Nav Light

Came across this very smart and useful nav light for small craft.

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Sailor's Anatomy

click picture for larger version

from GCaptian's Maritime Monday

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Get seasick much?

In all my years of sailing I have never felt the queasiness of the sea (touch wood, touch wood, touch wood).  But many of my fellow crew have.  How do you avoid seasickness?

Click for - How to avoid seasickness on Messing-About-In-Boats

Or is it only in your head?  gCaptain has just posted a new post on seasickness and 50 ways of preventing/curing it.  But mainly they say it is all in your head. If so, get cured and go sailing.

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Anchoring system for tidal areas

There has been a lot of chatter on the John Welsford Yahoo group about a anchoring system fro tidal areas,  Here is a system short description of a system we used when I was younger.

We used to camp next to a tidal river and we used a system similar to this to change the  position of our boat (reel in to board at high tide or move the boat further out at low tide.  It worked pretty well and you could almost get in without your feet getting wet.

Click to see full size

The System - drop your anchor in deeper water with enough anchor chain and a small length of rope.  At the end of the rope secure a good quality marine pulley.  Then you create a loop of rope with two hook clips on (boat length apart on that loop - to clip you boat on to)

Then there is another anchor on the beach with a line that is connected with a pulley to the loop. This way you can reel your boat in and out from the boat or from the beach.  You use the free side of the loop (the side where no hook clips are) to cleat it off at the correct position you want your boat. 

It sounds complicated, but once you set it up once it is a piece of cake.

USE AT OWN RISK

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What's on the pond?

In the winter I was building a scale model ship and enjoyed it so much that I decided to start doing small model boats out of Balsa wood just for the fun of it. No works of art, just something to get my mind off work.

Meet Frederik, he is now the local fisherman on my Goldfish pond and hopefully he will soon catch the "big one" for supper. 

More detail - Boat - 4 inches / 10 cm    Frederik 2 inches / 5 cm

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Aloha Joe

FINALLY my postcard came that Joe sent me on his last trip to Hawaii.  Living in South Africa, one gets used to waiting some time for your mail, but luckily it is always reliable even thou it is sooooo slow.

Thanks Joe, your postcard is on its way, might be there by Xmas.

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Aaargghhh!!

Aye me matey, its talk like a pirate day. 

Come on all ya scallywags, join the fun on sailinganarchy forum

P.S. Talk like a Pirate, meaning the fun times we had as children, not the current problems we are having near Somalia.  Our thoughts are with the kidnapped sailors and their families today


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Sailing Yin Yang

So here I am fighting the age old struggle of yin and yang, but more so “sailor's yin yang”. I have been putting some time into deciding what kind of sailor I am, but the more I read about boats and sailing, the more confused I get. I once heard in an old western the following line: Outlaw “Are you a bad dog or a good dog?” Hero “You have both in you, it depends on which one you feed most.”

So am I a racing sailor or am I a cruising sailor? The more I feed my need for speed and to outsmart the next sailor, I feel I am a racing sailor, all guts and glory. BUT the more I read about other sailors adventures over the horizon I become a cruising sailor again.


So what to do? Maybe only time will tell, but for now maybe I should race, since I am still young and don’t want to be the odd one out on a laser when I am 70 trying to cheat the nursing home.