Catch 22

Yossarian: Is Orr crazy?

Doc: Of course he is. He has to be crazy to keep flying after all his close calls he's had.

Yossarian: Why can't you ground him?

Doc: I can, but he has to ask me.

Yossarian: That's all he's gottta do to be grounded?

Doc: That's all.

Yossarian: Then you can ground him?

Doc: No. Then I cannot ground him.

Yossarian: Aha!

Doc: There's a catch.

Yossarian: A catch?

Doc: Sure. Catch 22. Anyone who want's to get out of combat isn't really crazy. so I can't ground him.

Yossarian: Ok, let me see if I've got it straight. In order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy. And I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy anymore, and I have to keep flying.

Doc: You got it, that's Catch 22.

Yossarian: That's some catch, that Catch 22.

Doc: It's the best there is.

What's wrong with this picture?

It's not often I have allowed my visage to appear here. In fact it's only the second time. I'm not shy and retiring by any means, but nowadays when I stare in the mirror, I'm thinking "Well blow me down", I'm looking more, and more like Popeye every day. I'm also reminded of that Saturday Night Live skit, "Whose More Grizzled? I really liked, maybe a little too much, the show's grand prize of "Salted meats, and a bottle of Rebel Yell whiskey". How's that for being "more" grizzled. Getting old isn't for sissies you know. My client Jim Hoyt, thought the picture would be worthy, and he took it. Although it certainly doesn't enhance my sense of inherent infallibility, but at the time it was funny. So take a look at the two shiny new Garmin units, and tell me what's wrong with the picture.

It's the most wonderful, and dangerous time of the year

"The TV won't turn on", she said, "Could you please see what's going on." "Funny I thought, it worked last week." I know this because I had just installed a KVH satellite TV system on the boat, and had checked everything out. I said, "I'll stop by and look at it." 

Alien nuts

The comet had been captured eons ago by the the sun's gravity, and has been orbiting the sun ever since. On one orbit it passed near the earth, and a few spores locked in the ice of the comet's tail are captured by earths gravity and start to orbit the new planet. Millions of years pass as the spores are ever pulled deeper into the earth's gravity well, and eventually they start on a slow but steady decent to the surface. The spores alight in a field of exposed raw iron ore in what will eventually be northern Minnesota, and following their programming they move into the crystalline matrix of the iron, and start to multiply. They are alien evil incarnate, with endless patience. Eventually the planet's biped inhabitants take their giant earth movers and excavate the iron ore. Powerful  machines crush the ore into powder, magnets separate the iron and roll it into small balls. The balls are sent to a foundry, and are melted into billets, with one of them still carrying the inorganic alien spores. The billet is sold to a manufacturer who makes stainless steel nuts. The spores are now embedded in thousand of stainless steel nuts, and their long wait is almost over. Destruction of all life on planet earth is their goal, and it is now within their reach.

The Installer's inside voice

Happy Tryptophan day. This is a decidedly odd piece of fancy, even by my standards. Boat safely this holiday if your boat isn't in it's winter wrapper yet. 

A tale of two trim tabs

It's right, it's wrong, or it's gray. In this case it was wrong, and it was grayish on the wrong side of the fence, which meant it worked only for a while. Installing trim tabs are not difficult because things can only go where they go, in theory. This boat has a pocket built into the hull that the trim tab retracts into. If I was installing it, I would have attached the tab to the boat, and then bolt the fully retracted ram to the tab. You lift the whole assembly up, and use a pencil, or marking device of your choice to mark the three ram screw holes. Drill the holes, and then use the template to mark and drill the hole for the hydraulic tube. This is not hard to do at all, I've done it many time with notable success. So looking at the picture below it worked perfectly, no matter how the plant worker went about it. But something went awry at the factory when the other trim tab was installed.

Failure to communicate

The urgency was palpable in the service writers voice on the phone. "Could you please go and fix this guy's problem". "What's wrong." I said. "Well he needs a software upgrade on his C-120, he has a cut radar cable, and the boat has to leave tomorrow." "Alright" I said looking at my watch, I will see what I can do". It's nearly 3:00 on Friday afternoon. I pack up my stuff and head to the marina. The boat is a larger walk a round, and the owner meets me with the cut cable in his hand. "What's up with this?" I think. I start to look around, and I climb up onto the deck and survey the hardtop. I'm no rocket scientist, but my keen eyes observe that the radar isn't there, and I start to have the dawning epiphany there is more to this than I was told.

Chalk it up to.... well chalk I guess

The two greyhounds girls are heaved into the back of the land trawler, (spelled Kate's Tracker) and off we go to meet some friends at the Sarasota Chalk Festival. We were lucky that a client had an office near the festival we could park at, and this was a good thing because about 200,000 people attended the seven day event. It proves that if something is fun to do, and it's free, people will come in droves, and they did. We all find each other, and I ask if anyone sees a boat related picture, call me and tell me where it is. Because of the crowds, and the size of the event it was difficult to see all of it in one day. There were more 250 artists participating in the event, and they used a lot of pavement. 

I won't say the 3D pavement art art was the highlight of the festival, but it was certainly the big attention getter. It was stunning to see the drawings literally exploding out of, or into the pavement. The 3D street painting technique is a form of anamorphosis, or "Slant Art" developed by artist/architect Kurt Wenner. The Terracotta Legoman painting above is nearly completed, and it took four artists headed by Peter Westerink 5 1/2 days to complete. One of the most interesting things about this form of street art is that it can only be properly seen from one specific vantage point. By clicking here you can see a series of photographs showing the construction of the Legoman piece, and note how unrecognizable the image is if you look at it from the other side. There is a lot of cool mathematical plane projection going on here. 

KVH M1 101

Marinas and yacht clubs are slowly learning that providing some sort of dockside cable television service to their customers is getting increasingly more difficult, and complex. The switch to digital cable systems more than ever before, now requires a digital receiver box to be installed in a home, or boat for each television. But short of tornadoes, landslides, or sink holes in Florida, your house doesn't typically travel, your boat does. The equipment cable providers give you is based on a home installation scenario. You know the type, you can get behind your TV and plug and play all of the cables, in air conditioning, without sweating or bleeding. On a boat this is much different.

A local yacht club is discovering how painful this is becoming. Their Comcast system now requires digital tuner boxes for each television to receive the channels. That's not quite the truth, the first 24 channels of very basic cable is still available for now, but for most cable TV suppliers a box of some sort is required. So here is the catch, if you install your local vendors box in your boat, and you travel to another marina with another cable TV vendor, your box won't work with their system. This problem is going to get worse, and never better. I do have a suggestion for marinas. With a good quality digital on air antenna, and an amplifier system you could provide in most urban areas 20, to 30 or more digital high quality free local channels to your boaters. The capital cost is low, and you can get rid of those costly cable TV bills.

A good option for boaters that cruise, and who want broad channel options is a satellite marine TV system such as the KVH M1 seen below.

Look back up at me in an old spicy way

Hello boaters, look down at your panel, and then back up to mine, now back to your panel, now back to mine. Sadly your panel isn't mine, but if you used acrylics, instead of those other poor choices, your panels could look like mine.

Five chart plotters installed in one day, a new world record

I know you're thinking this installer leads a glamorous life always attending store openings, conferences, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, and passing my Grey Poupon to the Bentley next to me. But in the real world most days are just spent grinding it out. Today I am upgrading a Garmin 5212, installing a couple of cable TV boxes, and finishing a KVH M1 satellite  system install (I'm writing a 101 piece on it). But every now and then I get something interesting, and different to do. This is the case with the systems you see mounted below. 

Form ever follows function

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression, 

That form ever follows function. This is the law.

Architect Louis Sullivan, 1896  

The term Modernism generally applies more to architectural, and industrial design, but for this discussion, we will apply it to boats. So let's behold the hammer below. Despite its somewhat battered appearance, to my eye it is a graceful, and beautifully designed object, completely devoid of any ornamentation, and whose design has been refined over the ages. This versatile tools pounds nails, the curved shape allow nails to be pulled and planks levered up. It's mass gives the head substantial impact force. It is used by almost all tradesmen for varying needs, and can also be used as an effective weapon. This is a well designed, elegant machine whose every facet serves some purpose, and it also provides some heft to the phrase, "When reason fails, force prevails".   

Signs of fall in Florida

For many years I lived on the north side of 43 degrees latitude, and you knew without a doubt that fall had arrived. The signs were crystalline, like scraping frost off the windshield in the morning, getting the boat put on its cradle and winterized, and seeing all of the plants up and die leaving a freezing bleak skeletal Cocytus like landscape that will soon be covered in frozen precipitation that lasts for months on end. That nostalgic postcard crap only lasts for about two weeks, then you have to get rid of all of the leaves, order firewood, hunker down, and watch your tan go away.  I still have some shoes with salt line stains on them.

Mourning field

Sunday, February 7th 2010 The "Longboat Key News"


"According to Longboat Key Police, there was a “Lights Out” boarding of all the boats anchored between Cortez and the south end of Longboat Key recently. Seventeen boats were boarded by the Longboat Police, Bradenton Beach Police, the Coast Guard as well as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection officers and Florida Fish and Wildlife officers, all checking for drugs, outstanding warrants, proper licenses, and proper handling of sewage." (Editors note: US Customs officers were also involved)

Apparently nothing of magnitude was found during the raid, at least that was noteworthy in police reports, or the press. How much fun would that have been for a transient cruiser passing through to have assorted armed law enforcement agencies rooting through your vessel in the middle of the night. Certainly this should give all of us food for thought, and it begs the point that many Florida communities are not boat friendly at all, and NIMBY rules the waves.

Waveblade, the barnacle eater

Wandering into the local West Marine store I noticed a beat up skiff loaded with barnacles parked near the front door, and a tall lanky Captain Nick Benge sporting a squid like looking machine that is effortlessly shearing barnacles off the boat, and it's motor's lower unit. I stop and gawk. I have fortunately had only the very occasional opportunity to scrape the extremely tenacious Mr. barnacle off hulls, and it was real work. I am now watching Nick blow them off of the hull using one hand, and talking to me at the same time using the the new destroyer of barnacles, the Waveblade. 

I have been in enough marinas to know the drill. The travel lift picks up the boat coming in for a bottom job, a pressure washer is used to clean the hull, and to remove most of the offending marine denizens, and then some poor guy has to scrape, blast, or sand the remaining barnacles, and their bases off. This is a hard, tedious, and mind numbing task. The scrapers often end up removing bottom paint, and scratching up the hull, and I have often seen barnacle bases buried under bottom paint. Watching someone do this with one hand, barely working, was an enlightening event. 

Birthday II

The blog has turned two, which in boat years is about 99. The year started out with a bang, and a lesson. The first story of the second year was 120 Seconds, and it got a lot of attention on the forums. The lesson learned is that attempting to defend yourself in the wild west of Internet forum land is often like pouring gasoline on a fire. I now rarely comment, and my skin is much thicker.

The no wire pull zone

You are traveling through another bad dimension, a dimension of not only frustration and ire, but of mind. A journey into a horrific land whose boundaries are that of poor workmanship. That's a signpost ahead, your next stop, the "No Wire Pull Zone".

It's a hot day, and the air is as still as death. The wire fish slides effortlessly through the small hole and heads up the pipe, and then stops with a clink. The installer wipes the sweat from his brow, backs the fish off a bit, and tries again. Clink, and again clink. A flash of fear crosses the installers face as he nervously tries again and again to push the wire fish into the abyss. Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. The installers sense of foreboding, builds to a peak and he screams in terror, for he now knows he has entered the "No Wire Pull Zone".

The 2011 NMEA conference

This was the first time I had been to a NMEA conference, and I was there because I had been given the honor of being one of the three judges that would decide what new marine electronics product would be awarded the 2011 NMEA Industry Technology Award. Below are fellow judges Tim Queeney, (front) editor of Ocean Navigator magazine, and Ben Ellison, (back) Bonnier's electronics editor most notably Yachting, and Cruising World magazines, and publisher of, Panbo, The Marine Electronics Weblog. This was most august company indeed for this humble installer to work with.

Hole in none

Once upon a time a good local electronics repairman could fix your marine gear. Manuals had pages of circuit diagrams in the back of them. Of course then, TV's were black and white, and you could take the tubes out of them and test them. The trade off was the gear was very large, and was full of antique transistors, capacitors, crystals and the ilk. There are still a few of these specialized technicians around, but nowadays most marine electronics are repaired by replacing the bad board, or more often warranty repairs are done by replacing the entire unit, lock stock and barrel. The huge hole you see below had a VHF radio in it that has now joined those who are dearly departed.

NEMA, oops I mean NMEA

Language is a wonderful and changeable thing.  Acronyms, and our attempts to pronounce them can bring about decidedly weird effects, so today we are discussing the National Marine Electronics Association, or in its acronym form NMEA. This is not to be confused with NEMA, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the National Emergency Management Association, or even the New England Multihull Association.

Somehow over linguistic time, the acronym NMEA has ended up being universally pronounced, such as acronyms can ever be pronounced, as Nee ma. This verbal utterance has become so pervasive, that the marine populous, has actually changed the spelling of the acronym NMEA to NEMA to reflect how we actually say the acronym. If you search "NEMA 0183" -NMEA, Google finds over 24,000 references. I did some snipping off the web of examples, and noted that even the Installer himself has screwed this up at times, and boy I'm not alone. I have purposely not changed it as a personal reminder to myself. 

The rate of change from NMEA, to NEMA has been increasing rapidly over time. There are a few references in the eighties, even more in the nineties, and in this decade using NEMA in place of NMEA is almost common place.

So there are are three options available, do nothing, and continue to pronounce NMEA as Knee ma, change the name of the National Marine Electronics Association to the National  Electronics Marine Association, or change the way we pronounce it to "NA Me Ah.  My vote is to be diligent about spelling it correctly, and to continue to pronounce it Knee ma, or Knee maw if you live in the south. Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto. Nmea, (it is a word, sort of) that is a cool electronics network on your boat bro.

By the way this was all triggered by attending the NMEA conference on Sanibel Island (almost). I am just about done with the piece. 

The photo above was taken by Canadian Phil Boisse.

Palm Beach Florida, a travel log.

Kate and I took a road trip this weekend to visit her brother Mathew, and his wife Robin who were vacationing in Palm Beach Florida. Mapquest routed us across the state on primarily picturesque, and rural two lane roads across old Florida crossing just above Lake Okeechobee.

Ripped out, ripped off, and other meanderings

Yep it's gone. About the only thing you can say about this install is whoever did it apparently couldn't read, because the directions tell you not to use the sealants they did, and at least two types were used. The second layer was smeared on no doubt to stop the leaks found after the first layer was glopped on with a precision that could only have only been done by a drunk organ grinder's monkey, or maybe just a drunk organ grinder. And I don't even want to know what that disgusting black stuff was in the lower corner. Okay, I won't contest the fact that this is the only place on this boat for a in-hull transducer to be mounted, and that it is damnably difficult to access. So what makes this so irritating, is the previous owner ripped it out before he sold the boat, thus ripping off the new owner.

The excavation, it's all your fault

Yuck, it was disgusting, and time to get the rubber gloves out. A half eaten bag of chips, old rusty fishing hooks, a foil pack of Trojan eye glass wipes, mildewed papers, and a leaking bottle of suntan lotion giving everything a lubricious sheen. The sad reality of this eclectic collection of sea going goods, is they will end up on the deck when I drop the hatch fully down. Just to make it more visually interesting for me, it will start to ooze some suntan lotion mixed with assorted detritus onto the deck.