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New Boat 4 Sled

(Returning from the cruise out, approaching the brothers under motor: 6.2 knots Via Engine by Dave) is it a bungee cord?
 
I can imagine a few "hinged" things that might function as a mast step and also a rudder pintle/gudgeon setup, but you've got me on it being a "hiking aid". I mean...hiking aid?

boots...wool socks....hiking poles....bandaids!
 
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I was thinking of a carabiner but it has a moving part. And the cheap ones from an auto parts store will break.
Good Morning, Ants. Suspect you had a bit of breeze in Bodfish yesterday. We had frost here last night, but not the hard freeze of inland. With a windchill corrected temp of 28 degrees, riding my bike this morning to the Harbor called for full gear including fleece face mask.

Your guess of a plastic wheel chock could indeed be a lightweight and useful addition to a bosun's locker. However, it is not the answer I am looking for. Remember, this object can facilitate a quick change in a boat's direction. As well, having no moving parts, but being an important connector, it's strength is unrivaled for something as inexpensive..I've never heard of one breaking.
 
I can imagine a few "hinged" things that might function as a mast step and also a rudder pintle/gudgeon setup, but you've got me on it being a "hiking aid". I mean...hiking aid? boots...wool socks....hiking poles....bandaids!

Alan: not talking "poles or bandaids, boots or wool socks", though as kids we used to use wet wool clothing as a hiking aid to increase our weight on the windward rail against the big guys upwind in breeze. I believe such means, i.e. wearing weight belts, water bags, wet clothing exceeding 8 kilos (17.6 pounds) is now outlawed by RRS Rule 43, as well as common sense, unless your boat has lifelines.
 
I was thinking of a carabiner but it has a moving part. And the cheap ones from an auto parts store will break.

Not sure a carabiner would work as an anchor unless it was clipped to something. I used one of our mystery items recently as an anchor while reading Wooden Boat adrift in a local backwater.
 
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Alan: not talking "poles or bandaids, boots or wool socks", though as kids we used to use wet wool clothing as a hiking aid to increase our weight on the windward rail against the big guys upwind in breeze. I believe such means, i.e. wearing weight belts, water bags, wet clothing exceeding 8 kilos (17.6 pounds) is now outlawed by RRS Rule 43, as well as common sense, unless your boat has lifelines.

Oh "hiking"... THIS kind of hiking...

Alt_soling_worlds_07.jpg

or this kind of hiking?

17605_10649_Grand_Canyon_Hiking_Trails_lg.jpg
 
Plastic bucket?

Sorry, not a plastic bucket. But a good reminder you can never have too many buckets of different sizes on an ocean crossing. They are inexpensive, light weight, uses are many, and they disappear over the side if not dipping for water correctly (fore to aft). In the 1971 Transpac, the 73 ketch GRAYBEARD was saved by her energized crew when her rudder and skeg tore off the bottom during morning roll call, leaving a football sized hole.

The 5 bilge pumps were unable to keep up with the leak, an estimated 250 -300 gallons/minute. Fortunately a thrifty Scot in the crew, Dr. J.A. MacMillan, had acquired 12 neatly nested plastic buckets in Cape Town during GRAYBEARD's circumnavigation and stowed them in the bilge. A bucket brigade was formed and GRAYBEARD was saved in the 5 hours between the holing of the hull and the arrival of a Coast Guard plane with multiple airlifted gasoline pumps.

During the bucket brigade and parachuted pumps, GRAYBEARD's crew plugged the hole with a sleeping bag and rigged a sail collision mat while the boat drifted under small jib. All this was transpiring while the fleet listened intently on the radio to developments, and we on WINDWARD PASSAGE, leading the race on record pace, stood by to turn back if needed. Fortunately the leak was slowed, and GRAYBEARD eventually was towed the remaining 500 miles to Hono by the Coast Guard sea going buoy tender BUTTONWOOD.*

GRAYBEARD eventually crossed the finish line at Diamond Head under tow by BUTTONWOOD, water still spraying over the side from the pumps and her giant rudder/skeg lashed on deck. As GRAYBEARD entered Ala Wai Harbor in the afternoon, a rousing cheer went up from a large crowd of spectators and well wishers.

"Buckets? We don't need no stinkin' buckets." Wanna bet?

Graybeard 001.jpg

*BUTTONWOOD, a Mesquite class, seagoing, buoy tender operated by the United State's Coast Guard, was a famous ship and roamed the Pacific during, and after World War II, servicing navigation aids and performing many rescues of ships and downed aircraft. Her life tale is epic rivaling Farley Mowat's tug sea stories of FOUNDATON FRANKLIN and FOUNDATION JOSEPHINE.

BUTTONWOOD was home ported at CG San Francisco's Yerba Buena Island until 2000. During this posting BUTTONWOOD recovered debris from the crash of a US Air Force HC-130 off Cape Mendocino in November 1996. She hauled wreckage onto her buoy deck for later analysis on shore which helped solve the mystery why the 4 turbo-prop engines had quit in mid-flight, causing the loss of 10 of the 11 crew.
 
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I really thought we were done at lug wrench! Then I thought maybe a spare tire is a hiking aid, which is funny, and half of us probably have one, but couldn't get it to work with the other clues.

Heavy things at the auto parts store: Hitch ball?

image_14706.jpg
 
I really thought we were done at lug wrench! Then I thought maybe a spare tire is a hiking aid, which is funny, and half of us probably have one, but couldn't get it to work with the other clues. Heavy things at the auto parts store: Hitch ball?
View attachment 5970

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner! A trailer hitch ball is the correct answer. Attached to a knotted line, a hitch ball can be used as a lead line for measuring depth. Also attached to a line, a hitch ball works as a temporary anchor for small craft like a kayak, inflatable raft or SUP. Or as a kellet on a bigger anchor. As a mast step, a hitch ball comes into its own, and allows masts to not only rotate, but also be canted (raked) to windward as well, something many hi-tech racers, even Vendee Globe IMOCA 60's and Jules Verne maxi trimarans are doing these days.

Hitchball.jpg

A hitch ball is a connector, to a boat trailer hitch, and allows the driver to make his boat trailer change direction. Lastly, though not recommended, you can put a hitch ball in either pocket of your hiking jacket and be 10-12 pounds heavier on the weather rail.

Here's the promised prize: A photo of PHILPOTT's tasty new breakfast food "brown sugar coconut ice cream by Ruthie, the pastry chef at the Madison (Wisconsin) Concourse hotel. OMG! It definitely gives Marianne’e macapuna a run for it’s $$! So delish I had it instead of breakfast."

Coconut Icecream.jpg

PS: Phillipe (PJ) stopped by CBC this afternoon to collect his Marianne's Macapuno Icecream prize from a previous trivia about the USS MACON airship falling from the sky off Pt. Sur. Having lost 20 pounds on his recent 6,000 mile, 35 day shakedown on CHANGABANG, I reckoned a bowl of Macapuno and some triple ginger snaps would do the boy good.
 
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Aww, Skip, we all count on you. And for more than just ginger snaps and ice cream. Down there at the CBC you keep the sailing world spinning on its axis.
 
When her boat blew over in a recent Cat.2 hurricane, a spreader was broken and had to be removed, and there was no one who could assist, Trish showed her typical solo sailor creativity

AUK5.JPG
 
Interesting:
When Trish climbed a ladder to service her broken spreader she was demonstrating SS creativity.
When I climbed a ladder to replace a jib halyard block, I, got SCOLDED by the sleddog!!��
So I guess dangerous behavior is OK for the girls��
 
Unless I misread, it appears Whitall on SPARROW has lost his 2 downwind sails, an A-2 spinnaker and Code 0, and is now down to "working sails." He reports this loss will give him more time to read. My question would be, does SPARROW have a pole to wing out a headsail? If not, getting downwind around the World may prove tedious.
 
Poor Whitall for losing his downwind sails. Poor Howard for being discriminated against. Call the SSS HR department! These round the world sailors! It's like entering a casino: better to just throw your sails overboard upon boarding. I am really enjoying Whitall's writing. He's got a whole lot of reading loaded onto his Kindle, but it's dense stuff. Maybe he shoulda taken a couple of LaDonna's bodice rippers for a different flavor book.
 
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Never a dull moment at CBC when the phone rings with a robo call from the Capitola police advising to shelter in place until further notice, "a mountain lion has been sighted on your street."

Being a cat advocate I naturally don't want to see the big kitty shot, as there is a school just up the street. I found the kitty a block away under some outside stairs, where a ranger in attendance advised me to leave slowly so not to spook the cat, and they were going to get the "trank gun."

I'm guessing our local PD department keeps a "trank gun" in it's arsenal, every since a mountain lion came down the dry creek a few years ago, and sauntered past the Shadowbrook. In search of Marianne's Macapuno perhaps? Word is out.

Meeow. mountain lion 2.jpg

PS at 6:45 p.m. the robo call in an automated, robotic voice reported "the mountain lion problem has been mitigated." "You are free to end shelter-in-place."

"Mitigated?" Hey Jackie, has the steaming light issue been mitigated?
 
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Lido 17.jpg

This fine little ship recently appeared at Santa Cruz Harbor. She's got a retracting carbon bowsprit, frac rig with masthead spinny halyard, carbon fiber mast and boom, spade rudder, and sugar scooped stern.

The Sur-prize will go to the first to tell us what she is:
1) A Lido 17
2) A Harbor 22+
3) A J-5.8
4) A Rogue Wave
5) A Columbia 23
6) A Scamp 18
7) A modified West Wight Potter
7) I don't know what this is, but it's not a Lido 17 nor a Scamp 18.
8) I know what this is, but it's not on the list.
 
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