Some seriously good news...

There be bigots assholes in Dent County Missouri, just some welfare for rich folks, and I'm not quite sure the military and I share the same definition of the word humane...

I've never been a big fan of carrying around a lot of pyrotechnics as things designed to explode/burn on a boat just make me nervous. A feeling underlined over the years by a too large number of incidents where flares became part of the problem rather than the solution.

Truth be told, flares scare me.

Then there's the ongoing need to replace your flares every couple of years... Yeah, I know flares have a three year lifespan but, try as I may, whenever I find myself needing to buy flares I only seem to be able to find flares with eighteen months or so validity.

Have I mentioned that flares are silly expensive?

So, in the "it's about frelling time" department...

... Finally an electric flare that is USCG approved (and yes I know it looks like a man-overboard light).

The good news is from here on this is the only night signal you need to carry and combined with a distress flag as your day signal (which comes with the Sirius flare) it's all you need to be 100% street legal with the USCG and other powers that be.

But wait... It gets better!

The Sirius electric flare is not "dated" with an expiry date which means the only thing you need to replace is the c-cell batteries when needful. That said, if you lose or screw it up you can order a replacement and get it shipped to you by the US Mail or something similar.

Of course I saved the best for last... It only costs $99!

Doing the happy dance...

Listening to Chuck Johnson

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Something you need to read...

Something well worth reading, FYI on appropriate use of language, and an important question you should ask yourself every once in awhile...

In a week with more than its fair share of bad news  a lot of folks have been focused on the loss overboard of Carly Hill of Oryx. Jill from Yacht Mollymawk covers the important stuff better than most and it's really a must read.

Listening to Chicano Batman and digging it

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A good, if pricey, idea...

A good question, needful reading, and about that skidmarks in your coffee cup idea from the Republicans...

Over at Navagear Tim writes about a newish product I've been looking forward to seeing called the SeaBung.

It's certainly kind of cool and it is a major improvement over the standard wooden bung that we've all been using since Columbus first cruised the Caribbean.

It's also sorta/kinda e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e for what it is. Especially for something so easily copied by any industrious boat owner with a bent for DIY and five dollars or less in his/her pocket.

Just saying...

Listening to "Pops" Staples

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safer...

Somewhat unsettling, really not good at all, and some advice I wished someone had told me a whole bunch of years ago...

The other day I got one of those emails from a reader taking issue with something I've said a time or two of small boats making sense. His main point seemed to be that while smaller boats might be less expensive...

"What about the safety factor?"

OK, I know this will make a few heads explode and reduce quite a few readers to muttering sailor profanity as they read further but, if anything, a smaller boat is almost always going to be the safer vessel if it's being sailed by someone competent.

Seriously, I'd much rather be in a well found 30-footer sailing short-handed in bad weather than in a 40-footer sailing short-handed. The reason I mention being short-handed as part of the mix is because most cruisers cruising sail short-handed as the norm rather than the exception.

A bigger boat is a lot more work and when things get nasty it's even more work. Sailing a bigger boat in bad conditions is more tiring and if anything goes wrong, fixing it, as a rule is going to be more work and complication making a bad situation worse.

Bigger boats are not stronger... Sure, their fittings might be beefier and the hull might be a bit thicker but you have to keep in mind that the forces involved in a bigger boat are much greater requiring the heavier stays, hull thickness, etc but that does not really equal a "stronger" boat as the added strength is more about the stresses of being bigger than it is about actual strength.  For those curious, a great way to test this is to run a 36-foot Beneteau into a rock at hull speed then repeat the same exercise with a 50-foot Beneteau and compare the carnage. For those who don't live in a place where there are lots of bareboats doing just this sort of thing on a regular basis I'll let you know that the smaller boats pretty much always come out of it with substannsially less damage.

Most importantly bigger boats are by their very nature more complicated and bigger which can be problematic in itself. I've lost track of the number of boats I've known or read about who could not source a major catastrophic leak when needed and the bigger and more complicated the boat the harder it gets.

Which is not saying that all small sailboats make sense either... As for everything where boats are concerned it's always going to be complicated and with no small amount of compromise to arrive at the best boat for what you're actually going to do. The best advice I can come up with is to ignore all of the easy black-and-white truisms like bigger = stronger, stronger = safer, or more expensive = safer and suchlike because they don't really work in the real world.


Listening to Jim White & the Packway Handle Band 

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Maybe it's just me being nervous...

L,G,& M pointing something out, some seriously scary numbers, and a little playing with the facts...

Not all that long ago a friend noticed that there was smoke coming out of the front seat locker in his Caribe dinghy. He told me that this was both irksome as well as confusing because, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing that should spontaneously combust in the locker. He also admitted he was a little off put because he had a fire extinguisher on the boat but, as luck would have it, it happened to be in the aforementioned seat locker that was now seriously smoking and it appeared that the top of lid was sorta/kinda melting...

Amazing what sort of mayhem three flares going off on their own can cause on a small dinghy while you're going home from work. For those who need details: the flares were in date, packaged/stowed appropriately, and the Caribe was a total loss.

Maybe it's just me but flares scare me... It's not about having to use flares but the fact that things designed to burn stored away on a boat just make me nervous.

As it happens, I need to buy some more flares because the ones I have are about to hit their expiry dates and this actually pisses me off for a variety of reasons...

For one, they're going out of date because when I bought them the only ones available to me in the USVI were older stock. Not only was I paying a highly inflated price for flares but I was paying that highly inflated price for flares that I'd have to replace sooner rather than later.

Another reason I'm not too happy about having to replace flares is that it is nearly impossible to dispose of them in a safe, sane, and ecologically sensible manner. Last time I tried, I dropped by the USCG station only to be told that I'd have to take them to the police. Of course, the police told me that I'd have to take them to the Fire station but the guy at the fire station told me that I'd have to take them to another fire station who then told me they don't do that anymore and suggested I try the USCG...

So, I actually have a lot of flares sitting around on my boat some with dates that I suspect actually came with the boat when it was new. Any of which could spontaneously combust at any moment...

Color me nervous.

The thing is, in the year 2014 with EPIRB's, PLB's, and modern communication technology you'd think we'd have a better safer flare system.You know something like this...



Listening to Leon Russell

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a scary weekend to be on the water...

Pacific cruisers take note, the consequences of piratical banking, and something from the global warming is a myth files...

With all this talk about safety of late as we come into the Let's-get-drunk-and-run-full-tilt-boogie-through-crowded-anchorages holiday (otherwise known as Memorial day) I've been reading the USCG statistics on safety (or lack of). It's interesting and needful reading.

The first thing that stands out to me is folks on cruising sailboats are pretty damn safe in a statiscal sense, powerboaters not so much.

Sadly, reading through the stats I could not help but realize that most of the people I personally know who have died or been injured on the water were killed in accidents that involved their dinghies rather than sailboats.

Just something to keep in mind...

Listening to Best Coast

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Splash...

A pithy take on an ongoing debate, a theory explained, and G&T makes a rather good point...

While Boat Bits has some serious issues with folks campaigning for idiotic laws requiring sailors to wear PFDs, we very much feel that folks should wear PFDs when sensible and needful. The more solid information (rather than just another regurgitated press release or advertising copy) on the subject available to us the better we can make the sort of informed needful decisions...

Voile Magazine (a way better read than most US sailing/cruising rags) has been beavering away testing inflatable PFDs and you might find the resulting video and article in the current issue both interesting and enlightening.


test gilets by voile-magazine

Listening to St. Paul & The Broken Bones  (who just may be the best band I've heard all year)


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I suspect I may not be in the best of moods today...

A hobbit analogy, why you might want to read this book, and the word for today is d-i-v-e-s-t-m-e-n-t...

The other day I got the new issue of Sail magazine which was even more disappointing than usual.

For the record, I was actually looking forward to it as I'd heard there was going to be a good article about doing the Panama Canal... Sadly, it turned out to be just another puff piece more about big buck cruising with the World Arc than the canal.

Worse, there was an editorial of sorts about the need for laws to make us all wear PFDs whenever we are on our boats. I'm sure it was written with the best of intentions but, as someone who lives on his boat 365 days a year, I'm uncomfortable with any new laws that may be interpreted by law enforcement agencies to mean that I have to wear my PFD while sitting in the cockpit at anchor, cooking dinner, or sleeping.

By the way, if you don't think well intentioned laws wind up being enforced ass-backwards you have not been reading the news for the last decade or so...

Of course, if you really wanted to radically cut back on boating accidents simply outlaw power boats under 26 feet which is where the bulk of fatalities occur. Or, here's a thought, actually enforce the existing laws that are already on the books.

I really need to make another cup of coffee.

Listening to the Youngbloods

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Something you won't find at WEST...

Some food for thought, this got me thinking, and, apparently, someone who might have been better off with a bit more cogitation...

Speaking of thinking, it would seem that Grivel has come up with a better mousetrap locking carabiner...



I can foresee an upgrade to my harness tethers in the near future...

Listening to Blackie & The Rodeo Kings

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