Delivered LD to Grand Haven finally yesterday. Sailed out in a cool ice fog. Picture below from shore - you can just make out the Muskegon Lighthouse in the lower left corner. Light wind on my nose for most of the trip made for a slow go of it, but it was a beautiful day.
Passed my father-in-law in his little Hatteras dingy making the reverse transit to his winter storage - that's usually part of son-in-law duty, but I was otherwise occupied. Res Ispa ain't got nothin' on the Dawg... except another 38 tons of displacement. Luckily he didn't nail the twin 650 diesels till well astern.
Superstition has always played a large role in sailors’ lives, and no doubt always will. There is still so much about the sea, its moods, and its inhabitants that is unexplained or incomprehensible that even today it would seem foolish, if not irresponsible, to ignore the superstitious practices of our forebears. That’s why it’s considered unlucky to paint a boat blue or green, the colors of the sea. In ancient times, boats were believed to have their own souls (inherited, incidentally, from human sacrifices) and could not presume to identify themselves with the sea or any of the gods who managed its affairs. Punishment would surely follow any boat discovered to have been masquerading under false colors. Modern skeptics will no doubt scoff at such patent nonsense, but there will always be many sailors who will abide by old superstitions—if only to quell those primordial feelings of un-ease. And why not? Sailors need all the luck they can get at sea, and heeding the time-honored warnings of yore seems a reasonably convenient way to earn it— and score points for the black box.See also Black Box Theory; Figureheads; Sailing on Friday; Unlucky Names.
On a similar note, hopefully "Lucky" Dawg isn't causing ire in the depths:
"Beware of naming your boat after fearsome creatures
Just as there are unlucky colors, there are also unlucky names for boats. A vessel with a name that is too presumptuous has long been believed to attract bad luck. Presumptuous names are those that challenge the sea or the wind, especially those that boast about beating the elements and surviving their meanest blows. To call a boat Sea Conqueror or Hurricane Tamer is to tempt the fates. The gods of the wind and sea are all-powerful, and they like boat names to be suitably humble. You may recall from Greek mythology that the most important of the Titans, the vengeful Kronos, cut off his father’s genitals with a sickle and threw them into the sea. You can probably imagine how Neptune, god the sea, felt about that. Yet, in 1912, the British White Star steamship company was foolish enough to name its new Atlantic liner Titanic. Not only that, but it claimed she was unsinkable, and it launched her without a proper naming ceremony, thus depriving the gods of their share of the usual libation. Little wonder she was doomed. In the 2001 edition of The Mariner’s Book of Days, author Peter Spectre says the all-time favorite names for ships are Mary and Elizabeth. He warns that to avoid bad luck, you shouldn’t name a vessel after any of the following:
storms: Hurricane, Gale, Cyclone
fearsome creatures of the deep: Kraken, Octopus, Serpent
Projects in the hopper - I'm at about 60% on the skill-cluelessness coefficients for all of them:
re-glassing the hole I drilled in the keel at haul-out
(this one I understand pretty completely)
electric and manual bilge pump system
(I have some drawings and have read a lot here about this. I'm investigating how the actual pump stays secure at the bottom of the bilge. Cutting any holes in the boat makes me nervous. Cutting the holes before I splash seems to make more safety-sense. Wish me luck)
sealing leaky cabin windows
(I am certain that the fix for this is on these pages. The dribbling leaks continually threaten my dashing interior cushions with mold and that isn't good.)
fixing the two spots pictured in post #33 http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/s...8&postcount=33
(I am a little leery on grinding/sanding these - but looking at others' overhauls points out the fact that anything can be repaired with fiberglass work. How deep, how wide, how to rematch, etc. Again the answer is here or in Don Casey literature on the shelf. The crazing evident in the pictures is fairly widespread. I'll need to figure out if that is a repainting issue or a sand the whole deck issue...)
wiring upgrades
(greater battery capacity, hardwired GPS, stereo, etc. AA batteries are a pain and not very environmentally sensitive. I ordered Casey's electrical systems book over the winter, but it doesn't address outboard systems - clearly anyway. I imagine I can interpolate battery issues for inboards to outboard uses.)
I am only telling you this for some external accountability to get busy! So, I am setting about making a project-completion plan and reading lots of old posts.
(p.s. After all this time, I just noticed that there is a spell-check option here. Mark Twain said something along the lines of "I can't respect a man who can't spell any word at least three different ways." Mr. Twain would have a lot of respect for me.)
Last edited by Lucky Dawg; 04-03-2008 at 06:39 PM.
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