Sunday, December 14, 2014
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Saturday boat time
Today was one of those picture perfect Keys fall days.......80 degrees, a spotlessly blue sky, and a gentle westerly breeze......and a great day to skip work and go play on the boat.
After sailing for a few hours I found myself near Molasses Reef, so I picked up a mooring buoy and snorkeled for a bit. No current, awesome visibility, and tons of fish to check out. I even saw a few sea turtles swim by, which was really cool. They move faster than you would think, and are much more graceful moving through the water than the name turtle might suggest.
On the way back to KL I stopped off at Dixie Shoal and practiced my anchoring technique. The bottom is hard sand and it took a few tries to get the hook to set, but eventually it did and I took the opportunity to lunch on some watermelon, pineapple, and Oreos. Heavenly!
After lunch I climbed the mast to enjoy the view, and got a nice pic of Moon and her shadow......
I hope all y'all are having a great weekend, too.
After sailing for a few hours I found myself near Molasses Reef, so I picked up a mooring buoy and snorkeled for a bit. No current, awesome visibility, and tons of fish to check out. I even saw a few sea turtles swim by, which was really cool. They move faster than you would think, and are much more graceful moving through the water than the name turtle might suggest.
On the way back to KL I stopped off at Dixie Shoal and practiced my anchoring technique. The bottom is hard sand and it took a few tries to get the hook to set, but eventually it did and I took the opportunity to lunch on some watermelon, pineapple, and Oreos. Heavenly!
After lunch I climbed the mast to enjoy the view, and got a nice pic of Moon and her shadow......
Sunday, April 06, 2014
Quick notes from the voyage south......
Hey friends - wanted to share a few quick notes about our recent voyage south from Port Canaveral to Key Largo on Everlasting Moon ...... we exited Port Canaveral around noon on Monday and got the boat tucked into her slip at Koblick's on Saturday morning. Along the way we experienced a wide range of conditions and experiences, including:
......calm winds and seas;
......having to reef the main a couple of times when the wind was up;
......bashing through a mixed up mess of confused seas as the wind clocked around from north to SE;
......awesome food;
......sundowners at anchor in West Palm;
......running aground, twice, in the anchorage at West Palm, making the sundowners all that much more enjoyable;
......a trip to the emergency room;
......some minor equipment failures;
......a few tense moments as I came within a couple of boat-lengths of running the boat into the breakwater at Government Cut in Miami at hull speed, at midnight, with the wind and swell raging at our backs;
......a few beautiful sunrises and sunsets;
......having the good sense not to try to squeeze in a hop across the Gulf Stream to visit West End;
All in all this was an excellent voyage, and props to Dad and Brother Pat for their seamanship, good humor, and great company that made this trip much more than just a couple of days on the boat. Thanks!
Here are a few pics....more stories and pics to follow.
......calm winds and seas;
......having to reef the main a couple of times when the wind was up;
......bashing through a mixed up mess of confused seas as the wind clocked around from north to SE;
......awesome food;
......sundowners at anchor in West Palm;
......running aground, twice, in the anchorage at West Palm, making the sundowners all that much more enjoyable;
......a trip to the emergency room;
......some minor equipment failures;
......a few tense moments as I came within a couple of boat-lengths of running the boat into the breakwater at Government Cut in Miami at hull speed, at midnight, with the wind and swell raging at our backs;
......a few beautiful sunrises and sunsets;
......having the good sense not to try to squeeze in a hop across the Gulf Stream to visit West End;
All in all this was an excellent voyage, and props to Dad and Brother Pat for their seamanship, good humor, and great company that made this trip much more than just a couple of days on the boat. Thanks!
Here are a few pics....more stories and pics to follow.
Tuesday, April 01, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Sailing south!
Hey Friends....time to cast off the dock lines and sail south! Zeke and Bro Pat will fly into FLL tomorrow and we'll drive up to Merritt Island, provision the boat, and hopefully be out through the lock at Port Canaveral by shortly after noon on Sunday. The plan is to sail south to about West Palm, cross over the West End, and spend a day there. After that, weather permitting, we'll sail south to Bimini, check out Alice Town, and then head for the Keys. I wasn't able to get slip space lined up here in Fort Lauderdale - long story, and no, I don't really want to talk about it - but I was able to get a slip in the same marina in Key Largo where I kept Moon years ago. I'll be happy to be able to spend time in the keys again.......
So, hears the projected route. Will try to post some pics along the way.
So, hears the projected route. Will try to post some pics along the way.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Chainplate progress
Well, Everlasting Moon is out of the water and 4 of the 6 chainplates are off.....and one kind of fell apart as it was removed. Crevice corrosion caused by what must have been a small leak around the cap weakened the stainless steel and the top flange of the reinforcing angle splintered as soon as a little pressure was put on.
The chainplate design on the Endeavour 32 is pretty stout, with the chainplate assembly made up of an angle that bolts through the hull and nestles underneath the toe rail, and the chainplate is welded to the support angle with a gusset at the attachment point. Here's a sketch of the assembly (copied from Roger Long's website.....Cruising on Strider - 2011WinterProjects)
In the photo below you are looking at the top of the (starboard side forward lower) chainplate reinforcing angle and the chainplate is projecting up toward you out of the picture. The corner that cracked off is really brittle, and I don't think it would have taken much force on the stay under sail to separate the chainplate from the angle at the weld. Glad that didn't happen out on the ocean in a blow!
The other chainplates didn't look quite this bad, but I decided to go ahead and have the folks at Sunshine Welding make all new chainplate assemblies, along with the backstay chainplate. Better to play it safe and replace them all at once shot.
While Moon is out of the water and on the hard she's also getting a bottom job, buff and wax on the topsides, and all of her thru-hulls and seacocks serviced.
Camilla at Mermaid Marine Services is taking care of everything, and she does an awesome job. I don't have any stake in the business, but I would give her a strong recommendation for anyone on Space Coast looking to have work done on their boat.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get the work done and Moon back in the water in about two weeks. I'll try to get a few pics of the new chainplates before they go in.
Once she's back in the water it will be time to re-tune all of the rigging, service the engine, and get her provisioned and ready to sail down to Fort Lauderdale in April. That's gonna be a hoot - bro Pat and Zeke are coming down to crew and we are hoping to get over to West End on the way if the weather is favorable.
Time for some chow. Later......
The chainplate design on the Endeavour 32 is pretty stout, with the chainplate assembly made up of an angle that bolts through the hull and nestles underneath the toe rail, and the chainplate is welded to the support angle with a gusset at the attachment point. Here's a sketch of the assembly (copied from Roger Long's website.....Cruising on Strider - 2011WinterProjects)
In the photo below you are looking at the top of the (starboard side forward lower) chainplate reinforcing angle and the chainplate is projecting up toward you out of the picture. The corner that cracked off is really brittle, and I don't think it would have taken much force on the stay under sail to separate the chainplate from the angle at the weld. Glad that didn't happen out on the ocean in a blow!
The other chainplates didn't look quite this bad, but I decided to go ahead and have the folks at Sunshine Welding make all new chainplate assemblies, along with the backstay chainplate. Better to play it safe and replace them all at once shot.
While Moon is out of the water and on the hard she's also getting a bottom job, buff and wax on the topsides, and all of her thru-hulls and seacocks serviced.
Camilla at Mermaid Marine Services is taking care of everything, and she does an awesome job. I don't have any stake in the business, but I would give her a strong recommendation for anyone on Space Coast looking to have work done on their boat.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get the work done and Moon back in the water in about two weeks. I'll try to get a few pics of the new chainplates before they go in.
Once she's back in the water it will be time to re-tune all of the rigging, service the engine, and get her provisioned and ready to sail down to Fort Lauderdale in April. That's gonna be a hoot - bro Pat and Zeke are coming down to crew and we are hoping to get over to West End on the way if the weather is favorable.
Time for some chow. Later......
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Chainplate craziness
Hey friends - doing a little maintenance stuff on the boat to get her ready to sail from Merritt Island down to her new home in Fort Lauderdale in April, and have run across an unexpected little mystery / project that needs tending-to.
I've noticed some rust on the outside of the hull for a while, and have put off checking it out. This morning, having some time on my hands I decided to spend a little time on it. The main source of the rust streaks on the hull is the little speck on this picture between the two starboard aft lower chainplate though-bolts:
Really odd....the chainplate on the inside is an angle with a flat surface against the hull, so not sure what could be sticking through the hull like this unless the chainplate inside is really rusted.
So - let's pull the trim off the inside of the boat and see what we find there:
Great - the builders globbed a crapload of sealant all over the plates, on the inside of the boat. Protecting the stainless from condensation?
After 30 minutes or so of work to dig through the glop, the chainplate is starting to appear:
After another 30 minutes the chainplate is fully exposed, and there's no indication of what could be poking through to the outside. Dadgummit. The plate looks pretty good - don't like the rust on that one bolt, though.
Guess it would do to expose the others to see how they look now that I'm this far into it....here's the starboard upper:
Wow - this one doesn't look so good. Not good at all. Double dadgummit.
Time to remove the rest of the interior panels to expose the other plates. May as well replace all of these at one shot and be certain they aren't going to fail, and while I've got the underside of the side decks exposed I can remove and re-bed the lifeline stanchions. And see what that little speck of metal is that's sticking through the hull that caused all this investigation in the first place.
I'll be having the boat hauled in a few weeks for a bottom job and hopefully if I do all the work to expose the chainplates from the inside the rigger can get them off and replaced fairly quickly.
Stay tuned for more!
I've noticed some rust on the outside of the hull for a while, and have put off checking it out. This morning, having some time on my hands I decided to spend a little time on it. The main source of the rust streaks on the hull is the little speck on this picture between the two starboard aft lower chainplate though-bolts:
Really odd....the chainplate on the inside is an angle with a flat surface against the hull, so not sure what could be sticking through the hull like this unless the chainplate inside is really rusted.
So - let's pull the trim off the inside of the boat and see what we find there:
Great - the builders globbed a crapload of sealant all over the plates, on the inside of the boat. Protecting the stainless from condensation?
After 30 minutes or so of work to dig through the glop, the chainplate is starting to appear:
After another 30 minutes the chainplate is fully exposed, and there's no indication of what could be poking through to the outside. Dadgummit. The plate looks pretty good - don't like the rust on that one bolt, though.
Guess it would do to expose the others to see how they look now that I'm this far into it....here's the starboard upper:
Wow - this one doesn't look so good. Not good at all. Double dadgummit.
Time to remove the rest of the interior panels to expose the other plates. May as well replace all of these at one shot and be certain they aren't going to fail, and while I've got the underside of the side decks exposed I can remove and re-bed the lifeline stanchions. And see what that little speck of metal is that's sticking through the hull that caused all this investigation in the first place.
I'll be having the boat hauled in a few weeks for a bottom job and hopefully if I do all the work to expose the chainplates from the inside the rigger can get them off and replaced fairly quickly.
Stay tuned for more!
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
UNTIE THE LINES - a weekly solo sailing documentary (Trailer)
Hey friends......wanted to share this link to another interesting sailing video, or series of videos, actually, about the sailing life and fixing up an old boat for voyaging. Girl Power rocks!
Friday, January 17, 2014
Adding to infinity = -1/12
My first memory of bumping into the idea of infinity is from a geometry class in grade school where we were learning about lines and rays. Teacher took us through the idea of lines and rays, explaining that a line continues without end in both directions, while a ray, of course, is fixed at one end and continues without end in the other direction.
Then Teacher asked us which was longer.
I still puzzle over how infinity can be so simple and so irrational at the same time.
Bro Jim left a copy of The Elegant Universe at the house after being here for the Big Game, and I've enjoyed browsing through it and reading the progression of unification theories vying to resolve the sibling rivalry between relativity and quantum mechanics. The book focuses on String theory, with the author's awesome descriptions of messenger particles, 11-dimensional supergravity, and the myserious M-theory. The book is over a decade old, and I would assume a lot of progress has been made in pushing the envelope of human understanding of the physics that describe the makeup and behavior of the universe since it was first published. The progressive march of human understanding of the world carries on impressively, although I wonder sometimes how far along the infinite path to total enlightenment we have really gotten.
Admiring the view of the full moon setting in the western sky during my drive in to work this morning I was reminded of another childhood brush with the infinite in the form of a rambling, drunken, and apparently brilliant math professor who lived down the street from us. We grew up in a small college town in Alabama, and although this was normally a pretty quiet southern town you never really knew who or what you may see on the street at any given time because the college attracted such a wide range of characters. One of those characters was our neighborhood math prof who would routinely be seen wobbling down the sidewalk, beer in hand, a number of dogs and kids trailing behind, mumbling mathematical expressions all the while. He inspired a mix of awe and pure terror in the neighborhood kids, but pretty much just pure disgust in the neighborhood moms.
Relativity in action, huh?
I wonder sometimes if he behaved as crazy as he did because his mind was blown-out trying to get a good grip on infinity and failing, or if he had actually gotten a glimpse of what infinity really is and it was way more than his head could handle.
Anyway, getting back to purpose of this post, I was looking for information online this evening regarding the Goseck Circle, and wandered down a rabbit hole of science and astronomy websites. Along the way, I found this little video that shows how adding all of the natural numbers from one to infinity equals -1/12
Who would have guessed?
Crazy out.
Then Teacher asked us which was longer.
I still puzzle over how infinity can be so simple and so irrational at the same time.
Bro Jim left a copy of The Elegant Universe at the house after being here for the Big Game, and I've enjoyed browsing through it and reading the progression of unification theories vying to resolve the sibling rivalry between relativity and quantum mechanics. The book focuses on String theory, with the author's awesome descriptions of messenger particles, 11-dimensional supergravity, and the myserious M-theory. The book is over a decade old, and I would assume a lot of progress has been made in pushing the envelope of human understanding of the physics that describe the makeup and behavior of the universe since it was first published. The progressive march of human understanding of the world carries on impressively, although I wonder sometimes how far along the infinite path to total enlightenment we have really gotten.
Admiring the view of the full moon setting in the western sky during my drive in to work this morning I was reminded of another childhood brush with the infinite in the form of a rambling, drunken, and apparently brilliant math professor who lived down the street from us. We grew up in a small college town in Alabama, and although this was normally a pretty quiet southern town you never really knew who or what you may see on the street at any given time because the college attracted such a wide range of characters. One of those characters was our neighborhood math prof who would routinely be seen wobbling down the sidewalk, beer in hand, a number of dogs and kids trailing behind, mumbling mathematical expressions all the while. He inspired a mix of awe and pure terror in the neighborhood kids, but pretty much just pure disgust in the neighborhood moms.
Relativity in action, huh?
I wonder sometimes if he behaved as crazy as he did because his mind was blown-out trying to get a good grip on infinity and failing, or if he had actually gotten a glimpse of what infinity really is and it was way more than his head could handle.
Anyway, getting back to purpose of this post, I was looking for information online this evening regarding the Goseck Circle, and wandered down a rabbit hole of science and astronomy websites. Along the way, I found this little video that shows how adding all of the natural numbers from one to infinity equals -1/12
Who would have guessed?
Crazy out.
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