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New Boat 4 Sled

As kids, we didn't know what to make of the 41' futuristic sloop LADY GODIVA, the boat with an unclothed lady on a horse painted on the stern. LADY G was a 41 foot Bounty II, one of the first fiberglass boats made. At the head of the cockpit on her custom built flush deck was a wrap around airplane windscreen. Her owner, advanced in years, steered with a joystick, really a vertical tiller. His unforgettable name: Waldo Waterman.

At the age of 14, five years after the Wright Brothers' historic flight, local San Diego high school kid Waldo Waterman became enamored with flying. A 1909 Popular Mechanics article on gliders enabled Waldo to construct and fly a glider down the slopes of a canyon in San Diego near his home.

Soon after, Waterman built and was flying his own powered aircraft. His early craft lacked sufficient power for take off, so Waldo used the method of being pulled into the air behind a horseless carriage (car.) A crash of his homebuilt plane broke both Waterman's ankles, and kept him out of active flying in WWI.

After WWI, Waterman designed and built many planes, barnstormed in S. Cal., managed airports and airlines, and set flight records for altitude and speed. In the 1930's he briefly became a pilot for TWA before embarking on designing and building an "Everyman's Airplane": simple, easy to fly, low cost, and convertible from highway to air and back. Here was his answer, now viewable at the Smithsonian Museum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6N_T6RMznw

Waldo Waterman, aviation pioneer, continued to fly, and sail, until his death in 1976.
WaldoWaterman'21.jpg
 
Ah, the flying car/roadable airplane, an idea that never quite seems to make it to commercial reality. I think the Terrafugia (http://www.terrafugia.com/) has been a couple of years away from available for a decade. Waterman's design is interesting in that it lacks an empannage but it doesn't look like you can take the wing with you when you drive.

One of the problems that has plagued roadable aircraft design has been the need to construct controls for both driving and flying. It gets complicated quickly. Burt Rutan's Bipod design offered and interesting solution to this dilemma by splitting the two functions between two separate fuselages: you drive from one side and fly from the other (http://www.scaled.com/projects/bipod). But then most of Rutan's work was off the beaten path in interesting, and successful ways. Kind of reminds me a fellow named Bolger...

The stuff you come up with, Skip...Always sends me thinking.
 
Skip - Love all your stories, including nighttime moonless sailing in the SHTP. Don't know if you noticed but I'm finally doing it this year on 31 year old Dolfin. Great photos of Yelapa and notes on the sketchy moorings. Patty and I gave it a pass in 2013 because we were unsure of the anchorage but missed a beautiful place as a result. Good to see you doing so well.

Bill Meanley
Crealock 37, Dolfin
 
Greetings to DOLFIN Bill and Patty! 30 years ago I met DOLFIN and crew in French Polynesia while sailing WILDFLOWER in the same waters...

While the fleet is circumnavigating SF Bay today in the 3BF, four of us chartered the panga KARINA and captain Seferino to run us 12 miles southwest, down the undeveloped south coast of Banderas Bay, to the little village of Chimo, last stop before Cabo Corrientes.

An interesting feature of the Mexican pangas is the universal use of Zolatone splatter paint for the inside of the hull. For those who don't know Zolatone, it was first used in the 1950's to coat the inside of Airstream trailers and truck beds. Zolatone most resembles a bad acid trip crossed with a Jackson Pollock painting. But its toughness and longevity is undisputed.
Zolatone.jpg

The coastline from Yelapa to Chimo was rocky, backed by steep jungle, with infrequent and small pocket sand beaches. Seferino skirted the jagged shoreline close aboard, while a southbound whale paid more heed and kept a safe 100 yards off.

Entering the little bay of Chimo, Seferino anchored KARINA about 50 yards offshore, and we waited for the shoreboat to ferry us ashore through the surf. While waiting, I hesitantly pondered what we might be in for: the shoreboat was an ancient dugout log canoe, the original watercraft for many indigenous peoples, and probably well over a 100 years old. The dugout's crew of two was alternating paddling and bailing.

IMGP0019.JPG

Somehow, all seven of us made it ashore in one load of the dugout. On the beach, we were greeted by a snuffling pig and dozen pelicans. The pig, good sized railmeat for a J-92, lay down on the beach at our feet, belly up.

IMGP0012.JPG

On the other side of the beach was a shoal lagoon, home of the Chimo Club de Yates, whose fleet numbered eight rough looking pangas.

IMGP0008-001.JPG

Chimo, population 250, hasn't much for the visitor but a single beach side restaurant with one table and two welcoming cats. To the cats delight, we ordered fish and shrimp ceviche, a baked huachinango (red snapper) and cold beer. The cats became our new best friends, wanted to sit in our laps and help celebrate our visit. One wrapped around my neck.

After lunch we returned to the shore where the dugout canoe and crew were waiting. I couldn't help but notice daylight shining through a foot-long crack in the hull at the waterline.

Chimo.jpg

Again we cheated death, negotiated the shorebreak, made the short ocean transit, and boarded the KARINA for the 45 minute run back to Yelapa.

If ever given the chance to visit Chimo, don't miss it. The lunch was delicious, the locals friendly, the cats affectionate, and the dugout canoe ride epic.
 
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Skip, You also attended Kelly's 8th birthday in Moorea, bobbing for donuts dangling from trees, gave us your chart and encouragement for the Vava'u group and then two years later out of the blue arrived in Wildflower in the Gulf Islands and helped celebrate Kelly's 10th. Great memories.

Bill Meanley
Crealock 37, Dolfin
 
I have recently been advised by good friend Rob Wood, a Yorkshire man himself, that the friendly pig that greeted us on the beach at Chimo is properly called a Yorkshire Pig.

Rob, a mountaineer as well as a sailor, was the first Euro to ascend Yosemite's El Cap in 1968. Rob and wife Laurie, based out of Maurelle Island in British Columbia, built their 33 foot workhorse catamaran QUINTANO out of two amas from a Norman Cross 38 trimaran.

They then used QUINTANO to lead expeditions up rugged and remote Bute Inlet to ascend BC's highest peak, 13,177 foot Mt. Waddington. Rob wrote a book about their adventures, Towards the Unknown Mountains

waddington.jpg

Just getting the 40 miles up Bute Inlet was an adventure. It's waters are turquoise-blue glacier runoff. There are no anchorages or harbors of refuge in this steepsided fiord.

At the head of Bute Inlet, QUINTANO would cross the bar and enter the Homathko River, then fight strong currents up river to their base camp, where they would moor QUINTANO, and begin the ascent of Waddington Glacier on skis.

homathko.jpg

Rob and Laurie also sailed QUINTANO to the Queen Charlottes, as well as circumnavigating Vancouver Island. It was aboard QUINTANO I first sailed with a horse. But that's another story back in post #847 http://sfbaysss.org/forum/showthread.php?655-New-Boat-4-Sled/page85
 
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Before there were EPIRB's, Personal Locator Beacons PLB's, and SPOTs for signaling emergency at sea, there were Gibson Girl hand crank powered radios, carried aboard trans-ocean racing yachts through mid-20th century, and aboard nuclear submarines as late as 1990. (!)

These radios, originally invented by the Germans in 1941 for their Luftwafte airforce during WW II, were waterproof, buoyant, and could send a continuous radio distress signal on 500 kHz to searching aircraft and ships. They were transmit only, not receive.

Gibson Girls were bright yellow and had a peculiar wineglass shape, meant to be held between the legs, thus the name "Gibson Girl" after the idealized women in Charles Dana Gibson's drawings of the 1890's.

Gibson Girl.jpg

I don't know how many mariners or WW II warriors Gibson Girl's actually saved. Just deploying them looks like a major chore. The wind had to between 12 and 20 knots to get the box kite and 300 feet of antenna aloft. Otherwise, hydrogen had to be made in a hydrogen generator tube by mixing chemicals together. The hydrogen then inflated a 3 foot diameter balloon that was deployed from the liferaft to take the antenna up.

GG Kite.jpg

Early Gibson Girls weighed 50 pounds or more. Later, the Brits and Yanks copied captured Gibson Girl's from the Germans, and the Yanks reduced their weight to as little as 34 pounds.

The best Gibson Girl rescue story I ever heard was from a retired WW II aviator who ditched his plane at sea. He dutifully inflated his raft, launched his kite and antenna, and cranked up his Gibson Girl. As if on schedule, a rescue aircraft appeared. The airplane dipped down to get a better look. Unfortunately, the plane snagged the antenna and dragged the airman out of his raft before the antenna broke. Yiiiii doggies.

I hope not one of you ever has to use a modern EPIRB or PLB satellite based system in survival conditions. But if so, thank goodness you are not relying on the Gibson Girl radio of yesteryear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY4pu9SoVfw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWJ5qvfPj_I
 
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Ocean Valiant.jpg

No mermaids here: Heart stopping photo of semi-submersible drill rig OCEAN VALIANT anchored west of the Shetlands (north UK) in hurricane force and 35 foot seas. Anchored?? Yup, with 8x10 ton, MK4 Bruce Anchors, sorta like what you got hanging off your bow.

There are two anchors off each corner of OCEAN VALIANT. Can't imagine the loads. The science of deep ocean anchoring has obviously advanced since the old days when the Danforth was designed for a single direction pull of Landing Craft off sandy beaches during WWII.

Peter Bruce was the man who advanced anchor design from the Dark Ages, patenting the Bruce Anchor in 1971. His patent has since expired, and there are many cheap knock-offs out there, some not so good. Obviously OCEAN VALIANT's anchoring gear is of the highest quality.

The Bruce Anchors on OCEAN VALIANT meet the design criteria for effective hold irrespective of the angle or position at which they first settle on the sea bed.

Bruce.jpg

There is much written about anchors and their effectiveness. If you enjoy the subject of anchoring with your breakfast cereal, here are two interesting websites.

http://www.vryhof.com/anchor_manual.pdf
http://www.petersmith.net.nz/boat-anchors/old-generation-anchors.php

And if you are in the market for a less expensive alternative, the Mexican panga rebar anchor is universally used and might be a good look. Available everywhere South of the Border, except West Marine.

Rebar Anchor.jpg
 
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OK Dinghy.jpg

OK Dinghies are one of the finest hi-tech sailing dinghies there is, on par with a 505. Originally designed by Knud Olsen ("OK" was the reversal of his initials) in 1957 for the Seattle area as a youth trainer for the Olympic Finn, OK's have survived the test of time and remain a truly wonderful planing dinghy, better than a Laser I think.

Certainly Paul Elvstrom, probably the best small boat sailor ever, thought so. Paul had a long history in the OK Class, and built many boats, and sails as well.

OK's were designed to be built using conventional plywood construction. Although many OK's now are built of fiberglass, wood OK's still are very competitive. And are they pretty to look at! Just look at RAGTIME's pics. Thanks, Robert.

Another cool thing about OK's is, unlike the Laser, strict one design class rules do allow you to tinker with gear and location to your heart's content. This freedom allows customizing your OK Dinghy to suit your body shape, weight, strength and style of sailing.

I cannot speak highly enough about OK Dinghies and their international class organization and comradery. If you ever have the chance to sail an OK, go for it! Not only will you have fun, but become a better sailor for it.

ok.jpg
 
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Well, I suppose its pretty clear where I get my affinity for boats with lots of strings.
OK Bob, you've goaded me into it... I have a winter project for 2016-17.
I'm unlikely to build a varnished piece of furniture, but hopefully I'll end up with a decent dinghy in the end.

I have a lot of great memories from growing up around the class in Seattle, including an early trip to Half Moon Bay for Nationals. I was about 4, and what I most clearly recall is getting to ride in the committee boat on the "real ocean" with swells [vs Puget Sound].
I also recall being highly put out on the ride home that I was displaced from the back of the family Travelall by the cases of wine my father bootlegged home...
 
sleddog said:
Greetings to DOLFIN Bill and Patty! 30 years ago I met DOLFIN and crew in French Polynesia while sailing WILDFLOWER in the same waters...

While the fleet is circumnavigating SF Bay today in the 3BF, four of us chartered the panga KARINA and captain Severino to run us 12 miles southwest, down the undeveloped south coast of Banderas Bay, to the little village of Chimo, last stop before Cabo Corrientes.

An interesting feature of the Mexican pangas is the universal use of Zolatone splatter paint for the inside of the hull. For those who don't know Zolatone, it was first used in the 1950's to coat the inside of Airstream trailers and truck beds. Zolatone most resembles a bad acid trip crossed with a Jackson Pollock painting. But its toughness and longevity is undisputed.
View attachment 1306

The coastline from Yelapa to Chimo was rocky, backed by steep jungle, with infrequent and small pocket sand beaches. Severino skirted the jagged shoreline close aboard, while a southbound whale paid more heed and kept a safe 100 yards off.

Entering the little bay of Chimo, Severino anchored KARINA about 50 yards offshore, and we waited for the shoreboat to ferry us ashore through the surf. While waiting, I hesitantly pondered what we might be in for: the shoreboat was an ancient dugout log canoe, the original watercraft for many indigenous peoples, and probably well over a 100 years old. The dugout's crew of two was alternating paddling and bailing.

View attachment 1307

Somehow, all seven of us made it ashore in one load of the dugout. On the beach, we were greeted by a snuffling pig and dozen pelicans. The pig, good sized railmeat for a J-92, lay down on the beach at our feet, belly up.

View attachment 1308

On the other side of the beach was a shoal lagoon, home of the Chimo Club de Yates, whose fleet numbered eight rough looking pangas.

View attachment 1309

Chimo, population 250, hasn't much for the visitor but a single beach side restaurant with one table and two welcoming cats. To the cats delight, we ordered fish and shrimp ceviche, a baked huachinango (red snapper) and cold beer. The cats became our new best friends, wanted to sit in our laps and help celebrate our visit. One wrapped around my neck.

After lunch we returned to the shore where the dugout canoe and crew were waiting. I couldn't help but notice daylight shining through a foot-long crack in the hull at the waterline.

View attachment 1310

Again we cheated death, negotiated the shorebreak, made the short ocean transit, and boarded the KARINA for the 45 minute run back to Yelapa.

If ever given the chance to visit Chimo, don't miss it. The lunch was delicious, the locals friendly, the cats affectionate, and the dugout canoe ride epic.
Click to expand...

So many great phrases, so many lovely images! I keep coming back to read this story again and again.
 
Having recently returned visiting a coastline where GPS put our boat a mile inland on the most recent chart, I can sympathize with this determined fellow, who misspelled his destination in Iceland and then seemed to lack common sense and situational awareness. His reward, other than not dying on icy roads, was sampling the local delicacy, putrefied shark.

LONDON — When Noel Santillan typed the word Laugarvegur instead of Laugavegur into his rental car’s GPS, the New Jersey resident couldn’t have imagined the extra “r” would make him a celebrity in Iceland.

Santillan, 28, arrived at Keflavik International Airport on Monday after a five-hour flight from New York and was eager to get to the Hotel Fron on Laugavegur, a main street in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. But the spelling error got in his way, according to Visir, an Icelandic news website.

While driving nearly six hours over icy roads, Santillan, began to think something might be wrong, local news reports said.

His suspicion was confirmed when he arrived in Siglufjordur, a remote fishing village in northern Iceland that is roughly 270 miles from the airport and has a road named Laugarvegur.

There, a woman told Santillan he was not in Reykjavik, which is about 45 minutes by bus from the airport at which Santillan arrived.

“I was very tired after the flight and wanted to get to the hotel as soon as possible,” Santillan was quoted by Visir as saying. “That’s why I kept driving. I did enjoy the scenery on the way.”

He told the state broadcaster that he saw signs showing Reykjavik was in the other direction, but he had put his faith in the GPS.

But his unintended journey has captured the imagination of Iceland, and the people of Siglufjordur have embraced the American, who has since visited the local herring museum and tasted a favorite local delicacy, putrefied shark.

 
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Congrats to friend of sailors everywhere, Chuck Hawley, on his recent receipt of U.S.Sailing's Timothea Larr Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of sailor education in the U.S.

Chuck is leader of the Safety at Sea Committee and member of the Offshore Committee. Currently, he is working to improve best practices in sail and boating training. He is a SHTP verteran, respected member of the offshore community, and serves on multiple panels investigating offshore sailing tragedies to help improve our best practices.

Chuck headed the Independent Review Panel for the Chicago to Mackinac Island WINGNUTS tragedy in 2011. He set the standard and format for subsequent panels and most recently Chuck was part of a panel that investigated the VESTAS WIND Volvo Ocean Race grounding on the Cargados Carajos Shoals.

As part of LOW SPEED CHASE 2012 tragedy investigation. Chuck worked with the US Coast Guard and the yacht clubs of the San Francisco Bay area to craft user-friendly Safety Requirements written in easily understandable language for use in races outside of the Bay. These were expanded into the US Safety Equipment Requirements (SERs).

Chuck has long been a Moderator for the Safety at Sea Seminars He is also at the forefront of creating online safety training units used to supplement the standard seminar topics so that an abbreviated version combined with hands-on training can be done in one day, as opposed to two.

What Chuck has to say about his recent attendance to the ISAF annual meeting (now "World Sailing") likely has relevance to SSS members, and all who sail offshore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Safety Gear Usefulness - Feb., 3, 2016

When Does Safety Gear Outlive Its Usefulness?

Chuck Hawley, February 2016

In early November, the annual meeting of the International Sailing Federation, now known as World Sailing, was held in Sanya, Hainan, China. One of the committees that met was the Offshore Special Regulations committee, which is responsible for creating equipment rules for six categories of sailboat racing, based on the proximity to rescue and the duration of the event. The Offshore Special Regulations have grown over the years: in fact, the 1982 version published by the then-United States Yacht Racing Union fit on a single sheet of paper. By 2014, the OSRs as they are known had grown to over 200 pages.

It’s interesting to consider why a relatively simple document like the 1982 version would grow to be a bloated, complicated, and ultimately undesirable document that tormented yacht owners, boat captains, and pre-race inspectors due to its incomprehensibility. One could argue that a wide range of new products have come to the market since 1982, and many of those items have greatly reduced the risks of going offshore, or even along the shore. Who wouldn’t want to have an EPIRB, a high buoyancy inflatable life jacket, GPS, AIS transceivers, satellite telephones, VHF radios with Digital Selective Calling, even if it caused the page of requirements to become a small booklet of requirements?

Items tend to be added to the Offshore Special Regulations with relatively little debate about their merits compared to either not adding them, or exchanging them for other items. When AIS became available a few years ago, I can imagine that most offshore sailors felt that the ability to know the location of AIS-equipped vessels was absolutely worth the cost of adding an AIS receiver or transceiver. How could it not be the right thing to do? What about improved safety harness tethers that would have different snaps at each end, and a dated tag that showed when it was purchased, and a overload indicator that would show when the tether had been subjected to a large load (undefined, as it turns out, in the Special Regulations).

Sometimes the new items or technologies obsolete some thing that is already bought and paid for and on the boat. If we’re lucky, the new technology is given a few years of leadtime before it’s required, and the old items are allowed for a few years of additional use before being relegated to the rubbish bin or marine flea markets. But it’s always hard to resist new pieces of kit, since everyone worries that if only one life is saved with the new gear, then it will have been worth it.

Thus, it was somewhat amazing that one of the submissions presented in Sanya was to eliminate the carriage of SOLAS rocket parachute flares on offshore race boats. Instead of having six relatively expensive pyros on board, Category 1 boats would not have any. Not only are these flares dated, with a expiration date of 42 months, but they are virtually impossible to recycle or ship, and they have relatively few instances where they have been the critical alerting device in rescues. Remarkably, the Offshore Special Regulations committee voted to remove the need to carry these devices, showing a reversal of the trend to add consistently rather than to have each item fight for its place on the list of gear.

This raises the obvious question: how DO you decide what gear should be voluntarily carried, or require it to be carried, when sailing offshore? Is more always better? Are you playing fast and loose with the safety of your crew when you elect to not carry a piece of gear?

Let’s look at an example. Most of us would not consider voyaging down the coast of California and certainly not to Hawaii without carrying a life raft. But is this a logical choice? Life rafts cost around $4,500, require periodic maintenance that might amortize out to $200 per year, and last about 15 years. Total cost per year of ownership: $500 per year. But how many U.S. sailors are saved by life rafts every year? It’s a tiny number: perhaps 20 in a particularly bad year, and perhaps fewer than 10 in a good year. Is it worth it, ignoring the obvious argument that, “if it were your family, you’d sure want to have one if the boat sank” which is always going to be raised. A better argument that lacks some of the emotion is “what alternative do you have if your boat burns or sinks?” A life raft is nearly the only choice.

Let’s return to SOLAS rocket parachute flares. How may sailors are saved by this item, considering that they may have VHF radios, hand flares, EPIRBs, SEND devices, Iridium phones, strobe lights, spot lights and on and on? Perhaps parachute flares have fallen prey to the improving technologies that we all embrace, especially the ability to communicate over the horizon to either rescue networks or rescuing vessels. Perhaps, in this case, we can confidently retire these devices, and their frequent replacement, hazardous waste disposal, and potential to harm the B&G masthead unit, and feel confident that we’ve evolved beyond technologies that were more appropriate for the Titanic generation. As the song says, breaking up is hard to do, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do.
 
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There is a stark imbalance here! Unfortunately, safety in the boating and sailing often translates into equipment & technology. In parallel, I believe there should be an equal effort in training and influencing behaviors.

JB
 
sleddog said:
Having recently returned visiting a coastline where GPS put our boat a mile inland on the most recent chart, I can sympathize with this determined fellow, who misspelled his destination in Iceland and then seemed to lack common sense and situational awareness. His reward, other than not dying on icy roads, was sampling the local delicacy, putrefied shark.

BIG SNIP

[/I]
Click to expand...

Sled:
Cute story, but sorry, it’s hard to accept as presented. I believe the Icelandic tourist bureau saw an opportunity for publicity. Sue and I were in Iceland for two weeks last August and we visited Siglufjordur and The Herring Era Museum. A few observations:
• Most all the flights from North America arrive around 6 AM, so yes, the guy could have been pretty tired from the overnight flight; I know we were.
• Icelandic names can be pretty confusing; they have lots of letters and don’t look like English.
• From the airport at Keflavik, he had to drive through Reykjavik to get to Siglufjordur. Reykjavik is a large city (2/3 of the Icelandic population lives there); it would have been hard to miss.
• To get to Siglufjordur one must drive through two very long tunnels. One of which is one-way. It’s not any easy place to get to and it’s a long drive.

Siglufjordur is in the far reaches of North-West Iceland. It is an amazing place with deep glacier carved fiords and a wonderful maritime history. One could easily spend hours exploring the award winning Herring Era Museum at Siglufjordur.

Siglufjordur has an interesting (and surprising) connection to the SF Bay Area. The fifth herring factory at Siglufjordur was opened in 1926 by German industrialist Carl Paul. Remaining in what is now the museum is the engine/generator for the Paul Factory. It’s comprised of a very large 400 hp ATLAS IMPERIAL diesel engine made in OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA connected to a 368 hp GENERAL ELECTRIC dynamo, with 270 kW capacity.

On a more serious note and to the point, there have been some tragic results from tourists blindly following car GPS directions. The most notable that I recall had to do with dirt roads and Death Valley.

Atlas Imperial.jpg

Tom P.
CLOUD
 
The photos bring back great memories, I bought a used OK when I was in high school, that would have been about 1969-70. Wooden mast, wire reel winch vang and all! IIRC it was US333. Sailed it constantly in the local (Marina del Rey) fleet and a regatta or two in windy Long Beach. The fleet didn't withstand the onslaught of the Laser class though and I also made the shit to a Laser in 1972. Too bad because the OK is such a better sailing boat. I was really disappointed my first time in the Laser but if you wanted to race that's what you sailed. Those were the days of wet sweatshirts (for increased hiking weight for the younger set who haven't heard of such things). My knees and back were never the same.

It would be great to see a rebirth of that great design although I don't think I'll be sailing one. I think that was my second favorite boat ever, not a coincidence that it was a woodie... Favorite was the Constellation which I sold last year after 25 years. Still not over it.

Tom Krase
 
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