Cardboard boat racing

My reactions were a bit mixed when I first saw the cardboard vessel designs, and they ranged from "That should work", to "Oh dear, what were they thinking". But much to my surprise, all of the boats actually worked surprisingly well, and a lot of thought had gone into what essentially was a construction period of not more than a day. This is one competitive, large, and very unique family.

Bird eating spiders, and the "World's largest air boat"

 "It will be fun Dexter, you might see 1000lb feral boars with tusks of death, spiders big enough to eat birds, poisonous snakes, and the place is really swampy." I note the incredulous look of polite disdain cross young Dexter's face as his somewhat odd uncle tries to pump him up about a day trip to Myakka River State Park. " And oh yeah, we are going to ride on the world's largest air boat, and see lots of man eating alligators," Okay that's better, I suspect he thinks, there might actually be an event here that will enliven what he already knows will be a dreary day with a bunch of adults talking about nature and other dull stuff.

As far as I can tell, and I have done some real digging, the Myakka Maiden is the world's largest air boat. It's 52' long with a beam of 16', and caries up to 73 passengers. Like its sister ship, the Gator Gal (50'), both are plywood flat bottomed West System-esque constructed vessels, and USCG certified. Despite the captain's very interesting, and informative dialog about the flora and fauna of the area, what most passengers really want to see is Florida's official state pet, the alligator, hopefully rending some poor victim into smaller bite sized pieces. Alligators are thick as thieves in the lake, and you will see many of them. Little toy dogs (I call these breeds generically "Kickme's") would last about 60 seconds doing their yipping on the banks of this lake.

Elite Craft's entrails removed, the vessel is gutted.

The boat has truly been ripped apart because it was not perfect. Close to perfect yes, but not perfect. Like an itch in-between your shoulder blades you can't quite reach, it has been nagging at Sandy until he finally snapped. This boat is now 21 years old, and is most likely the best original Elite Craft in existence. I have done a couple of stories about this striking vessel, here, and here also, and it has now been gutted

When I say gutted, I really mean gutted. Out came seats, carpeting, engine, shaft, rudder, all through holes and the list goes on and on.

Out of the closet

Mothra vs the Installer, the BFTV

I clamber onto the boat, and nearly trip over a large box containing a new TV. Alright, this must be the new replacement for the cockpit, and I push it off to the side. I go down into the salon, and upon seeing the box there, I can feel my very soul being sucked into the ether. It's huge, it's heavy, it's the television equivalent of Mothra. My instructions had been clearly stated, we measured, it will fit, make it work. Like most of us that aren't effete intellectual snobs, I watch TV, and to keep marital bliss, I don't alway get to watch exactly want I want. But come on now, do you really need to sit in the dark, and pretend you're in an Imax theater on your boat? Oh well, it's not my role in life to tell people what I think, unless asked, and then it is a rare occasion I don't have an opinion.

Carefree learning for kids, and some adults

And now for the numbers. Carefree Learner is 41' LOA, was built out of plywood and epoxy in 1978 by 96 students from Sarasota high school at no taxpayer expense, and with a lot of help from the community. She has carried over a whopping 174,000 passengers consisting of 6th grade students, Sarasota high school marine science students, and local community organizations over the past 32 years.

My excursion starts with watching the arrival at the dock of Carefree Learner loaded down with a 6th grade class. I was surprised at how orderly the disembarking was, despite the obvious enthusiasm, and energy of the passengers. Life jackets are collected, water bottles found, thanks given to the captains, and the little urchins are herded off by their teachers to a yellow bus to continue their ongoing incarceration in a state mandated institution. Carefree Learner also sports a very unique marine feature, a not oft used 'Time Out" bench back at the helm.

Blivet: 6" of chart plotter in a 4" space

This was a true greenfield project. This is Mike and Sandy's McAdaragh's shiny new Cruisers 415 MY. Mike wants a Garmin 7215 to go into the left panel, and there isn't quite enough space either in depth, or width to make it fit, or is there?  

We had a left side panel location that was both not quite wide enough, and on the right side not quite deep enough, so what's a body to do? The answer is the Garmin 7215 unit has to be lifted two inches, and some accommodation made for the small amount of extra width we need. Departing from the usual sequence of events, we will jump to show you the solution first, and then we will use Mister Peabody's "Wayback" machine to show you how it was done.

"Holy Boat" Batman

There is a season, Turn Turn Turn. And a time for every boat under heaven.....

I blink my eyes, and look again. At the end of the dock is a church docking, and it's a real church that is docking. I have done a lot of checking, and this one of three powered floating ship churches in the world. There are a lot of floating church chapels, and some power boats that hold services, but only three real boat churches.

A new wind is a blowing

Google's Blogger suffered an outage for about a day, much to my distress. I had posted the little non sequitur piece about the subliminal images I spotted, and the following day, it was gone. After a few brief paranoid thoughts about Nazi frogmen hacking into my blog, and seeing I could not access the editor, I realized that it wasn't FOX's minions who were responsible, but Google's cloudy system. I did suffer some minor P in the A losses because of the outage, and it has resulted in my doing a long overdue full back up of the blog and templates.

It's not about boats, but I found this interesting, and a bit creepy

The oven buzzer went off, and Kate froze the DVR, and this is what was on the screen. This image was inserted several times in an American Idol commercial that was aired in the middle of a Glee episode that played on May 10 at 8:00 pm. I stepped through the commercial with the DVR in slow motion and took some pics of the many images. The funny thing about the images was they had already appeared twice at that time, and we hadn't consciously seen them. But when you know it is there, you can see it very briefly flash. 

The three hour tour and the forces of nature

F5 tornado's, tsunami's, and earthquakes, just for starters are words I would uses to describe Dani, along with her friends Katelyn, Carla, Staci, and Ann. Dani is a bartender at my local watering hole Gecko's. She is a Ringling School of Art graduate, and a true force of nature to say the least. As a developing side job, she has started "Brutus Bites", and manufactures tasty (our two greyhounds love them) natural dog treats.


To promote "Brutus Bites" at my suggestion she has a newly created blog titled The adventures of Brutus. As her blog will tell you, she is a self proclaimed "Thirty-some single white female seeking refuge from an alpha male English bulldog". Dani has a very funny stream of consciousness style of writing, and doesn't pay much attention to formal grammar, but it is fun to read, and the arty part of the site is clever. By the way I have met Brutus many times, and he is a lovely dog, but every encounter is a Turner and Hooch moment resulting in substantial quantities of drool, and a visit to the washing machine.

Classifieds

Grey Goose, a 50' Nordhavn Pilothouse makeover

For starters, I love this boat. It's a stunning Nordhavn 50' pilot house trawler, and it's substantially built to say the very least. The short summary of the work done was to update aging electronics at the helm, provide better integration of the systems, and to end up with hopefully a factory new appearance. This little story as much about the process, as the technology.


Welcome to "Grey Goose", she is beautiful, close to perfect in all respects, and has been meticulously maintained by her owner Don Payzant.  

Sewell tames the VGA beast

This is the "Beast", the unholy mother of all over sized cables on a boat. Its huge square head defies passing through almost any hole or conduit in the vessel. Did I use the word conduit, and boat in one sentence? My apologies for that oxymoronic faux pas. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what chart plotter manufacturers were thinking when they adopted VGA technology to feed images to monitors and TV's, but they sure didn't give the cabling end of this technology a whole lot of thought.  

The Murse, black is the new pink. Tools of the trade.

I carried my black net book bag into the bar to download some software I needed, and did not want to forget. I was met with snorts of derision from the women in my life. Dani, our artsy and crafty clever bartender grins said "nice clutch Bill", Kate says "it's his murse" (man purse). Ann snickers, Christine laughs, and Carla just looks aghast, and says "oh my, you need a messenger bag", and immediately starts to search on her Ipad for one. Sigh, it seems the installer is not the fashion plate he thought he was. It was just a black bag, to carry the small computer, and the associated things I use every day. How little I knew that the world of high fashion would take such umbrage.

Daiquiri Blender

Date 17 MAR 11 12:20 pm 

From: Richard Fogghi

To: Bill Bishop

Subject: Daiquiri Blender

Dear Mr. Bishop,

I have purchased a Daiquiri blender for my Volupturaptor 40' go fast boat and must have a 12 volt outlet installed before the weekend. Please advise me of the exact cost. The boat is located at the downtown marina in slip C-20

Thank you, Dick

Date 17 MAR 11 3:42pm 

From: Bill Bishop

To: Richard Fogghi

Subject: Re: Daiquiri Blender

Dear Dick,

I visited your boat. I can see you're a man of continental tastes, and it has quite the colorful, and furry interior. I assume you would want the outlet installed in what passes for a galley on your boat. I need to know how many amps your new blender requires. The cabin wiring just supports the red LED cabin lights, the rope lighting around the bed, and the stereo. It certainly can't take the additional load of a blender. 

Regards, Bill

The marine installer's glossary

Amateur - Criminy, 20 amps, and he used wire nuts and lamp cord for god's sake.

Arcy sparky - Oops!  

Atocha - Any overpowered, loud, purposeless vessel piloted by someone with an Atocha coin hanging on a gold chain from their neck. Vessels are also often populated with scantly clad augmented females, tunes, and lots of liquor.
Bilge pump - a small inexpensive plastic pump, often mounted in a very difficult area  to access, that requires charged batteries.

Proprietary isn't propriety

It must be by design that technology in life is never simple, and in some cases it can be infuriatingly excruciating. This little adventure follows Jerry's efforts to interface an outboard motor via NMEA 2000 to his chart plotter, and my efforts to assist him. I also want to mention at the onset that Jerry is not slow witted, and did his homework well. It was just the insidious nuances that have bit him. 


Having studied the problem in advance, he ordered the correct interface cables from the outboard manufacturer, only to discover the engine's interface cable would not actually plug into the motor's port. The other end of the cable has some sort of happy colored connector that won't plug into his chart plotter. So off Jerry goes to the forums for help, and he gets it. There are both adapters, and cut and splice options out there, and he buys them. Jerry installs the new parts, turns on the motor, and waits with hopeful expectations, but sadly no data appears. I get a call.

Seafair Grand Luxe

Last week I had my head stuck under a console for about a couple of hours, and when I climbed out from underneath, and looked around. My keen powers of observation said something is different here, and how in the world did this vessel even get into the marina? To my knowledge, I think this is the largest vessel to ever port into Sarasota. Let me now introduce you to the Seafair "Grand Luxe". The popular press calls it a yacht, and I won't dispel that term, but in reality, this vessel is a purpose designed floating art exposition venue of substantial proportions. 

Press reports of Installers demise inaccurate.

An ugly cold has sidelined me for the past ten days or so, causing the MIR presses to grind to a halt. Despite purported reports in the Weekly World News that this dire infection I acquired was caused by Bat Boy, I think it was really a result of too much fresh air, and a lack of sufficient quantities of Woodford's special reserve cold and flu disinfectant. I will have the presses started again by Monday or soonest. Tnx Bill

That boat ain't right, a primer.

I'm currently doing a typical job installing electronics on a new boat. It's a 26' T-top center console boat, and it embodies all of the things I wish the owner had looked for before buying it. This boat is mid range priced, and is really no better, or worse than most of them. I'm not going to show you a picture of it, but I have gathered some examples from other boats to demonstrate some of the issues I perennially complain about in boats of this size and style.


I have never actually timed it, but I think that pulling wires from A to B is at least half of the cost of installing electronics, and in many cases, even more so. So it begs the question, why do boat builders make this task so difficult? The other issue involved is why builders seem to have such a difficult time anticipating what kind of equipment their buyers might install, and provide some accommodation for it. This really shouldn't be too hard to do, or are there cosmic forces at work here I just can't fathom? So today I'm talking to the buyers of these boats, and the intent is to help you avoid the worst of these problems in advance, or at least know what the warts will be when you buy your new toy.

So let's start with the T-top, and what to look for. Ninety degree pulls should be avoided if possible, and where you find one, you will typically find two. These turns are difficult to make with wiring. So stand back, and imagine you, yes you, will have to pull a 1/2" radar cable from the electronics box up top, and into the console. You can then also think about how you are going to install the missing pull wire in the first place. Long hemostats, shop vac, magnets, a skyhook?

Clamp Clips, a really good idea

It never takes long to have the inevitable occur to my clothes. Boats are rife with sharp objects, but outside of the damage caused to my skin by tie wraps, there is no doubt the hose clamp is the number one destroyer of clothes. Like the scars on my hands, I have just learned to accept the fact that damage to my working wardrobe, is an odd sort of badge of honor. It's kind of like seeing a boater in scuffed up boat shoes, you know he or she really boats. That person with the shiny new looking pair, perhaps not so much. 

A customer service grumble

Two bloody hours on the phone, multiple bad transfers, endless repetition of the same information, representatives who are absolutely clueless about their product, and a huge effort by a normally quiescent installer to keep his temper. I do know that the machine you end up taking to doesn't care, but at times I all think that we all want to yell at it, just to make us feel better. But it's like kicking the tire of a broken down car, with the likely end result being a broken toe, and a still malfunctioning auto.