Although all race as one design, not all Moore 24s are identical. The last half dozen or so built have a wedge rather than flush deck in an attempt to provide a little more room down below, and recently transoms have been cut out of some. This has advantages of making the cockpit instantly self-draining and looks sexy. Disadvantages are that it costs at least half of what I paid for GANNET—but then so did the new rig I put on her— reportedly makes the hull less stiff, and the significantly shorter rudder post results in more lateral flex of the rudder. This last concerns me most, for I must confess that I like the way the open transom looks and would enjoy standing in the companionway and seeing following waves through an open stern. Fortunately GANNET is safely in New Zealand, where there are people who could do the work, but far from the temptation of those like Gilles Combrisson who routinely do.
Joe, owner of Moore 24 #67, is having the surgery done and sent these photos for which I thank him. It is interesting, to me at least, to see a Moore in cross section.
I wish him a successful transformation.
Here is the final result on another boat in which you can also see the pod I am going to install on GANNET.
------
The Apple watch activity app considers weeks to start on Monday, so last Sunday marked the end of the first of its weeks since I got the watch, and because I had completed all three circles every day, it awarded me for a number of achievements. Parenthetically, the Withings app recently gave me the Oahu Award. About this time last year I sailed there. Now I have walked around the island.
Monday morning I awoke to find that, having met goals for a week, the activity app, apparently and probably reasonably programed to expect users to be overweight, decided I should do more and arbitrarily raised my burned calorie goal to 390. This is the only goal the wearer can adjust. I immediately, and defiantly, reset calories to 300.
Man over machine. Sort of.
———
The wife of a friend is hiking around Spain. He sends me photos and updates from time to time. This morning he wrote that she is on her way to a monastery which has no electricity, but where they make wine.
I wrote back: Wine and a solar panel. Who needs more? Well, maybe an occasional bottle of Laphroaig. And a boat. Wow, it's starting to get complicated.
To which he replied with my line about entering the monastery of the sea.
It is and I do. The pure simplicity of life at sea is one of the primary qualities this much-married monk loves about ocean passages.
------
Late yesterday afternoon a black band of severe weather swept off the plains and deluged Chicago with rain. The heaviest fell just south of us. There were tornado warnings. I heard the sirens and thought they sounded like air raid warnings. They were.
