Golden Ball

the Golden Ball ketch under sail showing the starboard leeboard

My new employer, the Apalachicola Maritime Museum, is restoring an L. Francis Herreshoff design wooden boat, a shallow-draft, leeboard ketch designed for West Florida waters, named the Golden Ball. I have been working on a newsletter article celebrating the boat and chronicling the restoration process and progress. A Golden Ball fan stopped in Apalach for supplies and a look at the work in progress. I interviewed him about experience living aboard and sailing boats of this type.

During our talk, his wife, complained about all that welfare money going to drug addicts, how recipients should be drug-tested and denied benefits if positive. I was a bit astounded that a freewheeling, open sky, sailboat person could hold that view (I favor legalization and treatment and an absolute and complete end to the War On Drugs). We went on talking and my new friend turned out to be a War on Iraq and Vietnam War supporter. He actually said that if we had not overthrown Saddam Hussein in 2003 the Middle East would be in a terrible mess today (I wondered if he had skipped reading the news due to long time at sea and just had not noticed ISIS, the civil war in Syria, the disintegration of Libya, the militarization of Egypt. I also wondered if he had not noticed the cozy capitalism now practiced by the Vietnamese). He stated that the Vietnam War was only fought to stop Communism, as if Communism were a deadly virus. I objected, and we argued, then I apologized for my statements explaining that I mistakenly thought he was a working man, and a man of the people, not one of the rich elites that communism might harm. No, he said he had no money, but that he believed in Liberty and Choice, and he feared that some communist government would force him to do things he just did not want to do (maybe like work). He said he knew some Cubans who had told him how terrible their lives were before they fled Cuba for America. I replied that when a country is under constant, vicious attack from a powerful, terrorist neighbor, this kind of 'choice' must be abandoned in order to protect the nation from its enemies. He did not seem to understand my point, nor my thesis that communism in Vietnam was a homegrown response to French Colonialism, not a product of an international conspiracy where "the communists came to Vietnam from Russia (or China, he was not sure)." He also believed that Muslims in general were guilty of attacking 'the homeland', and that 9-11 was not just a criminal conspiracy (while the Timothy McVeigh Oklahoma City bombing was). At this point in our talk, he actually threw up his hands and he walked out of the museum, so I guess I lost my friend! It is painful, sometimes, to be right.

I am confounded how these right-wing memes, so false and vile, are so prevalent in the culture and so impossible to dissuade. Neither logic nor facts work to bring forth right thinking in these kinds of peoples. On the other hand, some of our veterans might have committed or at least observed atrocities during their wars, and their sanity depends on a world view that maintains whatever the US does is always right, i.e. "My country, right or wrong." Very sad.

Sunset Cruise

iPod photo, sun setting over Saint Vincent Island

On my new job, I sometimes work as the mate on our cruise boat tours. My duty is to assist the captain and the guests and provide informative comment on the trip. Last night, I got to go on our "Sunset Cruise", a trip out on Apalachicola Bay where we can view a proper sunset, and as was the case October 8, a full moon rise. Nice.

Our little boat community quickly developed a rapport, and it was great to be able to speak frankly with people. One couple was from Kentucky, another from Georgia. We actually were able to politely talk politics and, wonder of wonders, we were in complete agreement. 

Sun almost gone!

Now, the Georgia couple were partaking of a bottle of white wine, which smelled very sweet, and I was offered some. However, as a Coast Guard approved cruise ship mate, I had to decline. They, however, got pleasantly tipsy. At one point, the nice lady lamented the fact that her hill-billy kinsmen voted Republican in spite of their economic and class interests. Naturally, I agreed that wonder was in order and proposed that perhaps wedge issues were to blame, i.e. abortion, gay marriage, whatever Karl Rove dreams up.

Today, I discovered a better answer. The Maritime Museum paid for all us mates and captains to attend a class given at the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (now in Eastpoint), and the lecturer spoke of the current threats to Apalachicola Bay system: development, water diversion, pollution, and over-fishing. All but the last occur upriver, and all involve one primary theme, PROGRESS.

So, I think that all those people who vote against their class interests have deluded themselves with the chimera of progress. They believe in it, and they believe the Republican Party stands for it, even though most Democrats are also deluded by progress, although they may not believe in it with the fervor of the true church. Furthermore, they all confuse progress with money and all those other flashy symbols of the Way, i.e. a MacDonald's hamburger franchise setting on reclaimed wetland. They want to go along with that program, no matter that they will end up more poor and more desperate because of their allegiance to The Big Dream, thus dooming the rest of us.

Me, I am happy to do without progress. Oh, by the way, the patriarchy has a sole-proprietorship on Progress. No woman would be so idiotic!

Memes, Slings, and a New Job

Whoopie Sling on the left, eye sling on the right

 I have been making 'Whoopie Slings' and 'Tree Eyes' out of a fantastic new rope called Amsteel Blue, made out of Dyneema (both registered trademarks), rope that is stronger than steel and lighter than water.
Campers use whoopie slings for hanging their hammocks and arborists use both slings and eyes for hoisting their trees. Of course, the size (and strength) of the rope varies with the application. I started using 7/64" Amsteel I bought on eBay for use around the boat. This rope is very thin and light, perfect for hammock-hanging whoopie slings because it weighs almost nothing. The idea is to fasten slings on either end of the hammock to trees, then adjust the slings to fit. Once weight (or tension) is applied, the sling will not move because one end of the rope passes inside a section of the rope like a Chinese puzzle, forming a loop. Due to the nature of the braid, when tension is applied, the loop becomes rigid, but without tension, the loop is easily adjustable.
I learned to use a piece of thin wire to pull one end of the rope inside of itself, forming a fixed loop on one end and an adjustable loop on the other. The first whoopie sling took me about two hours, and the tenth took less than half an hour. I made them and sold them on eBay until I was out of the 7/64" material.
Then, I wanted to replace the lower lifelines on Sunrise. The old ones were made of 1/4" nylon 3-strand rope, which was degraded in many places from chafing. I bought some cheap 5/32" Amsteel on eBay for the lifelines, but then I was asked for a whoopie sling out of the 5/32" rope and the customer was willing to pay extra, so I was back in the sling business. In order to not be overwhelmed, I kept raising the price until I reached $16, but I ran out of material. I still needed rope for the lifelines, but when I went to buy more, I found that the previous eBay prices were exceptionally low, and I ended up buying some 3/16" Amsteel (much better for lifelines) for 75 cents a foot, more than three times the previous price! I did sell one 3/16" whoopie sling for a higher price, but that was to an arborist. On the other hand, the new lifelines are exceptional!
In retrospect, 1/8" Amsteel might be the best choice for whoopie slings. It is still fairly inexpensive (36 cents/foot), very strong (almost one ton safe working load), and easy to work with (12 strand braid and sized so my splicing tools fit), but it weighs slightly more than 7/64". I have sold several so far.

I can leave my cottage industry behind, though, because on Monday, 8/11, I go to work for the Apalachicola Maritime Museum! It is a part-time, minimum wage job, funded by a Department of Labor program for us older people, but I will still end up with enough extra cash to be able to live and maintain my boat-maintenance habit--I need a new anchor. On the job, I will be a mate on the museum tour boats, man the front desk to greet people (like a Wallmart greeter), book tours, write for the newsletter, and help curate the museum.

That leaves memes. I have noticed that the US media, including Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, has settled on the narrative that the massive influx of Central American children at the border is the result of Obama's limited amnesty for the Dreamers, children who came to America with their parents at a young age. Thus, immigrant children can also expect amnesty. Unscrupulous 'coyotes' have sold this fantasy to parents in order to make money. The conclusion of this narrative is that the cause of the migration is greed on the part of the coyotes and delusion on the part of the parents. All Obama has to do to end the problem is to inform Central America that no such amnesty is available.

Of course, there is probably a grain of truth in this idea. Coyotes will make money. The 2008 Anti-Trafficking Law does provide some protection of child migrants. Perhaps the Dreamers policy did get wrongly interpreted. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that conditions in Central America are driving the children to flee their homeland. See Running For Their Lives--The Child Migrant Crisis. Ignoring root the causes of immigration problems allows the administration and legislators to apply band-aid, symptomatic solutions that are both cruel and inhumane. True solutions, of course, such as ending CAFTA and NAFTA, the War On Drugs, and support for right-wing kleptocracies in Mexico and Central America are out of the question.

Next to consider is the Ukraine. It has been well documented that the US State Department and NGOs such as the NED were instrumental in causing the coup that literally chased Former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych out of office to exile in Russia. It is also known that many of the people forming the new Kiev government are extreme nationalists with a decided Russian-hating, neo-nazi, fascist bent. Kiev lost Crimea and fomented civil war in Eastern Ukraine precisely because of its dedication to the EU bankers with their austerity programs and US militarists with their NATO, new Cold War, program. Putin's rejection of this government is entirely rational in terms of both protecting the Russian state and supporting ethnic Russians who want nothing to do with Kiev. Yet, Putin is reviled in the US press (and maybe the European), as the warmonger fomenting violence in Eastern Ukraine and he has been both blamed and punished for all the ills in the Ukraine (even the Daily Show adopts this meme). Putin is certainly not so wonderful a leader, but all this mess in Ukraine is the direct result of US and EU meddling, not Russian.

There are many more instances of American propaganda, memes that distort our understanding of the world, too many to easily recount. There are many people like my neighbor, Al, who constantly proclaim that the US has done more 'good' in the world than any other country in history. I am sure that the people in Iran appreciate the goodness of the CIA when it unseated Mossadegh and installed the Shah in 1953. Then there was the goodness of the Jimmy Carter policy to support the mujaheddin in Afghanistan that so threatened the Afghan government that they appealed to the Soviet Union to send troops for support. Not to leave a good stone unturned, the CIA continued to support the mujaheddin with (good) arms to fight the (bad) Russians, a bit that leads directly to Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and the goodness of 9/11. Although the litany of American policy blunders is much to long to list completely, the upshot is that none of these efforts ever, ever, has a good result and most cause humanitarian disasters. The list continues today with Obama's good policies of drone assassinations and public spying, which only broadens Al Franken's condemnation of Stupid White Men to include any brand of stupid American. I should really point out to neighbor Al, who hates Obama, that white men do not have a monopoly on stupidity.

Visitations

Sunrise, a 31' Southern Cross cutter built in 1976

I got a visit! Well, actually more than one. First, some lovely young students from Auburn on a Christian mission in Apalachicola came to see me--I don't know if they came for my soul or for my wisdom, but I liked them. Then, Sylvia, the wife of my great friend Martin Lamarque came with Sara Smith and her daughter Sara Elena. I got to show them the sights of Apalachicola, which really is a sleepy fishing village with an overlay of tourists (just like Mexico). Lots of fun! I got a good photo of the boat from the deck of Up The Creek Raw Bar.

My son Adam and his partner, Dana, came to visit several weeks ago and we took the boat out on the river. Almost to the railroad bridge, we anchored for a swim. At the bow with the anchor let out, I told Adam to juice the engine in reverse, thus 'setting' the anchor. When we went to leave, I wanted to motor up to the anchor instead of winching all the way. The engine ran, the transmission spun, but the propeller did not! Evidently, going into reverse was the last turn for the nut holding transmission and propeller shaft together--it spun off and we were dead in the water. So, we had to sail home, which was really lots of fun.

I bought a new nut for $8, then I had to buy a special, low-clearance socket for it in order to put the boat back into working order. Getting all these parts took weeks, but finally I put it all together. I finished just before Sara, Sylvia, and Sara came to visit, but they did not want to take a little cruise. At any rate, I am ready for hurricane season!

The notions on my mind these days are the madness in Ukraine and the cruelty in Gaza. It seems that everyone wants to blame President Putin of Russia for both the civil war and the downing of the Malaysian airplane. It is clear to me that our State Department, with the aid of European financiers, helped engineer the coup that eventually instigated the separation of the Crimea and the intended separation of the ethnic-Russian Eastern Ukraine. Those people did not want anything to do with the Kiev government, and considering rhetoric at the time, anti-Russian language edicts, anti-Russian hate speech, who can blame them? One of the secret elements of the pact that created the Kiev government (or kleptocracy) was a clause allowing the Ukraine to join NATO. So, it is no wonder that Putin would seek to protect his seaport and his borders. What else would these geniuses expect? So, World War III might be just around the corner, a boon to American neocons and arms dealers, well, at least until we all blow up in a nuclear holocaust!
As for Gaza, the chutzpah of the Israelis is remarkable. They are practicing genocide on a small scale, but they practice it all the time, year after year. They claim self-defense, but that is pretty hollow. Somehow, they excuse their own evil by referencing the Holocaust, which makes no sense to me. I believe the true aim and strategy of Israel's Likud government is to drive all the Palestinians away or kill them all, whichever comes first. And, I find this reprehensible and unacceptable. The fact that our government gives them so much support disgusts me.

Tomorrow evening, Gwen Graham, the Democratic candidate seeking to unseat U.S. Representative Steve Southerland is appearing at a town hall meeting (literally in the town hall). I plan to attend and ask some gad-fly questions. These Democrats for the most part are too timid to tell the truth, although I believe that with some truth they could win.

 

And, I am out of projects... It is time to build my dinghy!

With daily summer rains (and the Sunrise's AC system providing reasonable comfort), I have turned to inside work except for repairing almost constant bicycle flat tires).

The most interesting has been making and selling "Whoopie Slings" on eBay.

7/64" (& larger) Whoopie Slings

I sold several of the yellow slings made out of 7/64" Amsteel Blue (TM). Then, I decided to replace the boat's intermediate lifelines and found a great deal on eBay for 5/32" gray Amsteel Blue ('Blue' refers to a process of adding a UV-resistant colorant to regular Amsteel), which is twice as strong as the smaller, yellow size. By the way, Amsteel, made out of Dyneema by Samson Rope Company, is stronger than equivalently sized steel and lighter than water.

5/32" Whoopie Sling

I started making Whoopie Slings out of the gray rope, and sales came one right after another. I literally finished a sling, put away my tools, and found another order on the computer!
I increased my price to not be so busy, but still got orders until I finally found the not-so-sweet spot of $16/pair where nothing sold. Still, I ended up using most of my rope for slings and had to buy another batch of Amsteel Blue for the lifelines. That is when I found out that the $.23/foot I had paid for the 5/32" was not reproducible. Even 1/8" Amsteel Blue was $35/foot, which meant that a pair of 1/8" Whoopie Slings would cost me $8.40 in materials, allowing me to make about $8/hour at the $16 price, which was not selling (I bought 3/16" Amsteel Blue for the lines at $.75/foot--expensive rope, but a better installation--after all, they are "life lines"). Well, I had to end my eBay auctions when I went up to Tallahassee to help Lisa and Sara get Lisa's house ready for moving in and supporting a new baby.
I relisted the gray slings when I got back, but so far, there have been some lookers, but no sales. I am thinking I might have to add an Amsteel soft shackle to sweeten the sale and maybe charge twenty bucks for the package. It would make a nice cottage industry if I could get the material at a good price.

The most satisfying recent work has been refinishing the cabin floor. I spilled a few drops of paint on it from my cabin paint job, and when I rubbed them out, the rubbing lightened the floor. Plus, there was accumulated discoloration and scratches; finally, I wanted to put some non-skid patches under the ladder to keep it from slipping and figured they would stick better on bare wood (they don't). So, I borrowed Andrew's powerful Milwaukee orbital sander, bought 80 grit, 120 grit, and 150 grit sanding disks, got out my kneeling pad, and went to work. The sanding took one whole afternoon of enormous effort as the sander would buck every time it hit one of the yellow stripes that were higher than the surrounding wood. Also, teak is extremely hard and it ate sanding disks as if I were sanding metal. After the floor was silky smooth following the 150 grit,  I cleaned it thoroughly with a tack cloth, and applied Teak oil. Now, the floor is perfectly clean, smooth to walk on, and a delight to my bare feet.

I hate to say that I am sad to have run out of projects! Perhaps it is time to build my dinghy:

Eastport Nesting Pram

This boat comes as a kit that supposedly takes about a week to put together and probably another week to finish. It is 8' long, but divides into two sections that 'nest' together, allowing it to fit on deck of a small cruiser like the Sunrise.
So far, I have organized the financing and most of the necessary tools. All I need is a place to build it.
Having lost two little boats because of rough sea while towing, I have kind of vowed not to (mostly) tow another dinghy; thus, a rowboat that can fit on deck should be a real winner.

Violence Against Women

The theme of this blog is the adventures of the Sunrise and the Skipper of the Sunrise. Thus, I write about life in Apalachicola on my boat and related happenings (by the way, I found that the starting motor fault on my little car was due to a bad wire that supplied power to the starting circuit--for unknown reasons, it only had half the necessary voltage-- so I just ran a new wire straight from the battery). However, it is not my nature to be isolated from world and domestic events, so I want to make an explicit comment inpired the horrendous murders in Isla Vista, California, a place I know.

I am guessing that maybe four thousand years ago, there occurred some not trivial inventions in the populations of Homo Sapiens around the world. These were patriarchy and the worship of the "Sky Gods," modes which displaced the previous culture of matriarchy and worship of the "Earth Gods." I cannot speak of all the continents and all the peoples, but our Indo-European ancestors (ancestors of some of us) fully adopted these new modes, with concomitant militarism and authoritarianism, and came charging out of the East, heading west to Europe and South to India, conquering all the matriarchal tribes in their path. These were the Celts, the Aryans, the Greeks, the Latins, the Germans, and surely others, all establishing cultures that emphasized patriarchy and sky gods. Women, who previously ran the show, so to speak, were relegated to a role of servitude, as were the conquered peoples.

The modern world created by the sky god culture is about as much of a cock-up as I can imagine, with pollution, the possibility of nuclear annihilation, destruction by war, aberrant killings, violence against women, abject poverty, and global warming just some of the results.

It is not that matriarchy and the Earth Mother disappeared from our culture and our world. History shows that the patriarchy has kept quite busy repressing feminism. Think of the destruction of the Isis cults in the Mediterranean and burning of witches throughout Europe, the annihilation of Native Americans and other "indigenous" peoples. These days, women struggle to throw off the yoke of the patriarchy and establish themselves, but the patriarchy is battling desperately to maintain its privilege, a one-sided battle, because feminism does not fight with the same tools. Thus, women are murdered and repressed.

The matriarchy had a good, long run, probably in the hundreds of thousands of years. The patriarchy, in just a few thousand, has come close to destroying the whole world. This way cannot continue and I cannot imagine a patriarchal culture that can control itself; nor is it really possible to reinstate a matriarchal culture (although one might emerge if we do endure apocalyptic nuclear war or extreme global warming). So, what we desperately need is a balance, the yin and the yang forming unity.

More New

After Ryuho Yamada Sensei , Zen shiatsu teacher and healer, died in 2003, Hollis DeLancy bought his 1986 Toyota Corolla All-Trak, from Ryuho's wife, Mayumi (so she could return to Japan). Since she did not really need another car, she gave it to me. It was a bit of a problem from the beginning because it often failed to start (the car came with a small battery charger), and I went through a series of repairs, replacing the alternator and starter, until one smart mechanic replaced the ignition switch and it worked perfectly. The car served me well, especially during torrential winter rains when I could flip it into four-wheel drive and safely negotiate water and mud.

Moving to Florida, I had to pay more than five hundred dollars to register it! I should have sent it to Pull-A-Part right then, but I had the money and lacked the sense. I used it well for several years until it was stolen and ended up in Kingman, Arizona. Sara Smith rescued it and her Santa Cruz mechanic, Pedro, put it back into shape. Curiously, though, somewhere in its journey, its nice, new, 100 amp-hour battery, got switched to an older, 60 amp-hour model.
Last year, before I sailed off to Fort Meyers, the car failed to start reliably. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't, not a desirable behavior in a car. I found that if I could get the battery voltage up to about 12.8 volts (higher than a resting, fully charged battery), it always started, indicating a big resistance in the starting circuit. I attempted to check the cable connection, but there is so much metal back where the starter lives, I could not even see the starter motor. I abandoned the car and sailed away!
Well, now daughter, Lisa, and son-in-law, Andrew, are moving back to Tallahassee, I need a car again as there is no public transportation to the Forgotten Coast. I also had to miss a meeting of the Franklin County Democratic Party Committee because I could not get to Carabelle--I thought about taking the boat, but that would mean six hours on the engine because there is seldom any fair wind in the Waterway, or ride my bike, but that would probably be beyond my ability. And, Tallahassee is just out of reach entirely!

1986 Toyota Corolla Ignition Switch

So, I guessed that the starting problem was once again due to a faulty switch and dove in. It took me hours to remove all the old, junky plastic to get the switch and diagnose it was indeed the problem--I jumped the connection between the hot plug and the starter plug and the engine turned right over, then I had to crawl under the steering column to unscrew it. I took it apart and attempted to clean the connections, but when I put it back together, it would not work at all. So much for repair! An eBay seller had a new switch for $35 and it is on its way.

I finished painting the quarterberth and other places while I was at it. Hopefully, the little flecks of white paint are banished from my cabin. It looks good, too, all clean.


I also decided to add a shelf for my computer, printer, etc, and provide a secure place to store charts. So, I taped off a section (blue in the photo) to provide a foundation for fiberglass. After the new paint dried, I ground off all the old gel-coat and paint right down to the fiberglass of the hull. Then, I fashioned a 1"x3" board to glass in to the hull and provide a ledger to support the shelf. In order to make it conform to the hull shape, I sawed about fifty kerfs across the width of the board, down to about 3/8". I prepared means to hold the board in place and glassed it in.

My shelf job is not perfect, completely due to my inexperience as a "glass-man". Neighbor Mike Young, a real glass-man, advised me, but the technique is tricky. It is necessary to add just the right amount of hardener to the resin--too little will cause the resin to set up slowly, too much will cause the resin to set up too quickly and be brittle, to boot. I did both. The first batch fastened the board to the hull and it set up too quick. The second batch wrapped the wood and fastened to the hull below the board and after two days, it is still tacky. Nevertheless, the shelf looks good.

When the resin finally cures, I can use the last of my cabin paint to touch up, then I get my cabin back! I am so tired of typing on my dining table. But, I believe the result will have been worth the travail: a bright, clean quarterberth, a bright, clean cabin, and a sturdy shelf to keep my laptop secure at sea.