Opua: ONTONG JAVA explained; PATTON
Opua: ONTONG JAVA explained; PATTON
The Internet is truly revolutionary.
This morning the questions to which I had been unable to find answers locally were answered by emails from a reader in Mexico and another in Auckland. Thank you Armando and Paul.
Here are the links they gave me:
http://wharrambuilders.ning.com/video/building-ontong-java
http://wharram.eu//live//article.php?story=20100426165443915
The boat was built in West Africa by Hans Klaar based on drawings made about 1845 of craft used in the Tuamotus, which is the archipelago between the Marquesas Islands and the Society Islands.
He sailed her to Brazil, then into the Pacific via Panama, and on to New Zealand, sometimes alone, sometimes with crew.
In a video made on his passage to New Zealand he is using sheet to tiller self-steering, of which I wrote a few weeks ago.
The name I presume comes from the Solomon’s Islands’ Ontong Java Atoll, one of the biggest atolls in the world.
A small notch at the bottom of the ‘V’ and my faulty eye-sight caused me initially to mis-read the name.
The boat is 70’, has no head or head room, and is for sale with an asking price of about $50,000 U.S. I have a feeling that he is going to have to settle for less.
Hans is quoted as saying, “When you've got this rig you must forget everything you have learned about European rigs. It is all very different -very much a question of balance.“
I think that sailing all boats is about balance
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Without my having made a deliberate decision to change, my routine here this time has been different than in the past. Not wanting to take an hour off from working on the boat, I have generally gone ashore only every other day, instead of every day, and I have seldom watched a movie in the evening, preferring to read instead.
However last night I watched PATTON, which I’ve seen a few times before.
I don’t think it is a great movie, but it has an all time great opening scene, where George C. Scott in the title roll climbs up in front of a huge American flag and makes a speech to his troops that begins with “You don’t win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making the other son-of-a-bitch die for his country.”
I did not recall that George C. Scott refused to accept his Academy Award for best actor because he did not believe in acting competitions.
This was two years before Marlon Brando refused his best actor award for more political reasons, and I find it admirable.
Thursday, May 6, 2010