Dreamliners back in the air again.”

“Even if the batteries catch fire again?” I said.

“Even then.”

“So, are you going to keep your explodable VHF radios and all that stuff in the cookie tin?”

“Yep, and I’m going to knock a hole in the side of the hull to vent the fumes through this aluminum tube,” said OW. “If it’s good enough for Boeing, it’s good enough for me.”

“Why don’t they just use the old-style, non-exploding batteries that everybody else uses?” I asked.

“Weight,” said OW. “It’s all about weight. The whole premise behind the 787 is that it’s lighter and 20 percent cheaper to fly because it uses less fuel. That was the promise that prompted so many orders. But they’re already running heavier than they thought because they had to put in a heftier, heavier frame where the wings join the fuselage.  The designed version didn’t stand up to the testing.  The wings could have fallen off.  Meanwhile, the lithium-ion batteries are lighter.”

“How dangerous is this for sailboats with radios and things with lithium-ion?” I asked.

“Judge for yourself,” said OW. “In March 2007, Lenovo recalled approximately 205,000 batteries at risk of explosion.  In August of that year, Nokia recalled more than 46 million batteries at risk of overheating and explosion. A year or so before that, Dell recalled about 22,000 laptop batteries from the U.S. market; and, also in 2006, 10 million batteries were recalled by Dell, Sony, Apple, Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, and other manufacturers.”

“Sounds like lithium-ion batteries haven’t exactly been perfected yet.”

“The U.S. Postal Service has restrictions about mailing them,” said OW. “And the airlines themselves won’t let you take spare lithium batteries in your checked luggage in case they catch fire. Isn’t that the supreme irony? It’s okay if their batteries in the Dreamliner catch fire, but not if yours in the baggage hold catch fire.”

“Just as a matter of interest,” I said, “what are the Dreamliner’s batteries used for? I mean, it’s all very well if the fire is contained in a steel box, but what happens when the batteries stop working?  What are they powering?”

“Oh, just the rudder and ailerons and landing gear and stuff like that,” said OW.  “I guess everybody who flies in Dreamliners will just have to get used to some bumpy landings in future.”  He patted his cookie tin and smiled. “But I’ll be okay.”

Today’s Thought

Exit according to the rule, first leg and then head. Remove high heels and synthetic stockings before evacuation: Open the door, take out the recovery line and throw it away.

— Rumanian National Airlines emergency instructions, quoted in The Times, London, 27 Sep 84

Tailpiece

Adolescence is a period of rapid change. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for instance, a parent can age as much as 20 years.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Thoughts to avoid sanding

INTERESTING THOUGHTS come to a man sitting in a cockpit looking for an excuse not to start sanding down the curling varnish on the teak. For instance, I read just the other day that the catamaran Playstation posted a day’s run of 580.23 miles in the Pacific Ocean off New Zealand in 1999.

This got me wondering how fast the actual wind blows around the world — how long, for example, it would take for a molecule of air contaminated with nuclear radiation to travel from Fukushima, Japan, to Seattle Washington. Not that long, if you think about it.

And as the mind wanders along happily, it comes to grips with the word molecule and it remembers once having read that we’re breathing the same atoms of oxygen once breathed by Julius Caesar and the dinosaurs. And then comes the heart-stopping thought that an atom of oxygen I breathed a minute ago might very well have done the grand tour of Marilyn Monroe’s lungs.  I would have liked warning of that to appreciate it more fully.

And then there’s the fact that at least one of the molecules of air filling your sails might also have given Columbus’s flagship a little push across the Atlantic in 1492, or maybe it helped Erik The Red’s Viking longship on its way to the New World even before that. It’s a fascinating thought.

Is this really possible? Well yes it is, according to Dr. Martin St. Maurice, assistant professor of biological sciences at Marquette University in Wisconsin.

“There is some truth to this possibility,” he says cautiously. “The air we breathe is composed primarily of nitrogen gas and oxygen gas with a small amount of other gases, including carbon dioxide. All of these individual molecules are constantly rearranged and recycled through biochemical and geochemical processes, so you aren’t breathing in the exact same gas molecules that dinosaurs and Julius Caesar once breathed.

"The individual atoms making up those molecules, however, have been on earth for a long time – very little carbon, oxygen or nitrogen is lost to outer space, and only the occasional meteor brings a small extraterrestrial source of new carbon or oxygen to this planet. So, every breath you take and every bite you swallow is composed of atoms that have been here for a long time.

"You don’t have to be a stats whiz to see that the chances of you and Julius Caesar sharing an identical atom of oxygen are extremely slim. There’s much less carbon than oxygen on earth and it’s contained over a much smaller volume, so I think you have a slightly better chance of eating a snack that was once a part of Caesar’s toenail (though these chances are still extremely slim).

"Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, there was no oxygen gas in the atmosphere; it developed in our atmosphere thanks to ancient photosynthetic microorganisms. So, while you aren’t likely to ever share exactly the same atom of oxygen as Brad Pitt or eat a cupcake that was once a part of Caesar’s toenail, every breath you take has, at one time or another, been associated with another living organism."

Well, that’s good enough for me, professor. At least I know it’s possible. Me and Marilyn. It’s possible. Which is more than I can say about the chance that the teak is going to get sanded today.

Today’s Thought

Sooner or later every one of us breathes an atom that has been breathed before by anyone you can think of who has lived before us — Michelangelo or George Washington or Moses.

— Jacob Bronowski, “Biography of an Atom—And the Universe,” NYT, 13 Oct 68

Tailpiece

Did you hear about the Scot who felt embarrassed in national dress?
It seems he suffered from a kilt complex.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

A gastro-navigation course

ARE YACHTSMEN LIVING LONGER than they used to? This question occurred to me when I was reading an article written in the middle of the last century by Robert Neilson. It described how to make a five-course dinner on a yacht in 30 minutes with a minimum of actual labor.

All the equipment required was one burner of the stove and a two-gallon pot half filled with sea water, to which was added:

Ø A can of soup;

Ø A can or sealed jar of meat balls with spaghetti and tomato sauce, corned beef hash with a boiled egg atop, spaghetti and cheese, or any number of similar items;

Ø Any canned vegetable as desired;

Ø Any fresh vegetable that can be cooked in salt water, such as potatoes, onions, squash, carrots, corn, turnips, and green peppers;

Ø For dessert, a couple of bananas can be thrown in and eaten as a vegetable if desired, or with brown sugar and milk.

The instructions were to place all cans in the pot on their sides with their labels removed. “If placed on end, the boiling will make them rattle like a dozen castanets,” said the voice of experience. “On top and in between, place the vegetables and, later on, the bananas, all with their jackets on. Bring to a boil, cook for 20 minutes, and dinner is ready.”

Now, I could hardly suppress a shudder when I read that list. It seems fairly innocuous at first glance, but I couldn’t help feeling that some of this (maybe a lot of this) was mighty unhealthy fodder according to modern thinking.

Times have changed. How would we get along these days without gluten-free cookies, fat-free milk, and cholesterol free meatballs — in fact, meat-free meatballs? Where would we be without organic vegetables and calorie counts on everything?

Which leads me to another questions: Will we still die if we stop eating the stuff that’s killing us, and eat healthily instead? In other words, what is our excuse for dying now that we don’t derive our meals from cans boiled in a two-gallon pot? All I can say is that anyone who dies from now on has got some explaining to do.

Today’s Thought

I want a dish to taste good, rather than to have been seethed in pig’s milk and served wrapped in a rhubarb leaf with grated thistle root.
— Kingsley Amis.

Tailpiece

No doubt you’ve heard a “fly-in-my-soup” joke. Well, I have 30 of them, and I’m not going to waste them by using them all at once. No sir, I’m going to dole them out over the next 30 columns. So stand by with your groans, here goes:

“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.”

(1)“It’s all right, sir, he won’t live long in that stuff.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Laura's stowaways

WHAT A SURPRISE for young Laura Dekker at sea between Australia and Africa: she discovered an infestation of ants on board. She says they came aboard in Darwin, Australia.
   Laura, who is chasing the record for the youngest solo circumnavigator, is probably right about that. You can always tell Ozzie ants. They're the ones who line up, hold hands, and sing Waltzing Matilda when you take down the ensign at sunset. Like most Ozzies they are charming in their way and not at all reticent about expressing their views.
   Interestingly, they all disappeared for several days when Laura's boat hit rough weather. But when the wind and swells died down, "they came crawling out of hiding from every hole and crack imaginable," she wrote in her daily blog. "I find them in the most unusual places, like on my computer keyboard or on my maps ... Argh!"
   Argh, indeed. There is little more disturbing to the human stomach than the sight of hundreds of seasick ants throwing up all over the place. I don't know how she survived.
   And I don't doubt that when those ants recovered from seasickness the first thing they did was to send scouts out searching for the grog locker. I hope that Laura has one, and is willing to share. In the first place, Ozzie ants can be a dangerously surly lot when deprived of alcohol for more than two hours. Secondly, there is not a lot to fear from drunken ants, even if they end up in a riotous brawl, and it's better by far to be shipmates with happy ants than with spiteful ones just waiting to nip you in the billabong when you aren't looking.
   Finally, I must admit to one niggling fear: can Laura's claim to a record be in jeopardy? I mean, she's supposed to be sailing solo — and here she's openly admitting that she has hundreds of stowaways on board. I'm glad I don't have to be the judge of that.

Today's Thought

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
— Old Testament: Proverbs, vi, 6.

Tailpiece

Only some of us can learn from other people’s mistakes.
The rest of us have to be the other people.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Allowing for leeway

I SOMETIMES WONDER how many of the sailboat skippers I see blithely cruising among the San Juan Islands are making any allowance for leeway. If you don't make any allowance, there can be a surprising difference between your chosen arrival point and the actual place where you end up. And that's even without taking the tidal current into account.
  Leeway is sideways drift, of course, caused by the wind hitting the side of the boat and sails. All boats make leeway to some degree on all courses except two: when the wind is either dead ahead or dead astern.
  You can assume that a close-hauled sailboat will make between 3 and 5 degrees of leeway in a 7-knot breeze, and 8 degrees or even more in 20 knots. So, if you want to maintain a set course over the ground, to avoid reefs and rocks, you must head your boat toward the wind to offset leeway.
   It's not always easy to estimate how much leeway you're making, but you'll get a fair idea if you look aft along the centerline of the boat and compare that imaginary line with the line of the wake. If you have a hand bearing compass it will give you the difference in degrees, so you'll know how much correction to apply next time.
   Powerboats often make more leeway than sailboats because they present a greater area of topsides to the wind, compared with the amount of hull under water. But it doesn't affect their course over the ground so much because the sideways component is mostly a small percentage of the powerboat's forward speed.
   In any case, it's wise to be aware of leeway because it means your boat is not actually going in the same direction she's pointing at. It's not at all obvious, but she's actually crabbing along to leeward, and if you don't compensate by pointing higher, you might be in for a nasty surprise.

Today's Thought

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
— Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil.

Tailpiece

Little shots of whisky

Little drops of gin
Make a lady wonder
Where the hell she’s bin.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

The madness of love

SOMEONE WHO SIGNS HIMSELF “Another John” writes from Oswego, N.Y.:

“I own a Cape Dory Typhoon sailboat. My wife says I love it more than I love her. I don’t know how to compare different kinds of love, but I admit that I love my boat and I love it quite a lot. Is this so very wrong?”

Hell no, AJ. You don’t lose your manhood if you love a boat. You might lose your wife, but that’s another matter.

I loved the very first boat I owned. It was an International sliding-seat canoe that I bought in a moment of love-induced madness. I didn’t realize at that moment that I wasn’t man enough for this little beauty. I was a scrawny youth, weighing all of 125 pounds, and 125 pounds was just not heavy enough. After repeated dunkings I came to the conclusion that this was unrequited love, the kind I already felt for my high-school English teacher, who had wonderful legs and magnificent pair of … but no, I digress.

The boat was a singlehander about 16 or 17 feet long and about 3 feet 6 inches wide. She had no stability of her own. You kept her upright by flinging yourself out onto what looked like a seesaw sticking out from the side. She was very pretty, very fast and very demanding. She had a tiller extension as long as an elephant’s trunk and when you went about you had to handle the extension, the mainsheet, the jib sheet, and the sliding seat all at once, and sometimes the centerboard, too. You really needed to be a 200-pound, eight-armed, lightning-fast octopus to handle that boat. But what a thrill it was (for those few brief moments before she capsized) when she flew up onto a plane and went skimming over the bay in a cloud of spray.

While I’m in confessional mood, I might as well admit that I had a previous love. A steamroller. A lovely green-and-black steamroller came along one day to make a new road near our house and I fell head over heels in love. I used to come running home from school to spend my afternoons with it. And I was heartbroken when its job was done and it just clanked away without a backward glance at me. I think maybe the sliding seat canoe caught me on the rebound.

Anyway, AJ, my advice to you is to go ahead and love your boat. Wives come and wives go. There seem to be plenty of them around. But Typhoons are not made any more. Those little beauties are getting rarer by the day. Do your duty, AJ. Love it, come what may.

Today’s Thought
Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.
— Merle Shain, Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others

Readers’ comments
Bob K7ZB said ...
Keep 'em coming, John! I have been sailing only a few years now on my own boat and have found your columns very useful. For example, last summer sailing on Lake Michigan I found that I was experiencing things you would write about the following week. So, I do think you might work on the synchronization of your columns as we get closer to the season — it would help to know what's going to happen to me BEFORE it occurs for a change!
Bob,
Sabre 28

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb #8
The first boat to anchor has the right to ask others not only to give her room to swing freely but also not to hinder her maneuvering room when she wishes to depart. But the first yacht MUST inform the newcomer of the possibility of fouling. (U.S. Admiralty Court decision number 124-5861 of 1956.)

Tailpiece
“Your name?”
“Sparks, Your Honor.”
“What’s the charge?”
“Battery.”
“Officer, place this man in a dry cell.”

A night of cold comfort

THEY SAY 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 most of my life in the sub-tropics, I have no love of sailing in the cold. Or the cold-and-rain, as happens around here. So I don’t have a heater on my boat.

There was one on my last boat, however, a little Cape Dory 25D. We found her on an island in north Puget Sound, and sailed her home one bitter-cold day in February, when there was actually ice on deck. We had an overnight stop in a marina in Anacortes, where we accidentally 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.

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.

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.

One of the first jobs I did on that boat was to convert the Force 10 back to kerosene heat. 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.

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.

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 we don’t have a heater on our present boat, which is a very handy excuse for not sailing when the weather gets cold. And our belly buttons are very grateful.

Today’s Thought
What is true, simple and sincere is most congenial to man’s nature.
— Cicero, De Officiis

Tailpiece
“Who gave you that black eye?”
“My wife.”
“I thought she was out of town.”
“So did I.”