Joe Balderrama kindly sent me a link to a copy of the recording of last Saturday night’s Zoom talk. I thank him. With unexpected ease and speed I have uploaded it to my YouTube channel. Several readers have asked if it would be available and now it is. I am about to watch it myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBXawsyjqLs&t=629s
Art asked a question that did not get presented during the talk.
“How much baby skin do you have left?”
For those of you who inexplicably deprive yourself of the pleasure of reading the ‘lines’ page on my main site—-http://inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/lines.htm—-this refers to: life is the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue.
The answer is none. Zero. Not a millimeter. Not all is scar tissue, though I have a lovely new one forming where my left leg has become infected after the recent skin cancer removal. This is not serious and should be resolved within a week by antibiotics, but it is leaving a nice scar. What is not scarred is most decidedly not baby smooth and hasn’t been for a very long time.
I have a question: In particular outside of Durban in GANNET, or in general (anywhere else), have you ridden to a sea anchor or drogue?
ReplyDeleteI carry a Jordan Drogue on GANNET, but am pleased never to have deployed it. In photos of GANNET the big steel plates on the sides of the hull at the transom are the attachment points for the drogue’ s bridle. From what I read, Jordan Drogues are effective in breaking waves, but hard to retrieve.
ReplyDeleteI have only set any type of sea anchor once and that was in a gale approaching Durban, South Africa, in RESURGAM when all the harbors were closed due to breaking waves. The wind was blowing 50+ knots. The anchor was a parachute type and difficult to set. Jordan Drogues are set from the stern. The parachute from the bow. I did managed to get three layers of chaffing gear around the line where it ran over the bow roller.
The parachute stopped us, which is what I wanted it to, but the motion inside the cabin was extremely uncomfortable as the line to the parachute alternately went slack then jerked taut as waves passed. After a few hours, even with the chaffing gear in place, the line rubbed through and RESURGAM’s bow fell off and we continued on our way making 5 and 6 knots under bare poles. Fortunately Durban Harbor opened to shipping a few hours before our arrival.
Given sea room I would always rather run off ahead of extreme weather. Trapped on a lee shore a sea anchor of some type might save boat and life, but in half a century I have avoided such a situation.
I should add that off Durban in GANNET I simply lay ahull and while uncomfortable did not feel threatened or that it was a survival situation.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Webb. Loved the talk -- and am thankful someone shared the recording!
Delete(I recall now that I once asked about the steel plates near GANNET's transom and you explained their purpose then -- I should have remembered that.)
(BTW, I don't recall any problem with MY memory!)