"My occupation was electronics, so I avoided anything electrical in the boat."
Paul, you sound like me. I spent 30 years repairing copiers, so even though I'm used to electronics I wouldn't trust my life with 'em!
This computer I'm on is just a toy. I wouldn't trust my life with it, either!
Anyway, isn't there a seafarer's maxim, "Don't have anything on the boat you can't fix yourself!"?
Oh, the boatyard is just for laundry, showers, fuel, ice and water. The first two got done today. We’ll go to the dock tomorrow for the rest, on the way to Camden. Camden offers all this, but one can wait a long time in lines in Camden. Gorgeous, but very, very busy there this time of year. We have hot/cold pressurized water on the boat, but rarely pass up a nice long “land shower,“ if we have reason go to a facility anyway. Also, as I’m sure you know, we only have hot water if we have been motoring that day; it runs thru the engine. In Camden we will eat out, and watch the boats and the people. Always a great show there. We will also do a major grocery shopping there.
L. O., you mentioned going to Camden. Back in the eighties, I visited my sister who was living in Portland at the time, and we drove up the coast sightseeing, visiting many harbors. Camden, I think, was one of the most beautiful harbors, looking like a perfect postcard.
Yes, the jib with the boom was considered ideal for single-handing, but I never did like it. It may have been handy for tacking, but when running or broad reaching, it would fly straight up and flail around--a real menace to anyone on the foredeck. We generally have a high percentage of light-air days down here, so everyone uses jennys. I'd take down the jib and lash the boom to a lifeline stanchion when using the jenny, which was almost always. I did like the 100% jib better than the lappers that most boats used, though. I found that the boat would sail itself downwind with the Joshua Slocum method. I could lash the jib amidship (not possible with a lapper), run the main out, lash the tiller centered, and the boat would sail itself downwind. My occupation was in electronics, so I avoided anything electrical on the boat. I used to say that my only electronic navigation aid was the light in the compass. That's why I always praised Carl Alberg--the boat could be trimmed to sail itself on any point.
Anyway, have a good trip. I hope whatever you needed a boatyard for was not too serious, and you are on your way without delay.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Thanks, Flint.
Like I say, we are very fortunate to be able to do this in retirement.
Back to the telephone thing, I just had to call a boatyard, after four futile tries on VHF. This is a boatyard on Seven Hundred Acres Island. So many of these sleepy boat yards have no one monitoring the radio. At least by phone I could leave a message that I am now on their mooring. If they want the cash, they will call me back. These are the kind of places where the secretary/office manager/quartermaster is likely out on the deck of a lobster boat holding the head of a bolt with a wrench while Cousin Hiram (the yard owner) is grunting and swearing down below.
...and that’s on a week day. Today? The only creature we meet might be a dog. Then we’ll have to decide if we trust the dog not to eat the money.
L-O, your trip and your vessel sound glorious! Add the Maine coast and things must be unbeatable!
Enjoy your trip, and your ship, and "...a star to steer her by..."
Paul, yes, tacking is a bit of a chore, particularly if the yankee is large, as ours is. There isn’t much room between the stays for the sail to pass through, as you know. When we are going to tack, we roll up some of the yankee first, then it goes through fine. If we are short-tacking to windward, I just leave the yankee about 35% furled. The staysail, as you know, is on a boom, and takes care of itself; our staysail is not roller-furling, btw. Between the partial yankee and the staysail, we have decent power for beating.
I love the flexibility of the cutter rig. We have three reef points in the main, and with the yankee variably furlable, there are lots of combos. I even put one traditional reef in the staysail. If we had to, we could deal with a ton of wind with triple-reefed main, reefed staysail, and no yankee.
Yes, the CD 31 was built at the end of Cape Dory’s existence, ’82 to ‘85. They built 89 of them. A sweet boat, and rugged.
http://www.capedory.org/specs/cd31.htm
Interestingly, the 32 (they only built 11 of them) has a deck-stepped mast. But the 31 has a keel-stepped mast, like the 33, 36 and larger models.
The 28 and 30 are also excellent boats. On your 28, was your jib on a boom? The boomed jib would be excellent for single-handing. There are lots of CDs up here, and most 28s I see still have the boom and a 100% jib. But some folks have no doubt gone with a bigger genny, and therefore removed the jib boom.
L. O., you are stirring up some memories of some good times. I don't remember there being a Cape Dory 31; it may have been one of their later models before they went out of business. I did deliver a Cape Dory 30 cutter for a friend/dealer once. A beautiful boat, but the cutter rig is a bit of a nuisance to tack. I lived aboard my Cape Dory 28 in Mandeville, La. from 1975 to 1981, and sailed the Gulf Coast to Pensacola during my vacations, almost exclusively single-handed, and praising Carl Alberg the whole time.
Flintlock76 L-O, I'm really curious now, are you sailing or motoring?
L-O, I'm really curious now, are you sailing or motoring?
Today there was very little wind while we were transiting, so we motored. We have been out for nine days so far. The first three days we had good wind, and so we sailed most or all of those days. But since then the conditions have been spotty, so mostly motoring. A couple of days we stayed put, spending two nights in the same spot. The boat is a Cape Dory 31, a twin-headsail sloop. (We have 2 jibs, one behind the other, called a Yankee and a staysail, and frequently we are sailing with both, plus the main.) The boat was built in 1984. We have put our heart and $oul into it, so she’s in really nice shape and has a lot of good features. I am the second owner. This year we had an electric anchor windlass installed, and that is a wonderful new addition! The boat has an inboard 21 hp diesel 3 cyl diesel. It can sleep four, but it’s just me and my wife. For fifteen years our cat sailed with us, but sadly she died last year. This is our third sailboat, and we love it. We eat the vast majority of our meals on board; so far, we’ve eaten out only once, fried clams for me. On Monday we will do our first major re-provisioning, in Camden ME. We will go as far as the Acadia NP area before we turn around and head back to the Portland area. We take it easy, make up the itinerary as we go along. I’ve read two books so far, and just started another, a memoir by a railroad engineer. I carry a guitar and practice that. We rarely transit more than six hours a day. This is our passion, our main outdoor thing, been doing it for over thirty years. One never stops learning, and figuring out little ways to improve the boat. Most days are terrific. Some are tedious. A small handful are terrifying. We have been blessed to be able to do this. I turn 70 in February, and hope to be still sailing when I‘m 75. We sail the Maine coast. Once, with some guy friends as crew, I went offshore, traveling to places in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
There are definitely times when we have no cell service, but not as often as you might think. Right now we are off of Isleboro in Penobscot Bay. Lotsa really rich folks live on this island, and, probably, not by coincidence, the cell service here is way better than we have at our home outside of Portland. There are lots of tall cell towers along the coast, whereas tall USCG radio antennas are few and far between.
How do you guys expect me to keep up with Euclid without my phone?
We are in a gorgeous spot, by Warren Island, which is a state park. They have $20 moorings (cheap), and we are in the company of only two other boats in a decent-sized cove. We have to dinghy ashore in the morning to put money in a box; no one works here. More often we anchor, instead of renting moorings; we never rent slips.
We are in sight of the ferry landing from which the state ferry comes and goes; she is the Margaret Chase Smith, and is a large, handsome vessel. I never get tired of watching ships.
Okay, I will eat some lobster, but only because of my loyalty to this forum. ;-)
That is why those advertisements on TV for the digital TV antennas have the demonstration out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico... sure they work with no obstructions between the transmitter and the TV... but interpose a building or small hill, a water tower (or worse yet, a city water storage tank built-into a hill, which is my problem) and those newfangled antennas are no better than any other antenna for broadcast signals.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
As long as there's cell phone towers near the shoreline you're fine. Go over the horizon out of sight of land and there's going to be issues.
If I understand the technology correctly, cell phone communications are microwave based, which are "line-of-sight." As long as there's no obstructions in the way between the user and the cell tower you've got communication.
It's the reason you lose cell phone communication if you go into a heavily-constructed building, cinder block for example, you lose the "bars." Happened to me last weekend, I had to go outside to use the phone. So did a lot of other people.
PS: Lithonia Operator, have some lobster for us while you're up there!
Lithonia OperatorBut now I’m sailing my boat for a month, so I am using my phone.
Paul of Covington Lithonia Operator . But now I’m sailing my boat for a month, so I am using my phone. Why are you using a phone on your boat? When I used to sail, I was happy to have no communication with the outside world. The boat and the sea were my whole world.
Lithonia Operator . But now I’m sailing my boat for a month, so I am using my phone.
Why are you using a phone on your boat? When I used to sail, I was happy to have no communication with the outside world. The boat and the sea were my whole world.
First, a lot of marinas, etc. Are easier to reach by phone than by radio.
Secondly, I do like glance at the news, and to play on some websites.
Also, a phone is just one more tool at my disposal in an emergency. VHF to the Coast Guard can be pretty spotty on the coast of Maine, because of so many islands and points are in the way.
I don’t ever just talk on the phone. Not my thing.
Flintlock76Personally, I only turn my cell phone on when I need it, but if he's got the phone on a boat it's understandable. Pays to have a back-up means of communication. You never know, do you? But I wouldn't live on the thing, know what I mean?
But I wouldn't live on the thing, know what I mean?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Personally, I only turn my cell phone on when I need it, but if he's got the phone on a boat it's understandable. Pays to have a back-up means of communication. You never know, do you?
Lithonia Operator. But now I’m sailing my boat for a month, so I am using my phone.
Standard operating procedure for this sort of situation USED to be to back up the content in the 'stored passwords' section of the browser before 'clearing cookies'.
Also used to be going in and individually clearing/editing cookies instead of just nuking them.
We live in a lazy age where programmers make these actions difficult, probably intentionally. At least they figured out how to suspend cookie 'action' while editing preferences; there were combinations of cookies that would sneakily 'rewrite' deleted cookies if any one were deleted through editing, unless you knew just what to take out and were very quick to confirm changes...
To Kalmbach's credit, they appear to have identified their cookies very well when doing a manual search. I haven't reverse-engineered them to see which ones carry the login information (some of which contains auto-ban identification) but it's relatively easy to go through and edit out anything tied to URLs like cs.trains.com without eliminating all the other stuff.
Why there isn't a temporary disable for stored passwords is nearly as idiotic as Firefox asking you to confirm 'do you want to view your passwords' and then not requiring any security to do it.
That seems to have done the trick.
Unfortunately, now I can’t get on my other favorite discussion site (about auto racing), because, apparently, that log-in data got zapped, and my passwords are at home! Probably just as well, because I waste a lot of time there.
After I wrote the above post, I cleared all the cookies. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
That's going to be a cookie or privacy setting in the phone browser's preferences. Very similar if you have it set to clear cookies automatically.
Be very careful not to navigate to any version of the forum with 'mobile' in the URL, Those are still 'live', but no longer supported and can have weird interactions with phones newer than it expects.
If it helps any, my phone is still on iOS 9 and I can browse the forums without being signed out for a considerable time. Did the sign-in persistence stop after an upgrade or 'reconfiguration' of some kind?
At home I mainly visit this forum via my desktop computer. But now I’m sailing my boat for a month, so I am using my phone.
Even though there is an option to stay logged in, and I check that box (each time .... ), I am now required to log in every visit.
What‘s up with that? It’s annoying.
Still in training.
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