Hilton Head Island: GANNET; two disasters; two poems

Carol and I walked to GANNET Sunday morning and found the little boat as I had left her except for some water in the bilge which I pumped and sponged out.  As you may recall GANNET has no through hull fittings, but some water inevitably makes its way from above through two holes where the backstay enters and exits the deck and a leak in the bow I have not been able to locate for more than a decade.  There were not even any bird droppings on the deck.  Good.

I have now spoken to several people who were here during the passing of Idalia all of whom say it was just a windy, rainy day.  Fred, the former dock master of Skull Creek Marina who lives aboard his 31’ sloop, said that the highest gust he saw on his wind instrument was 52 knots, but the the wind was generally in the 30-40 knot range for six hours.  He said that three boats in the marina broke loose.  All because of inadequate dock lines.  Too old or too small or both.

Here is the link to a long, but I found interesting article about the greatest peacetime disaster in the history of the United States Navy.  I knew of this, but not the details.

https://magazine.atavist.com/dead-reckoning-honda-point-navy-disaster-1923/

I was among those who thought ‘dead reckoning’ had evolved from ‘deduced reckoning’.  Wikipedia says otherwise:

Contrary to myth, the term "dead reckoning" was not originally used to abbreviate "deduced reckoning," nor is it a misspelling of the term "ded reckoning." The use of "ded" or "deduced reckoning" is not known to have appeared earlier than 1931, much later in history than "dead reckoning" appearing as early as 1613 in the Oxford English Dictionary. The original intention of "dead" in the term is generally assumed to mean using a stationary object that is "dead in the water" as a basis for calculations. Additionally, at the time the first appearance of "dead reckoning," "ded" was considered a common misspelling of "dead." This potentially led to later confusion of the origin of the term.

A second disaster is imminent actually counting climate change, this is a third.

Sixty years ago a perspicacious college student wrote that throughout our history the mass of homo sapiens provided muscle power and a gene pool neither of which was any longer necessary.  What he postulated in 1960 is obvious now, or if it isn’t to some, it soon will be.

Here is an article stating that in a little over ten years 38%-65% of the jobs in Las Vegas may be automated.  That’s a lot of unemployed bartenders.  

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/04/1197138244/vegas-ai-workers-brace-for-change

I have read that the two most famous Chinese poets are Li Po and Tu Fu.  Both names are Anglicized in various ways.  They lived at the same time and met one another.  During his lifetime Li Po was well known and admired.  Tu Fu was not.  Li Po was born about 701 AD and died in 762.  I have posted some of his poems here in past entries.  Tu Fu was born 712 AD and died in 770.  They met in 744 and remained friends, both writing poems to the other.

Here are two poems written by Tu Fu toward the end of his life.