Voyage Preparations - by Pat

With too few days left until departure it feels as if I should be doing something every day to prepare. On a day like today when there is little time to fit anything in, I will have to settle with reading and doing research on gear. Tonight's topic will be storm tactics and the gear research will be drogue and sea anchors to be used in the worst conditions to ride our heavy weather. I have been most impressed with Lyn and Larry Pardy who strongly advocate laying hove-to behind a sea anchor on roughly 300' of heavy rode. This gives the crew a much more comfortable and comforting ride at the same time it minimizes the time in storm force conditions. This flies in the face of some advice that teaches running before the wind on long warps or a drogue to slow down to keep under control. One of the problems with running with the storm is that it puts severe physical and intellectual demands on the crew at the same time it guarantees a significantly longer time in the body of the storm.


This controversy serves as an example of how getting the best of advice only leads to choices with advocates on all sides. I deal with the same things at work and in life every day. At some point it always seems you make the choice that feels best to you based on what you have learned. In storm management for example, there will be no one right answer but once taken, a decision requires commitment strong enough to be sure to take the technique to its full effect. It cannot be so strong that it is the only answer and a fallback must be available.


Pat

This past weekend in Bayfield was both frustrating and productive. Frustrating because my brother, Robert, could not join me for the weekend because of a blown transformer that he had to tend to at home. Productive because I used the time to get more work done. The framework for the new bimini is now done. It is very solid, designed so that all parts can take my full weight without significant distortion. Max, who is making the dodger, has already done the patterning.

The other big thing I got done was installing the padeyes we will hook on to while in the cockpit. These will keep us from being swept overboard by waves in the event of a major storm or knockdown and placement is key to making them convenient enough to work all the gear while sailing. The perfect placement I might have chosen was not possible because I could not gain access to put in the heavy backing plates necessary for such a critical piece of safety gear. I spent as much time staring at the cockpit imagining all the different scenarios as I did actually installing the parts. Then, after I had decided on the location, I walked the marina looking at other sailboats to see if they had any ideas for me to steal. Only three had any padeyes installed for this purpose but all were located in ways similar to the way I decided to do it. That helped calm me as I started drilling into the deck.

The contortions necessary to do any work on a boat convince me that I am right not to wait more years before taking the trip. Getting these parts installed involved folding and unfolding myself dozens of times, and because I was working on this alone, I had to scamper between the inside and the outside for a good part of the day, locking the vice grip pliers on nuts where they served as my second set of hands. Yes, I can still scamper.


Crew Emails

Tom to Pat and Rob:

http://www.morinu.com/index.html Hey, did you guys know you can get these packs of Tofu and they don’t have to be refrigerated before opening? We could easily use one package up in a 3-way meal.

If we get a bunch of these, then we don’t have to rely so much on canned chicken which is produced by keeping chickens crammed into a way-too-small space where their waste contaminates the ground water for miles around and then butchering them in a horrible fashion and then having a bunch of illegal workers cut them up for hideously low wages. Instead, we can eat food that is produced on massive corporate soybean farms, using an ungodly host of chemicals to keep out weeds and increase the yields which then contaminates the ground water for years into the future, and then trucking them off via smoke-spewing diesel engines to a large factory where they are processed by illegal workers for hideously low wages.

These have a shorter shelf life of around six to 12 months so would be a purchase just before we leave or in New York or wherever.

Speaking of which, I’ll add a page to the Doc for a point of departure shopping list.

Pat, you can add this to the blog as part of our list of many dilemmas we face. Or tell Rob and I how to add to the blog, which will be a huge leap of faith for you.

Rob to Tom and Pat:

My thoughts on Tofu. Feed the Tofu to the chicken. Eat the chicken.

Pat to Tom and Rob:

Actually, I have started a crop of soy beans in a hot box I constructed using reclaimed farmhouse windows. These heirloom seeds should mature at just about the right time for me to convert them to tofu which I will can here before we leave. I also happen to know that last summer Roseville passed an ordinance allowing backyard chicken coops, thanks to a plucky little 12 year old who got the media behind her. Between the chickens I raise on table scraps and the fish I have been farming in the little pond out back, I will have nearly all the meat we need. I will use a time tested and very seaworthy salting method for preservation using salt reclaimed and purified from the road slush just outside our door. I am also hoping to snare some of the geese and mallards who frequent our back yard trying to steal my fish. Those I will dry into a jerky, cause it seems the right thing to do to those thieving bast... Anyway, this will be an adventure.

Tofu? I'm in.