The Sailboat Thread!

[CarlD]

Back on topic I'm looking for this inflatable to show up. Maybe my older boy and I can take it to a lake and try it out! Even kayaking in it should be fun.

But I've wanted to learn to sail for 12 years now, and only know just a little.

I've played with celestial navigation--it's really cool to figure out where you are with a watch and an almanac and a chart, not to mention a sextant. No GPS needed!

[Phillbo]

I'm a GPS / Autopilot snob on long passages( to me a long passage so far has only been about 2.5 days ) . Sextant is use as back up.

[sailork]

Carl, You might look around at some of the dingy class boats that are available. You can generally find working Sunfish and even larger boats for cheap (or even free..) if you watch craigslist.org etc. It's a great sport for kids because it's fun and there's a tremendous amount of physics and physical skill involved.

or you could buy a remote controlled sailboat and sail it around the pool..

[sailork]

Phillbo, we don't have a sextant or an autopilot on board. We're always racing or returning when we're offshore so there are bunches of people we can reach by VHF. The longest passage I've ever made was Galveston to South Padre and back by way of Aransas last year. It's probably over 1000 miles through the water. That was on somebody else's boat. The way I see it a J/105 is too wet and cramped for long passagemaking.

[CarlD]

"a remote controlled sailboat...."

That just doesn't quite cut it!

If you have a sextant as a backup, do you regularly practice with it to be sure you can do a sight-reduction? (correctly, that is!) If not, put the sextant up on eBay! I have a number of them. For a while you could buy aircraft periscope sextants (really octants) for as little as $50. The gummint paid about $2500/per for these in the '60s' and they were installed in B-52's. In Dale Brown's "Flight of The Old Dog" the hero, a bombadier, wants his sextant back...

The periscope sextants are incredibly beautiful pieces, with the 'scope section filled with nitrogen so it wouldn't condense on the inside when exposed to the brutally cold wind out the top of a B-52 at 40,000 feet!

Then there are the left-handed sextants--

But you can get a Davis plastic sextant for about $40 and can sail around the world with it--as long as you have an accurate watch and a current nautical almanac.

Or you can use ANY hand-held GPS. They all pump out Lat/Long and you can use that on a chart.

A really cool site to buy nav stuff is :
www.Celestaire.com Some stuff is horribly over-priced, but other stuff is really reasonable. I was poking around there when I saw the inflatable sailboat....Should arrive today!

[sailork]

I need to take one of the navigation classes the Coasties give down here. I suppose I've been a little too concerned about boat speed and not about safety...

[Phillbo]

I loved that book !! No, I have not practiced or even broken out the sextant in a couple years. Not much sailing lately. I did alot in the BVI for a while there. My father retired early and spent 12 years cruising on his 46' Choy Lee.

Lately I'm lucky to get a Charter with the Moorings out of La Paz MX. once a year.

I hope to change that soon and am shopping the docks of Guymas when possible. It's tough being a sailor in the desert



Besides, I've been spending too much time and money on my other hobbies

[CarlD]

"Emergency Navigation" is a great book--forgot the author's name.
There are lots of good beginning navigation books and some good videos.

William F. Buckley (yes, THAT Buckley) is an avid sailor and HIS video on celestial nav is very good--he goes for the Air Nav tables.

Then there's the Lighthouse one the begins....
"Murray"
"Murray, wake up!"
"Murray, wake up! I think we're lost....."

Plus there's that GREAT PBS video: Longitude, based on the wonderful book by Dava Sobel. It's almost like a Tom Clancy novel, it's so dramatic. I have pictures in my office at work of Harrison's first sea clock, the H1, that I took at The Old Observatory in Greenwich....before they yelled at me about using a flash... H1 to H4 are incredibly beautiful, and Harrison was such a genius--like the 2 bicycle makers who wanted to fly so they reinvented the science of aerodynamics--the Wrights. Or the guy who wanted to build an electric motor so he developed the laws of electro-magnetics!--Maxwell.

[Poolboyz]

You may want to consider a remote controlled boat that has a skimmer net attached to it! Pool cleaning was never so fun....I got it at a store called "Leslie's Pool supplies in Phoenix.....good luck..

[sailork]

I was thinking, remote controlled sailboats..

http://seagifts.com/orbmwracomos.html

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/sailboats.htm


There are international RC sailboat races as well. You could turn your eyeball jets upwards and put a fan or two beside the pool for a "Perfect Storm."