Showing posts with label In. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In. Show all posts
Monday, December 26, 2016
Marine plywood water tanks in a boat
After some eighteen (18) years in service I decided to remove the boats six water tanks and see what they look like inside?
Yes, this boat is in the water and yes the bilge really is that clean and dry.
This was a big job but as I was not under any pressure to complete the work, I took my time and fitted them back in the last few days.
The tanks were fine and clean enough inside not to worry about anything, drinking the water is at least as nice as the domestic water from our taps back home.
Each tank was pre tested prior to re fitting in the boat.
There is a carbon filter but I wonder just what it does as the water is always clean and there is never ever any sediment or bad taste in the water.
This time I removed the tanks inspection covers, bonded them over and also bonded in the brass nipples for the access and vent pipes, so there is nothing to worry about now.
Roy
Yes, this boat is in the water and yes the bilge really is that clean and dry.
This was a big job but as I was not under any pressure to complete the work, I took my time and fitted them back in the last few days.
The tanks were fine and clean enough inside not to worry about anything, drinking the water is at least as nice as the domestic water from our taps back home.
Each tank was pre tested prior to re fitting in the boat.
There is a carbon filter but I wonder just what it does as the water is always clean and there is never ever any sediment or bad taste in the water.
This time I removed the tanks inspection covers, bonded them over and also bonded in the brass nipples for the access and vent pipes, so there is nothing to worry about now.
Roy
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Stick your hand in the job jar and pull out a couple boat improvement projects
The owner of this boat had the feeling that the equipment in his console was getting to hot, and I agreed that the top of the console felt warmer than it should. I suggested that maybe a computer cooling fan would do the trick.
There was an existing Beckson-esque plate that I had installed on the side of the console, to allow access to see the happy, or unhappy status lights of the black boxes that had been installed inside, and also to facilitate removal/installation of the bolted in displays. The owner did not want another hole cut into the console, so mounting the fan on the access plate seemed to be the best option. These little fans are very quiet, move a lot of air, and are available in both 12VDC, and with a small transformer, 110VAC. The owner went to a local store, and picked up the one you see here
Installation is as simple, or complex as you want to make it. The back of the mounting plate had molded in stiffening webs, so in order to mount the fan on the inside of the plate, some considerable carving would have been required, so it was mounted on the outside, and it looks good, in a form follows function kind of way.
These fans often have hologram images on the hubs, which makes for cool looking patterns when they are running. It could have been done in a more elegant fashion, given more time and money, but the owner said it was fine, there are other more important things to do.
A couple of quick notes about these fans. Make sure you are buying a 12VDC fan. Some of these fans can vary their speeds, so when you look at the wires, and there might be up to five, just look for the red and black wires, and ignore the rest. When you install the fan, it is a good idea to take some silicon, or hot glue, and well secure the fan wires. They are small gauge, and can pull away from the fan, if you are not careful. I know from personal experience, that re-soldering a broken lead requires no coffee for two weeks prior, and a magnifying glass.
In the picture below, you are looking down at a generator, with the covers removed. The generator lives in a compartment accessible from the deck, and like most spaces used on a boat, it justs fits in the space, which translates to access is less than optimum.
So here is the problem. In the picture below, where I wrote "Under here", lives a capacitor that fails more often than it should. This means that several times a year, always at the worst possible time, on the hottest day of the year, on a out island in the Bahamas, it craps out. Why, I don't know, it could last a week, or six months, but it will fail, and the manufacturer just shrugs his shoulders, and says the equivalent of "I dunno." I bet these guys sell a ton of these capacitors, because the repair technicians always have them on their truck, always.
To change this capacitor, you first remove the generator covers. You then get several towels to lay on top of the generator, because it is stinking hot after running for days. Laying down on top of the unit, you reach under the black back end of the generator, and with a socket wrench, while trying to keep from being burnt, you release the bolt that holds it in place. You have to do this in what I call "Braille" mode, because you certainly can't see it. Once the bolt is off, you then cut two wire ties to release it. The wires are about three inches long. Taking a screw driver, you discharge the capacitor by shorting the contacts (this is always exciting to someone watching), not so much for the person doing it. You pull the connectors off, plug in the new capacitor, and reverse the process to finish. Under the best of circumstances, this is not fun, and under the worst circumstances it is a #&!%^* awful job.
I know that the designers of this generator, have never changed the capacitor on an installed generator, or it would have never been placed where it is. It looked good on paper, but it was a bad idea in real life. The fix is not hard. See the red and black wires coming out from where I wrote "Under here?" These are the new capacitor leads. They exit the enclosure and go to the new capacitor mounting location on the underside of the hatch. So to change the capacitor now, you just open the hatch, and there it is, and while the phone lines were still open, he got the bonus of a second capacitor holder to boot, but no free Sham Wows. I know the capacitor will fail, and I mounted a second holder next to the first. To change the capacitor, just open the hatch, unplug the bad one, and plug in the new one right next door, and you are finished in sixty seconds or less. The second capacitor in the photo is actually a failed one, but two new ones are coming, (history tells us they will be needed) and some split loom now covers the exposed wires. The clamps were $4, from a local hardware store, and are really for conduits, but they work a treat.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Trouble in Mind revisiting Rain City
Yesterday Seattle came close to reaching a 1951 record by stretching out a dry spell to about 49 consecutive days. It finally sprinkled last night (9/10 September) to leave the foliage gleaming with droplets by morning. The 1951 record was 51 days. That for a town often referred to as “Rain City”.
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| Rain City |
But why Rain City? Perhaps because the dry sunny summer period typically only lasts from May to late September, with plenty of days with rain through the rest of the year? Seattle does have several other nicknames, including The Gateway to Alaska, Queen City, Jet City, and Emerald City.
Rain City is the fictional city in which the 1985 film noir “Trouble in Mind” was set. Did Seattle appropriate the nickname “Rain City” from that film? Or was the name in the film taken from Seattle’s nickname? The movie was filmed in Seattle.
Director Alan Rudolph chose some of the meaner areas of Seattle on the edge of downtown, beneath overpasses and under the monorail for much of his filming. He took over a derelict corner property in a downtown building to create a café as a center point. In the opening scene in which Kris Kristofferson leaves prison having served a sentence for murder, Marianne Faithful sets the mood with the opening song, an appropriately raspy rendition of the slow 8-bar blues song, Trouble in Mind written by jazz pianist Richard M Jones (first recorded with Thelma La Vizzo accompanied by Jones on piano in 1941). Actors include Kris Kristofferson, (as Hawk) Genevieve Bujold, Joe Morton, Lori Singer (as Georgia) and Keith Carradine (as Coop).
The action of this retro futuristic melodramatic gangster romance culminates in a shoot-out at the luxury residence of the smooth gangster character Divine. For suitable opulence the film uses the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. Cleared of its usual displays, the museum is transformed into an art-moderne mansion with armed guards at the gates, and decorated throughout with wonderful paintings and sculptures on loan for the film by northwest artists. During the course of the action late in the film one large painting is destroyed spectacularly over someone’s head, while a bullet smashes a large glass installation by Dale Chihuly, something some of Kristin’s artists friends delight in replaying.
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| Hawk,Georgia and Coop. |
Watching the film this week, Kristin Nelson pointed out one of her ceramic sculptures she loaned for the mansion scene. The scene was full of work from the local art scene. “But it was a budget production” she explained. “You can tell by the length of the credits; we all had our names in the credits instead of being paid, so the credits are very long!” Sadly the credits weren’t quite accurate… they misspelled her name!
Trouble in Mind is a thought-provoking film. The characters come together each in their own style, as if from different times, or as caricatures from an old comic book. The film is ambiguously set in the future or past, so after than 25 years later I think it still looks fresh.
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| Seattle Asian Art Museum |
Yesterday the Seattle Asian Art museum with its pair of sitting camels guarding the main entrance looked serene in its summer setting. Currently showing inside is the Ramayana exhibition of 44 works of Indian art from 16th century onward. There is no sign of smashed glass or blood stains. Nearby and also within Volunteer Park is the park conservatory: a mini crystal palace full of wonderful plant specimens from around the world. The conservatory this weekend celebrated its 100th anniversary. Happy anniversary!
Thursday, December 1, 2016
AIS XB 8000 whats in the box
This was ordered a week back and Fedex did the delivery today.
The best AIS transponder by far.
Each transponder comes with its own dedicated GPS.
How easy can that be? yes there is an installation booklet with each set supplied.
Roy
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Two Indigenous North American Boats in Maine Museums
A couple of trips to small museums in Maine yielded two nice boats: a bark canoe and a skin-of-frame kayak. It's almost like a snapshot from Adney and Chapelle's The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America.
The canoe, at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, is a fine reproduction. (We've written before about the Abbe Museum.) The kayak, at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, is an authentic artifact.
The canoe, at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, is a fine reproduction. (We've written before about the Abbe Museum.) The kayak, at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, is an authentic artifact.
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| Birchbark canoe of the Penobscot style at the Abbe Museum, built by Steve Cayard and David Moses Bridges. It's 14 feet long, weighs 50 lb., and according to the exhibit card, it required 500 hours to build, plus 200 hours to gather materials. We've written previously about Steve Cayard's bark canoes, and not coincidentally, the canoe construction of his that we documented was assisted by David Moses Bridges. (Click any image to enlarge.) |
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| The bark along the sides of the canoe is etched in traditional patterns. Bark is harvested in winter to obtain the brown color that can be scraped away to reveal the lighter color underneath. Seams between sections of bark are sewn with spruce root and sealed with pine resin. |
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| Inner and outer gunwales are lashed together with split spruce roots and pegged. A gunwale cap is also pegged in place. The thwart is mortised into the inner gunwale (i.e., inwale) and lashed. |
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| The bow has an etched flap of bark held against the hull by the outer gunwale. It's known by the Passamaquoddy term for "diaper" and it is purely decorative. |
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| At the Peary-MacMillan Museum: a kayak of Labrador Inuit design, built between 1860 and 1890. |
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| The very flat deck rises just a bit in front of the cockpit rim to make it easier to enter the kayak. Built to fit its paddler specifically, the kayak would still have been a tight fit. |
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| One can see the chine timber and one intermediate longitudinal member between it and the sheer timber (which is not visible). The kayak has minimal deck rigging. The paddle just above the kayak is extremely long, and the blades are especially narrow. |
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| A model kayak just below the real one, built around 1914 by an Inuit for the MacMillan expedition's collection. |
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| The model has more elaborate deck rigging than the real kayak and a different shape cockpit rim. On the after deck is a harpoon line and drag. |
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| An Inuit child using an empty packing crate ("Spratt's dog biscuits") as a toy kayak, 1913. |
Friday, November 25, 2016
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Thursday, November 24, 2016
No worries mate we are precisely in 176 2 feet of water
The owner of this boat called me and said his depth finder wasn't working correctly on a short "Shake Down" cruise from Sarasota, to Egmont Key and back. This was about a 70 mile trip up and back, and he said the Furuno depth finder acted weird on the whole trip. Since we were in about 10 feet of water, the Furuno RD30's depth of about 176 feet, did seem to be a wee bit on the high side. The Nobeltec sounder right next door does have the correct depth. Look at the picture closely, and above the depth number on the Nobeltec system, you can see the the wording "200 khz "Cruising."
So playing the game of "What's different between these two pictures?", we can now see the Furuno RD30 is reporting the correct depth, and the Nobeltec sounder is also. The difference is the Nobeltec sounder is now using the "50 khz Cruising" setting. So by now, a lot of boaters have figured what has happened, but for those who need some enlightenment, this is what is going on, in Americanized English.
The piezoceramic devices in the two transducers are pinging out sound waves, and listening to the returning sound waves as they echo back from the bottom. They are designed to send out a certain frequency sound wave, and hear that frequency when the sound wave bounces back from the bottom. In this case, since both transducers are using the same frequency, they are hearing each other, and the Furuno unit is getting confused. I suspect, but I'm not dead sure, that the Nobeltec sounder module, has a more powerful transducer (I did not climb into the engine room to verify this, it is what it is), and the lower power Furuno transducer just gets overwhelmed. In other words, the Nobeltec transducer is not adversely affected by the Furuno's transducer, but the Nobeltec's transducer bugs the heck out of the Furuno's transducer, if they are operating at the same frequency. Both transducers are made by Airmar, and I hope I got this dialog generally correct Ms. Robb.
The owner now knows, that if both sounder systems are operating at the same time, they must be set to different frequencies, if you don't want to be in 176.2 feet of water all of the time. There are transducer technologies, that can overcome this issue available, and the link below to Airmar will provide wealth of transducer information.
Airmar's FAQ page will answer about 99.1% of your transducer questions.
Friday, November 11, 2016
When we were rich in 1989
The fact was we could buy a brand new and sailaway Endurance 37 from the Knysna Boatyard for around R47,000, that included a Bellamy mast, Hood Sails and a Perkins 4105 47hp diesel engine! Today and in 2013 you would pay twice that just for a similar sized engine.
I suppose some financial bod will tell me this is all relative, back then when the price of gold was fixed at U$35 and today its around U$1210 or so but read below and tell me what you think?
Roy
Note, now in July 2013 we see the Rand currency trading at around R10.00 to the U$ and R15.07 to the British Pound, see what I mean!
I suppose some financial bod will tell me this is all relative, back then when the price of gold was fixed at U$35 and today its around U$1210 or so but read below and tell me what you think?
Notty,
I should frame this as a reminder as to when we were really well off?
You will need to click on this to make it readable?
Its from the last century and 24 years ago, this is the slip I got for the money I took on the trip
That lasted a year, thirteen months in fact, I still had some left over when we were collected at DF Malan airport
By yours truly!
That’s a rate of R2.69 to U$1.00 and R4,22 to GBP1.00 only, even those rates had moved some from the better days, they are for
Travelers cheques, we saw a better rate on cash? no it’s the same.
I still have the quote from Elvstom Sails that Andy Mitchell did for me, that was in his Loop St days, R4700 for nine sails. A main sail then was R450, the cost for the GRP hull for my Endurance 37 was R4500, the fact is we could buy a lot more with our Rands back then? GST was still 4%, Vat is now 14%.
Looking back and I am pleased to say we both can, we did ok to do what we did and while we could, hindsight is a wonderful thing and it would be a shame if we now say, if only we had done this or that then, I could have built my own yacht and gone sailing, well we did do just that!
Mate, it’s a pat on the back for us both, have a great day!
Roy
Note, now in July 2013 we see the Rand currency trading at around R10.00 to the U$ and R15.07 to the British Pound, see what I mean!
Thursday, November 10, 2016
When It Flows In
I didn't write anything today, at least not while I was in the canoe. There seemed to be nothing much to say. Instead, it was a trip where things flowed into me. It was a great autumn day where any chill in the air was more than compensated for by the sun.
I head out paddling down river toward the sea against the flood tide with a quartering wind from behind on my right. I circled the big marsh before returning. The spartina was tall and turning gold...it was rich.
I saw few birds of note. It was mostly black ducks and mallards with just two Canada geese. Behind Peacock Island I flushed a mated pair of wood ducks and saw two great egrets. It has been awhile since I've seen egrets, most of them are now gone.
I took some photos, but most of the time I seemed to have some crap on the lens. It just didn't matter.
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| The guardian of the feral cat park canoe launch |
Monday, November 7, 2016
West Marine grand opening fun in Sarasota
The grand opening of the new West Marine Flagship store a couple weeks ago in Sarasota was quite the production number, and is close as we will have to a real boat show this upcoming year. Their large parking lot was overflowing with boats of all types. This included Boston Whalers, Andros Boatworks, "Panga" style center console fishing boats, Searays, and many others.
The Team Donzi Yellowfin was impossible to miss, and as you might imagine, it is a poster child for Simrad's full product line. Simrad also had a table top display in the store with sales staff to chat with.
Raymarine, and Mastervolt brought in their mobile showrooms, with a full complement of staff. Garmin, Standard Horizon, and many other electronics, and product vendors had staff present also.
Since I grumble occasionally about fishing boats that never seem to be up to the tasks they are sold to do, I was tickled to see this Andros Boatworks vessel, that had enough rod holders to satisfy even the most demanding fishermen. I started to count them, and gave up after 60. If you put a rod into each one, this boat would look like a sea urchin.
I couldn't resist putting in this picture of the new Power Pole shallow water anchoring system. It's so cyborg, and sci-fi looking. I could imagine adding another degree of freedom to each side, throw in some simple controls, and having it walk you across the flats. I think it's a novel idea. You just can't take the robot perspective out of me.
Because I can, I am giving this salty little vessel, a Ranger Tugs R21 the "Best in Show" award. A two foot draft, huge aft cockpit, and enough amenities to spend the night out. I don't think I would want to take this little vessel on a Great Loop trip, but for local excursions, and day trips in SW Florida, its perfect. I would however take their R29 on a Great Loop trip in a heartbeat. Good quality construction, efficient layout, and a diesel engine that just sips fuel. They are built in Kent Washington, and the company has been around since 1958. You can learn more about Ranger Tugs here. The Sarasota area dealer is Gulf Island Sails.
And now to the highlight of the whole grand opening event. West Marine sponsored a "Casting for a Cause" charity benefit, and this was huge fun. Tickets were ten dollars, and included adult beverages, and lots of excellent food. There was live music, silent auctions, raffles, many marine equipment technical representatives, and lots of other activities. The event answered that question that has been pondered by many a sage, and that is "How many people can you fit into a West Marine flagship store?", and the answer is well over a thousand. To be honest, it was a thousand over a three hour period, but the store was seriously packed.
And now to the highlight of the whole grand opening event. West Marine sponsored a "Casting for a Cause" charity benefit, and this was huge fun. Tickets were ten dollars, and included adult beverages, and lots of excellent food. There was live music, silent auctions, raffles, many marine equipment technical representatives, and lots of other activities. The event answered that question that has been pondered by many a sage, and that is "How many people can you fit into a West Marine flagship store?", and the answer is well over a thousand. To be honest, it was a thousand over a three hour period, but the store was seriously packed.
West Marine's CEO Geoff Eisenberg, and Port Supply's Jim Bandy were personally greeting guests at the front door. Geoff is indeed a very gracious, and pleasant person to talk to. You too Jim, but I see you regularly.
Gecko's Grill and Pub provided the catering, and below are Lia Santos, and Byron Diamond tending to the adult beverages. Gecko's is my favorite local watering hole, and at two blocks from my house, it is geographically very attractive, and has been for over 16 years.
Hors d'oeuvre stations were set up at various locations throughout the store, including a seared tuna carving station, my personal favorite.
In the picture below, you can see the infamous "Deadliest Installer" in the center. On my left is Travis Lofland, deck hand on the Wizard, and on my right is Edgar Hansen, deck boss, and engineer on the Northwestern. Both of these "Deadliest Catchers" had to stand in a long line to get their picture taken with me, because hundreds of attractive women heard I was there. Ha, I wish. I wouldn't survive one day doing their job on a cold Bering Sea day, but I don't think they would like mine on a stinking hot August day in Florida either.
Prior to the grand opening, there was a large store staff meeting, to get everybody pumped up, to meet the grand opening sales goals. As you might expect, some employee wanted to know what he would get if the store made its goal, and then apparently someone else suggested that management should shave their heads, if they made goal. As you can see the goal was made, and fortunately a compromise was negotiated. I have it on good fashion authority, that "Pink" is the new "Black", and any scuffed up, boat shoe wearing marine installer knows this. From left to right are assistant managers Lydia Diaz, and David Plank, followed by district manager Bobby Greenwell, and general manager Wayne Seel, all temporarily pretty in pink.
So the store empties, and captain Bob Nichols is seen with a dust mop, cleaning up after all of the reverie is over. I liked the picture. It reminds of the the little guy that used a broom to sweep up after Fractured Fairy Tales was over, on the Bullwinkle and Rocky cartoons.
The real purpose of the event was to help our local charities out, and it was a great success. Over $18,000 was raised in the three hour event, and the majority went to supporting youth sailing, and children's needs programs in the community. Nothing is better than having fun while you're helping others.
Below are the links to the charities, and thanks for making it possible West Marine.
Below are the links to the charities, and thanks for making it possible West Marine.
Sarasota Youth Sailing Program
Englewood Youth Sailing Program
Mote Marine Laboratory
Suncoast Charities for Children
Sarasota Yacht Club Charitable Foundation
The Snook Foundation
Sarasota Bay Watch
Sarasota Power Squadron
Sunday, November 6, 2016
In Little Places
We wake to a bright and sunny fall day and it seems a waste not to be outside. The wind comes up before we can leave the house, not as bad as yesterday, but strong enough to cause me to carefully pick our trip. We stop at the feral cat park to check on the big river, but the wind seems to be funneled into the valley and it looks to be too much work. So, we head back up the hill to Mondo Pond. It is a small pond, maybe three or four hundred yards across the long way. It seems hardly worth putting the canoe in, except that it is so pretty with rounded bedrock islets scattered in the water surrounded by the deciduous brush and trees of a New England forest.
We see several mallards, a coot, a pair of pied-billed grebes, and one greater yellow legs. It is an entirely pleasant trip in the smallest of places. We talk about how nice it would be to canoe through a long chain of these little ponds. We imagine that there is such a place.
She tells me how glad she is to have her favorite paddle again, one that I made for her. We paddle back and forth and round and round, along the shoreline and weaving through the islets until we've seen everything a dozen times from a dozen different directions.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Ocean Voyages in Folding Kayaks
Hannes Lindemann's 1956-57 solo transatlantic voyage in a folding kayak is justifiably famous among kayak fans. (In our previous post we wrote about Lindemann's lesser-known adventure, in which he crossed the Atlantic solo in a dugout canoe just one year earlier.) We'll get to it shortly, but what's more surprising than that someone can traverse an ocean in a folding kayak is that it had been done twice previously, also by Germans, in trips equally if not more impressive.
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| Franz Romer in Deutscher Sport. Source: ExpeditionKayak.com (Click any image to enlarge) |
The first such voyage was in 1928, when Franz Romer did it in Deutscher Sport, a 21'6" Klepper outfitted with a squaresail rig. Romer sailed almost 4,000 miles, from Lisbon to Puerto Rico, via the Canary Islands, in 58 days. In San Juan he fitted his kayak with an outboard engine before setting sail again. His next destination: New York. Unfortunately, he sailed into a hurricane and was lost without a trace. It has been speculated that the engine upset his kayak's natural balance and seaworthiness, and that he might have survived the storm without it. (Some sources give St. Thomas as the end of his trip. On this matter, I'm relying on an account of Romer's voyage in Lindemann's book.]
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| Oskar Speck in his Pionier Faltboot. (Source) |
In 1932, Oskar Speck, a failed electrical contractor, launched his Pionier Faltbootwerft-brand folding kayak on the Danube River in Ulm, intending to sail to Cyprus, where he hoped to get work in a copper mine. When he reached Cyprus, however, he decided to go further. A lot further, as in, Australia. He shipped the boat, along with its jib-headed, boomed-lug rig, to the upper reaches of the Euphrates River, sailed downstream to and through the Persian Gulf, along the coasts of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, and down the western coast of the southeast Asian peninsula. From thence, he passed through Malaysia and Indonesia and along the north coast of New Guinea, finally reaching Australia shortly after it had entered the Second World War. Speck, who proudly displayed a Nazi swastika on his jib but was unaware of the current political situation, was politely but promptly arrested, and he spent the rest of the war in an Australian prison camp.
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| Oskar Speck's route. Dotted lines indicate motor transport. (Source: Wikipedia) |
Pionier replaced Speck's boat four times during the 31,000-mile voyage's seven year duration. Unlike Romer's and (later,) Lindemann's, Speck's voyage was mainly alongshore. He spent most nights on dry land, often had access to fresh food and good hospitality, and was able to take as many "down" days as he wanted. This in no way minimizes the scale of his accomplishment, and he is still, to the best of my knowledge, the only person to kayak the entire length of the Indian Ocean.
Hannes Lindemann's Atlantic crossing in a Klepper was apparently the last transoceanic voyage in a folding kayak, although there have been a number of crossings made in hardshell kayaks since that time. Lindemann was already contemplating a voyage in a folding kayak when he returned to Europe in April, 1956, following his dugout crossing. But where Lindemann's first voyage was meant to test Alain Bombard's theory that man could survive in a shipwreck scenario by drinking seawater, this time the crackpot notion upon which his voyage rested would be his own. He wrote:
"It was not until I learned something of voodoo in Haiti [at the end of his previous voyage] that I began to give really serious consideration to my new plan. Through voodoo I learned that one can, by deep concentration, a kind of self-hypnosis, change one's fundamental attitude toward a problem, that, ultimately through voodoo, one can rid oneself of fears and doubts. 'Impossible is not Haitian,' runs the motto of the newspaper in Jacmel…and this motto I took for my own."
Convinced that morale was a more important problem than physical skill or endurance, and fully expecting to suffer, Lindemann schooled himself in mind-control techniques, and took "never give up," "keep going west," and "don't take any assistance" as his mottos. He also attempted to acclimate himself to sleep deprivation, and relied on prayer during the voyage.
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| Hannes Lindemann in his Klepper Aerius II, Liberia, flying two squaresails and gaff main. (Source: Time/Life) |
As on his third and successful attempt in the dugout canoe, Lindemann's kayak voyage departed from Las Palmas, in the Canaries. He had outfitted his 17-foot, Klepper Aerius II two-seater kayak (named Liberia, like his dugout) as a ketch, with squaresails on both main and mizzen masts (1.5 and .75 square yards respectively), and a larger, high-peaked gaff mainsail as well. The mizzen mast was "a paddle that sat on the aft washboard," and the steering cables could be actuated by either hand or foot. An outrigger consisted of a float made from a section of truck inner tube lashed to another paddle that served as the outrigger's single boom. As with his first dugout attempt, Lindemann set sail without a shakedown voyage. Finding the boat overloaded, he soon tossed a quantity of provisions, so that he ended up carrying 154 lb. of food and drink.
Although the outrigger boom was broken in a collision with a pilot boat as he was leaving Las Palmas, Lindemann soon fixed it and it held up throughout the rest of the voyage. Given the prevailing winds, the outrigger was on the lee side of the vessel for most of the voyage, and Lindemann occasionally wished for a second outrigger to lend greater stability to the boat. Even so, when he capsized twice in a Force 8 storm near the end of his voyage, it was over the outrigger float both times.
Lindemann arrived in St. Martin in January, 1957, having found the 72-day crossing no less an excruciating trial than he expected. Although he attributed his success, in part, to the Voodoo-inspired program of affirmations and mind control, it should be noted that he had succeeded on his previous voyage without those aids.
Of history's three ocean-spanning folding-kayak voyages, Lindemann's is the best known. No doubt this was partly because he wrote a book about his adventure, but also because his movie-star good looks landed him on the cover of Life magazine.
Sources:
Most of the content concerning Lindemann comes from his book, Alone at Sea.
Some information about the other two voyages comes from ExpeditionKayak.com, which includes a rundown of several impressive kayak voyages.
Here is a great deal of detail on Oskar Speck's voyage, including his own account (in English translation).
Most of the content concerning Lindemann comes from his book, Alone at Sea.
Some information about the other two voyages comes from ExpeditionKayak.com, which includes a rundown of several impressive kayak voyages.
Here is a great deal of detail on Oskar Speck's voyage, including his own account (in English translation).
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