Showing posts with label Boating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boating. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 April 2017
The Boating School
The Boating School is pleased to introduce our new elective summer course schedule, and is now accepting registrations. These courses have been selected with the needs of modern boater in mind. The Boating School is dedicated to providing only the finest in boating educational instruction available anywhere.
Learn how to save money by downloading nautical charts from the internet. There is a wealth of chart material available at no cost for the savvy boater that knows where to look. There are many options including seafood restaurant place mats, Google earth photographs, and on the water hotel brochures. In addition to the internet there is also used book stores, and buying old charts on Ebay or Craigslist. Our instructors will teach you how to find, and separate the ones that are probably okay, from the ones that might not be. Save big money, and enroll now.
This is a 4 credit course. Classes meet Monday mornings for six weeks. Successful completion allows enrollment in our fall semester course, "Hacking navigation chart chips for fun and profit".
Dark or light? Which rum is right for your boat?
A well stock liquor cabinet on board is an indispensable item for your vessel. The skilled mixologists from the Boating School will teach you the basics of preparing nautical adult beverages starting with the historic "Grog" of times past, up to the more contemporary drinks such as the "Cosmo", and the "Dark and Stormy". Class work will also include proper usage of the 12 volt blender, popular hang over remedy recipes, and techniques for mixing cocktails in rough seas.
This is a 3 credits course. Classes meet off campus on Friday evenings at the Old Salty Bar and Grill.
This is a 3 credits course. Classes meet off campus on Friday evenings at the Old Salty Bar and Grill.
Dealing with the officious captain. (For women only).
This is an on board course that provides training in dealing with the "know it all bossy captain". The Boating School has retained the services of under employed amateur divorced captains to assist in this valuable hands on program. The Boating School's staff will instruct you in various captain management techniques including, feigning deafness, tying rope restraints, and if needed as a last resort, the ever popular "foot sweep take down maneuver".
This is a 4 credit course, and meets on Saturdays for 4 weeks. Prerequisites are "Taser usage 101", and "Nautical jargon basics". Limit of four per class.
Nautical jargon basics.
Knowing how to talk like a real boater will give you the confidence you need to show others that you too are indeed an experienced yachtsman. Whether down on the waterfront, or just having cocktails at the club, having a good grasp of nautical jargon will help you fit in. This is a round table discussion class, and you must be at least 21 to register.
This is a 1 credit course. Classes meet on Wednesday mornings for six weeks.
The Boating
School summer lecture series.
Nautical attire do's and don'ts. Friday March 15th 8:00pm in the auditorium.
Mr. Blackgood gives answers to those difficult boating fashion questions such as "What type of chain should I get for my Atocha coin?", "Which high heeled shoes are right for teak decks?", and "What should I wear for a Poker Run?"
Paper charts, do they really work? Saturday March 30st 8:00pm in the auditorium.
Renowned sailing captain Archibald Haddock debunks the myth that paper charts really work. Listen to this experienced navigator as he explains why these rune covered documents only serve to confuse the modern boater.
The Iphone, the modern boat compass replacement. Tuesday April 4th 8:00pm in the auditorium.
Apple's software engineers hold a panel discussion to discuss why the Iphone's technology has made the old inaccurate magnetic compass obsolete, when contrasted with the sophistication of the Iphone's battery powered hall effect compass sensor that can talk to you.
The Boating School 41.43.55N, 49.56.45W
Paper charts, do they really work? Saturday March 30st 8:00pm in the auditorium.
Renowned sailing captain Archibald Haddock debunks the myth that paper charts really work. Listen to this experienced navigator as he explains why these rune covered documents only serve to confuse the modern boater.
The Iphone, the modern boat compass replacement. Tuesday April 4th 8:00pm in the auditorium.
Apple's software engineers hold a panel discussion to discuss why the Iphone's technology has made the old inaccurate magnetic compass obsolete, when contrasted with the sophistication of the Iphone's battery powered hall effect compass sensor that can talk to you.
The Boating School 41.43.55N, 49.56.45W
Friday, 24 March 2017
Boating yin and yang
We're starting in the happy place today. June Cleaver is baking a fresh apple pie, the Beaver is doing his homework, little Opie Taylor is fishing down at the pond, and the sun is shinning. I have to re-install a VHF antenna, and an older Raystar 120 GPS antenna. Brand new T-top canvas has just been installed, and I had to untie a portion of it to see where the old equipment holes were located. Lo and behold, look at that hole, it's a beauty. Two inches in diameter, and someone took a moment to deburr the edges. How sweet it is, this is the way it's supposed to be done, and my hats off to the builder of this T-top.
Wait a minute, let's bring this pastoral scene to a screeching halt. This is not a good day. June Cleaver has been arrested for prostitution, and is sitting in jail. Little Opie Taylor, and the Beaver are cooking down meth in an old trailer down by the pond, and a tornado warning has just been issued. Where did I put my hockey mask and chainsaw?
After doing an excellent job at the top of this wire pull, look at this crap at the bottom. I'm sure the guy at the factory got his micrometer out, measured the diameter of the wire bundle, and found just the very next size up drill bit to punch this minuscule hole. Afterwards he went to the bar and told everybody he had set a new world record for drilling the smallest possible wire hole ever. His friends probably all bought him a lot of shots, laughed, and congratulated him on his new record.
Well I know the two wires were recently pulled out, so they must have fit, albeit tightly, and there is a special secret trick I use to do this. It is called "Fragrant Grease", and you use it liberally to bribe the hole into letting the wires pass. This goo, has another name that might be more familiar to everybody, and it's called "Tub O' Lithium Grease". It's a versatile, slippery, and waterproof substance that can be used on everything from sail tracks, to keeping your boat's bike chain from rusting out in the salt air. So what should have been a happy day, turns out to be a big messy pain in the keister day. Clean rags are needed to keep the goo away from the new canvas, a roll of paper towels to keep my hands clean, a grocery bag to collect all of the contaminated materials. Okay, it got it done, but "dew neh loh moh" on all boat builders. Why can't they get this right in the first place?
Saturday, 18 March 2017
Boating flare guns or testicular terror
Recently a Florida man, of course it's a Florida man, inadvertently or at least I hope so, shot himself in the groin with a marine flare gun. He subsequently required notable medical attention for damaged anatomy located in said region. So the question occurred to me, "What is the viability of using a marine flare gun as a weapon for self defense on a boat?"
You're sitting in a quiet anchorage when all of a sudden the boat is swarmed by zombies and pirates looking for rum. Your trusty 50 caliber machine gun is unfortunately disassembled and safely hidden out of sight from the gummit, laying under a foot of greasy black water in the bilge. All you have is your plastic orange flare gun, and six outdated 12 gauge red flares. With a glimmer of hope, you chamber a red flare. The trigger is pulled, and you fire at point blank range at the nearest zombie. The flare bounces off the zombie, and falls on the deck.
You, the zombies, and the pirates all stop at once blinded by the ball of red light until in just seconds it burns through the deck and falls into the bilge water. The ensuing chemical reaction blows you backward off the boat now completely devoid of any eyebrows. Swimming away you try to keep your head real low to avoid your 50 cal ammunition that's now randomly hurling exploding bullets in all directions caused by the conflagration. A zombie near you tries to give you "the finger" as it flounders in the water but it falls off.
Two weeks later, you take a brown sharpie, and draw on eyebrows in preparation for the hearing. It seems that 400 gallons of diesel washed up on Longboat Key's shoreline, and the 50 caliber machine gun was found when the Coast Guard raised the boat. The Paradise Condo Association is upset about the bullet holes in the building's stucco, and a resident is claiming her Sphynx cat became so scared all of its hair fell out. There's even a zombie that's missing a finger and wearing a cheap suit who wants to testify.
If you search around very few people have ever successfully used flare guns for defensive purposes. Mostly for those who have tried it, the end results tend to follow Murphy's laws of unintended circumstances. In the end, despite what you see in movies, it's a very poor choice for a weapon, especially on a boat full of fuel. It is however a great option for emergency distress signaling.
The primary ingredients in a flare are black powder used to propel the flare to altitude, and Magnesium which provides the light. We will pause here for a moment to just consider this metal.
The property that makes magnesium good for flares is its very high burning temperature, of up to about 5600 F producing a bright light. The down side of magnesium is it's difficult to extinguish when burning. Throwing water on it makes the problem much worse. Not only does the water immediately turn to steam, but then the steam reacts with the burning magnesium creating hydrogen gas. Things instantly go from bad to much worse. Your typical small B & C boat fire extinguisher won't help here either. Only a class D fire extinguisher can put out a magnesium fire, and it should be a large one.
Other chemicals added to distress flares are various forms of strontium, and a oxidizer to help it burn. This creates the cheery red color.
I'm not going to belabor the point, but all recreational boats over 16' operating in coastal waters must carry USCG approved day and night visual distress signals. Manually powered boats, and open sailboats under 26' are excluded.
These can be pyrotechnic devices, or as simple as a distress flag, and an electric light that blinks SOS in morse code, as if anybody in this iPhone age actually remembers what this is. In the end three non-expired USCG approved red hand held flares meets the test for most boaters. Beyond that the prudent captain can make further decisions based on how and where they boat.
A couple pieces of advice. RTFD (Read the directions first) before you need to use them. Light and hold hand held flares over the water on the downwind side of the boat at an angle that won't let it drip hot stuff on your hands. Remember this stuff burns pretty hot. Shoot all aerial flares down wind, and not over land or other boats. Don't ever point a flare gun at your groin, or at anyone else even if you're joking.
Lastly check the expiration dates, and properly dispose of expired flares. By that I mean you can't take a bottle of rum and a bunch of expired red flares and fire them off in the bay with your buddies. It's illegal. The good news is you can do this with white flares, although I wouldn't have the rum on the boat when you're blasting away in these paranoid times.
For those who would feel emasculated by using a cute feminine looking orange plastic flare gun, there are other options such as the manly B&D ExD 37mm Extreme Duty Top Break Launcher.
As scary as it looks it's legal, just as long as you only have 37mm flares on the boat. It can shoot a lot of other things too, but if that other ammunition is found on board it automatically becomes a weapon. I understand that Magnifico Yachts is giving one to each buyer of their new 2000 hp Phallic Fifty go fast boat as a buyer incentive. If you have one one of these on board, I would tell the USCG in advance of any inspections so they don't get too excited when they find it.
The photo of the 37mm launcher is from Wikipedia, and taken by user incitatus.
The small burning flare photo is from Wikipedia user Dvortygirl.
The flare gun photo is from Wikipedia by user MMX
Wednesday, 8 March 2017
Presidential boating a reprised post with a note
I assiduously avoid politics on the The Rant, and I'm not changing this stance now. Even being careful a story that is patently fictional to the point it even includes characters such as zombies or aliens, can on occasion incur the wrath of those that somehow can't tell the difference. I made the little cartoon just before the election in 2012 and it was crafted so no one was a winner or loser. This year is different and all of us will have been the losers in this process no matter who wins, but the biggest loser of all is public civility and rational discussion. Go vote tomorrow for anyone you want and on Wednesday we will all collectively be grateful the political ads will have disappeared from our TV. The story below is exactly as it originally appeared in 2012. Bill
After doing some research, most modern presidents have generally eschewed recreational boating. When you see them on a boat, it's generally for a photo op, or a day trip on a friends yacht. The notable exceptions are Jack Kennedy who was by all measures an enthusiastic boater, George Bush Sr. who has, and uses a center console fishing boat, and Herbert Hover who was avid fisherman. Although Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and a submariner, his boating presidency is marked by the selling of the Sequoia, and the infamous rabbit incident.
Let's put President Obama, and Governor Romney in a debate setting, and have them talk about boats. In this case Governor Romney owns at least a 29' Searay bowrider, a small Boston Whaler, ski boat, and a couple PWC's that are kept at his vacation home in New Hampshire. It is not believed that President Obama has a boat. They both do support boating, in their own ways.
After doing some research, most modern presidents have generally eschewed recreational boating. When you see them on a boat, it's generally for a photo op, or a day trip on a friends yacht. The notable exceptions are Jack Kennedy who was by all measures an enthusiastic boater, George Bush Sr. who has, and uses a center console fishing boat, and Herbert Hover who was avid fisherman. Although Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and a submariner, his boating presidency is marked by the selling of the Sequoia, and the infamous rabbit incident.
Let's put President Obama, and Governor Romney in a debate setting, and have them talk about boats. In this case Governor Romney owns at least a 29' Searay bowrider, a small Boston Whaler, ski boat, and a couple PWC's that are kept at his vacation home in New Hampshire. It is not believed that President Obama has a boat. They both do support boating, in their own ways.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
