Capt. JG wrote:
Wasn't there a ship that nearly killed a bunch of people on the lower Miss.?
The captain did some amazing stuff to avoid it I recall.

Gee Jon, I think thats been going on since before Lafette's time on the
Mississippi.
Can you be a bit more specific?

Joe


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Joe" wrote in message
ups.com...

Capt. JG wrote:
Joe.. great pictures... so what are all the levers for?

The top lever is for the flanking rudders(front of props) The middle
controls prop pitch(it's usually a constant RPM, and the bottom is
rudders. Takes a bit to get use to, but once you got it you can turn a
football field on a dime. Other setups include a dial inside a dial if
you have cort nozzles. One turns the nozzle, one for V pitch full
forward to aft, and if you're going long distance before you break down
the tow you have a lever for the rudder on the steermaster, that a
small barge with a genset and up to 4 rudder that is placed at the
front of the tow. Those guys on the lower mississippi pushing tows
bigger than aircraft carriers have my respect.



Also, that is one huge frikkin fish. I'm not sure that's where I would
want
to be if it wakes up. :-)

Thats a big one, most likely you will never see a live one on deck,
they live in water depths 300+ ft. So when you bring them to the
surface they have a fish version of the bends and the float bag(like a
divers BC) expands so big it kills the fish. There have been Warsaw
groupers caught in the 8-900 pound range. I bet they top out in the 1
ton range.

Great tasting fish, very clean white flakey meat, my favorite just
after the Ling. I'm happy they made a marine preserve out of the
gardens, even if it means I can not fish there any more. Still have a
dispacher friend at Mobil that lets me fish at the local production
platforms just on the edge of the gardens.

Joe





--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Joe" wrote in message
oups.com...
Morning bitch boy,

Your life still sucks, you are forced to sail **** island sound again,
and a dinner cruise at that. The fecal spray off your bow should spice
up your giant plate of slop.

You know you are almost at 16000 days old and you havent sailed
anywhere but the crap laiden LIS. Are you a coward afraid of open
water? Yes you are.

Just think, 16000 days and you have never sailed the mighty Mississippi
river, plowed the same water as Mark Twain. Check out this tug
wheelhouse, he's only pushing 25 barges Robert, that tells he's on the
upper river. Can you even understand what the real Capt. is doing with
all those handles?
http://www.imaginagrapher.com/transp...t_house%20.jpg

I had the pleasure of moving this tug from Ill to LA.
http://www.orbitals.com/pic/motor02/big/r31.jpg

I admit I was only pushing 2 of these
http://maritime-explorations.com/binh%20thuan%202.jpg
And a crewboat and a standby boat moving all the vessels to a new
mooring facility for GATX. The Tug worked the lower river and could
handle 100- 220 ft barges, it had 3 EMD's diesel electric, cort nozzles
a VP props, and a crew of 16.

Oh the EMD is a 3000HP engine, about a million dollars each. You can
not buy them new, the train companies buy them all up, the marine
industry rebuilds them and uses them.
http://oldriverbillzumwalt.members.k...s/EMD-16-2.jpg

If you had ever run the Mississippi you would find the water so cold
that when you pumped on drilling water in the winter the decks would
sweat, It's cool running downriver at 24 kts and having an extra 8 kts
of river speed in socked in fog. If you do not have a radar endorsement
it's hard to get a gig on the Mississippi because half the year the
lower river is socked in thick. You have a radar endorsement right
Capt?

If you have the chance " Capt" Rob run the river on Christmas eve, all
the coonasses build big bonfires on the rivers levy to guide in Papa
Noel. SW pass has the most BTW
http://www.poche.org/homepage/bonfire_small.jpg

After you get out of the river you should head to the Flower gardens
it's only 110 SSE of W pass. I've only spent 3 years there before it
was turned in to a national marine reserve.

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explor.../photolog.html
Best I caught was a 225 pound Warsaw Grouper... here is a bigger 403
pound one.
http://www.yourfishpictures.com/data...403_Warsaw.JPG
The divers working the rig swore there was a warsaw over 1500 pounds,
they were scared he might eat them. I've only taken RedCloud to the
Gardens 3 times.

After you leave the Flower Gardens head west young man to Port
Mansfiled , the last port before Mexico. A quiet little town with the
best fishing one earth.
See the rusty roof bldg?
http://www.seawatchrealty.net/_accou...sting/25-1.jpg
Terry and I alone ran a 120 foot boat from that dock for over a year,
infact that year we worked 360 days...It was the perfect job in the
perfect port, Mooron would love it, Kickass pot only cost about 100
dollars a pound. The locals loved us, always bringing dinner to the
boat. My only bad memory of the area was being washed overboard in 11
ft seas.

You might want to hit port Aransas if you are in the area, That were
we race to most years in the Harvest Moon Regetta, 160NM each way
http://i.pbase.com/u40/gtrinklein/la...07.TheRaft.jpg

As you can see Robert there are many places on earth way better than
the **** lake your wife's boat sails on, you should get her permission
to sail it somewhere before you stroke out and die.

Capt. Joe