As I write, the Ulua project is at the 1 year and 14 day mark. This weekend we glassed the vaka and applied two coats of epoxy. The shot below is a teaser for the end result. More details after the break…
The world’s last 350 North Atlantic right whales live along the East Coast. Collisions with ships are a deadly hazard, but new listening buoys are helping. Here’s how.
The green dots on this map show locations of buoys listening for endangered right whales. If you see a red whale icon instead, it means a buoy at that location has heard a right whale within the last 24 hours. This information is made available to ship captains, who can slow to 10 knots and post a lookout to avoid a collision.
http://listenforwhales.org/ via SA
Man that Xterra roof looks short. Ulua length = 18feet, beam with ama attached ~ 6 feet, i.e. somewhat larger than the car. Time for a RackandRoll?
Spotted on March 8, this little yellow sportscar driving down the launch ramp at Redwood City, into the water, and off! In spite of all the spray and noise, she moved very slowly, no more than 3 kts. About 90 min later, the Searavens spotted this vessel headed back to the dock, under tow from a jetski. We had our hands a bit full at the time, reaching at 5 kts and dipping the rail, so sorry there is not photo of that. It was pretty fun to blow past the stinkpotter though!
It’s so quiet on Cruising Anarchy these days I am almost starting to miss DT…
On May 18, 2008 history will be made when up to 1,000,000 pirates will march forth toward the sea in San Francisco, California. This is a time to affirm our love of pirates, parrots and even wooden peg legs.
Never before have pirates joined together peacefully in such large numbers to celebrate… well… being pirates.
This momentous occasion also happens to coincide with the annual Bay to Breakers event which will be held on the same day, at the same time and on the same route as us pirates will take on our journey to the ocean. This means we will probably blend in with all the other regular folks who might happen to be dressed as pirates anyway.
From the ISA:
The Dublin Bay Mermaid is undoubtedly John Kearney’s most famous and enduring design with almost 200 boats built since it was designed in the 1930’s. These beautiful seaworthy boats are sailed extensively around Ireland and still enjoy a highly competitive racing scene. They are one of the few National Classes in Ireland that hold a week long championships for the much coveted Mermaid Trophy presented to the class by Norman Hodgson in the late 1950’s.
From the Class website:
In this age of production-line boats it is comforting to note that the traditional wooden sailing boat still remains popular among DBSC sailors. With the Twenty Ones in eclipse - a temporary phenomenon, no doubt - and the venerable Water Wags racing now under their own burgee in Dun Laoghaire Harbour, DBSC’s oldest wooden boat class has to be the Dublin Bay Mermaid.
The beauty above was recently for sale. Current production is in GRP, with many owners electing to fit out themselves.
- Class website
- Mermaids at the Dublin Bay Sailing Club
- “Mermaid Makeover” at the Irish Sailing Association
- When you visit Dublin, stay here – they have their own mermaid for guests’ use!
Father who flew Jolly Roger for daughter’s birthday prosecuted by council
A fireman is facing legal action for flying a £5 Jolly Roger outside his house. David Waterman, 41, is being threatened with court proceedings after a neighbour complained about the skull and crossbones. The father of four erected the 5ft by 3ft flag for his daughter’s pirate-themed eighth birthday party and is determined to keep it. He says pursuing him to remove it is a “disgraceful” waste of taxpayers’ money.
Mr Waterman is now paying £95 to apply for advertising consent for the flag in Purcells Close, Ashtead, Surrey but a senior officer from Mole Valley council has warned him it is unlikely to be granted.
In a letter dated 21 April, seven weeks after the flag was unfurled, the official said he had seven days to remove it.
Mr Waterman, who works at Battersea fire station, said: “I find it ridiculous that the council are fighting me over this.
“It’s a £5 flag, not hurting anyone, and they’re probably spending hundreds of pounds of our cash getting me to take it down. That could be spent on improving the local area — it’s disgraceful.”
He said other residents’ complaints about the flag were the latest salvo in a dispute over his children playing outside. [full story]
All this in the U.K. while treating real pirates with kid gloves? The mind reels.
A classic couple of bifurcated beauties. You will want to read this fascinating essay.
The ship was laden with tons of copper ingots, elephant tusks, gold coins — and cannons to fend off pirates lurking off Africa some five centuries ago.
An archaeologist displays shipwreck loot: a Spanish gold coin, three Portuguese silver coins and brass dividers.
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It had nothing to protect it from the fierce weather off a particularly bleak stretch of inhospitable coast. It sank, only to be found last month by men seeking other treasure.
“If you’re mining on the coast, sooner or later you’ll find a wreck,” archaeologist Dieter Noli, who is researching the ship’s origins, said in an interview Thursday, describing De Beers geologists stumbling on the wreck April 1 as they prospected for diamonds off Namibia’s southwest coast.
Namdeb Diamond Corp., a joint venture of the government of Namibia and De Beers, had cleared and drained a stretch of seabed, building an earthen wall to keep the water out so geologists could work.
Noli said one of the geologists first saw a few ingots, but had no idea what they were. Then they found what looked like cannon barrels, but weren’t sure.
The geologists stopped the brutal earth-moving work of searching for diamonds and sent photos to Noli, who had done research in the Namibian desert since his university days in Cape Town in the mid-1980s and since 1996 has advised De Beers on the archaeological impact of its operations in Namibia.
The find “was what I’d been waiting for for 20 years,” Noli said. “Understandably, I was pretty excited. I still am.”
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