Also in this genre: Moxie Marlinspike (yes, that[1] Moxie Marlinspike)'s documentary about anarchist yacht-squatting, "Hold Fast" (2007) https://vimeo.com/15351476
Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
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Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#12Oh boy, this reminded me of The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone by Robin Lee Graham, which I randomly found and read in my school's library when I was 12 or 13. Still remember it 40+ yrs later.
I too loved this book, though my copy is titled _Dove_ - one of my all time favorites. My dad, who gave me the book, knew Robin during his own solo sailing days, and figured I could relate to a lot of what he wrote about. Sadly I never got a chance to meet him myself though.
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#13There was, a few years ago, a nascent blog and a project by a lone sailor to make some sort of daring, record-breaking solo trek from, like, SF bay to Hawai‘i. This gentleman had christened his extraordinarily tiny craft “Chubby Girl” perhaps ironically, and also named his blog after it, “Chubby Girl Cruising”.
Now for some reason apart from my proclivities as a landlubber hetero guy, I was intrigued enough to follow the blog’s progress as he prepared Chubby Girl and set sail. Sadly, he was nearly immediately turned back, by weather, mechanical failure, or some such.
I was disappointed and, while he apparently took down his blog right away, I continued to poke around to find out if he’d try again soon.
But the terrible reality of the Internet and search engines being what they are, the search term "chubby girl cruising" never again turned up any results relating to sailing or the ocean, and trust me, you don’t want to try it, even with SafeSearch engaged…
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#14A few years ago I was part of a national-level rescue chain, the chain that starts with a phonecall and snakes it way up through different first responders. The group I worked with were at pretty much the far end of the chain. I am all for people doing great things, but for every great-thing-doing long distance sailor there are a hundred rich idiots. 50ish, got rich, bought a boat and is out on the open ocean ... and something goes wrong.
Fall off your motorcycle and you need a ride to the hospital, maybe an ambulance. Fall off your horse or a cliff and you need some burly volunteers with good knees and strong backs to haul you to the nearest road. A little more extreme, say you are stuck up a big cliff, and you might get a 90-second ride in a small helicopter to the nearest road.
But when anything goes wrong out at sea, from a broken mast to a broken arm, you are in for the deluxe package. It starts with ships in the area diverting towards your position. Then a fixed-wing airplane the size of a small airliner launches to put eyes on you and coordinate the next bit: the granddaddy helicopter, the all-weather one with a winch, night vision, two pilots, two SAR techs, maybe three turbines and four or more blades the length of a bus. Think you are low-carbon because you are using a sail? Don't ask how many tons of fuel are spent keeping that helo in the air. (They often have to make multiple fuel stops during ocean rescues).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_MH-60_Jayhawk https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/helicopters/mili... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS_HC-144_Ocean_Sentry https://www.canada.ca/en/air-force/services/aircraft/cc-295....
My point: Don't romanticize the sea to the point that rich idiots start playing around out there. Always take it seriously and do not ever expect help. Always have backup plans for your backup plans.
Buy the EPIRB BEFORE you buy the boat. Buy the expensive one.
At least when Harrison Ford got rich he started buying and crashing light aircraft. He knew to crash on a golf course so the doctors didn't need to walk very far. (Not a joke. That happened.)
https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-course-venice-california...
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#15There was, a few years ago, a nascent blog and a project by a lone sailor to make some sort of daring, record-breaking solo trek from, like, SF bay to Hawai‘i. This gentleman had christened his extraordinarily tiny craft “Chubby Girl” perhaps ironically, and also named his blog after it, “Chubby Girl Cruising”. Now for some reason apart from my proclivities as a landlubber hetero guy, I was intrigued enough to follow…
Wil Spaul. He's in his mid 70s now and probably won't be trying again. AFAIK you can purchase chubby girl from him - it's still at the Berkeley marine center
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#16A few years ago I was part of a national-level rescue chain, the chain that starts with a phonecall and snakes it way up through different first responders. The group I worked with were at pretty much the far end of the chain. I am all for people doing great things, but for every great-thing-doing long distance sailor there are a hundred rich idiots. 50ish, got rich, bought a boat and is out on the open ocean ... and…
Seems like a good role for a drone rescue ship that targets the EPIRB location.
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#17A few years ago I was part of a national-level rescue chain, the chain that starts with a phonecall and snakes it way up through different first responders. The group I worked with were at pretty much the far end of the chain. I am all for people doing great things, but for every great-thing-doing long distance sailor there are a hundred rich idiots. 50ish, got rich, bought a boat and is out on the open ocean ... and…
Seems like a good role for a drone rescue ship that targets the EPIRB location.
Unfortunately drone companies have a habit of pivoting into defence before realising their initial civil intentions.
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#18A few years ago I was part of a national-level rescue chain, the chain that starts with a phonecall and snakes it way up through different first responders. The group I worked with were at pretty much the far end of the chain. I am all for people doing great things, but for every great-thing-doing long distance sailor there are a hundred rich idiots. 50ish, got rich, bought a boat and is out on the open ocean ... and…
Seems like a good role for a drone rescue ship that targets the EPIRB location.
And how fast is this drone ship? I bet slower than the helicopter. And how do you get people onboard? A drone with a robotic arm? Will it be like the claw game, but with wounded people being clawed up?
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#19Also in this genre: Moxie Marlinspike (yes, that[1] Moxie Marlinspike)'s documentary about anarchist yacht-squatting, "Hold Fast" (2007) https://vimeo.com/15351476 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike
Seems unlikely for there to be two different Moxies Marlinspike in any case, but appreciate your confirmation. Indeed his Wikipedia page didn’t need a disambiguation section.
Re: Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a good role for a drone rescue ship that targets the EPIRB location.
And how fast is this drone ship? I bet slower than the helicopter. And how do you get people onboard? A drone with a robotic arm? Will it be like the claw game, but with wounded people being clawed up?
Claw "game" (scam) machines have deliberately-weak grasps, designed to drop the item they've grabbed whenever the arm is jolted — and then it's jolted at least once, usually twice, in the process of bringing it to the output bin. They are designed to drop their packages, so that people will feed in more money.
I'm not saying a drone with a claw arm would be the right design. But if it turned out that that was the right design, it would be designed not to drop its "packages", as opposed to the claw machines where dropping the package is the intended result.