Something you might want to watch...

How the news on your TV and reality are not always the same, a good point being made, and a politician admits he made some real mistakes...


Small is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary - Trailer from Jeremy Beasley on Vimeo.

Listening to a bunch of really good music

So it goes...

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Then again he wasn't building a shrine...

A trend on the way out, some riveting reading, and, just maybe, we might want to pay some attenion to the science...

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time watching a friend of my father's build a boat. A troller to be exact.

What really impressed me at the time was the fact that the builder didn't have a "plan" but was building more by "feel".

He'd set up his building space and a strongback of sorts and then added a single mold more or less in the middle of it and, for a couple of weeks, I'd watch him move the mold a couple of feet either way but mostly he'd just sit in a chair and look at the single mold sitting forlornly on the strongback...

I suspected my dad's friend was a little nuts.

Then, one day in a great flurry of enterprise, the single mold was joined by another mold that looked suspiciously like a transom on one end and a piece of 3 X 10 pine on the other. The following day there were a couple of long 2 X 4's as well... Things, as they say, were becoming interesting.

The day after, it seemed he was back to the moving the central mold a foot forward then back again two-step but he'd also taken an axe to the 3 X 10 and taken off some wood to form a rough but fair curve. A couple days later I woke up to find the transom, central mold, and the 3 X 10 were now connected by several 2 X 4 battens. The shape was beginning to look like the skeleton of a boat...

Then all hell broke loose... All of a sudden there was a near constant cacophony of boat building noise and everyone woke to the sound of saws and hammers. I remember for a couple of weeks the last thing I'd  hear every night was the rasp of a plane...

A couple of weeks later there was a real honest to goodness boat in the guy's back yard. All in all it took a couple of months for a fiftyish-year old guy with hand tools to singlehandedly build a 42-foot troller which he proceeded to fish commercially day in and day out for the next twenty years or so.

I mention this mainly because it's easy to forget just how simple boat building really is.

Oh, and by the way...

It was a really pretty boat.

Listening to Richard Thompson

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Now this is interesting...

A drought problem I suspect you were unaware of, some battery news, and the stupidity it burns...



Listening to some Bj�rn Ulvaeus (ABBA) covers

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in the a "lot more sustainable" department

A needful voice in the mix, just ripples in a pond, and a question we should all be asking...

Maybe boatbuilders should pay attention...


SURFBOARDS FOR A SHARED PLANET from erik derman on Vimeo.

Listening to Zella Day

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a matter of seaworthiness...

In the "hardly surprising" department, this really says a lot, and some needful reading...

I was recently looking at the study plans for one of Reuel Parker's boats, a scow as it happens, and there was a comment by Reuel that got me thinking...

"Scows are not considered seaworthy types, although they can make coastal trips and island passages." 

The thing about seaworthiness is it's a pretty fluid concept at best and, in most cases, something of a gray area being dependant on many factors. Which means that one person's seaworthy vessel may seem like a floating death trap to another. Having crossed seas with an internally ballasted shoal draft sharpie that drew eighteen inches, I used to have this pointed out to me on a regular basis...

That said, scows of the traditional sort are not seaworthy in the same sense as a keel boat with external ballast. For starters internal ballast is not very good at righting a fully capsized hull and if that's going to be your main criteria of seaworthiness a scow may actually seem somewhat lacking...

Just like a modern catamaran. 

Seriously, if you applied the same thought process that makes a scow unseaworthy to just about any production cat currently being built today you'd have to come to the same conclusion... Catamarans are unseaworthy.

You might want to think about that for a moment or two...

Which does not mean that I think all modern production catamarans are unseaworthy (just some) or that a traditional scow is either. Just that they are both different in ways you should be aware of.

Like I said before, seaworthiness is a pretty slippery notion and depends much more on the person sailing a boat rather than the actual design. Sailing a traditional scow has a lot more in common with sailing a catamaran than it does with an externally ballasted monohull...

So, would I consider sailing Reuel Parker's scow across an ocean?

Sure I would. Then again, before I did I'd sail it a lot, practice deploying a parachute sea anchor/heavy weather tactics, and sort out the best way to hove to with the board up because I'm not real keen on surprises further offshore than I care to swim towards land. Of course, anybody considering a trans-oceanic passage would do the same no matter what sort of boat they intended to cross with.. 

Right?

Listening to She & Him

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An Earth Day link...

Something happening here, a certain lack of logic, and this should kick start your Spidey sense...

Hey, it's Earth Day. If you're looking for a short, insightful, and great post on the subject, I highly recommend today's post from Just an Earth-Bound Misfit which mirrors my thoughts 100%.

You're still here?

Listening to Lilly Hiatt

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So, if a guy tells you your chosen rig sucks why listen to him about your keel?

Hitting the nail right smack dab on the head, thumbs on the scales of justice, and an apt comment...

There's a discussion over at the JRA forum discussing a possible junk rig sailboat design that I find rather irksome but it's a great reminder about how there is so much bad information floating around about how boats work.

Especially where shoal draft, forms of ballast, and lateral resistance are concerned...

I think what bothers me is junk rig advocates should know full well how much misinformation there is about their rig of choice and so it would seem they'd be a lot more cynical/skeptical about other areas of boat design or suchlike.

Which, I suspect, is why the junk rig is nowhere near as successful as it could be. They're not designing junk rig sailboats but adapting junk rigs to existing Bahamian sloop thinking and there's a difference.

A big difference...

Listening to Ben E. King

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Hey, here's a thought...

A good run, a good observation, and a very good/apt point being made...

I need to build another dinghy in the not-too-distant-future and perusing all of the dinghy plan pimpage out there no one portrays their dinghies actually being used in normal dinghy situations.

What I see instead are one-occupant dinghies being rowed or motored in flat calm conditions with no passengers and no load. Seems to me, if you wanted to give a real cruising perspective to the mix, what I should be seeing is a guy rowing against a two-foot chop with ten knots of wind. Oh yeah, there should also be one or two passengers, a couple of full jerry cans, and forty pounds of groceries...

Listening to some Rolling Stones covers

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a pretty cool project...

A show you might want to watch, some not so good news, and since the NRA is so big on cheer leading indiscriminate gun ownership maybe they'd like to pick up the tab for gun violence in the US of A...



Listening to Mina Tindle

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In aid of less tyro glasswork...

Nope no global warming/climate change anywhere on the third rock, about that state sanctioned murder thang, and yet another reason I don't read Facebook...

Fiberglass Hawaii has an excellent glassing tutorial and profile of Jack Reeves that is well worth watching. Here's part 1...



There's more on their Composite Corner blog and whether you're glassing a surfboard, dinghy, or a full on cruising boat the skills are pretty much the same...

Listening to some Tears for Fears covers

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Some stuff to think about...

A question I keep asking myself, don't you love it when right wingers do their math, and in the "Better Conditions = Happier Workers = Higher Profits" department ( FYI: If you wear clothing with sailing company logos chances are it was sewn in a sweat shop)...



Listening to Fran�oise Hardy

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Ego and money...

Not good at all, Percy Sledge RIP, and about connecting those dots...

Since we were speaking about sailboat races yesterday...

Yacht racing is mainly about two things, neither of which really have anything to do with sailing at all. The bottom line is it's really just ego and money. Or, to put it in other words, it's rich men behaving badly and people profiting from rich men behaving badly.

So, forgive me if I'm not going to get all excited by the new STAR (Sailing the Arctic Race) green-washed vaporware circus coming down the pike...

That said, if you want to follow and support a real race for real people of an adventuresome bent, check out the R2AK. It will be a whole lot more interesting and, if successful, could be the very model of the sort of boat racing a lot of us could get behind and support.

Listening to the forever great Percy Sledge

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and the only sailboat race I find interesting...

About holding corporations accountable, a CEO of note, and when did kids walking home from school become child neglect...



Listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard

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Now, here's a thought...

Kinda creepy, yet another good reason (of many) to not visit SeaWorld, and when Dick Dorworth writes something I pay attention...

It occurs to me that someone should really do a cruising guide for Peru.



Ya think?

Listening to some John Hiatt covers

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Surplus to requirements...

News of note, some important political content for boaters, and in the "it's about time" department...

Over the next couple of weeks we're doing our annual purge of stuff not pulling its weight and taking up needful space aboard the good ship "So It Goes".

So, to get the ball rolling...

Anyone need a brand new but never installed AIS receiver that's taking up space in a locker?

You can read all about the unit on its NASA page. We've always had great luck with NASA gear. It can take up space in your locker for all of $125 (and that include USPS Priority  mail for those stateside). SOLD


Or maybe you have a tiller steered boat and need a used but recently refurbed stainless steel NAVIK windvane self-steering gear?

Complete and includes all needful mounting hardware for $750 (plus shipping) SOLD.

More soon come as I still have a bunch of lockers to go through...

Listening to Mel Brown

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On spending a lot of money on something simple or getting creative...

Inspired timing, some interesting numbers, and something interesting about coral...

Here's a question you might want to ponder while you go about your daily business...

Why does this...

Cost so much more than this...

Now, it may just be me looking for a new project to waste time on but, if I were considering an electric outboard motor for a dinghy, I'd get one of these lawn mowers on sale, tear it apart and reconfigure the bits into a dinghy propulsion device.

Just saying...

Listening to Banta

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Because we're all handy folks on boats...

Some thoughts on the concept of "home", a quick take on threat assessment, and a needful read on the subject of denial...

Here's Tom Cunliffe making some sense.



Listening to The Bohannons

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about that boat in my head...

Rivers at threat, Krugman getting it right, and some needful reading...

I'm pretty sure all of us have couple of boat designs floating around in our heads that pop up when daydreaming about sitting at anchor in some out-of-the-way harbor, drying out in some French fishing village, or lazily sailing towards someplace you've never been before...

This boat is one of mine.

Not exactly the sort of thing most people would choose I suspect.

Half the attraction is the great deck space which is something you get when you limit yourself to standing headroom to where you actually need it. Plenty of deck space for a good sized dinghy and two-person kayak stowage while passage making and, when in port, a huge space for those keen on outdoor living in pleasant climes. Plus, as an added bonus plenty of space for the cats to chase each other around the deck with the added security of full length bulwarks for our peace of mind while they're doing it.

The interior makes sense but for us I'd make a couple of changes. A double transverse berth in the aft cabin and a redo of the salon for starters (I really hate center line drop leaf dining tables on a cruising boat). The other change would be to convert the forward cabin into a hold/workshop separated from the rest by a watertight bulkhead.

I like the rig but have a sneaking suspicion that I'd like it even more as a schooner with a handkerchief sized jib set flying off a small bowsprit. As long as we're making changes I'd also lose the water ballast and replace it with a mix of inside/outside ballast in lead. Lastly I'd lose the outboard on the transom and move it into an off-center well while moving the rudder to the transom.

One nice thing about the resulting boat in my view is that its workboat heritage lends itself to good quality workboat construction/materials and it would be both cheap and fast to build with not a whit of temptation to turn it into a "y-a-c-h-t" or try to impress the neighbors.

The thing is, as long as you're honest with yourself, hind sight really is 20/20... So, in essence, I've just described a Loose Moose 2 with hindsight.

Listening to the Black Cadillacs

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a chance to cross an ocean...

Something worth watching, on the current cost of higher education, and Donkey Mountain does make a good point...

It's not always easy to get some bluewater experience and in fact it can be damned hard. So, when the crew of Emily Morgan (a boat we charter here in the Caribbean) let us know they were heading to England and had room for a couple of people who want or need the experience of a serious transoceanic passage under their belt, I thought it was worth sharing...

Emily Morgan will be departing Antigua on 7th May 2015 bound for the UK via the Azores. The complete passage of about 3850 miles is expected to take between 23-27 days. Guests will be expected to be involved fully with sailing the boat including watch keeping, steering, sail changes, cooking and some general maintenance.

Sounds like just what the doctor ordered...

You can find more information and costs over on our Paradise Connections Blog

Listening to the Alan Lomax recordings of the 1966 Newport Folk Festival

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Affordable clean water...

Your world economy on austerity and unconventional monetary policy, that's the way it was/is, and I guess in 2015 America bigotry pays off...


Bucket Filter Assembly and Maintenance from Sawyer Products on Vimeo.

We've been using the Sawyer bucket filter day in and day to filter all the water we use aboard "So It Goes" for something like six years and it's still working finestkind.

Listening to the Blue Water Highway Band

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fear of...

This really made me stop and think, so did this, and, as it happens, this did as well...

The other day I was thinking about the stumbling blocks to being able to build or rebuild a boat and I surmised that most of them begin with the words "fear of"...

As in fear of spars or rigging... Lots of folks have a phobia of building spars or doing rigging work. I know a guy who is a real artist when it comes to making cabinets in a boat but when confronted with the idea of building a mast, which is a lot easier than cabinets, he goes all pale and trembly.

Another friend has certain issues with anything electrical, while someone else I know breaks out in a cold sweat whenever anything mechanical is called for on his boat. Then there's another guy who built a steel boat because he was was afraid of epoxy.

The funny thing is that all of these folks are actually smart and handy but so many people have told them that some stuff on boats is just too difficult to attempt for mere mortals so that irrational fear takes hold and rather simple skills and tasks take on nightmarish qualities that makes even strong, smart, and talented people go weak at the knees...

As it happens, having built a lot of wood boats myself and, since I tend to run with folks of a like mind, I've come across a lot of people with an irrational fear of scarfing pieces of wood together. Like most irrational fears it really doesn't make any sense but it's still problematic. Made worse because most of the people who do not have a fear of scarfing tend to make it all sound more difficult than it is and 99% of the time they're piss poor at teaching...

Which is why I'm more than happy that Russel Brown has put together "Scarfing Basics" which is a clear, concise, and simple booklet about scarfing that anyone with an IQ of room temperature or above should have no problem digesting the content and putting it into practice.

All I can say is it makes it easy and how cool is that? Better yet, there's some good stuff on how to make better scarfs so there's something for everyone whether phobic beginner or more advanced wood butcher.

Definitely a must read.

Listening to Grass Child

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because rust never sleeps on a boat...

Badtux gets the word freedom right, why Kansas is no longer on my places to visit list, and a question/answer session with a guy who should be in prison...

The thing is... It's not that I hate painting and varnishing boats it's just that I hate the cans.  Seriously I can bring a brand spanking new can of paint or varnish aboard "So It Goes" and the next day when I'm ready to paint the can will have morphed into a rusty mess. Put away a can with some leftover paint for a few weeks and I'll find the can has actually rusted through somewhere and the paint will have turned into some sort of rust based sludge...

Of course, I always put it away in a dry spot and even wipe down the outside of the can with some WD40... The sad fact is they just don't make tin cans the way they used to.

So, you might see why I perked up some when I saw this...



I don't see why the StopLoss bags would not work just as well with single part polyurethane based paints either.

Listening to Le Butcherettes

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a couple of boats I'd love to have...

A fracking waste, some scary reading, and in the "still not over it" department...

I happened to see over on Orcas island in the great state of Washington that someone there was selling a pair of CAL 20s... You even get a discount if you buy them both.

I have to tell you that if they were here I'd be all over them in a flash.

Just think what a great opportunity having two identical hulls to test out clever and cunning ideas of the rig sort with the advantage of having a control model in the mix, Wouldn't it be nice to actually test various rigs like junk (and junk variations), crabclaw, balanced lug, and so on in a real honest-to-goodness scientific manner?

I get excited just thinking about it...

Listening to Couer de Pirate



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Catch it if you can...

Something needful to know about your medical insurance premiums, a really good post from Ian Welsh, and a tidbit from the "what bias" department...



The Ocean Film Tour is currently barnstorming Europe and you should catch it if you can.

Nuff said.

Listening to the soundtack for Ferris Bueller's Day Off

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