Sailors and their skills at glove-making

I am in somewhat of a holding pattern with both paying work and while awaiting some engine-critical accessory arrival, and even I, with my high tolerance for tedious boat-related workshoppery, wouldn't read a post on "remote oil filter assembly". 

So you get to read about keeping the nautical hands toasty.

Strangely, on a warm day in summer, you could go gloveless here, and yet on a cold day in the tropics, you can shiver violently (c) highlatitudes.com

A short time ago, a helicopter from a Canadian research vessel in the High Arctic crashed, killing the three experienced men aboard.  Despite wearing (to varying degrees) immersion suits, they died from justan hour  or less in zero degree Celsius waters. There are suggestions that their suits were not secured properly, and other details may emerge, but it is clear that water, even tropical water, can suck vital heat from the human body. Divers know this, sometimes the hard way.

While we personally do not intend (so far!) to do much in the way of high-latitude sailing, the problem of staying warm at sea cannot be overstated, nor can the topic be avoided even at the Equator. My point is this: Boats live in the middle of damp winds. You don't have to fall in to feel the cold, and it's something to plan for...even on a hot day. That somewhat counter-inituitive advice comes from sailing in summer squalls, where an icy soaking followed by big wind will suck the heat from the typically underdressed sumer sailor's body. A (relatively) warm air temperature may help, as will a strong sun. But if you are wet in the tropical nights, having stood a watch in your T-shirt through a surprise squall, you will get cold, perhaps cold enough to shiver, or to impair one's  judgment. In fact, one of the signs of hypothermia impairment is dressing like you aren't feeling the cold...oh, dear.

The usual drill to keep the Blue Death, or even clammy discomfort, at bay is to dress from the outside in: warm feet, warm hands and a hat of some description will often suffice. I personally sail in thick socks, shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt with a woolen or fleece pullover as late as November in weather around 10C. Part of that is being acclimated to cold as I tend to cycle 12 months of the year and come from People of the Kilt. Nonetheless, I can and do feel chilly at sea, and try to take appropriate measures before the cold takes me.

I will consider at a later date the question of foul-weather gear (hooded coats, trousers, bib overalls and associated undergarments) and sea boots and so forth separately as it is a complex and, for me, evolving topic. I will not consider immersion suits, wetsuits and drysuits, because I am as yet ignorant on all but the basics (keep them fully zipped/sealed) and that some sailors who also dive will wear a wetsuit on a rainy night on deck because they do have a seal-blubber-like warming quality...and you can't get wetter in them.

But certainly one of the more common hallmarks of the sailor, even in clement conditions, is the sailing hat (Tilley, ball cap or knock-off Tilley, with a few brave souls sporting the Greek fisherman's cap, Grandpa's felt fedora or the woolen watch cap that screams "second mate on the voyage of the damned") and sailing gloves that feature to an even greater degree than deck shoes with grippy soles (hey, some favour bare feet).

Probably the most common style, the "three-quarter finger" sailing glove.

It's an area where style, features and price are no object. Sailing being about one hand for the boat and clapping onto lines and whatnot, the primetime sailing glove will feature selective padding, grippy bits and/or anti-chafe where lines might otherwise burn into fingers or palms, Velcro at the wrist to secure them firmly or even to keep, if only a bit, water away from the hands, and so on.

The gauntlets go over the foulie jacket's slightly overlong arms, meaning that you can stay dry even if heavy spray is coming aboard. The clips presumably keep the pair together and can be clipped to the jacket as needed

There are undeniably sailing conditions of storm, sea and cold in which one might want heavy-duty sailing gloves of a rather technical bent (and associated cost). But there are other conditions either less demanding or less likely to involve your spiffiest gear. I wouldn't use the above Mustos, for instance, to haul in muddy rope or chain rode.

Yer dead-common workgloves.

I would use these, as favoured by decades of tradespeople, house movers, delivery folk, and backyard ditch diggers. They are sort of warm, and seem to rely on grime and dirt to increase their longevity.

I also favour aboard neoprene work gloves in various thicknesses and gauntlet lengths. Bilge water is cold, and if you have to go fishing to find a loose hoseclamp in the dark, you'll want a headlamp and a pair of these to keep your arms warm and dry.

Longer, chemical-resistant versions are good for, uh, fixing certain plumbing needs, or reaching into tight areas beside hot engines or other overwarm equipment. Sometimes you have to get your arms deeper into the water than you might care to, and long-armed gloves will buy you time and a measure of comfort. I have a pair of bright orange gloves lines with fleece that I use when I drive a crash boat at our club's haulout and launch. Nothing else seems to keep my hands warm for hours at a time on the water.

It's trivial to keep several pairs of these sort of gloves around galley, head, tender and engine room.

Cheapest of all are the half-knit and half-rubber "utility" gloves found in bulk at hardware stores. Equivalent (under a dollar each) to dishwashing gloves, but not as clammy, these will fall apart under any sort of sustained usage, but if I had to stuff something in a pocket and not care if it went overboard, this would be the glove equivalent of Kleenex. These fellows have the right idea, I think.

I have used, and continue to use, a mix of leather gardening or work gloves with or without a light lining and the finger ends removed.  Over the years, however, I  have mostly used bicycling gloves. I have some middle-rank Gill "proper sailing gloves" around the nav station I picked up on sale, but I only bother with them when going "full foulie". 

The current gloves: Nine bucks and fifty cents, and I just keep wearing them after I lock up the bike.

On the very first and last days of the season here, I wear full finger bicycle gloves (thin, but with rubber-stripped fingertips) like this:

Over this, and if needed, I will wear a woolen mitten that has the flip-top/Velcro mitten end, and fingerless woolen finger bits with a leather palm.

About $4.99 a pair. Buy them in September!

3M makes these types, as do dozens of cheap knock-offs from other places, with Thinsulate. They are too weak to last long for racing, but if you are sailing in weather close to freezing, they are the perfect and cheap solution. The thin bike gloves keep your fingers warm and the leather palms give you a bit of grip. When you are just steering, put the flap over the fingertips.

The only thing toastier is toast.

The end result looks a bit like this, and I learned about the "technique" way before I sailed as bike couriers have been using the "double glove/wool over thin" method for years, as it allows you to work a pen or a bike key while enjoying mitten warmth on exposed handlebars in winter. GENIUS!

Everyone has to decide these sort of things for themselves: The primary purposes of specific sailing gloves is to provide better grip for hauling lines and stay aboard, and to reduce injury from rope burns. I feel that I've found a few alternatives from biking and work/utility gloves, but if I had to factor keeping my hands warm while hauling a line up to my waist in cold, green seawater, I would want the best gloves for that purpose.

I just don't think I would have them on deck every day and I might sew in an idiot string. Frankly, my record for making inadvertant sacrifices to Neptune with pricy boat gear isn't so good. Not for Neptune...for me. Nonetheless, while you are certainly welcome to pay a hundred bucks for gloves that don't even cover your fingers, you can try out this sailor's guide to glove-making for yourself, and see if you prefer the multi-fingered approach.

And this is why you keep a watch

Funny, after blathering in my recent post on the Pardeys' upcoming visit to Toronto that I don't do much in the way of news here, I see a reason to post some more news:

I feel confident in stating that this is the rather rare case of an uncharted land mass.

This is an island off the coast of Pakistan. It wasn't there yesterday.

It rose, with a commotion I can only imagine in my nightmares, as a result of the impressive, if common, earthquake that hit the (relatively) sparsely populated Balochistan region earlier today.

This is not a particularly small hazard to navigation...that chunk of land is apparently a half-mile offshore. That ridge is estimated to be 20 to 40 feet high. I heard on the radio that it's essentially the seafloor itself that has experienced an upthrust as it is at the edge of a tectonic plate. Others are theorizing that it's the product of a mud volcano. It may therefore wash away in weeks or months.

I don't know the fate of the last "insta-island" I heard of, formed from an undersea volcano getting a little ahead of itself near the Pacific island of Tonga.

Break out the asbestos Topsiders, Skipper..

I do know that these islands are often transitory and aren't worth charting...they essentially wash away...although they could leave a subsurface bank close enough to the surface to trouble an unsuspecting keel. I also know that the charting of such near-surface shoals is sometimes wrong in terms of depth or actual location.

Queen Elizabeth II: Came a-cropper on an outcropping incorrectly charted.

Not all of these "newfound lands", however, turn into an obliging drift of fine sand: the volcanic island of Surtsey appeared in the sense of "something rocky coming out of the boiling sea" in 1963 and kept appearing until 1967.

The more things change, the more you run aground.

Surtsey's now a small, somewhat eroded stump that nonetheless has begun to harbour plant and animal life, and is expected to endure for at least a hundred more years. A similar case is a small island in a warmer setting that is a byproduct of the famous Krakatoa volcanic explosion.

"The child of Krakatoa": If you needed proof that life is tenacious, be a tree next to an active volcano.

The Earth is very old, and the oceans change very slowly in their basic dimensions. And yet none of it is static. A chart, whether paper or electronic, is only a snapshot, and perhaps not even a snapshot of high resolution. As we've seen, some charts are not entirely accurate, and are to be considered less holy writ and more mild suggestion. And of course, it's not just nautical charts that are wrong: incorrect mapping in navigational apps, combined with a lack of common sense, can lead to situations both tragic and comic.

Leaving through a jet plane...

Cynicism and doubt are important parts of seamanship, and this is why we must continue to use eye and brain, positioned ideally on the deck and aimed forward, in addition to our magnificant displays in our glass cockpits, despite our GPS and our satellites and our supposed technological mastery that allows even the moronic to sail, and the delusional to cruise. Because it's not just a sudden appearance of an island, rare at that might seem, that could ruin your cruise.

Sailing through a pumice sea. Check yer filters! (c) Fredrik Fransson, S/V Maiken

There's any number of things. Things that won't be on the chart.

Now, imagine this looming out of the dark during your 3 AM, 28-knot, 15-foot waves, moonless 3 AM watch. Oh, and the radar's busted. Eat those carrots, crew!

Keep a watch. If you are unsure what constitutes a proper watch, educate yourself. The temptation to stare at the plotter all night is strong, but there is hardly a more useless thing to do off soundings than to be hypnotized by that big blue rectangle with slowly changing numerals. There are many ways to organize watchkeeping, but it can be more than just necessary vigilance. Some of my favourite and I dare say happiest moments at sea have been spent in windy rain and deep darkness. You'd be surprised how much you can actually discern.

Who knows? You might witness an island being born.

Extended Voyagering

Like a signal mirror from a liferaft on the eastern horizon at dusk

This pale blue smudge is the radio signature, all 22 watts of it, from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which was launched from our pale blue dot about the same time as I was, unnecessarily at that point, first shaving more than once a week. Twenty-two watts is about what I can hope to transmit from my VHF radio after passage through the elderly RG-58U coax I saw fit to crimp about 15 years ago. That gets me noticed across about six miles, either nautical or statute. To see information powered equivalently in the form of a graphical representation of a radio signal from the edge of interstellar space...well, it makes one think.

It makes one think if it is just me who is mulling over the phrase "and that's as far as those quarrelsome, greedy apes ever got".

Along the lines of the saying "if you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a horrible warning", I have a mild if long-standing concern that our species' entire, self-regarding existence is going to be some more rational species' cautionary bedtime story.

Ourselves as seen through billions of miles of solar system. Customs lineup to the right.

"See, my little blobby children," (or some alien life form might signal by means undreamt-of by our astrobiologists and science-fiction writers), "the inhabitants of this rather rural system were literally on the verge of the Great Big Out There. We were thinking of revealing ourselves to them...maybe even giving them junior auxiliary observer status at the kids' table of the Pan-Galactic Union of Self-aware Lifeforms...but then we observed their primitive information-dissemination systems, and could only conclude that the interstellar probe represented their civilization's peak, and they had descended into an anarchy of overconsumption, war over resources, and generalized stupidity and intolerance."

Upon reflection, the Crux-Scutum Arm sounds a lot sexier.

Of course, there's no evidence that such lofty beings exist, know of our existence, or think such thoughts, or even possess processes we could even recognize as thoughts. Still, the last ten years have brought discoveries that life, perhaps even intelligent life, could exist in other star systems. Just as Captain Cook discovered a number of places that weren't, in fact, Terra Nullius, we may yet learn, maybe in my lifetime, some distant star's companion to be already occupied. This could happen indirectly or by inference; while on delivery and while passing some 30 NM to the southwest, I never actually clapped eyes on Bermuda, but I certainly noticed the unmistakable sodium glow of the loom of its lights, and I accept that Bermuda exists. Such is progress: its marching boots are heard over considerable distances.

After the circ, the Big Circ?

Certainly, since I was permitted by my indulgent parents to stay up as a wee lad to watch Star Trek episodes in glorious black and white (Star Trek and original CBC airings of Monty Python had a disproportionately formative affect on my worldview, alas), I have subscribed, if only hesistantly, to the myth of progress, that human endeavour was two steps forward for every (clearly obvious and ongoing) step back, and that my own personal future included at minimum a flying car and, if I worked very hard, perhaps a lunar vacation.

Mustn't grumble!

I wouldn't call a steel yacht a poor substitute; in fact, it grants its crew a higher degree of mobility than would a flying car (the movements of which would require enormously complex "traffic controls" and a possibly dubious surrender of driver autonomy as is being contemplated for "regular" cars). I dreamt of even taking a holiday on the moon, which besides being extremely expensive in terms of resources, would require a vast infrastructure, training and specialized equipment. And perhaps we humans will, when venturing forth, if we venture forth, need a human/machine interface of varying degrees of depth, just to amplify our senses and brainpower to meet the challenges of exceedingly hostile environments.

How 1988 saw 2013 Los Angeles: more Star Trek than Blade Runner, but it's actually closer to Storage Wars.

I might, were I being unusually sincere, admit that the steel boat adventure project springs from the same impulses that so badly desired a future more...well, futuristic. Barque to the Future? Perhaps.



A boat's better, or at least less daunting, in that regard. Replete with "old tech" of line and sail, toggles and tangs, and pumps and rudder, it's easy to throttle back on the futurism in favour of enjoying just wind and wave, or, at least, to cherry pick from those basket of modern devices and services we wish to utilize.

His beard would kink depending on the latitude.

Same with the crew: Human sailors today are scarcely more advanced mentally than was the average Greek 23 centuries ago, chilly and off-course to the Tin Islands. We may not be aquatic apes, as one theory once held, but humanity's familiarity with and comfort upon the water goes back a very long way, as does our urge to wander and explore.

This would be a lot easier if I could remember where I left my canoe.

A voyaging boat is also more in the spirit, at least historically, of the same motives that prompted the space probes of the 1970s and '80s, and for which, it would appear, we lack the funds and intent to continue. While the typical cruising boat has, in every respect, more "outs" in terms of rescue and more tech to guide its crew to safe anchorages, there is still a shot-in-the-dark aspect to sailing, plus a need for lateral thinking, that the skipper trying to plug a leak at night in a gale and the mission controllers of Voyager, trying to send revised instructions in half-forgotten code to very simple processors wired into a speeding, frozen box light-hours away, might both recognize.

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

-Carl Sagan

Pardey like it's 2014

Aside from updates on boat modifications, and occasional foaming jeremiads only tangentially related to things nautical, like how the future will be paid for (hint: you're on the hook!), this blog doesn't contain much in the way of hard news. 

As long as it doesn't say Alchemy, I don't want to know.

Nor should it. We're trying to get away from that sort of thing, eventually. If such quasi-buggywhips such as shortwave radio persist into the latter part of this decade, the BBC World Service (my own country gave up) and whatever we hear on the cruiser nets, plus the odd bit of news cruising via poached Wi-Fi will suffice. And then some: Short of needing to know if some country directly in front of us is having a revolution or a volcano, I am determined to break my lifelong news junkie habit and to spend more time with the 500 mb chart than with the headlines.

Journalism of various stripes (ribbons?) does exist in my background, however, and I would be remiss if I did not pass on what I suspect many in the Southern Ontario sailboating community would consider a hot tip.

This is the first image produced when you put the search term "sailor with a secret" into Google.

 Seems perhaps a little off-topic, but hey, I don't make the rules.

Here's the news:  Larry and Lin Pardey are going to be at the 2014 Toronto International Boat Show.

A lot of people know these two. Photo Latitude / LaDonna © 2013 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

I got this tip from the nice folks at Nautical Mind Bookstore here in Toronto. The Pardeys will apparently be signing their many books (and probably their DVDs, too) at the Nautical Mind booth during the boat show, guaranteeing that the place will be a total zoo.

Why? It's simple: the Pardeys are as close to rock stars as the cruising world can produce. If you've cruised in the last quarter-century, you've heard of this veteran cruising couple, who have been "living the dream" by financing their travels (as far as can be discerned) since 1968 via the constant production of books, sailing magazine articles and instructional DVDs. Their oft-quoted motto of "go simple, go small, and go now!" has inspired...and occasionally infuriated...many an aspirational cruiser.

What simple and small looks like whilst going. (c) landlpardey.com

The inspirational part comes from the fact that they are both extremely resourceful, not overly desirious of modern conveniences, or even old-timey shortcuts, and seem skilled in all trades needed to turn small, antique boats into safe and capable ocean crossers. Or to build or rebuild same. The infuriating part is that very, very few people want to cruise in a similar "sail like its 1899" fashion, being quite fond of auxiliary propulsion (Larry favours sculling oars), electric light (the Pardey vessels sport oil lamps) and interior space that surpasses that of a Tokyo student's dorm room.

Of course, that is the secret of their sustainability right there: If I was a shipwright and was capable of lashing, splicing, sewing and fabrication most of my boat from salvaged wood, wire and canvas, I could go world cruising tomorrow (I'd have to learn to pickle veggies, I think, as well). I have a (mostly) perfectly seaworthy 33 footer capable of handling ocean sailing. We could literally leave tomorrow..ok, Monday. But it would be brutal, the paucity of stowage, plumbing, cooking and cooling capacity would make a Spartan turn pale with its level of privation, and it wouldn't be particularly safe, what with the worn anti-skid, the somewhat slack lifelines and the total absence of EPIRB and liferaft. Hence, this rigamarole, blog, steel cutter and so on. I, and the family unit as a whole, have a minimum set of requirements (including an engine and electricity and enough space to stay sane in) that exceed that of the Pardeys, who truly seem to thrive in unassisted, inconvenient, woody splendour.

The Pardeys'  29' 9" Taliesin, arguably the boat that brought them fame

Unlike sailboat racers, where the heroes are tied clearly to results involving speed and endurance, the qualfications for "heroic cruising" are more nebulous: people who go in sailboats, unassisted, to the Arctic or Antarctica are admired for their seamanship, certainly, but they are in a minority of people who wish to do such a thing, and are furthermore in a minority of people with the acumen to pull it off without becoming part of the food chain. 

"Heroic cruising" seems to be related to the speed at which one can stop living a soul-sucking wage slave existence, and actually go sailing, and is also linked to the endurance required to keep that cruising going until age, enfeeblement or penury led to an inevitable shoreside clog-popping..but at least you went!

The Pardeys' latest ride is the comparatively luxurious 37-foot 120-year-old Thelma. Might need bigger oars, Larry.

By that standard, the Pardeys are certainly heroic, even if very, very few cruisers seem to love cruising to the extent that they will forgo a lot of the more current creature comforts to see the world from a small, wooden sailboat. I find them both anarchronistic and futuristic at the same time, frankly: they leave a very modern "small wake" in their travels, and yet seem quite canny at this whole Internet, publishing, DVD production thing. I've personally found some of their books on storm tactics and boat maintenance illuminating; they've always made me reconsider how damned resourceful you are going to have to be if you want to run away to sea.

Because they sail old boats and "do without", Larry and Lin Pardey are seen by some cruisers as very old-fashioned, a sort of salty version of the Amish, determined to keep through personal example the knowledge of the words "fid" and "raffee" alive. But I do not see then as being Luddites or technology rejectionists by any means: if you can continue to pay for your sailing adventures by taking digital footage of the several types of line whipping needed on a boat with manila halyards...well, the Pardeys will oblige. Like the post-war cruisers that inspired them, they've made a virtue of a simplicity that was likely enforced at first by circumstance, and now is maintained by choice. 

Man, it's gonna be a zoo.

Darwin was every inch a sailor

Living the cliche, baby! Just add pilothouse cutter. (c) Volker Posselt

An unspoken motivation for wanting to sail away into a tropical sunset, with the prospect of a beverage with a lagoon and coconut tree backdrop, is not just the manifestation of a desire for something positive...like voyaging in a small boat to a distant and perhaps uninhabited shore...but can rise in part from a dissatisfaction with the society that allows such opportunities to exist in the first place.

It's a paradox: Most people on Earth are dirt poor compared to myself and my family. We are resolutely middle-class (an increasingly vague term, alas) within our own society, however. Our dreams of world travel (which will inevitably involve sailing to the poorer bits) by sailboat are only achievable through fairly strict budgetary constraining. Allied with that is a conscious refusal to participate very deeply in consumer culture (save for the things found in boat gear catalogues), and me switching off lights in unoccupied rooms and riding the thermostat as if we were burning banknotes.

Now with a marina!

These aren't bad habits of mind for an offshore sailor to possess. Waste less, want less, spend less; or be prepared to make up the shortfall. Learn to fish, if fish there be. Hesitate to fire up the diesel. Provision opportunistically...heck, the Scottish gene is so strongly expressed in me that I get stick in my own house for cycling miles to get 10 cents off on tins of tuna...I have been known to buy a crate at a time. Of course, it would be crazy if I drove to do that. But I don't. Owning a car would kill the budget to finish the boat.

I do not see these habits of mind broadly in the general, shoreside population, however. I see much in the way of material enticements, expensive conveniences and minor amusements which serve mainly, it seems to me, to distract or cloud analytical thought. While on my bike running errands, I see people texting while jaywalking, emerging from between parked cars with nary a head turn. I've attempted to cull this particularly annoying herd with a thrown elbow or two, but it's a losing battle: When we made playgrounds safe, and banned snowball fights, and made of our culture one continuous seatbelt, we indeed reduced broken arms, lurid scars and the occasional knocked-out tooth. We also seemingly lost our sense of physics.

Cars are heavy, bikes are fast. If either hits you because you are tweeting your breakfast choices or bowel movements since you started with the flax, it will hurt. You may have reached a rather advanced age for an overclocked ape without experiencing much more than a boo-boo. We, your elders, have done this for you. Wait until you see what we've done to the pension plan....ow!

The clenched fist is because that iPad doesn't have 3G, I bet. (c) Tom Lynn

These thoughts depress me a bit: that my own society may be getting too distracted, overstimulated and undereducated (in ways I would consider life-preserving, if not necessarily enhancing to the ego) to continue without some nasty shocks. And Neil Postman's dead, and his critique was about television in the '80s... In the last month, we have had to explain to our two tenants, highly educated women in the mid-20s, how the recycling works (they have never not had recycling in their world, as far as I can recall), and that if power goes out in one room and not another, it is a tripped breaker, not "a blackout", and that it is fine not to just sit in a dark room passively waiting for a resolution, but to ask the landlord to reset the circuit, after unplugging the thing that was tripping the breaker.

They have in common with many younger people of my acquaintance a sort of passivity and vagueness. They seem both well-informed, if not deeply or critically, but simultaneously unworldly. You shouldn't be able to perform the equivalent of "got your nose!" on an adult in a Western society, but clearly, marketing has become easier since my youth. Only the distribution of marketing has become more complex. It's the curse of neuroplasticity, I guess.

Now, I have no illusions that younger people want to listen to windy old goats such as myself, but there does seem in some cases a declining ability to think clearly. Oh, look at this cat video!

Of course, a difficulty with clarity knows no age limit. The recurring (and, as a card-carrying human, mortifying) "warning: hot drinks are hot!" theme crawled out of Darwin's backside again this week as an adult female in Winnipeg with a mild case of cerebral palsy called for "regulations" against hot tea. A minor road accident caused her to spill her hot tea, leading to fairly nasty, entirely predictable burns. I will refrain from posting the photo of her burns. She was indeed injured.

I'm not sure how to react here. My usual mode is to snort in outright derision. The default mode for tea and coffee is hot: it is a beverage that must be brewed rather close to boiling in order to exist. Handling such a beverage in a moving vehicle is going to be intrinsically more hazardous than, say, carrying it to a table, or having a server not afflicted with vertigo place it before one. It reminds me of the people who have driven into swamps or off hillsides at the behest of wonky GPSes. Knives are also sharp! It leads one to uncharitable thoughts, I can tell you. So did the part of the story where my tax dollars were put to work by CBC staffers to compare several vendors' wares of the hot liquid variety. They were demonstrably hot and liquid!

Smug and sarcastic, just how I like my cup o' joe.

I'm not a stranger to the sudden bad turn of events. Some years back, I slipped on black ice and broke my ankle and leg. I was coming back from a tea party of all things. I did not, however, call for "regulation" of Twinings nor did I wish to sue Florsheim for making a lightly treaded Oxford lace-up. It did not occur to me. I probably should not have been walking so fast down an icy incline. Now the metal in my leg makes for charming discussions at airport security gates. So it goes.



I'm sorry this person was injured. I have to wonder, however, if this is akin to wearing high heels at sea, and then suing the ocean, or the boat builder, for a snapped ankle. I have to wonder if this person understands that hot things are hot and that extra-large hot beverages stay hot a long time, that moving metal boxes called cars in February in Winnipeg are subject to the physics of motion and inertia, and that maybe trying to drink a very big container of very hot tea while a passenger driving, in winter, in Winnipeg, with a case of CP, is sort of, maybe, asking for it. Or sort of, maybe, just an accident...like falling off the stern while urinating at sea.

This used to be satire. Now, satire is a product description that indemnifies the producer against legal action.

But mostly, I wonder about how such a person, or such a society, is created. How long can we "progress" if very basic relationships are not understood, or if we grow ever more ignorant of our technologies and the natural world?

And how the heck do you get to a place in your mind where you are sold what you ask for, and yet you feel it's the seller's responsibility to protect you from what you've purchased? I don't grasp this, but it sure is a spur to work for that lagoon-based beverage. Even if I get a boo-boo in the process, because the beverage may be hot, and I have not been warned.

Rust and gravity never sleep

Corrosion on the hull, or perhaps the skipper's breeches after an unnerving blow.

It's an axiom of steel boat ownership and Neil Young admiration that rust never sleeps. In fact, that's a reason people suggest is valid in rejecting steel and favouring fibreglass when choosing which material should best exemplify a voyaging sailboat's hull: Steel rusts and needs care and feeding in the form of chipping, grinding, zinc-coating and top-coating. Of course, we've seen steel's resistance to puncture up close. A little brush-work seems a small price to pay.

The labour involved is, however, in fact true. We knew it going in. Steel does require attention. It is also true, conversely, that if you are fairly fastidious and observant about such things, your steel boat will last many decades with only weekly or "as needed" sand-and-paint touch-ups that equal the equivalent area of, say, one's toenails.

If one paints one's toenails, of course. I'm told crossing the Equator may involve similar Neptunian revels.

Generally, however, there are treatments and techniques, along with observational habits, and a sense of the most effective remediation techniques.

Still about the best, in my opinion, go-to guide for the likes of us.

Now, I plan a rather more in-depth post on the whole "keep the steel intact" topic over the winter as I come to grips with the issues of galvanic isolation, anodes and the question of bonding. Simply put, without a load of batteries aboard, a minimal charger, minimal draws and no actual connection between the prop and the (as yet unfired) engine, there's not a lot of reason (currently, pun intended) to worry about Alchemy's hull at the moment. Trawling a piece of copper from one of a multimeter's test leads to the water and the other to the hull shows no appreciable voltage differential...yet.

Steel boats and the true meaning of sacrifice.

But things, as is their nature change, and I will report in more depth on this particular topic as I turn my continuing education into continual application. It does bring to the fore, in a typically circumloquacious fashion, the idea that as miniscule forces are forever at work at sea to undo first one's good intentions, and then one's expensive vessel, so are forces ashore creating change that may undo one's lubberly plans, or even one's seemingly ever-more-expensive property.

For us, such a force was wooden. elderly, tilted and fruit-bearing.

Still, alas, bearing fruit whilst creeping at 0.000001 knots on a SE heading.

Behold our Very Large Cherry Tree. Approximately 60 feet tall and circa the age of the house (around 120 years...I have yet to count the rings or dig deep enough in the city property archives), this impressive specimen bore fruit, angry squirrels and nonchalant raccoons for the last 15 years, since we bought our place in downtown Toronto. And presumably did so for a century prior.

I suspected, given its rather close proximity to our house, that its too-close-for-comfort rootedness was  probably the result of some VIctorian pip-spitting that missed the midden I found digging beneath the back door.  I also suspected, despite the fact that we had already amputated a part of it  ten years back in hopes of reducing its tendency to cant over our breakfasting room, that we might come to a day of reckoning with Very Large, but my wife adored its crookbacked stature, cock-eyed bearing and its ample shade. I felt less happy about its role in allowing raccoons and squirrels to frolic on our roof, but was, until the epic rains of last month, overruled.

From certain angles, it looked OK, despite a narrow space between eave and bough

After those rains, however, the very extensive roots started to heave up the concrete paving beside our house, along with the footpath to the neighbour's place next door. Action was required. Inspectors were summoned, and, having inspected, permits were issued with the words "immediate" and "emergency" in bold font.

OK, this shot shows the angle of reduction: That's a hell of a heel for a massive tree.

Steps had to be taken, not only to deal with the seemingly increasing threat that the tree's sodden weight and gnarled roots would tear up the ground around, but with the possibility that, being ancient for a fruit tree, it might simply rot, blow down or otherwise fail worse than an America's Cup contender while we were off a-voyaging, and either take out a part of our house, the neighbour's garage (it was that tall), or even cause injury or loss of life.

Not to mention legal action. Nothing spoils a good sail like a lawsuit, I gather from my American friends.

A liability we could not afford, unfortunately.

So down it had to come. While I would rather have spent the money on boaty things (and professional tree removal represented a significant chunk of change, as any visits by tradesmen to our particular postal code tend to be), we couldn't dodge this any more than could Helen Keller a falling tree. The crew that dispatched the cherry were rapid and professional and cleaned up after themselves, the polar opposite to many of my dealing with "marine experts", more is the pity. They certainly knew plenty of knots and hoisting methods. One tree-removing fellow had even sailed in the Antigua races. I would've chatted with him longer...but I was watching the ticking of the clock and was paying for each second.

The upstairs gets a radically broader southern exposure.

We left a significant stump (below) for two reasons: One, my wife the biologist (not a plant biologist, however) thinks that the cherry might resprout from such a tall stump, and it would take our entire lives and maybe our son's life before it would again pose a threat from toppling; two, if it doesn't resprout, that is one very large piece of log suitable for cutting for veneer. Not to raid the tomb, so to speak, but one in our situation is well-aware of the price of decorative trim and indeed any wood suitable for cabinetry. And Alchemy's interior trim battens are already...you guessed it...cherry wood.

The pile of firewood behind this arborist is from the previous woody mutilation.

We had leaves and branches hauled off, with limbs and trunk left in convenient 50-100 kilo chunks it amused me to watch the Cabin Boy attempt to move. Lots of chunks, some suitable for firewood, others for giant's Frisbees.

Some see sadness. I see about a hundred unique side table tops.

It's now stacked for drying and, with luck, memorializing in the form of binocular cases, folding table tops, and, if I can get my router skills in order, a much-desired two-drawer map chest.

Like the bottom three drawers of this, but sized for Admiralty charts. I have a place already picked out in the pilothouse.

And so a "house" thing and boat things may eventually overlap. Showing that necessary, if somewhat sad, maintenance of this sort needn't be all about destruction...we've saved not just the wood, but a handful of cherry pips from its final fruiting. And the breakfast room is now ridiculously bright.

AIS: A moving target

The newish Vesper Vision: All that and a bag of navigational chips?

Behold the Vesper Watchmate Vision, the latest iteration of a standalone AIS transponder from my (to date) favourite AIS maker, at least in the small boat realm. I'm tempted, not particularly with the touch-screen aspects, as I am at home with buttons and drop-down menus, but with the implementation of various display schemes (as decently reviewed by Ben Ellison here at PANBO; don't neglect to read the unusually erudite comments section), but due to its interesting connectivity options, which include USB and...oh, joy!...Wi-Fi.

Now, the more alert of my readers may point out that my steel boat's a friggin' Faraday cage and not likely to do well with Wi-Fi. In a sense, that's true, but if the PC is on one side of the pilothouse (right by the map chest, as per standard belt and suspenders nautical practice), and the AIS is only a couple of metres away, Wi-Fi means "one less wire to run", which has its charms in the modern age of sailing. I'm not sure who thought making an AIS a hotspot was a good idea, but if one is leaning toward a PC plotter solution over a proprietary multi-function display, it has a lot of potential. I don't really need wireless on the deck. In the boat could be useful.

ICOM's transponder offering has been described to me as solid and well-integrated with their top-end M-604 VHF base station.

Now, Vesper's just the AIS brand I currently prefer, but there are other, equally capable players in the AIS market. ICOM's a brand I generally respect (and have purchased in the form of VHF base units and our M-802 SSB). Their MA-500 seems graphically basic, but shoots the same data to a plotter that resolves as pretty little triangles in colours that show intentions, like I Am Going to Mow You Down Soon. You know, the useful stuff.

The Vesper Watchmate 850, the one I've considered best-in-class since its introduction.

The really useful stuff when it comes to AIS, however, seems to be about the ability of the unit's software to filter out non-relevant data, particularly in large commercial harbours or in busy shipping lanes. This filtering means you don't see traffic that won't pass closely, and the alarms can be tailored to truly close encounters. The problem with the otherwise Extremely Useful AIS function seems to relate in the issue of filtering the clutter, and the possibility that the "recreational rated" Class B units (more on this shortly) won't be seen. I personally think that half the function of AIS is being seen positively as another ship in fog when temperature inversions, waves or range issues render a radar presence intermittent. So "being seen" is sort of the point.

Another approach: a package deal of "black box below" and display at the helm, or even at the outside helm.

I consider AIS a great adjunct to RADAR, and a huge help when crossing shipping lanes, primarily because you can call the bridges of big fellows by ship name and using DSC and their MMSI number. This doesn't mean they can see you on radar or on their AIS. As I present on our steel hulk the radar profile of a small lightship, I'm not so worried, but a plastic boat can be invisible until uncomfortably close. I was considering, based on my research, a Class B unit called a Vesper AIS Watchmate 850: I may still, except that Vision model has some additional bells and whistles I would like to try. The 850, which I've had a chance to molest in person, remains quite intuitive and seems to look forward to the time when every buoy, pier end and jetski will have an AIS transceiver, which, as is the way of all good things, will kill the system. There are already signs of too much Class B traffic rendering full coverage problematic.

While this basic "black box" is neither cheap nor feature-deprived, it's an option for those wanting to use a PC or iPad as a display instead of something dedicated to AIS or who already have a honkin' MFD screen.

But perhaps, for the uninitiated, a somewhat deeper look at the Universal Shipborne Automatic Identification System is in order. I found that the first order of business was to grasp the difference between Class A and B AIS units. The link provided is one firm's slide show giving a medium-complexity overview of how the two classes differ.

Personally, I think that Class A would make sense were we crossing the Channel to France once a week because of its increased (12 watts) power and more rapid "refresh rate" (I'm trying to avoid the actual explanation here, which is thick with acronyms and is freely available). It's more "shippy" in the sense that while a sub-300 tonne ship doesn't require it (and it's about three times the price), your boat will, in terms of AIS, resemble commercial, rather than recreational traffic.

By contrast, a Class B (2 watts) transponder would seem to fit the bill. There's a good reason not to look like a Class A-equipped ship to the real deal. You will be actively avoided as the sluggardly unprofessional navigational hazard you are, and, by implication, all sail-driven craft are when you are looking down on them from the bridge of a vessel with five figures in its horsepower rating.

Another part of the rationale for us in opting for Class B is due to the rather simple fact that our boat is metal and returns a fat radar signal; I am also sensitive to the power draw of 12 versus 2 watts; a third is that AIS seems quite sensitive to antenna placement and general radio concepts, such as a pre-amp on the splitter, which can give a boat, either as a "receive-only" or as a target, a useful range exceeding line-of-sight from the deck, and occasionally a great deal further.

Many would opt for a solution that uses one antenna at the mast top for both VHF and AIS, which work in similar frequency ranges. Other opt for a "dedicated" AIS antenna that is sized more precisely for its frequency either side of 162 Mhz.

Speaking of distance, there is more than one school of thought about "receiver versus transponder" when it comes to AIS. A recent thread on Cruisers' Forum found the ability of AIS to advertise one's boat's location "creepy" for reasons of security. Well, so does a pair of binoculars on a sunny day, I suppose, but before one visualizes an admiral's hat made out of tinfoil, it would be foolish to acknowledge that a transmitting sailboat is both safer from potential collisions (and provides a "last reported position to SAR folk if you hit a rock) and a nice way for a thief to see you arriving with a cheap iPhone AIS app. Or even on Google Earth...how convenient!

I won't even stoke the paranoia concerning how AIS can be seen only 20 or so miles around one's boat...but can be registered by properly equipped satellites. And, no doubt, the famous black helicopters of the Nazi space lizard secret government...

Aye, aye, Skipper.

But there is a solution: turn off the transmitter. Now you can only be seen by eye, by a nifty pocket telescope, by RADAR, by VHF if you announce yourself, and by cellphone if you are close enough to shore and haven't turned the damn thing off!  It behooves the truly suspicious here to recall that cellphones can be loaded with "snooper apps" invisible to the user that report via internal GPS or proximity to cell towers the phone's location...so if you get snatched by marine kidnappers because you have a paranoid spouse, don't blame me.  The cops or the Coast Guard of probably every country on Earth can narrow your location down via your cell phone even without such apps through the magic of triangulation. AIS is no different in terms of "hey, world, look at me!"...except that you can turn off the transmitter and go "black", at least in terms of broadcasting your lat/lon, your MMSI and boat name, et cetera.

I am under the impression that most commercial vessels were obliged by regulation to transmit on AIS, (although not most military, as far as I can discern, but they aren't shy about telling you if you are crowding them in your little boat). Would I therefore stay transmitting while coastal cruising? Yes, if I was solo (because it's like a SPOT tracker to rescuers if I fall off the boat and forget to bring my bag of breadcrumbs), but "not necessarily", were we well crewed, as there is no compelling reason to announce our presence to other boats or ships on, say, a clear, sunny day.  The presence of AIS does not excuse us from keeping a proper watch by eye, or by eye and RADAR if that's part of the nav tools available. So one gains a measure of privacy in a rather tightly defined sense if one ceases to transmit as an AIS target. I define the worth of that privacy in light of my belief that a) AIS is more useful to allow the little boat to be seen by the ship capable of cutting it in half, and b) if everyone went "receive-only", the utility of the system to see anything below 500 tons would be compromised.

At night, circumstances change. In fog, at night, AIS is probably better than RADAR if one has a fibreglass boat, because it transmits (usually) from the mast top, and the typical plastic hull behind a series of waves can make a poor target for a ship's radar.  I recently read of a yacht crossing of the busy Channel in fog made non-eventual thanks to AIS. It argues that one's visibility to commercial and other large moving objects trumps the perhaps overcooked issue of privacy...unless one is, perhaps, a smuggler of forbidden cheese.

Offshore, heck yes: I want to be seen as well as to see, and AIS is frequently better than RADAR  for picking up ships barely at the horizon...as seen from 50 feet up! The earlier the hypothetical 20-knot container ship can plot our CPA, the smaller the helm correction required to give us (or we to give them, as per COLREGS) a wide and safe berth. Two ships that pass in the night doesn't, in fact, just happen.

Offshore entering the Red Sea or certain historically yacht-hostile straits near Indonesia, or perhaps the Gulf of Guinea? We would, assuming we felt a compelling need to transit dodgy waters, likely go "radio silent", which would include AIS. We would also consider dousing nav lights and whispering, as well, but would place doubled eyeballs on deck watch duty. Seriously, however, for us to find ourselves in such a situation would have to be due to a rare case of a pirate or drug-running criminal outbreak in a place not known for it. If we were travelling in convoy and were being monitored on a pre-arranged basis by various friendlies with large boomsticks, we would go full Christmas tree. We would want to be seen being seen, so to speak.

So the solution to the "creepy privacy issue" of AIS is to figure out if one's kind of sailing is enhanced by being seen, and then to find the OFF button if the answer is, "yes, but not all the time". Frankly, less clutter is better: who really needs to know you are docked? If you are using your iThing in your tender to find your over-illuminated boat via GPS and AIS tracking...you may be over-equipped for the voyage.

I have come to believe through my researches (which seem to inevitably lead to purchases) that RADAR and AIS represent a Venn diagram of watchkeeping at a distance. The reason to install a RADAR is to see where the rocks, reefs, unlit fisherfolk and beaches are, presumably to avoid them. AIS catches either ships and AIS-transmitting objects too far for RADAR (or the RADAR operator, because reading RADAR is a learned skill) to discern, or it helps to sort a bunch of blobs with names and real-time position tracking not calculated on your boat, but from the transmitting boat. Yes, I'm aware of MARPA, but one windy post at a time! The budget-minded can buy one of the newer AIS units and the cheapest sort of basic radar and have more comprehensive watchkeeping than one would have with a commercial radar of the latest tech alone.

Angry Birds and Invisible Jetskis: finally together in one device.

There's an added wrinkle, I'm afraid, and the reason for my mention of "moving targets" in this post's title: the introduction of a new class of AIS to be used on smartphones. It's still pretty new, but the "pocket plotter" is clearly a thing to be reckoned with. The utility of centralizing all one's navigational aids on a single smartphone, of course, remains to be tested. Not ideal if I'm not sporting pockets, is it?

You want to be careful fishing around in that sporran, laddie. (c) 2007 "The Grant"

AIS can be complex or as basic as one wishes. My understanding of it seems to match what sailors I respect are saying, and even if it remains a somewhat evolutionary technology, the advantages to having it aboard seem to me to be increasingly well-established if one wishes to transit the several areas of the world where commercial shipping is even remotely concentrated.