Are cats happy........................?

My girlfriend Tana has a cat, TAWNY, who has been part of her life for nine years.

Needless to say, Tana, my GF, is very very fond of her long time companion....their time together is longer than ours. Its a given that if we finally do get out of here in March or April 2014 to go cruising, Tawny can't go!!!! There's no doubt that this cat has been happy here with her mommy....
                                                              

 

                                                 Gourmet chow..........
                                                 

Comfortable perch to survey her domain.....

Yummy treats.........

Cat grass........

A lair to stalk bugs and lizards-she's declawed so her damage is minimal!

A great place to sun bathe.........

 

Exotic place to stretch out........

Ahhh.....life is good....BTW I'm not fat..I'm fluffy!!

 

Tana is fervently working to try and find Tawny a new home....

one that, hopefully, will accommodate her lifestyle...!

 

Our dilemma with finding a new home for a loved one before leaving illustrates one of the sadder vignettes of "chucking it all and going cruising"

 

Take care my friends...peace to you all

A genuine "REEF KNOCKER"..........!

A new boat slid into a vacant slip on K-dock today.........But, before I continue, lets jump into the ole' time machine between our ears and travel back to when this narrator first got into sailing.....back in those days "Men were Men, Women were Women, Dogs were Dogs, Children were, well, you know,  ....you get the idea here"...during these years cruising boats were a little different than they are now. Cruising World and Sail Magazine actually printed stories about real, ordinary people on real ordinary boats doing remarkable voyages in  Pearson 28's and 32's, Westsail 32's, Ingrid 38's, Tahiti Ketch 30's, Southern Cross 28's and 31's, Dreadnought's 32's,  Golden Hind 31's, Vertue 26's, Nor Sea 27's, Bristol Channel Cutter 28's are just a few that immediately come to mind. Companies, now long gone, manufactured and sold all kinds of stuff for we wannabe cruisers, ABI, New Found Metals, Thomas Foulkes. The books of, to name just a few,  Lynn and Larry Pardey and  Hal Roth and Bernard Motissier and Eric and Susan Hiscock and  Wayne Carpenter and Donald Street fueled our imaginations and dreams of one day "chucking it" and heading for the open horizons. Back in those days the RDF and Loran networks were the primary electronic gadgetry for finding yourself....a small boat radar cost $10,000.
Offshore sailors knew how to use a sextant and dead reckoning to navigate. Most of the stuff that the sailing mags of today tell us that we  must have in order to successfully cruise had not even been invented yet!!
Don't get me wrong here! I'm for progress. There is no Luddite blood in my veins.....new materials coupled with new design technology has dramatically altered the conventional wisdom of cruising boats......I embrace the new and fully support the rethinking of  historical standards in just about everything; however, realizing that I'm not smart enough to figure any of this stuff out and being old school, its hard for me to understand how a 42 foot, deep fin keeled, high aspect rig boat that displaces less the my 28 foot ZOSHA, which is a full-on cruising boat, can be considered to be safe at sea.......? In my formative sailing days for cruising boats... it was about heft. Not size but heft...... Heft? what the heck is heft you must be asking yourself.....I can see it in your eyes......well let me tell you.... it is something that is rugged and powerful and of substantial bulk for its size.....something that inspires security and imparts to one  the feeling security and the  ability to handle whatever comes along....something that is fearlessness in the face of adversity.......

ZOSHA

"Now where ya goin' with this buddy" you must be thinking by now!

Ok....lets travel back to present day Galveston Bay, Seabrook Shipyard Marina, K-dock....... Today a boat with HEFT sled into an empty slip a few down from me. This boat is what we used to call in the old days

a reef knocker........!

Massive scantlings, mean looking, a boat that looks like it can tame the wildest tempest....a full on, hard core, no question about it....tough vessel  that was designed and built for offshore voyaging.....nothing else...not for cheese and white Zinfandel with neighbors on the cockpit table while watching fireworks, not for racing around some inflatable buoys on the bay, not for hanging lights all over it for the Christmas parade....one purpose for this boat.....offshore sailing.

I talked to the guy who owns and built the boat. His name is Erwin. He is a kinda young middle age guy who told me that he will retire in a couple years and wants to sail the world.....sound familiar? He gave me permission to post photos of his boat on this blog. That's all I know...don't like to pry into other people's business.

The boat is a steel variation of the venerable Bruce Roberts Offshore 44 and displaces about 26,000-29,000 lbs. Believe me folks when I tell you its a real honest to goodness reef knocker!!!!!

Take a look:

There are houses around here that don't have this much space in their backyards!

NO WOOD......!!! Whoo Hoo!!

Now this is GROUND TACKLE....60 pound CQR on 3/8" chain!

 

There must be some majestic windlass under there!!?!!

 Swim platform?....dingy storage? sundeck? Whatever it is, its cool!

The steering cockpit........look at the size of that winch pad!!!!!

 

The relaxing cockpit directly forward of the steering station....notice the watertight door/companionway hatch

Nice, fair steel work....this guy did an awesome job of building the hull!

 

You could land a small plane on this deck!!!

I just love a nice butt don't you?

 

Well there she is... an awesome vessel. A bona fide"reef knocker" I know that all of us extend our collective best wishes to Erwin and hope that his sailing dreams come to reality soon.

 

You guys take care. I'll have ZOSHAS Tour #3 up soon.

Until next time, peace to you my friends.....

 

 

 

 

 

Shocking.................!

A few weeks ago, Tana and myself attended a bar b que/ family get together with her mom and dad and a couple of  brothers who are local. Now her brothers are interesting guys. They are accomplished professional musicians, ex-outlaw bikers, drop outs, philosophers, survivalists, critics of all that capitalists hold near and dear and gun toting, open commentators of just about everything; they are the kinda guys you want on your side in the event of a ZOMBIE WAR or a RED DAWN situation; aside from this, they are all around tolerable sorts. OH!!, I forgot to mention they are also professional electricians.......this is where serendipity enters the picture..........

It just so happens that Zosha needs some new electrical circuits and some old ones rewired. Well, what do we Pavlov type-trained sailors do when we need some MARINIZED STUFF ?? We go to West Marine.....oh oh....hold it a minute....my wallet is twitching and gyrating ....it always does this when I mention the.....WM word.......OK.....we can continue now.....
Not being an accomplished electrician nor knowledgeable about the secrets that they hold so close like Masonic Rituals.....and after a coupla Busch Lights and a chicken wing or two, I asked these guys...."is there any difference between AC and DC wire? For you guys out there that know the answer to this.....all I can say is ...."gimmie a break, I didn't know" Well, I expected to be laughed off by these guys with that rolling eyes dumb ass look that the possessors of proprietary knowledge reserve for the uninitiated but these guys are pretty cool and just  retorted in unison....
"S__ __ T no dude....wire is wire" ......My point is coming.....hang in there readers......

At this point I explained what I needed to rewire on Zosha and that the jobs would take about 100' of duplex wire that West Marine.....oh oh, that twitching in my back pocket again..... sells 100 foot spools for $109.99 FOR 12GA duplex or $74.99 for 14GA Duplex or $159.99 for 12GA Triplex or $109.99 for 14GA Triplex

 

Triplex above sold be WM-Duplex below-

 As soon as they found out that these were 12 volt, low amp circuits, they informed me that "S__ __ T  Dude you could use speaker wire for those circuits" .......running lights, foredeck, steaming, anchor, and spreader lights. Speaker wire!!! "Yeah dude...that will work fine" 12 Gauge speaker wire is 24 cents/ft, 14 Gauge wire is 12 cents/ft.   Mmmmm very interesting...... I thought.....I've just been let in to the foyer of secret electrician stuff" ......

"The point is coming.....don't bail on me now" .............

After reflecting on this a while, my thinking was that the exterior covering of speaker wire might not be robust enough to endure the physical punishment inherent in the aforementioned applications like banging around inside the mast.   Mmmmmm....what to do?? .....It came to me in a dream.....the one right before Tana dressed up in a CHER costume and the other one of me winning an Oyster 65 at the Annapolis Boat Show.

OUTDOOR EXTENSION CORD!!!!!! A 100 foot triplex 14 gauge outdoor extension cord is $39.99 at Harbor Freight, 12GA is $64.99.....if you can get past the orange color, you have just saved a ton of money on wire......The longest extension cord  that I have found to date is 100'....  the14 GA is more than adequate wire size for most 12 volt low amp draw applications . On larger boats with longer wire runs, 12GA will work.  Directly below is 100" of Harbor Freight 12GA.........under that 100" 14GA......

Home Depot has 100 foot 14GA outdoor extension cords for $39.97 and 12 GA for $69.97...........    14GA below......

12 GA above...................

 



As a dyed in the wool capitalist and card carrying pro-business advocate, I believe all entrepreneurial ventures are entitled to make a profit. The issue with me is when does a respectable and ethical profit morph into a price that no reasonable man will tolerate and force oneself into searching for righteous substitutes? I have no vendetta against West Marine....."be still my beating wallet"......they are just so darned high for so many things that I've reached the point that in all good conscious I must search out ways to circumvent the need to spend my money there. You all know that sometimes WM is the only option. After all it is a specialty marine products company. "OK OK, enough rant dude" you must be thinking......



Until next time.....take care my friends and peace to you all....

Westsail 28 Tour #2- The Head

Hello all- In this visit to ZOSHA our Westsail 28 we are going to take a look at the head which is on the starboard side directly aft of the main
V-berth bulkhead........

 

Take a look..........................................................

 

Plenty of storage.....large bin next to sink and two cabinets on hull bulkhead.....

 

The big white thing in the left corner of the cabinet is the pump out house for the holding tank. Notice those wonderful, no longer manufactured, ABI solid Bronze ports.....this is a six inch diameter with screen...... also notice the AC outlet.......

 

The "takin' care of business" fixture.....this is a new install.....so far #1 only!

Good shot of the SS sink and Finnspray hand pump.....Westsail used only the top of the line components.....look at that 35 year old SS sink.....NO rust,  No discoloration......even the formica is in perfect shape like the day it was installed......!

My wrinkle checker.....look into it every day to see if I still recognize myself.....sometimes I swear it's my grandpa looking back at me ! Oh well, you know what John Barrymore said don't you? ..."you know you're getting old when your dreams become regrets" I'm not there yet.....got plenty of dreams left.....and I know you do too....!!! Notice the 35 year old overhead reflected in the mirror......it's perfect and the wonderful no longer manufactured ABI DC light.....

Some W28 owners install a shower in here.....the grate sits over a sump that has a drain into the bilge.....a shower in here would work for Tana because she is a diminutive 5'1" GODDESS that could maneuver in here easily.....Now myself, I am 5'11" , 200 plus pounds of solid barley, malt, and hops and the shower probably wouldn't work for me...The teak plywood and trim throughout the boat is magnificent and still perfect.....a shower in here would probably mess that up...so, for us, no shower....we'll use a marina shower when available and a sun shower at anchor or just run around skanky.....

Another classy Westsail touch.....bronze hooks for hanging stuff on the head bulkhead......

We lose alot of storage under the sink to the necessary pumps and plumbing that is used to move the head waste around...ZOSHA'S head system accommodates direct overboard discharge and/or discharge into a 13 gallon holding tank which has yet to be used that can then be pumped overboard or offloaded at a pump out facility through a deck fitting.

The only modification we would make is to put a fan in here.....a Cafarmo 757

 

Well, that's it guys.....ZOSHAS head.....we think it's pretty cool for a 28 foot boat.....you'all take care and I'll have the next tour up and running in a few days....it will be the settee/ dinette area......

Peace to you all......