Evanston: weather report

        80° and snow.

        The 80°F/26.6°C was Saturday.  The snow yesterday.

        Briefly on Friday, Evanston, San Diego and Auckland were all the same temperature:  67°F/19.5°C.  

        Above the view from our living room when I woke this morning.

        Below a few hours later. 

Evanston: speed

        The above shows the results of the Double Handed Lightship Race in San Francisco Bay that took place on April 5.  

        Results are based on corrected time, applying a rating to elapsed time.  The higher the rating, theoretically the slower the boat.

        The three Moore 24s were the smallest boats and had the highest ratings in the fleet of 29 starters, 28 finishers, yet finished 1-3 on corrected time and within one minute of one another.

        Even more impressively to me are their elapsed times.   Boat for boat two of the Moores finished ahead of all but five in the fleet and the third ahead of all but six, including some fast and much bigger boats.

        Karl Robrock, the skipper of SNAFU, tells me that his maximum speed was 15.7 knots recorded by GPS.

        On another page about the race I saw that the course was 25 miles long.  Dividing that by elapsed time, the Moores’ VMG (velocity made good) was 5.84 knots.  The boats would have sailed more than the minimum course distance, so their speed through the water would have been greater than that.  And I am told there was a period of light wind and drifting during the race.

        All of which reenforces how difficult it is to average six knots for an entire ocean passage on a boat of moderate size.  

        Although I’ve always had boats that sail well, and as some of you will recall once held the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation in a monohull,  I think I’ve only done it once, on RESURGAM crossing the Atlantic from Portugal to Antigua in 1989.  It is less a matter of going fast, than avoiding going slow and/or to windward.

        I’ve never owned a boat capable of the speed of a Moore 24.

        EGREGIOUS, RESURGAM and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, all easily reached 8 knots, but only rarely went much faster.  CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE occasionally pegged her knotmeter at 10 knots downwind in gale conditions, but her best 24 hour runs were between 145 and 150 miles, more than respectable for an 18’ open boat with 132 square feet of sail.

        GANNET is certainly capable of thousand mile weeks—a 6 knot average is 1008 miles a week—and while I do not race others, I sometimes race myself, as I ended up doing on my fifth circumnavigation (I won), and one of the things that interests me about the coming voyage is whether I can make passages faster in GANNET than in my previous boats.  Also if she can bring off a rare 200 mile day.

        The limitation may be steering.  I am not going to sit at the tiller for hours, and if the tiller pilot can’t control the little sloop while surfing, I’ll have to back off.

        I’m looking forward to finding out.

        This is not about time.  It makes little difference if I complete an ocean passage a day or two faster or slower.  But about the quality of the experience, of feeling a boat sailing as well as she can.

        My congratulations to the crews of all three Moore 24s for their fine performance.

Evanston: 'A Capitol Ship'

        That we are taking the train to the sea caused a reader to remember a sea chanty that her father used to sing.  She sings it still.

        The most relevant lyrics are:

        I’m off for the morning train

        to cross the raging main.

        I’m off to my love with a boxing glove

        10,000 miles away.

        Three weeks from today we will actually be off on an afternoon train.  Sans boxing glove.  My love will be with me.  And I expect to sail more than 10,000 miles.  Details.  The spirit is right, and I thank Nancy for bringing “A Capital Ship” to my attention.

        The full lyrics are below.  If they remind you of Lewis Carroll, they should because the author, Charles E. Caryll, an American businessman who was born a hundred years before I and died in 1920, wrote, among other things, DAVY AND THE GOBLIN:  OR WHAT FOLLOWED AFTER READING, ‘ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND.’

        Here is a link to a YouTube video of a recording of the song.

       

A Capital Ship

Charles E. Caryll

            A capital ship for an ocean trip
            Was the "Walloping Window Blind"
            No wind that blew dismayed her crew
            Or troubled the captain's mind
            The man at the wheel was made to feel
            Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow
            Tho' it oft appeared when the gale had cleared
            That he'd been in his bunk below

            So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho
            A-roving I will go
            I'll stay no more on England's shore
            So let the music play-ay-ay
            I'm off for the morning train
            To cross the raging main
            I'm off to my love with a boxing glove
            10,000 miles away

            The bos'un's mate was very sedate
            Yet fond of amusement too
            He played hop-scotch with the starboard watch
            While the captain tickled the crew
            The gunner he was apparently mad
            For he sat on the after ra-ra-rail
            And fired salutes with the captain's boots
            In the teeth of a booming gale

            The captain sat on the commodore's hat
            And dined in a royal way
            Off pickles & figs & little roast pigs
            And gunners bread each day
            The cook was Dutch and behaved as such
            For the diet he served the crew-ew-ew
            Was a couple of tons of hot-cross buns
            Served up with sugar and glue

            Then we all fell ill as mariners will
            On a diet that's rough and crude
            And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook
            In a tub of his gluesome food
            All nautical pride we cast aside
            And we ran the vessel asho-o-ore
            On the Gulliby Isles where the poopoo smiles
            And the rubbily ubdugs roar

            Composed of sand was that favored land
            And trimmed with cinnamon straws
            And pink and blue was the pleasing hue
            Of the ticke-toe teaser's claws
            We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge
            And shot at the whistling bee-ee-ee
            While the rugabug bats wore waterproof hats
            As they dipped in the shining sea

            On rugabug bark from dawn till dark
            We dined till we all had grown
            Uncommonly shrunk when a Chinese junk
            Came up from the Torrible Zone
            She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care
            So we cherrily put to sea-ea-ea
            And we left all the crew of the junk to chew
            On the bark of the rubabug tree.

Evanston: open windows; packed

        Windows are open.  The first time this year.  This is a very big deal.  Even though the sky is overcast and it may soon rain and I’ll have to close them.

        I look down from our balcony and find buds on the limbs of the tree below.  Also, on a tree closer to the street, an indestructible plastic bag

that has effortlessly survived this most severe winter.

        Soon boats will be budding in Lake Michigan marinas.  But not quite yet.  North Point Marina sailing friends who are always among the first in the water and the last out, went up to Skipper Buds last weekend and anti-fouled and waxed the hull.  They intended to launch yesterday, but found ice floes still blocking the fairway.  Another week might not seem much; but it is to those who have been longing to be back on the water for months.

———

        For me time is accelerating, now that it is short.  There is increasing, not exactly excitement, but pleasant tension, a sense of heightened awareness, as felt by an athlete before a big event.

        On work days Carol’s alarm goes off at 5:30.  I, who do not like to be awakened by alarms, almost always wake up earlier.  These past few mornings I’ve come awake at 4, lay in bed for ten or twenty minutes, going over in my mind what I still have left to do, both here and in San Diego.  (This is not a contradiction of my recently noting that I had reduced my immediate to do list to zero.)   I do have to place orders for freeze dry food and JetBoil fuel about a week before we leave and a few other things.  

        This morning a rolling duffle bag I ordered to take gear on the train.  Several days ago I arranged the stuff I’ve collected:  waterproof bags and boxes, tarp, mesh snorkelingl gear bag, prescription face mask, some knives given to me that I could never take on airplanes, extra eneloop batteries, Zebralight, a backup Tripp Lite inverter, courtesy flags, watch cap, spare Torqeedo propeller, Columbia Omni-Heat fleece jacket, pants and gloves, two new pair of Levis; and measured to determine if it would all fit in the smaller of two sizes of rolling duffles available.  

        The bag was delivered at 11.  

        I had it packed by noon.  

        This is early, even for me.

        We don’t leave for three weeks and two days.

        Maybe I’m eager.

Evanston: a plague; a bottle; tides; an update

        Two readers wrote to ask what I think about the U. S. Navy ‘rescuing’ a family with small children  from a sailboat 900 miles off Mexico, particularly wondering why the husband did not remain aboard even if his wife and children needed to be removed.

        My response:

I saw a report on this on the evening news and it caused me to change station halfway though.  I disliked it on several levels:  the way the press handled it; that the man left the boat--in doing so he proved he shouldn't have been out there; a question as to whether the 'rescue' was even necessary; and the reported outrage expressed in 'social media' that a family would go offshore with small children.  A plague on all their houses.

———

        In THE GUARDIAN today is a piece about a message in a bottle being found in The Baltic 101 years after it was cast there and delivered to the granddaughter of the man who did so.

        Think of it bobbing since 1913, the year before WWI began.  Of all the ships and boats that passed.  All the people who lived and loved and fought and died on the surrounding land.  

        Ah, if only that bottle could talk.

———

        I am indebted to Jim on the west coast for a link to dramatic low tide/high tide photos along the British Coast.

———

        When I went back to check out Steve Earley’s photo that I added yesterday to the GANNET page, I realized that the paragraph above it needed updating, which has been done. 

        And will soon need to be done again.

Evanston: terrifying?; a Republican?; reduced; photo added

        I am indebted to Wayne for a link to an animation of shock waves from the April 1 earthquake in Chile.  

        I’ve watched it several times and find the patterns fascinating, particularly the echoes bouncing back toward the source and the confusion when the leading waves reach islands and shallower water as off New Zealand.

        Also interesting is that someone who has clearly been spending way too much time staring at artificial displays and has totally lost contact with the real world labels this ‘terrifying.’  

        I agree with Wayne that ‘terrific’ is better.

———

        The N.Y. TIMES recently ran three interesting charts—not nautical.

        They could lead to the conclusion that Barack Obama is a Republican.

———

        I have reduced the items on my immediate ‘to do’ list to zero by deciding not to do them.  This is efficient, effective, and satisfying.

———

        I added the above Steve Earley photo, for which I thank him, to the GANNET page.

       

Evanston: Ronnie Simpson update; Ambrose Bierce; 'W'; 'Y'.

        I emailed Ronnie yesterday and received a response this morning.  I also received from John a link that provides more details of the dismasting for which I thank him.

        I do not recall if Ronnie has a radio on MONGO, but I do know that he has an iPhone and was close enough to shore to telephone for assistance.

        In his email Ronnie said that he has found and bought a used mast that he can modify and is looking for a mainsail so he can keep going.  I wish him well.

        For those of you wondering, I am in agreement with Ambrose Bierce’s prescient definition of telephones included in Wednesday’s post and have yet to replace mine.  I do have aboard GANNET a handheld VHF with a range of eight or ten miles used to communicate with officials on entering foreign ports.

———

        I finished THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY yesterday.  Some definitions from ‘W’ and ‘Y’ are found below.  The dictionary does not include any words beginning with ‘X’ and I didn’t find any of those beginning with ‘Z’ of sufficient charm.

        The entire dictionary is worth reading.  There are many words I did not include here because the definitions are too long.  I recommend reading it as I did one letter a day.  Project Gutenberg has THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY available as a free download  in several formats.

        Ambrose Bierce deserves a greater reputation than he has, both as a wit, where he ranks near Mark Twain, and as a short story teller.  His CIVIL WAR STORIES are among the very best.

        Bierce disappeared in Mexico during the Revolution, and is the subject of a good novel, OLD GRINGO, by Carlos Fuentes, which was made into a pretty good film starring Gregory Peck, Jane Fonda, and a young Jimmy Smits.  

        I read the novel a long time ago.  We rewatched the film recently and found it entertaining, though in places a bit incoherent.

    From THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY:

        Wall Street:  a symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke. 

        war:  a by-product of the arts of peace. 

        webb:  an old sailor who was the World Wide Web when Bill Gates was still poor.  (Some authorities doubt that this definition was written by Ambrose Bierce.)

        wit:  the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out. 

        witch:  (1) any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil.  (2)  a beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil. 

        worms’-meat: the finished product of which we are the raw material. 

        year:  a period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

        yesterday:  the infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

Evanston: dismasted; 'U'; 'V'

        If you followed Ronnie Simpson on his passage from San Diego to Hawaii aboard his Cal 2-27, you know that he made it to Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, in twenty days.

        Four days later he left Hilo for an overnight sail to Maui.  On April 1 he set off again, but less than two hours later—if I interpret his positions correctly—sent a message from his tracking device:  MONGO dismasted off coast of Maui.  Trying to stabilize situation.  

        If you zoom in close enough and check the times, you will see that the map on his tracking page has connected the dots incorrectly.  What happened to him after the last position, about two hours after the dismasting, I do not know.  

        He was close to land, actually dangerously close when the mast came down, but his final position shows he had managed to move a bit farther from the shore.

        Losing your mast is a very big and expensive deal.  

        I assume he was uninsured.  Insurance companies have no interest in insuring solo sailors and old boats.

        When my rigging was coming unravelled on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, I estimated that losing the mast, rigging, furling gear, sails, would probably cost me at least $20,000, or about what I paid for the boat to begin with.  GANNET’s new mast, including what I paid the riggers, cost nearly as much as I paid for her.

        I trust that Ronnie and MONGO have made it back to the harbor.

        My thoughts and sympathy as a fellow sailor are with him.

———

        From THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY: 

            ultimatum:  in diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. 

            uxoriousness:  a perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.  (I must admit that this is a word I did not know.) 

            valor:  a soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope. 

            vanity:  the tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. 

            virtues:  certain abstentions. 

            vote:  the instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

———

       A month from right now we should be boarding the train to Los Angeles.

Evanston: listed; symmetries; 'Farewell to Florida'; 'T'

        I started to write:  As nature abhors a vacuum, I again have a list; but caught myself in time.  

        Nature, however defined, cannot ‘abhor’ anything.  Any more than seas can be ‘treacherous’, as a television talking head said of the area in the Southern Ocean being searched for the missing Malaysian airliner.  (And, naturally, he emphasized the 100’ waves.)  Or that mountains can  be ‘cruel’ as was claimed in the narration to a documentary we watched two evenings ago about a day when eleven climbers died on K2, the second highest mountain in the world.  Only people can be.

        The fallacy is pathetic in all meanings of the words.

        Readers of THE OPEN BOAT may recall my writing then, The sea is insensate, a blind fragment of the universe, and kills us not in rage, but with indifference, as casual byproducts of its own unknowable harmony. Rage would be easier to understand and to accept.

        Nevertheless with our return from Florida and the beginning of April, I do have a list.  Actually two.  Both short.

        I remembered that GANNET’s flares are about to reach expiration date and I have several details I need to take care in Evanston before I leave.

        So, again, ‘To Do’ and ‘To Buy.’  I felt the void.

———

        Symmetries.  Some chance.  Some intentional.

        As I have noted here before, when I sail next month on GANNET, I will be starting a few hundred yards/meters south of where I began the open boat voyage thirty-six years earlier, and heading out the same Mission Bay channel to the Pacific Ocean.

        When GANNET was being towed from Lake Michigan to San Diego in October 2012, she passed within a mile of the suburban Saint Louis home in which a half century earlier I had sat in my room, looking out over empty fields, dreaming of the ocean.

        Twenty years ago Carol and I had our picture taken standing on the stairs in the background of the second photo in Monday’s entry.  Last week we had another taken in the same place.

        And I just realized last evening that December 12 next year will be forty years since I first rounded Cape Horn.  Marking that anniversary in GANNET in those waters has a certain grace.  And the timing is right to sail from New Zealand.

———

        Also last evening I glanced through my newly downloaded Kindle edition of Wallace Stevens’ poems.  There were so many that are unfamiliar that I suspect that I had only selected poems before, not complete.

        I read a few whose titles caught my eye.

        You might enjoy, “Farewell to Florida.”

———

        So many photos have been taken recently showing me looking goofy that I have concluded that I do.  Sad.  Both that I do and that at my age I care.

        However, in an effort at damage control, I have just included one of the photos taken by Steve Earley on the Webb Chiles page of the photo section.

———

    From THE DEVILS’ DICTIONARY: 

        take:  to acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth. 

        telephone:  an invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. 

        telescope:  a device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. 

        truthful:  dumb and illiterate. 

        twice:  once too often.

        tsetse fly:  an African insect whose bite is commonly regarded as nature’s most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist.

Evanston: Holgaed; order in Key West; 'S'

        The above photo which looks as though it dates from before I was born was in fact taken in February by Topher, a professional film maker who lives here in the flatlands, but visited GANNET while he was in California working on a project.  He is experimenting with with a Holga defined by Wikipedia as “a medium format 120 film camera, made in Hong Kong, known for its low-fidelity aesthetic.”

        I like it.  

        Thanks, Topher.

———

        My photos of Key West brought a link from Kim to the poem, “The Idea of Order in Key West” by Wallace Stevens that I must have read because I had a copy of his COLLECTED WORKS on HAWKE, but had forgotten.

        Stevens was probably the only poet ever to be vice president of an insurance company; certainly he was the best.

        I’m not sure I understand the poem—or any other of Stevens’, except, maybe, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”  But I like many of them, including “Key West” and thank Kim for the link     

        After reading it I bought a Kindle edition of Stevens’ poems.

———

        From THE DEVILS’ DICTIONARY

            saint:  a dead sinner revised and edited. 

            saw:  a trite popular saying, or proverb. So-called because it makes its way into a wooden head. 

            Senate:  a body of elderly gentleman charged with high duties and misdemeanors. 

            sycophant:  one who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked.