On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:01:58 -0500, cavelamb
wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:19:32 -0500, cavelamb
wrote:

I hear people talking about being "sailors" and sailing, but most
times you do have a schedule. Your wife is going to have a baby, the
Boss expects you back, you want to see your sweety, something! So you
make your plans and you are right on schedule and the last morning you
wake up and..... No Wind.. and it's fifty miles to get home.


I've heard that very same thing several times before. Must be true.
I'm retired. No job - no boss.
The kids are all grown and have kids of their own.
Sweetie is is on the boat - cooking up something in the galley.

But the wind part - that's hard to get control of.

With this motor, 12 gallons gives 24 hours cruise at 5 knots (no wind).
100 miles - with a small reserve - makes me fairly comfortable.
(that's rough, but ought to be pretty close)


In the final cut, you either go with what you can afford, or stay home
and watch TV.

It all seems to make sense if you sail far enough off the equator to
have some wind nearly all the time but over here sometimes you have
rather long periods of no wind. A bloke I know left Phuket for
Langkawi, Malaysia. Anchored in Phi Phi harbor the first night. the
next morning his wife went ashore to take the ferry back to Phuket and
he motored out of the harbor. About 5 miles out the sail-drive died,
stripped the shaft splines, and there he sat. Well, Hell! But it was a
sail boat so he elected to sail the rest of the way. Only about 70-80
miles.

A week later he finally got close enough to Langkawi to throw the
dinghy over the side and "tug" his sailboat close enough to Rebuk so
he could get someone to come out and drag him into the marina and over
to the travel lift so he could get the boat out of the water and fix
it. He told me that he was beginning to worry about food.

Granted, this guy had a diesel inboard and it was the connection to
the propeller that failed but the point is that if one is always going
to "sail" then one should bring plenty of food.

90 miles/one week = about 0.5 miles/hour



Cheers,

Bruce in Bangkok
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)