An inspirational commencement speech and life’s guide. Worth the 20 minutes it takes to listen to it.
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An inspirational commencement speech and life’s guide. Worth the 20 minutes it takes to listen to it.
Wood stoves for traditional sailboats
Navigator Wood Stoves: For safety reasons, the stoves should not be used with propane or on a gasoline-powered boat.
The iron stoves are cast in the northeastern United States and then shipped in sections to Navigator Stoves (NS) on Orcas Islands. The stoves are sold as plain iron with a traditional stove polish, but a customer can opt to add one of six porcelain enamels -grey, black, mint, deep mariner blue, dark green, or classic barn red.
NS prepares, polishes, and smooths the iron on each stove at his workshop, and then tweaks and assembles those ordered as polished iron. Stoves that are ordered with the porcelain coating are sent to the Midwest for coating, then flat-packed back to NS for polishing, tweaking, and assembly. Lead times vary from one week to eight weeks, depending on availability.
All three stoves are designed to burn natural wood and charcoal. The two smallest models are best for heating 300 square feet or less. The largest model, the Halibut, is able to burn coal. The stoves are not intended for use with any other fuel sources. For use in warmer months, Navigator has designed alcohol drop-in burners. The drop-in burner literally drops into the stove top and burns denatured alcohol. The burner element is self-pressurizing and is located in the cast-bronze burner housing to minimize fuel spills. One 2-ounce filling will burn for 20 minutes. Running in simmer mode, the burn time is doubled. Tests show it takes 8 minutes to boil a liter of water. The alcohol can be refilled for longer cook times.
Navigator Stoves also sells many of the accessories associated with installing and maintaining a wood burning stove, including stove pipes, deck heads, and heat shielding. Heat shielding can be a critical issue, and Navigator offers custom-made shielding panels made from either 20-gauge stainless steel or 16-ounce copper.
Sardine
The smallest and most popular model, the Sardine is a mere 12 by 12 by 11 inches, and weighs 35 pounds. The heat output is 7,500 to 18,000 BTUs.
Navigator Stoves suggests using this rule of thumb for determining required BTU: 15 x volume of space to heat = required BTUs. If extreme cold temperatures are expected, one might want to use a factor of 20. This compact Sardine is best suited for small boats or sleeping cabins aboard larger vessels. It is two-thirds the size of the Little Cod and costs $699 for plain iron and $1,199 for the porcelain enamel option.
Little Cod
First produced circa 1917, this solid-fuel stove was initially designed to keep fishermen warm and well fed as they jigged for cod. Simple and reliable, it is economical to run and maintain. It is intended for use in the galley, cabin, or pilothouse, or small spaces on land. By adding one or two of the alcohol drop-ins, it can essentially replace any alcohol stove onboard. The Little Cod measures approximately 13 by 18 by 14 inches and weighs 55 pounds. It produces 10,000 to 28,000 BTUs. It has a stainless-steel sea rail to keep cook pots in place, and has holes in the legs for securing stove to a platform. It is priced at $1,125 for iron and $1,675 with porcelain or $1,875 for red porcelain.
Halibut
The Halibut has cast-bronze sea rails and corner posts. It has a glass firebox door, stainless-steel ash pan and oven rack, an oven thermometer, and a Halibut relief on the door. The Halibut doesn’t come up to temperatures as fast as the little stoves, but it does offer the oven for onboard cooking of bread, potatoes, and pies. It can also burn coal, whereas the smaller stoves are designed for wood and charcoal only. The platform size for the Halibut is 26 inches wide minimum, and 18 inches deep. The oven is 9 by 9 by 8 inches, and the stove weighs 175 pounds. The approximate heat output is 25,000 to 35,000 BTUs. The stove costs $2,850 with porcelain.
Herring Prototype
Navigator Stoves is also currently working on a diesel/ biodiesel prototype stove. It is intended to be 28 inches tall with a 12-by-12-inch footprint, and weigh 55 pounds. The Herring will have a glass-plate front and a herring relief on the front plate. It is designed with a “blue flame” natural draft burner from Europe and no fan or electricity is required. Tests by Navigator have shown a very clean, steady burn. The expected BTU rating is 16,000. Navigator is also working on a design for a water heating loop.
Conclusion
The stoves can be installed by an involved do-it-yourselfer with the lions share of the time dedicated to thinking and planning, rather than installing.
Rogue waves
Rogue waves
Rogue waves—enigmatic giants of the sea—were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.
Mariners have known for centuries what researchers have documented only in recent decades: The ocean is a far more dangerous place than common sense would suggest. Data-driven researchers long struggled to square sailors’ tales of monstrous “rogue” waves with the expectation that wave heights vary like human heights — clustering around an average with a few outliers dotting the thin tails of a bell curve. Sure, you might get a wave twice as tall as its neighbors in theory, but you’d have to watch the seas for a long time.
If you are a sailor read this for sure:
https://getpocket.com/read/3121587471
Various marine tonnage definitions
What is the weight of your boat I see it used in both long tons (2200) and short tons (2000#) A boat is recorded on the documentation as 13 tons, but that is 26,000 lbs, is that wrong? Did you use long or short tons on the documentation? A documentation person did that for me decades ago. Then an article turns around and says my keel is 9 tons alone. Well, that is short tons. Some big boats have recorded weights in tons that are a few tons more than my keel weight.
https://www.gjenvick.com/OceanTravel/ShipTonnage/1932-06-28-ShipTonnageExplained.html
New Marine Fire Prevention Tools
Practical Sailor tests new portable and fixed, automated fire extinguishers for sailboats.
Drew Frye
Published: March 27, 2020
excerpt: Water cools by evaporation. CO2 suffocates. Dry chemical removes fuel by coating it with ammonium phosphate particles. Since then, fire extinguishing theory has evolved into a fire tetrahedron, adding chain reaction to the group. Pyrotechnically generated aerosol fire suppressants (PGA)—the generic name for these flare-style extinguishers—break the chain reactions that sustain a fire by chemically neutralizing reactive intermediates with a cloud of potassium particles. These are formed in a flame, along with other inert byproducts.
Follow the link to find out more about these new type extinguishers.
The Foundational Four
The Foundational Four on sailboat applications:
Mineral Spirits. Good for thinning varnish and enamels, cleaning brushes, wiping up stray polyurethane sealants, and general cleanup.
Xylene. Reduces most topside paints, bottom paint, removes smudges, and is just the thing for removing fender and black heel marks from the topsides and deck.
Acetone. Nothing dries faster, works well with polyester resins.
Vinegar. Don’t use epoxy without it.
Working from home can lead to neck and back pain if you don’t have the right desk or chair. Try these stretches to ease back pain or help relax your neck and shoulders.
Death on the High Seas
A ruling Monday by a Los Angeles federal judge, if followed by others, it could offer the cruise line something of a safe harbor under the Death on the High Seas Act. The century-old federal law limits payouts for survivors to “pecuniary” damages. #High-Seas-Act #HighSeasAct
A hardly used blog
I have been hardly using blog lately & I am not sure why? Perhaps it is too complicated to login or the two factor authentication or perhaps my sailing has taken a nose dive. I see all the sailing Youtubers and all their fancy new electronic gear that I can only dream of and lose heart. I will try to be more active here and post interesting stuff.
The occasional thoughts and deeds of a sailor turned 7 today!
Women of Sail Age
Women of the Age of Sail In 1817, Rose de Freycinet, a 23-year-old woman from France, disguised herself as a man to see the world aboard the French corvette Uranie. Women faced unique challenges during the Age of Sail, and first-hand accounts from de Freycinet and others are part of a new collection, The Sea Journal: Seafarers’ Sketchbooks.
Flettner Rotor
Finnish technology company Norsepower has confirmed fuel savings of more than 8 percent from a trial of its Rotor Sails onboard the Maersk Tankers product tanker, Maersk Pelican.
The company’s Rotor Sails are a modern version of a Flettner Rotor, a type of spinning cylinder that uses the Magnus effect to harness wind power to help propel a ship and enhance fuel savings. The whole article can be found at gCaptain link.
Additional information can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_rotor
Climate Crisis Illustrated
by
SIERRA Staff
Ahab straddles the tip of a gliding whale. A lone fisherman sits on a bed of dissolving ice. Into an endless sea of bobbling plastic, a young boy casts out a line into a suffocated sliver of water. These are just some of the disturbing climate renderings from Barcelona-based street artist Pejac. In these provocative drawings, human and natural worlds collide with absurd and destructive consequences that reveal an all-too-inexorable truth: The Anthropocene will spell the unraveling of both if we don't act now.
Yin - Yang or “For every action there is and equal and opposite reaction” by Charlie.
The occasional thoughts and deeds of a sailor turned 6 today!
Horseshoe Crab
What is horseshoe crab blood worth? $15000 per quart.
The Blood of the Crab
Horseshoe Crab blood is an irreplaceable medical marvel, and biomedical companies are bleeding thousands of crabs and throwing them back in the ocean. This causes a lot of stress on the crab but no one really knows how much and there are few regulations governing the capture, bleeding and release (after a couple of days): Remember they breathe underwater. Read the article, it is not too long.
Jones Act seaman injury
The U.S. Supreme Court has resolved split circuit court decision sin the personal injury case of Dutra Group v. Batterton, ruling that an injured Jones Act seaman cannot recover punitive damages on a common-law maritime claim of unseaworthiness.
In a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court rejected deckhand Christopher Batterton’s bid to lodge a claim for punitive damages in a lawsuit alleging the Dutra Group-owned and operated vessel he was working on lacked a particular exhaust mechanism that caused a hatch cover to blow open, crushing Batterton’s hand.
Anchoring Rights - legal and courtesy
1. The first boat to arrive has the right to anchor as she pleases. This includes considerable scope and multiple anchors. While some practices may be considered discourteous in a crowded harbor, there is nothing in the case law limiting this, and opinions about multiple anchors, scope, and seamanship vary according to the boat, geometry, holding ground, and expected weather.
2. Later arrivals are required to keep clear. They are not specifically required to stay outside of the swing circle, but court decisions for ships state that “ample space [must be given]; that is, taking into consideration all the exigencies likely to arise, either by reason of the character of the harbor, the conditions of the weather, and the season of the year, no danger of collision would arise….” The ruling goes on to explain that you should not cut it close and that safety factors are required.
3. Communication is encouraged; “Furthermore, the vessel that anchored first shall warn the one who anchored last that the berth chosen will foul the former’s berth.” While this is prudent for ships, it is often impractical for recreational boats. The first arrival may be ashore or asleep. It’s not pleasant to ask another boat to move after they have placed their anchor. No one enjoys a confrontation, and “ample space” is subject to interpretation. If all boats are anchored by a single hook at similar scope they should swing together, but the amount of scope and number anchors each boat has deployed may not be obvious.
4. If you begin to drag, you are no longer anchored and give up all rights. “A vessel shall be found at fault … if it fails to shift anchorage when dragging dangerously close to another anchored vessel.” Obvious enough. But often the first arrival starts to drag and then blames those around him for anchoring too closely. If he dragged only 10-30 feet, perhaps he has a point. In soft mud bottoms, anchors can move considerable distances during the process of setting more deeply or responding to a wind shift. Later arrivals are expected to take this into account as part of the safety factor (see item 2 above).
5. If you increase scope or lay a second anchor, you have changed your berth and may be considered to have re-anchored, giving up any prior rights if this adjustment changes the geometry of your berth and contributes to a collision.
6. If there has been a collision or is imminent risk of collision, all parties have the responsibility to act to reduce damage. This might include deploying fenders, increasing scope, kedging away, or even abandoning your ground tackle and getting underway. You should always have several practiced plans in mind.
by Drew Frye technical editor for Practical Sailor and author of Rigging Modern Anchors . He also blogs at his website www.blogspot.saildelmarva.com.