Showing posts with label We. Show all posts
Showing posts with label We. Show all posts
Friday, December 2, 2016
How Far Can We Go
S has been away all week and not out in the canoe in far too long. I take her to the East River where the spring migration is still in action and where the early arriving osprey are getting near to hatching their eggs.
We head up the Neck, then up Bailey Creek and through the sneak back into the East River flushing willets and tiny sandpipers as we go. The osprey pay attention and sometimes move off a bit, but mostly they seem to see us as no threat. Birds are everywhere. If you don't see any, you aren't looking...osprey, willets, yellow legs, sandpipers, cormorants, ibis, a little blue heron, mallards, kingfishers, red-wing blackbirds, a hawk, wrens, goldfinch, geese.
Just upstream of the highway bridge, we find the flock of glossy ibises. S says it must be a couple dozen. I tell her it is fifty. I count and it is... forty nine.
The tide is high and we can go well up the river. S asks, when we get to the stone bridge, how much longer are we going to stay out. But, when we get into the cattail marsh above that bridge, she asks, how much farther can we go...a much better question in my mind.
We get to the downed tree before the Foote Bridge and slide through the gap between two large branches, and pass the Foote Bridge, which can be shallow at lower tides, and stop for a moment just before the river enters the canoe-limbo jungle. There is a very big downed tree under the surface here, but S doesn't know that. It is something you learn by coming here in different conditions at different times.
This is how far we can go, today.
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!
Saturday, September 17, 2016
We bought a boat!
It's official! We bought a sailboat! A catamaran to be exact. It's a 1993 PDQ 36, currently in Annapolis, MD.
The boat will be named Odin. Odin is a Norse mythological god. His nickname is Odin the Wanderer, who "often ventures far from his kingdom, on long, solitary wanderings throughout the cosmos on purely self-interested quests." Also, the Father of Thor and a inspiration for JRR Tolkien's Gandalf.
The boat has a covered cockpit, large salon, galley (kitchen), head (bathroom) with shower, and two queen berths. Here's a walk-through video:
http://youtu.be/Ks6Rz_fdFtA
A review in Sailing Magazine by John Kretschmer:
http://sailingmagazine.net/article-553-pdq-36.html
Another review by Bob Perry:
http://features.boats.com/boat-content/2000/08/perry-design-review-pdq-36/
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