Wednesday, June 26, 2013

How Many Dinghies Do We Need?


Yesterday, Indy was on a math-related treasure hunt.  She had to look around the boat and the yard, and find something we only had one of, two of, and on up to ten.  One: she chose herself.  One Indy.  Two boogie boards.  Three dinghies.

You might have noticed I'm not keen on having stuff.  It was a happy day in my world when we were able to go from owning two cars to just one. So how the Sam Hill did we end up with 1-2-3 dinghies?

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Guest Post: Stylish Recounts an Adventure and Gets in a Fight

Adventure: Mangroves to Tall Grass
by Stylish

"Indy, come on!"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't want to go into the tall grass."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Fine.  I'll go by myself," I said.  The tall grass was really sharp.  Then I noticed a small grass tunnel. "Indy," I said, "come over here."

Monday, June 17, 2013

Should We Worry About the Youth of Today?

Summer 2010 - lemonade

Summer 2013 - handwashing
Last night was Family Movie Night.  We don't do it often, but Grannie had taken a stroll through the local used DVD emporium, and sent us Ghostbusters as part of a care package.  And who can say no to that?

As the film started and books started floating through the library, Indy pasted herself to my side and Erik and I shared a look.  I suddenly remembered that a few of the ghosts in the film were pretty scary.  I had misgivings; I did not want to induce a Gremlins reaction.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

I Got The Longtime Boatyard Blues

There comes a time in every repair cycle when I think we are never going to get out.  No matter how much we have accomplished - rebuilding the fridge, putting in a new mizzen step, writing a unified field theory - there always seems to be more to do.  The skies look dark  Birds don't sing.  Some guy with a Tennessee twang and a guitar starts hanging around the boat, singing about our hard luck.  As friends update their blogs with cheery pictures of potlucks in sunny anchorages, we sit in the cockpit, swaddled in all our sweaters, sanding the roller furler foil and wondering if it is ever going to stop raining long enough to put primer on the boom.  Then paint the boom.  Then reassemble the outhaul.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Ninja Sailor



Stylish descended the companionway, muttering to herself.  “Lanacote, small brush, Lanacote, small brush…”
“Everything okay?”
She glanced up at me as she started rooting through the drawers in the nav desk.  “I had to pass Dad to get up the ladder.”

There are many obvious skills one needs to cultivate to live aboard.  Good seamanship.  Knots.  Basic weather analysis.  But a successful crewmember must also learn secret talents you will never find mentioned in any manual on seafaring.  And primary among these are Ninja Skills.

Monday, June 3, 2013

How to Splice an Oversized Rode into an Undersized Chain

Our anchor chain has been looking iffy for a while now.  Not "terrible", not "dangerous", but not exactly the way you would want a piece of equipment that is holding your vessel in place to look.  So, much gnashing of teeth and a great deal of money later, Papillon has a new 12 mm short-link G4 chain.

We decided to add 75 m of eight-strand rode to our 65 m chain.  We wanted 24 mm, but they only had 28 mm.  Well, okay.  Bigger is better, right?  Now.  How to attach the chain?  No problem - the good people at the shop spliced in an eye for us, so we could shackle the chain on and be done with it.

Except, the eye is the size of my head.  Not really going to fit through the hawsehole out of the anchor locker, which is an opening the size of my wrist.

 
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