Messing About In Sailboats

Welcome To The Neighborhood Sunovertheyardarm

Some new New York area waterbloggers have joined the gang. Welcome SunOverThe YardArm. Claire and Gianmaria, recently wed Brooklynites are learning to sail and blogging about it in partnership with Offshore Sailing School. They have rather impressively introduced themselves in this video.

 

 

An Interview With Gary Jobson – Characters Welcome

 

Thanks to the nice people at Sailing Spoken Here, I had the privilege of interviewing the great Gary Jobson. Gary is reporting for Sailing Spoken Here, covering regattas, sailing issues and everything in between over the next two months.

There were a million things I could have asked Gary but what interested me most was his perspective on the state of sailing media, in particular TV. Coincidentally, this was also the week that NBC announced that it would be covering the America's Cup. 

Gary has covered sailing on TV since the 1983 America's Cup, There is no one better qualified to talk on the subject and he doesn’t mince his words. In his view, sailing on TV attracts an audience when three things happen:

1. Close racing with lots of lead changes
2. There is a great story behind the racing
3. Compelling characters are involved

Close racing is a tough one. Match racing can be incredibly exciting (Remember the last race of AC32 in Valencia) but it can also be like watching paint dry to anyone but real fans of the sport.

We talked about the way the AC will be covered. A few months ago I saw an impressive demonstration by Stan Honey on the new techniques being used for the AC. This will overlay a wide array of race-related information over the sailing images to explain what’s going on. (Think what the yellow line has done for watching football and multiply that by 10 and you’ll get a sense of what’s in store). It will make the AC match races much easier to understand and much more engaging for novice and veteran watchers of the sport.

Seacocks Bloody Seacocks

One thing that is not intuitive to the uninitiated in sailing is the importance of seemingly mundane boat parts. The seacock is the perfect example. To the landlubber, it's nothing more than a few rusty faucets placed in incredibly inconvenient places. Bits of plumbing really.

Talk to an Old Salt and the seacock is up there with texting drunk, while driving and the construction of Japanese nuclear power plants in terms of peril, anxiety-creation and volume of discussion.

Take Yachting Monthly (In my humble opinion the finest publication on the planet). They ran a campaign for six months focusing their ire on how certain boat-builders were cutting corners by installing cheapo brass seacocks. Rightly so, as they recounted several tales of boats sinking as the cheap pieces of crap sheared off.  They even showed what happens when "Seacocks Go Wild". Watch the first few minutes of the video below and you'll get the idea. I won't spoil it, but one word - Carrots. 'Nuff said.

 

When I commissioned, Cadence, last year, I made a vain attempt at servicing my seacocks.(For some reason this makes wife titter). My 1988 Sabre 38 is equipped with five accessible bronze Wilcox Crittenden seacocks. Four out of five were stiff but serviceable (Teehee). One, the raw-water head intake, was seized.

I dismantled the worst two, cleaned and greased them but was not able to reassemble them properly. I had to pay the yard to get them back in working order. I left the other two alone, feeling a little sheepish about my seacock servicing skills (Somewhere in the house, my wife is giggling).

The seized seacock was a whole other story. I tried brute force to unseize it but only managed to break the bronze handle off. I warn you that this is a lot easier than it sounds. The yard chaps were unable to do much beyond replacing the handle. I spent the whole season sailing with intake open and that slight nagging feeling that this wasn't quite right.

This year, I determined not be beaten by these bloody brass bits of plumbing.

Yesterday was gorgeous. Nearly 50F and sunny. I went down to the boat to start the annual maintenance. I dismantled, cleaned and CORRECTLY re-assembled two seacocks.

Feeling more confident, I decided to tackle the seized seacock. This year I figured I would engage the brain rather than brawn. Firstly, I plugged the through-hull outlet with a cork. I then removed the hose from the offending seacock and filled the bugger up with PB Blaster, a strongly recommended penetrating oil. The next day I returned with hair dryer and heated the thing up. I figured the combination of penetrating oil and heat would loosen it.

Sure enough, a couple of solid pulls and it freed up.I am a God in human form!

I then cleaned up the parts and reassembled it. The handle was stiff but functioning. I tried loosening it but unfortunately, I probably tightened it in the process. Disaster! The damn thing seized again and this time, it seized half-closed.

I repeated the penetrating oil and heat.  No luck. Back to being a mere mortal.

A guy at the local boat store, said that he thought that the likely cause was that a previous owner had tried replacing the innards of the sea-cock without replacing the outer bits (As you can see I am really up on the technical stuff here). Apparently, Wilcox Crittenden mill the inner male bit to match the outer female bit perfectly. (More tittering from the missus). Put pieces together from different units and they won't fit. AWESOME!

I am open to ideas. Beyond that it's throwing money at the problem time.

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

"So where the bloody hell have you been, Turinas and why have you been neglecting poor Messing About?"

First of all, to anyone who cares and may have have wondered why I stopped posting  (a club big enough to meet in a phone box), I apologize. It wasn't a premeditated decision to stop blogging. Nothing terrible happened. I just got preoccupied and and forgot to blog.

Last April, I teamed up with great friend, sailing buddy and now business partner, Phil Asche to develop a business I have admired for many years called Relationship Audits. I have entertained entrepreneurial aspirations forever and although I started a couple of firms about 10 years ago it was a little half-hearted first-time round. These last six months have been all-consuming and while things are starting to pick up again last year was a tough year to become a small businessman.

There was no conscious decision to stop blogging, my attention was so focused on the business I just fell out of the habit. Before I knew it, months had gone by with only a couple of posts. I was wondering if I should put a fork in the blog altogether. Over the last month I received few emails and comments wondering what was going on, curious if the blog or its blogger were broken. It got me thinking that after five years of dedication to this Messing About thing I should keep going.

So bugger it all, I'm back.

PS: Special thanks to The Peconic Puffin and Eric Banner for the nudge to get back in the game.

 

Fifth Blogaversary

(No clue who Ewan is)

I am frankly amazed this blog lasted five weeks let alone five years but believe it or not I started this dang thing on August 19th 2006. It is now got to the point where I wouldn't know how to pull the plug on it if I tried.

The original post is here featuring some handsome devil posing it large in the Solent.

My intention is to be acquired before my tenth blogaverasry. Any offers?

MarineGarage - A Damn Cool Navigational Resource

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't normally do press release but this was too cool not share. If you haven't checked this out, word of warning, set aside a lot of time. I get lost in this thing for hours:

Marine GeoGarage ushers in a new era of nautical mapping services with the launch of its marine charts portal, built on Cloud Computing technology.
<http://marine.geogarage.com/routes>

The web site is the world's first online nautical map service allowing to display maps coming from different international Hydrographic Services.

Today the catalogue of charts regroups all the 'public raster charts' from :
NOAA (USA), DHN (Brazil), Linz (New Zealand), SHN (Argentina), Wavey Line (Bahamas), NLHO (Netherlands)

Marine GeoGarage's web interface also gives site visitors viewing access to all 'private raster charts' from :
UKHO (UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Croatia, Oman, Portugal, Spain, Iceland, South Africa, Malta), CHS (Canada), AHS (Australia)
accessible via some monthly 'Chart Premium' subscription (9.9 ?/month).

Today more than 3850 electronic charts are available in the GeoGarage servers; additional layers are in preparation.

The big advantage is that all the layers are kept updated regularly so the user is sure to visualize recent documents.

But the web site is not only a seamless chart viewer overlaying charts at different scales on aerial and satellite imagery from Google Maps.
It also allows the user to plot waypoints and to prepare some navigation routes which can be saved in his account after free registering and uploaded to GPS (in gpx format or directly to Garmin GPS via its Communicator web plugin).

Some universal iPhone/iPad applications tied to the GeoGarage are also available on the AppStore :
<http://marine.geogarage.com/mobile>

March 2011 Issue of News From the Bow

via newsfromthebow.wordpress.com

Lots of great stuff in this month's News From The Bow, the excellent newsletter for sailors:

• A guest post by Robert Eldridge White Jr as in Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book
• An evaluation of paper-based versus digital navigation tools
• The Boat US Smartphone app
• "Lightbulb moments", those flashes of inspiration on the water
• Best and worst of boat covers and lots more

Strong suggest you check it out.

In coming weeks I will featuring some of the best articles on Messing About.

Ye Olde Waterbloggers Meetup

Some photos from last night's festivities at the Ear Bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our muse for the evening provided by Bonnie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonnie of Frogma fame and the now-unveiled TQ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His "Mighty Puffiness", Michael Alex and Carolina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Will "The Tugster" Van Dorp and Christina "Bowspite" Sun in a blur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rick "The Old Salt" Spilman and Christina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 John Edward Harris of Summit To Shore.

Here's Tugster's account and Puffy's.

What's New In This Month's News From The Bow

If you haven't seen it, you REALLY need to check out News From The Bow, the excellent sailing newsletter produced by my great friends Stu and Shana Hochron.

Here's what this month's edition has in store according to Stu: 

• One reader described a recent winter storm damaged docks.  Could we determine, from the photos he’d taken, if anything failed and what caused the destruction? We asked Peter Schkeeper, a professional engineer who specializes in waterfront real estate, including dock design and maintenance, to give us his thoughts.  We hope you find his conclusions as interesting as we do.

• Winter boat shows are an annual pilgrimage for many boaters. Armed with our camera we set out to bring you a slice of the 2011 New York Boat Show.  Ever searching for the unique, we were pleasantly surprised at the number of items that fit that description.  We hope you agree that our boat show choices are worth reading about.

• “Have you seen that new App?” echoes wherever boaters gather.  One reader’s take on the potential safety value of a pocket strobe caught our attention.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

• Winter is a time when those luckiest among us vacation in warm, far off places. The rules of boating do not take a vacation, however, even in paradise.  We appreciate a letter from one reader whose boating experience came in handy in the South Pacific. His report demonstrates, once again, that it is no accident that luck comes more often to those who are best prepared.

• Then there is the cruising couple we want you to meet. They achieved their goal of distant cruising despite challenges that stop many of us in our tracks. There is powerful lesson in this true story.

• We appreciate a loyal reader who forwarded a nautical dancing video. We know this will make you smile and wish that you were on deck with him.

• Last, but not least, is poetry written from the boat’s perspective…a very cold, winterized boat tied to a frozen dock. This piece reminds us it won’t be long before things thaw out and festivities resume in the eastern US.

John Vigor's Blog: Sailors’ worst nightmares

WHAT’S THE WORST THING that can happen to a sailor? That’s what Old Wotsisname and a couple of his pals were trying to figure out the other day as they stood around on the docks dodging rain showers.

via johnvigor.blogspot.com

Great post that I saw thanks to Threesheets. No clue who Old Wotisname is. What's your worst sailing nightmare?