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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