San Diego: two on a small boat; South Sudan; closed
San Diego: two on a small boat; South Sudan; closed
Carol flew out for the Fourth of July weekend and we stayed aboard GANNET. Carol had spent a night or two aboard when the platinum sloop was at North Point Marina on Lake Michigan; but four successive nights was the longest we have both been aboard. Despite a man on a boat on the dock astern of GANNET observing that we must be experts at yoga, which we aren’t, although GANNET does require flexibility of body as well as attitude, it worked out very well. We had a great four days.
This being San Diego, where one can almost always be on deck, made it easier. As did that we generally ate ashore.
As I have observed here before, GANNET’s v-berth is unexpectedly comfortable. She has only 7’ 2” of beam, compared to THE HAWKE OF TUONELA’s 12’, but her hull flares out more quickly than did HAWKE’s, whose pointy ends were dictated by the IOR, the racing rule to which she was designed. GANNET was not designed to any rule, just to go fast.
During the day, we were usually either ashore or on deck; but we also found it convenient for me to be sitting at my usual place at Central facing aft, while Carol read on the v-berth, or sat on a Sport-a-seat on the port quarterberth, facing to starboard and stretching her legs over mine in a 90º overpass.
Her first morning here, we walked around to a bagel place on the opposite side of Quivira Basin for breakfast, but on subsequent mornings, with the dinghy already in the water, I rowed us across, viewing sea lions and sea birds up close along the way.
We ate a lot of good Mexican food, drove around and viewed sights, biked, and saw fireworks from three different directions on July 4.
All this week, including the 4th, the marina has been quiet. Even though you can sail year round here, I observed when I lived in San Diego in the 60s and 70s that boats are used mostly in the summer, Memorial Day to Labor Day, just as they are in places with less salubrious climates. If you weren’t on your boat this week, I don’t know when you will be. But then I have never seen most of the boats in GANNET’s vicinity ever leave the dock.
I took advantage of Carol having a rental car to do some grocery shopping yesterday, planning to reorganize the cabin after she flew back to Evanston this morning.
I decided to leave some objects, such as one Torqeedo battery and the Torqeedo tiller arm aft where I had moved them to clear the v-berth; but got all the food stowed away and the cabin reconfigured into hermit mode by mid-morning; and washed, dried, folded and returned the Avon to the v-berth this afternoon.
Although it would have been easier on the dock, I deflated, folded and packed the dinghy on deck for practice, before lowering it through the forward hatch.
I’ll miss Carol’s company as I have my evening drink and music alone on deck this evening.
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I have been remiss in not mentioned that the sailing obstetrician, David MacFarlane, whose life would make a good TV series--I state that to establish that I first suggested the idea and to build a foundation for litigation for royalties later--is working with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Aweil, South Sudan, the newest country in the world.
You will find a view of a very different part of the world and way of life at his The Next Beginning.
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I measured the distance between the lower edge of GANNET’s mid-profile size 60 hatch top and base as being ⅜”. On the Ocean size 60 it must have been ½”
GANNET’s jib sheets are ½” diameter. Smaller diameter would be strong enough, particularly if spectra or technora or similar high-tech/low stretch composite . I use high-tech line for halyards, but no longer for jib sheets, after finding on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA that in sloppy conditions where sails collapse and refill explosively, high-tech sheets transmit the shock load to the standing rigging with damaging results. Better to have sheets with some stretch and absorbing elasticity.
Also halyards don’t have to be handled much, while sheets do, and smaller diameters cut into hands.
Having made you wonder long enough, John did paddle past THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring after spending several months working at an Antarctic research station. However, he didn’t paddle all the way from Antarctica. He flew to New Zealand and paddled around Opua during an interlude before flying on to the United States.
Sunday, July 7, 2013