On 6/3/2015 6:35 PM, Sir Gregory Hall, Esq. wrote:


I felt for the guy. I put in at Little Harbor in Newport so have some
idea of what they charge. He had them build his dream boat and it never
worked. Never.


Dream boat = nightmare boat, especially when the eyes
are bigger than the stomach and the dream is based upon
magazine articles and/or other forms of mass ignorance.


It was a nightmare but I understood that at the price he paid LH for a
keel up custom boat he had reasonable expectation of good engineering,
good production and therefore a good result.

I crewed on an 85' sailing yacht which was enormously complex but
engineered / designed for easy access to all systems. So when things
went awry, which wasn't that common, they were easily, quickly and
cheaply addressed.

That's proper design.

-paul

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On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

One of my ambitions that I'll likely never realize is running
the ICW in a very small shoal draft boat with maybe a cuddy cabin. It
may be like that shrimper but add the hard cabin rather than the tarp
boom. I'd also like a very shallow draft like the Mac 26. I can see the
icebox, porta pottie and one burner camping stove.

I did a few parts of the ICW in the big boat but with an almost 6'
draft, I had to stick to the main channel and even then worry about
tides as a few places weren't at clearance depth any more.

As I went, I kept being intrigued by what I was passing but could not
approach.

-paul

===

We are now up to 5 round trip transits of the ICW in our GB49 so I can
relate to that. What you need is a dinghy which is capable of getting
up on plane and covering some ground in an hour or two. We've done a
lot of poking around in the back creeks and small towns that way and
it is a lot of fun. Riggging out the dinghy with a small depth
sounder/fish finder is also a useful addition.

On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 17:54:25 +0700, wrote:

On Wed, 03 Jun 2015 19:40:44 -0400, "Sir Gregory Hall, Esq."
wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 06:29:32 +0700, wrote:



Yup. and we also have the "aquatic trailer trash" who live on a
permanently anchored boat.

Wrong! I was anchored out in the *back country* of Florida
Bay just last week in order to get away from all the Memorial
day loudmouthed, drunken fools.

God Lord! Another epic voyage down the bay.... and back.

Will you be publishing your log, as Skipper does?

===

The early explorers of Florida Bay had an interesting sense of humor.
There is a shoal named First National Bank, and a small island named
Dildo Key.

On 6/4/2015 6:39 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:



We are now up to 5 round trip transits of the ICW in our GB49 so I can
relate to that. What you need is a dinghy which is capable of getting
up on plane and covering some ground in an hour or two. We've done a
lot of poking around in the back creeks and small towns that way and
it is a lot of fun. Riggging out the dinghy with a small depth
sounder/fish finder is also a useful addition.


The thing is we're boatless now so it's not a matter of adding a dink to
the big boat but of acquiring something. Also I"m married to someone who
gets sea sick but lived and sailed for 7 years but in a tri so she'd not
be comfortable in a mono and I am very skeptical of the multis (beam
issues). I think our big boat open ocean voyaging days are over.

We'll see how things shake out in the next few years, but as I posted,
this is likely more a musing not to be realized than a project to be done.

-paul

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On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

On 6/4/2015 5:24 AM, wrote:


I was in Singapore and on the hard doing the bottom when I met a guy
who had ordered a "Cornish Shrimper" from England. It arrived in
Singapore in a 20 ft. shipping container. The yard got it in the water
and rigged it and the guy - very obviously - learned to sail in the
bay and a few days later he and his wife sailed off for Thailand. I
saw that they had some sort of one burner cooking stove, a tarpaulin
to make a tent over the boom at night and that was about all. His
charts consisted of some road maps but no compass or GPS.

I never saw the guy again but a year or so later I saw his boat in a
marina in Thailand and asked the Marina Manager about him. He had
sailed all the way, no outboard, from Singapore to Thailand, along
shore all the way. When they got low on food they stopped and went to
the local market and bought more. The manager said he had asked the
guy how he got across the gulf - most people would sail N.E. from
Southern Thailand across the gulf to the mouth of the Chao Paya river
- and the guy said nope he didn't try that.

From looking at a chart it appeared to be about a 1,000 mile voyage,
in an open sail boat.

The Marina Manager said that the boat was for sale and the guy had
said that he was glad he had made the trip but didn't think he wanted
to do it again :-)


I guess you'd have to call that minimal sailing :-)
--

I'll say. One of my ambitions that I'll likely never realize is running
the ICW in a very small shoal draft boat with maybe a cuddy cabin. It
may be like that shrimper but add the hard cabin rather than the tarp
boom. I'd also like a very shallow draft like the Mac 26. I can see the
icebox, porta pottie and one burner camping stove.

I did a few parts of the ICW in the big boat but with an almost 6'
draft, I had to stick to the main channel and even then worry about
tides as a few places weren't at clearance depth any more.

As I went, I kept being intrigued by what I was passing but could not
approach.

-paul

There is a lot to be said for a boat that can float in shallow water
:-)

A lot of the small islands on the west coast of Thailand aren't very
well charted. They are in the right place on the chart but the water
depth might have been surveyed 50 or 60 years ago and coral grows :-)

We were on the way back to Phuket, from Malaysia, and decided to stop
for the night. The N.E. monsoons were in full spate so we eased up on
the S.W. side of a small island and went aground on the coral. We had
run in between to big coral growths and were essentially in a "cradle"
and couldn't get out.

The story ended well as when the tide went out the water was shallow
enough that I could sort of chart the water and a small, local fishing
boat had come by and hauled the anchor out toward open water and
promised to come back at high tide. Twelve hours later we floated off
and winched ourselves out into deep water and the fishing boat came
back and led us to a better anchoring spot.

The moral of the story is "you probably can't go where the fishing
boats go :-)
--
Cheers,

Bruce

On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 07:31:22 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

On 6/4/2015 6:39 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:



We are now up to 5 round trip transits of the ICW in our GB49 so I can
relate to that. What you need is a dinghy which is capable of getting
up on plane and covering some ground in an hour or two. We've done a
lot of poking around in the back creeks and small towns that way and
it is a lot of fun. Riggging out the dinghy with a small depth
sounder/fish finder is also a useful addition.


The thing is we're boatless now so it's not a matter of adding a dink to
the big boat but of acquiring something. Also I"m married to someone who
gets sea sick but lived and sailed for 7 years but in a tri so she'd not
be comfortable in a mono and I am very skeptical of the multis (beam
issues). I think our big boat open ocean voyaging days are over.


My wife is like that - she once got sea sick while anchored in the
Singapore Straits :-) We found that some medicine called Stugeron,
(derivative of piperazine) which I don't think is marketed under that
name in the U.S. If she started taking that the night before we sailed
she was all right for the trip.

We'll see how things shake out in the next few years, but as I posted,
this is likely more a musing not to be realized than a project to be done.

-paul

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--
Cheers,

Bruce

On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 06:00:10 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

On 6/3/2015 6:35 PM, Sir Gregory Hall, Esq. wrote:


I felt for the guy. I put in at Little Harbor in Newport so have some
idea of what they charge. He had them build his dream boat and it never
worked. Never.


Dream boat = nightmare boat, especially when the eyes
are bigger than the stomach and the dream is based upon
magazine articles and/or other forms of mass ignorance.


It was a nightmare but I understood that at the price he paid LH for a
keel up custom boat he had reasonable expectation of good engineering,
good production and therefore a good result.

I crewed on an 85' sailing yacht which was enormously complex but
engineered / designed for easy access to all systems. So when things
went awry, which wasn't that common, they were easily, quickly and
cheaply addressed.

That's proper design.

-paul

A friend of a friend was designing a "dream boat" which would be
completely computer controlled. We finally convinced him that it was a
poor idea and then the oil business went to hell and he didn't have a
job any more so the project ended :-)

Re big sail boats. I was aboard a two masted Maine schooner that was
built in the early 1900's. Apparently it had been in the lumber trade
originally hauling sawed lumber from Maine to Boston. The original
crew size was said to be five men.
--
Cheers,

Bruce

On 6/4/2015 5:59 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

There is a lot to be said for a boat that can float in shallow water
:-)

A lot of the small islands on the west coast of Thailand aren't very
well charted. They are in the right place on the chart but the water
depth might have been surveyed 50 or 60 years ago and coral grows :-)

We were on the way back to Phuket, from Malaysia, and decided to stop
for the night. The N.E. monsoons were in full spate so we eased up on
the S.W. side of a small island and went aground on the coral. We had
run in between to big coral growths and were essentially in a "cradle"
and couldn't get out.

The story ended well as when the tide went out the water was shallow
enough that I could sort of chart the water and a small, local fishing
boat had come by and hauled the anchor out toward open water and
promised to come back at high tide. Twelve hours later we floated off
and winched ourselves out into deep water and the fishing boat came
back and led us to a better anchoring spot.

The moral of the story is "you probably can't go where the fishing
boats go :-)
--

I've run aground but only in mud or sand. Coral sounds scary.

I do want to be able to gunk hole it a bit and am willing to, at least
for the time, give up voyaging ability. Then too, we're currently living
in the desert so the whole idea is a 'tomorrow maybe' thing for when and
if we can either relocate or add a second presence on a coast. Our
sailing now, if we were to do it, would be restricted to lakes we could
walk around if determined to do so. Not my idea of water recreation.

As to the sea sick drug, I couldn't see that as something that she could
use and I know, that as an organic vegan, she'd not accept a drug
solution even if taking it daily was safe and effective.

I know a fellow who bought a smaller cat he uses mostly round the FL
Keys but he said he'd take it on a short open ocean trip like to the
Bahamas if he were weather confident. They seem to scud along fast
enough that even short term forecasts are all one needs because the
roughly 140 km trip only takes a few hours.

Quite a bit of difference from sloughing along at 5 kts.


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On 6/4/2015 6:20 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 06:00:10 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:


A friend of a friend was designing a "dream boat" which would be
completely computer controlled. We finally convinced him that it was a
poor idea and then the oil business went to hell and he didn't have a
job any more so the project ended :-)

Re big sail boats. I was aboard a two masted Maine schooner that was
built in the early 1900's. Apparently it had been in the lumber trade
originally hauling sawed lumber from Maine to Boston. The original
crew size was said to be five men.
--

Those old timers must have really worked. The old fishing schooners
were, by some standards, short handed and they sailed during abominable
weather. I also sailed those waters at that time of year and cannot
fathom how these guys, lacking modern garment materials, lived through
the experiences. Yet they did including long line handling in dories.

Then again, I suppose these folks had heat below decks from coal stoves
which I didn't. My first boat had a coal stove which was better than
nothing but when I was sailing in the New England area it was a
different boat with no mobile heat. It did have a terrific reverse cycle
heat pump but shore power only.

Still, these guys had no power other than muscle and winch yet handled
gaff rig schooners with canvas sails, sisal lines and so forth. I'm in awe.


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On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 06:10:09 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

On 6/4/2015 5:59 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:57:14 -0600, Paul Cassel
wrote:

There is a lot to be said for a boat that can float in shallow water
:-)

A lot of the small islands on the west coast of Thailand aren't very
well charted. They are in the right place on the chart but the water
depth might have been surveyed 50 or 60 years ago and coral grows :-)

We were on the way back to Phuket, from Malaysia, and decided to stop
for the night. The N.E. monsoons were in full spate so we eased up on
the S.W. side of a small island and went aground on the coral. We had
run in between to big coral growths and were essentially in a "cradle"
and couldn't get out.

The story ended well as when the tide went out the water was shallow
enough that I could sort of chart the water and a small, local fishing
boat had come by and hauled the anchor out toward open water and
promised to come back at high tide. Twelve hours later we floated off
and winched ourselves out into deep water and the fishing boat came
back and led us to a better anchoring spot.

The moral of the story is "you probably can't go where the fishing
boats go :-)
--

I've run aground but only in mud or sand. Coral sounds scary.

I do want to be able to gunk hole it a bit and am willing to, at least
for the time, give up voyaging ability. Then too, we're currently living
in the desert so the whole idea is a 'tomorrow maybe' thing for when and
if we can either relocate or add a second presence on a coast. Our
sailing now, if we were to do it, would be restricted to lakes we could
walk around if determined to do so. Not my idea of water recreation.

As to the sea sick drug, I couldn't see that as something that she could
use and I know, that as an organic vegan, she'd not accept a drug
solution even if taking it daily was safe and effective.


Your wife might try eating ginger. It has a reputation for preventing
motion sickness. An English friend once suggested it to my wife and
(we live in Thailand) a Thai friend also suggested the same so it may
have an "international" reputation which might indicate that it really
does work.


I know a fellow who bought a smaller cat he uses mostly round the FL
Keys but he said he'd take it on a short open ocean trip like to the
Bahamas if he were weather confident. They seem to scud along fast
enough that even short term forecasts are all one needs because the
roughly 140 km trip only takes a few hours.

Quite a bit of difference from sloughing along at 5 kts.


I met a bloke named Aron Meder, a Hungarian who sailed around the
world in a 6 meter (19-1/2") boat, while he was in Phuket. Web Sites
at:
http://www.meder.hu/meder_en.htm
Yutube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h167pT8u_Cg

He reckoned that the main disadvantage of making long voyages in a
small boat was that they were slow and necessitated carrying more
supplies than a larger faster boat and there wasn't much room to carry
supplies.

While we didn't specifically discuss bad weather but he didn't seem
to see it as a major concern.
--
Cheers,

Bruce