Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Evanston: a new tiller and the next ice age; a clerk; a voyage


        I just bought a second hand carbon fiber tiller from another Moore owner who is disposing of various bits after a major rebuild of his boat.  Of the tiller he wrote that it “will last until the next Ice Age.”  This is not reassuring when as you can see the next Ice Age has already reached Chicago.  
        The tiller is in fact a bargain, will last far longer than I will, and I am very glad to have it.  When it is installed, there will no longer be any wood above deck on GANNET.  I will not have to carry the can of Deks Olje into the cockpit and will save whole minutes of maintenance time.
        The photo was taken a few days ago by Jay, the lighthouse builder.  Assuming the ice retreats, in five months that view will include his Olson 34, SHOE STRING, swinging on her mooring.  
        I thank Jay for letting me use the photo.

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        All efforts to remove formatting from a scan of A SINGLE WAVE having failed, I have taken on clerical duties and am retyping the entire book in order to create an e-version.  So far I’ve done 12,000 words.  57,000 to go.  At my current rate of 4,000 words a day, I’ll be finished in two weeks.  No carpal tunnel syndrome yet, but it is seriously cutting into my reading time.

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        I exchanged several emails with Ryan Finn before he left a few days ago to sail his 36’ JZERRO solo from Los Angles to New Orleans via Panama.  This is an interesting voyage because JZERRO is a proa.
        I have no experience of proas and no opinion of them, however Ryan has been making impressive progress with twenty-four hour runs of more than two hundred miles.
        Thus far he has provided daily updates on his website.  His tracking page is hidden under the heading ‘California->Panama’ and can be found be found here.