When I help built a Sailboat and spent the summer on it anchored off Marathon Key

While we did not build our 35-foot gaff-rigged sloop with a hinged mast from scratch as we started with a lifeboat’s hull from an ocean liner. We bought the hull at auction, I forget how much we, me and two of my friends, Buzzy Brown and Waine Thomas, paid for the hull, but it was a lot less than a new or used 35 sloop would have cost us. At the same auction, we bought a 65-foot boom and a 30-foot mast for the main boom and 10 foot one for the gaff that had come from a from scrapped sailboats.

We put the hull in dry dock, recocked it, put in a deck, as all we started with was a hull and no decking. Then we made a box mount for the mast about 10–15 feet back from the bow. cut a round hole in the center of the box which we had firmly attached to the hull. we then cut the mast into two pieces, the bottom piece about 9 feet long. But we did not cut it strat across, rather we cut halfway through in two places on opposite sides of the mast about 4 feet apart, and then cut down the center from one cut to the other cut. Before we did the cutting we drilled 4 2-inch holes in the mast, two on the top side and two on the bottom side, the holes started 6 inches above and below each side cut and were 6 inches apart. And right in the center of the cuts, we drilled another 2-inch hole. That held the center hinge pin which would never come to out., the other four were for locking bolts which we would remove to lower the mast, and reinsert when raising the mast back into its sailing position. The reason we wanted a hinged mast was that we were using the inland waters in the Florida Keas, and many of the bridges when you get further south are not drawbridges.

We bought a one lung gas engine for power and mounted it about the stern of the hull, cut a hole above the water line for the driveshaft we ran out the back to turn the screw. We attached a horn to the engine to blow to let drawbridge operators know we wanted passage.

To mount the mast we went under power to the bridge over US 1 and Buzz held it in position while Waine took it off the trailer we had used to carry it over with and with the help of two other friends, whose name I forget, lower the mast down to Buzz and I waiting on the boat below. We guided the mast into the hole in the mounting box, all the stay and turnbuckles were attached to the mast. All we had to do then was let the (now a boat) drift on its moring as we attached the stays to the hull and put tension on them.

We had two sets of jibs and mainsails made for the boat at a local sailmaker. The next day we went out on Biscayne Bay for our shakedown run, about an hour into the run we noticed that our deck boards were starting to float up off the deck, we pulled into the wind, dropped sails, and jumped overboard to see what was going on. a seam of caulking had come out from one of the bord cracks. We use our T-shirts to recaulk it with, and finished the trip, another 8 hours, without incident.

We spent that summer off Marathon Kea looking for artifacts from a Spanish Gallion that had sunk there back in the 1700s. We were using homemade airlift and hookah that we ran off the same compressor. The airlift we made from 6 inch PCP pile that we had cut off at a 45-degree angle. near the bottom, we cut a 1-inch hole and attached a 1 inch PCP pipe with a U joint. To that wee attached a garden hose that ran back up the compressor. The compressor would push air into the end of the 6 inch PCP pile and rush back to the surface carrying all the sand disturbed by the end of the pipe with it.

The hookah was constructed put of an SCUA breathing mask but attached to the compressor instead of a tank. We could spend hours and hours working the wreck without coming up to get a new tank. We would take turns working the wreck. Those on deck were to keep an eye on the gas-powered compressor and refill it as soon as it ran out of gas. One time when I was down working the wreck Wayne and Buzz decided to see how long it would take me to come up if they did not restart the compressor. In those days I could hold my breath just over 5 minutes, but that was when I was able to take a deep breath before I started holding it. Now, when you are breathing from a hookah you cannot take in any air faster than it will provide it. So when it stopped providing I stopped breathing, after about 2 minutes I start to wonder as that was about normal time for a restart. Then I took off my weight belt, about a hundred pounds needed to stay at the bottom, laid it across my breathing mask, and shot to the surface as fast as I could, they said through their laughter that I shot leg high out of the water. I got even, but I won’t go into that.

That summer we brought up two cannons, ten or more cannonballs, a whole lot of washers and spikes used to hold the ship together, but what paid for the trip was the bottle that we found.

How do you tell an Mechanical from an Electronic Engineer in the Bathroom?

                     Picture from Facebook, author unknown.

This reminds me of a question a Mechanical Engineer asked me way back when I worked for Elscent, an Israeli company, on their Translate/Rotate CAT Scanner Its design was such that to collect the data for an image it would first slide the X-Ray Tube on one side of the patent with the detector assembly on the other side. When it finished the transition it would rotate the whole gantry 72 degrees, and then slide the other way. It would do this 5 times to complete the data collection, and then re cock itself to it start position. The motion was hydraulic driving and the data collection as well as the motion control was all electronics.

Elcent used to assign both an Electronic (me) and Mechanical Engineer to service each of their CAT Scanners in operation. I worked a few years with a young Jew Mechanical Engineer from Haifa. Alas his name has escaped me some time back, but not the question he asked, “How do you tell an Mechanical from an Electronic Engineer in the bathroom?” “I am not sure” I answered. “Well”, he said, “The Electronic Engineer goes ahead and does his business, and then washes his hands, while the Mechanical Engineer washes his hand and then does his business.”

Abusive Relationships

Author Unknow

This meme making its rounds on Facebook reminds me of this guy I met in Hawaii at a free client way back when, I had gotten a dose of the clap (gonorrhea for those unfamiliar with the term, it was my one and only time), and while waiting to see the Doc this guy struck up a conversation with be by asking why I was in the clinic. After telling the reason for my discomfort, and explaining further that it was the first time that I had ever been striking, he told me that this was his 7th time in to have a treatment for the clap in that last 2 months.

With an explanation in my voice I said, boy you sure have back luck picking women. He replied that it was from the same woman each time. Exasperated I asked why he did not tell her and bring her in for treatment? He said, in a low voice, if I do that she might stop putting out for me. About that time I was called in, got my shot, and never saw him again.

The point being that people who choose to stay in bad relation get something from the relation to make it worth their while.  Being outside of that relation we can only judge what we see through our eyes, not through the eyes of the ones within the relation.

Theresa and I and the Mannheim Steamroller

Theresa and I went to the MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS concert at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte last night, 11/23/14. It turned into quite am adventure, rain in Biblical portions on the trip down, then I could not find the parking garage I had prepaid for and we parked 4 blocks over and 4 blocks down from the theater.. To add insult to injury, I turned the wrong way when we came out of the parking garage and we walked two blocks in the wrong direction until we went into a liquor store and asked for direction. He sent us back the way we had came, but he had misunderstood when we wanted to go and we ended up at the wrong theater, which was closed which we found out when we tried the door.

Fortunately, there was a guard on duty who walked over and unlocked the door to see what we wanted. We told him that we were there to see the Mannheim Steamroller, he informed us that we had arrived at the wrong place, but kindly gave us directions to the correct theater. 2 more blocks up and 2 more down, and we went trodden off in the rain, it was not a heavy rain like it had been on the trip down, thank God, but we got wet because I had left the umbrella in the car.

I will be lucky if Theresa ever goes anywhere with me again but in spite of all this we got to our seats, which were dead center in the top row balcony, just as the band was starting their first number. It was a very enjoyable performance mixed with a very creative use of lights and projections and movies being shown a large screen behind the band.

Now, the concert is over, and we have to find the place we left the car. I let Theresa take the lead on the search. We found the wrong theater without a problem, but this is where Theresa took us on a wild goose chase, by taking what she thought was a shortcut to the garage. It wasn’t. When she picked the block to turn left on I said that I thought is was one more down that we should make the turn, but since I had led us wrong to start with we would go her way. After about 10 minutes of walking she confessed that none of it looked familiar, and wanted to turn back and retrace out steps. I persuaded her to let us walk one further block to the left before we did all that walking, which was a good thing because as I was talking to some folks outside of a hotel to see if they could help us get our bearing Theresa espied our garage on the other side of the street.

We walked up to the car, paid the parking fee, and drove home in no rain. It was a very pleasant drive holding Theresa’s hand. As she was committed to a 5am trip we kissed goodnight and she drove home with my heart.

Compassion

Let me tell you a true story about a baby rabbit I stomped to death out of compassion when I was about 13. I was walking down this street that had no sidewalk, but did have a deep curb. I come upon the baby rabbit, only a few weeks old, who had gotten himself in the road, and could not climb out over the curb. It was in my idea to catch him, lift him over the curb, and set it free. 

With this in mind, I sped up to gain on him, licked split we were both running with me being the fastest by a little. When I had almost cough up with him, he stopped dead in his tracks, and before I could stop my foot struck him in the head, knocking out one of his eyes. He no longer tried to get away, I picked him up, and looked at his damaged eye as I contemplated what to do. 

I was not going to take on the burden of taking him home and trying to care for him, it was beyond my ability to give his that kind of care. I also knew that if I turned him loose that his changes of a slow, lingering painful death were much better than his surviving to adulthood. So I put him back on the road and stomped his real hard and went on home. 

I have killed many rabbit since then intentional, and not of them stay in my memory like this guy does.

-40 Degrees

Saying good morning to a pleasant foggy, drizzling morn, woke up to 50`, but I just read about an arctic blast dropping down into the States bringing -40` to Bismark. May the Lord give us enough to endure what every load we have to carry.  

Speaking of -40` I remember hitchhiking from Portsmouth, NH to Rochester, NY one spring and one of those arctic blasts dropped down for a visit bring -40` with it as me and a fellow Marine were on the road with a 72 hour pass in our pockets. It got so cold that the beer in out get-away-bag was freezing. So what could we do but hurry up and drink them before they froze so hard we could not. There we were on the side of the Turnpike, thumb out, and drinking slush ice beer in one of the worst blizzards hit that part of the world in years so early in spring.

The trees had already sent their sap up into their trunks and limbs, and as the cold set in it froze them, and with the freezing the sap expanded causing them to explode. When the smaller limbs started going off on either side of the highway it sounded just like a firefight on either side of us, and as the night went on and the bigger limbs started they sounded like mortars and Claymores going off. Then in the early morning the sap in the trunk has expanded enough to blow the whole tree down with a boom that sounded like a 155 artillery piece, The trees booming and crashing down and the limbs' cracking and popping it sounded like a Marine Division MLR (Main Line of Resistance) throwing everything it had at an assulat. The only thing missing was the light of a good firefight.

For it was pitch dark with the only lights coming from the occasional car or truck passing by. The snow was falling at over an inch and hour, and the wind was a whipping adding its howling to the chaos of the frozen trees exploding and dying. We should have frozen to death that Friday night, but the Good Lord did not see fit to take us that night, instead a car picked up and got right up behind a semi and follower inches from its back right on into Rochester.

That was a hard year for Maple Trees, over half of them died during that storm in that part of the world. I heard over the radio that it had dropped to 40 below during that night.  This is a link to Wikipedia's story about the storm I am talking about Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962.

The old mare and the new horse.

The old mare, Taz as her rider called her, looked out over her herd; it had been her herd for as long as she could remember. Sometimes it was larger than now, other times smaller, but always hers. New horses to be set straight about who was boss, and the constant reminders she had to keep giving the others kept her firmly in her job. While she could not count she knew exactly how many horses were in her herd, and just where they were most of the time.

The perks of being boss were few in a pasture, she got to eat from the hay feeder when she wished, drink when she wished, making anyone who might wish her spot to wait for her to vacate it. When she felt mean she could pick on anyone she wished, and woe to anyone who thought picking a fight with her was a good idea. She could, and did, have a buddy that she spent most of her pasture time with. Right how it was the Big Red, a large Sorrel gelding.

Then her rider returned with the trailer he had left with early that morning, and her attention left the herd completely and rested solely upon what was in the trailer. In the trailer was the new horse that had been living in her pasture for the last month. The rider had kept it separated from the rest of the horses, including herself, and they had only been able to become acquainted from across the driveway that separated the south pasture from the east dry lot.

Taz, along with all the other horses in her herd, ran to the fence and followed the taller as her rider pulled into the driveway. They nickered their salutations as the trailer stopped and the rider took the horse out and put it into the dry lot. After the rider had moved the trailer to in normal spot the herd ran up and down the fence line as the new horse did the same in the dry lot. She could tell there was something not the same with the new horse, it smelled different, and somehow it acted different. It did not make any differences in any case since he was over there and she was over here. What she did not know was that the new horse had left a stallion and came home a gelding.

She and the herd fell back into their normal routine, which was mostly eating. They would go out into the pasture and separate into singles and pairs to graze the grass, then go up to the shed with the round bail feeder in it where the rider always kept hay in it, no sooner would it be eaten up when he would put a new bail in the feeder. They would take their water from a large troth that the rider seldom lets go dry, even in the hottest weather, and never let freeze in the coldest of weather.

At times they would break into a wild run up and down the pasture and around the fence line. Knowing no bound in their limitations, running to the end of their desire only to rest and run again. As wild as any wild horse hey roam their pasture, fill their stomachs, fight their fights, and sleep as they will.

Running is a game they just loved to play before a thunder storm sets its wind and rain loose upon the pasture. And though they had shelter they were free to take, more often than not they would bunch up and stand in the rain with their backs to the wind. If you were to turn them loose upon a hundred thousand acres they would not live much different than how they live on their five, except for paying the rent.

Every now and then, sometimes more now than then, others times more then than now, the rider would come into the pasture and take some of them out of the pasture. Sometime they would stay near their pasture, others they would be loaded on the trailer and taken away. When this happens they never knew their fate, for each had taken one or more trailer rides that they did not end up where they had left, and had been introduced into a new herd.

They had all learned to become a different animal when they were put under tack. They all had learned their job, some better than others, but none as good as the old mare had. She and the old gray gelding, Gal, had been with him the longest. When she had come to live with him there was only this gilding to share his attention with.

They, together, had watched their rider clear, fence, and sow the pasture with grass. They has watched the shelters go up one by one, sometimes he would send more time working on his place then he did with them, but they knew that he would come back to them, and he would never let them go hungry or thirsty. And just what was that stuff he kept forcing them to swallow the short tubes he stunk into their mouths?

One by one her herd had grown, from the two that she was one of in, this last horse, making six, oh, and let her not forget the mule. When he had come to her pasture he had been kept separated from the rest of the herd too. She and the other four horses would, at times, run up and down the fence line across the driveway as the mule ran up and down his fence across the way. He did not keep by himself like this new horse was, her oldest pasture mate, the gray, had been put with him and they had budded up.

The mare did know how the gray and the mule had first been introduced but as it turned out the gray was just used as a device for the rider to catch the mule. The mule, Jim Bo as the rider called him, had been in her world for two years before he came to live with her. His scent would drift down to her every time the wind blew from the southeast. He had been born in a pasture less than half a mile away two years before he had come to be in her herd.

As soon as the mule had been weaned his owner sold his mother and kept him alone in his ten acre pasture. He had never had a halter on, never been taught any human relational skills, not that he would call them that, and had a great averse to being caught. After two days of the rider trying to get close enough to throw a rope on the wiry little mule he gave up and took the gray up to the pasture where the mule had lived all of its life, and mostly by itself.

The mule had only known one horse in its life, and that was its mother. Oh the great pleasure the mule remember from the time it had spent with its mother, running by her side, sleeping next to her, and, let him not forget, the milk she would let him suck from her tits. So it was quite natural that the mule though that Gal was his mother returned to him when the rider turned the gray loose in his pasture. Jim Bo ran to Gal’s side and imminently dropped his head down to avail himself of the milk that he just knew would be waiting for him just for the sucking.

Gal, the old gray had absolutely no idea what the hell was wrong with this horse that was not a horse, but he was going to have nothing to do with letting him, or any other animal, to try and suck on him. So with a quick side kick Gal took off around the pasture with the mule in hot pursuit. Every time he coughs up with Gal he would drop his head down and stick it under Jim Bo trying for the milk that was not there. Gal would stop, spin, and let go with a double barrel kick. Then run off as fast as he could. Jim Bo has been just as fast at Gal in the short range, but Gal was an Arabian and his ability to keep running finally wore the mule down.

After about two hours Jim Bo was resigned to the fact that he was not going to get any milk from Gal, and had even come to realize that Gal was not his mother. Still he found great pleasure in being by Gal’s side, and where ever Gal went the mule went too. This was just what the rider had known would happen.

The rider had left the two alone for three days then he went back to Jim Bo’s pasture and called Gal over, and Gal being not only the rider’s horse, but had a great regards for the rider (besides he just might have a treat), Gal walked up to the rider, and the rider slipped a halter over his head. Which he did not mind at all, maybe he would get to take his rider for a ride, Gal had taught his rider just about everything he knew about riding, and they rode hundreds of miles together in the eight years they had been together. Though how he rode the Mare much more than he did him, they still would go for long rides together.

But a ride was not in the cards today, instead the rider just led Gal (that is short for Gallivant, incase you are wondering) down to the barn and into a large stall. Jim Bo would not leave his new friend’s side so he walked right into the trap. As soon as the rider, Gal, and Jim Bo were in the stall Jim Bo’s owner, who was not a rider, closed the stall gate on them. In no time at all Jim Bo found himself with a halted on his head, and a lead rope attached to that.

The gate was open and Jim Bo walked for the first time in his life with a rope on him to hinder his chosen direction and to force him in the direction the rider wanted him to go, and he did not like it at all! And as soon as he cleared the stall he took off, jerking the rider off his feet and dragging him up the pasture. Had it not been for the Jim Bo’s owner, a big man, being able to catch up with the runaway mule and dragging rider he might still be running around that pasture for the rider was not about to let go of the rope that had taken so long for him to get on the mule. Well make that long story short Jim Bo came to accept the rope and let the rider lead him to Taz’s pasture.

About two weeks after the rider had brought the new horse, a Dun he calls Doc, back and putting him in the dry lot he took Doc from the dry lot and turned him loose in the main pasture with Taz’s herd.