Capt. Kellick & The Solar Age of Sail - more discussion.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6244#more

boat work

I find myself coming out of my seasonal & economic torpor. There has definitely been less work for the last 12 months than there was for the first 12, it turns out to have been a rough time to start a new business. I have found myself relying on plan B, and by that I mean going to sea in the name of SCIENCE!

Folks are starting to want work done on their boats. A customer needs a new bow & stern pulpit along with starboard stanchions, and new stanchion bases. Another customer needs a staysail converted form roller snarling to hank on, and a row of reef points added while I'm at it. Then there's the guy who need the radar/chart plotter install and another guy who wants a restoration done on a 1960s dashboard for a Chris Craft runabout. On the side I am repairing/restoring a O'day 16. It needs new sails, paint inside and out, a new transom (the glue is curing right now), and general beautifying. Pendragon is call for attention as well. With house work, customer work, and still going to sea she's taken a back seat, something that makes me happy with my decision 10 years ago to buy a glass boat.

Introducing "Sassafrass" Nelson

"Sassafrass" Nelson writes about a transit along the west side of the Baja peninsula:


Tonight the boat lies easily at her anchor. The off-going watch slept through the


process, a fact that continues to astound me. Here I am, at work, on a

voyaging vessel, and there is no angry mate or captain or owner to

insist that I am present for the setting of a small anchor. It really

only takes 2 people to do anything on this boat. With the idle and

eager passengers around there is a surplus of labor- ranging from

unskilled, to clumsy, to pedantic.



I will count today as a day off. I’m clean. I’ve listened to music, had a few

drinks and taken a shower. I talked to a nice old lady who reminds me

of my mom. I looked at the stars and hula-hooped under them.



I did not see mother whales gently nuzzling their calves to the

surface. But I will someday. I really will.



I feel good. I feel alive. I feel as though there is a good amount of

life left for me to find. I like voyaging. And I’m learning how to do

it. I can do it.



Now I know how to heave her to. I can turn on Seaward’s engine, engage it

and maneuver her. I can troubleshoot the AC system, reset the Invertor, flip

the switches on the breaker panel. I wired a couple of the breakers on the DC panel.



Tomorrow we raise anchor at dawn for a two day sail to Bahia de

Magelena, a large bay very popular with cruising yachts and fisherman

alike. The entrance is clear, deep and almost 2 nautical miles across.

It’s about 180 miles south and east of here. We’re expecting that low

pressure system that brought this mornings light rain to have blown

out by then and shift to light winds out of the North west. The Jet

Stream is running west to east over us and the storms should blow

inland. Tonight we lie easily at anchor and I am thankful for a day of

rest.

Family Duties Ashore

My dad is only 58 but he's been slowly getting major joints worked on with lasers - sloughing off arthritic burrs, repairing torn rotator cuffs... he even had a blown out bicep repaired today. He looks at me, half teary, half giddy on Percoset, and says "Kim you need to watch out for this stuff. You do too much manual labor and you don't want to go through this." He's about to take his sixth percoset in eight hours and there's still pain. I realized today that I have never seen my dad naked. Today I had to zip up his jeans for him and he yelped in pain. Awkward! The nurse laughed. Overall, he's doing fine. Just day surgery. Turns out his arm was a lot more messed up than anticipated, though, and I don't want to think about staying up here at his mountain home, beautiful as it is, for more than a month. We're going to see how it goes for the next week. He'll be in the sling for six weeks, which gets me out of here at the beginning of April, as planned. I hate to leave him up here alone but he knows I belong on the water and if he needs me to live with him for part of every year he will have to move back to his house on Puget Sound. But jeez, he's only 58! A youngster for sure! Unfortunately these surgeries make him feel old and weak.

In the last year, two friends had to deal with their fathers passing. One spent months with his dad, losing a huge chunk of income in the process, and having to dedicate the rest of the year to being at sea. It's interesting... his father was a well known captain on the West Coast for years, was rarely home, was an alcoholic and ultimately died of lung cancer. He was also someone I'd proudly call my friend, and with all his faults, his son stood by his side dutifully for months, and he had so many visitors during his last month that he was never for one minute lonely in his clinic room. He was an asshole to some, a mentor to many, and above all a good mariner, which he passed on to his son. My father has never been a mariner, but he's a hardworking man who can by himself build a complete house in mere months. He taught me my work ethic, and it's hard for both of us to see him unable to build, exercise, or work for any period of time. I'm grateful the doctor was able to easily repair his arm and shoulder. I'm certainly not prepared to deal with the idea of my father not recovering from some ailment or disability. He raised me, sometimes by himself, and has been the one consistent person in my life from the start. Among a few other opportunities I turned down an invite to document the Haiti relief efforts aboard the schooner Liberty this month, because regardless of how crazy he can make me I will always be here for my father.

These Boots Were Made for Caulking

Someone made shipwright/captain Michael "Jake" Jacobsen a pair of "boot" irons. Supposedly you can tamp down oakum that is just under some other thing and hard to reach... he hasn't had the opportunity to use them yet.