Hiya...

"slide" wrote in message
...
Well, I have to admire your narratives. One thing which always strikes me
is that you have more systems working aboard than I have ashore. I was
utterly unable to keep even a simpler and slightly smaller yacht's systems
working. In fact, I never got all systems working at the same time. One
was always down or weak.

Heh. We MOSTLY have all our systems working at once, but one or more of
them need attention fairly frequently...


I am curious about two things. First you say your PV panels were pumping
25 amps. That implies 300 watt capacity or more. Is that right? If so,
that strikes me as a lot of panel.

370 watts, and, when we go to a hardtop, I'll add more. It's 3 120s, except
that when, before our wreck, in the storm that put us on the rock, the KISS
took off, and landed on the center one on the way to Davey Jones. Same size
now has 130w, so it's 370.

I wasn't thinking outside the box, unfortunately, when I designed it; I
could easily have had longer ones. I was constrained on the length, in a
box shape, by the whip antenna at the front, which I secured to the frame,
and by my antenna mounts on the ends of my davits, on the stern. I could
easily have hung over the center rear, and out the front sides; wish I
had...


Second, how do you 'polish' a sea bean? That'd be like polishing green
beans or asparagus. What next - putting a shine on an artichoke?

A sea bean is a very hard nut-like shell, smooth-ish. Do a google for sea
beans, and you'll have the picture. After months, or sometimes, probably,
years, in the ocean, and more on the beach, they get weathered and checked.

Hearts are neat for fan pulls, drawer pulls, or big necklaces. Hamburger
and purse beans are nice for earrings, small drawer pulls, and necklaces.
Mary beans, very rare, are nice for Christians, as there's a cross on the
front imprinted by the way they're formed in the pod.

We use a flap wheel sander in the drill, then a buffing wheel on the bench
grinder, with, first, tripoli rouge, then a wax-and-compound designed for
boats, finished with a boat wax. Takes a really grungy bean and makes it
glow.

L8R

Skip, still in Georgetown


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

The Society for the Preservation of Tithesis commends your ebriated
and scrutible use of delible and defatigable, which are gainly, sipid
and couth. We are gruntled and consolate that you have the ertia and
eptitude to choose such putably pensible tithesis, which we parage.

Stamp out Sesquipedalianism

On May 1, 1:42*pm, "Flying Pig" wrote:


... when, before our wreck, in the storm that put us on the rock, the KISS
took off, and landed on the center .....


SKIP'S HISTORY REVISION ! !

Dear skip. you say a storm put you on the rocks.......
If I remember right by Lydias on words (post).... she was on watch
layed down and some how the boat ran onto the beach.

No storm put you on the rocks.
There was no lookout.
Your vessel was Not Under Command.....literly!
You were unable to stand a watch. Your beloved Lydia ****ed up, wimped
out and abandoned her post leaving everyone in peril of loosing their
life. You got lucky that time and simply rested on a beach/reef/rocks
or what ever ya wanna call it.

She should have been put in jail for attempted manslaughter

Bob

Hi, Boob,

Nice to hear from you in your usual fashion :{))

... when, before our wreck, in the storm that put us on the rock, the KISS
took off, and landed on the center .....

*****
SKIP'S HISTORY REVISION ! !

Dear skip. you say a storm put you on the rocks.......
If I remember right by Lydias on words (post).... she was on watch
layed down and some how the boat ran onto the beach.

No storm put you on the rocks.
There was no lookout.
Your vessel was Not Under Command.....literly!
You were unable to stand a watch. Your beloved Lydia ****ed up, wimped
out and abandoned her post leaving everyone in peril of loosing their
life. You got lucky that time and simply rested on a beach/reef/rocks
or what ever ya wanna call it.

She should have been put in jail for attempted manslaughter

Bob
*******

Heh. With our boat, attempted manslaughter would have been laughed out of
court. The only reason we were plucked from Flying Pig is that the TBUS guy
told the CG, when asked, that they should deploy an asset. Flying Pig is
literally bulletproof (well, any normal caliber; an RPG, tank round, or 16"
gun would make a mess and an elephant gun round might possibly penetrate).

So, you're correct, we rested there on the rocks (if you can call being
picked up, thrown another few inches inland, and crashed again, every 10
seconds or so "resting").

And, the storm was what caused the KISS to fly away; we were happily under
triple-reefed main, making 5.5 knots, not even very uncomfortable in the
large seas; its departure was about 8 hours before our encounter with the
flats of Content Key.

And, yes, as seen in the "I learned about sailing from that" thread of the
time, we had a cascading set of decisions, any of which done in the reverse,
could have caused that experience never to happen.

That I was asleep, comfortably, in the aft cabin, agreed, made me unable to
stand a watch :{))

For all that, as seen in other threads on that adventure, it was the best
thing which could have happened to us, in many ways that I'll not bother to
recount here. That we got back in the saddle and are out here doing it
(what are YOU doing which bears any resemblance to cruising - this being
rec.boats.CRUISING, not dot OilRig/DeckHand/OreShip/GettingMultitonQualified
or others?), managing not to kill anyone including ourselves, not bending or
scratching the boat or others', suggests that our learning curve has
flattened somewhat :{)) Not that we aren't continually learning - we like
to think that we'll never stop learning, but hope that our learning
experiences aren't quite so exciting!

L8R

Skip, enjoying the sun and breeze keeping us cool and powering us up


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

The Society for the Preservation of Tithesis commends your ebriated
and scrutible use of delible and defatigable, which are gainly, sipid
and couth. We are gruntled and consolate that you have the ertia and
eptitude to choose such putably pensible tithesis, which we parage.

Stamp out Sesquipedalianism

"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
Hi, Boob,

Nice to hear from you in your usual fashion :{))

... when, before our wreck, in the storm that put us on the rock, the KISS
took off, and landed on the center .....

*****
SKIP'S HISTORY REVISION ! !

Dear skip. you say a storm put you on the rocks.......
If I remember right by Lydias on words (post).... she was on watch
layed down and some how the boat ran onto the beach.

No storm put you on the rocks.
There was no lookout.
Your vessel was Not Under Command.....literly!
You were unable to stand a watch. Your beloved Lydia ****ed up, wimped
out and abandoned her post leaving everyone in peril of loosing their
life. You got lucky that time and simply rested on a beach/reef/rocks
or what ever ya wanna call it.

She should have been put in jail for attempted manslaughter

Bob
*******

Heh. With our boat, attempted manslaughter would have been laughed out of
court. The only reason we were plucked from Flying Pig is that the TBUS
guy told the CG, when asked, that they should deploy an asset. Flying Pig
is literally bulletproof (well, any normal caliber; an RPG, tank round, or
16" gun would make a mess and an elephant gun round might possibly
penetrate).

So, you're correct, we rested there on the rocks (if you can call being
picked up, thrown another few inches inland, and crashed again, every 10
seconds or so "resting").

And, the storm was what caused the KISS to fly away; we were happily under
triple-reefed main, making 5.5 knots, not even very uncomfortable in the
large seas; its departure was about 8 hours before our encounter with the
flats of Content Key.

And, yes, as seen in the "I learned about sailing from that" thread of the
time, we had a cascading set of decisions, any of which done in the
reverse, could have caused that experience never to happen.

That I was asleep, comfortably, in the aft cabin, agreed, made me unable
to stand a watch :{))

For all that, as seen in other threads on that adventure, it was the best
thing which could have happened to us, in many ways that I'll not bother
to recount here. That we got back in the saddle and are out here doing it
(what are YOU doing which bears any resemblance to cruising - this being
rec.boats.CRUISING, not dot
OilRig/DeckHand/OreShip/GettingMultitonQualified or others?), managing not
to kill anyone including ourselves, not bending or scratching the boat or
others', suggests that our learning curve has flattened somewhat :{)) Not
that we aren't continually learning - we like to think that we'll never
stop learning, but hope that our learning experiences aren't quite so
exciting!





The only trouble I see with your story, Skippy, is there are NO ROCKs at
Sprigger Bank and that's where you were aground, wasn't it?

Wilbur Hubbard

"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in message
anews.com...


The only trouble I see with your story, Skippy, is there are NO ROCKs at
Sprigger Bank and that's where you were aground, wasn't it?

Wilbur Hubbard


Nope.

Pay attention :{)) You were around during that period, right? You
saw all
the traffic of the time, right (2-7/2-20-07, or thereabouts, if you
wish to
look at the archives...

Off Content Key. Here's the very specific Lat/Long:

24*47.910'N/081*280855'W, give or take a few thousandths of a minute.
Note
the 1/2' of water on the chart, jumping from 15-17' to nothing in a
few
feet...

You could look it up - and see the pix in our gallery, for that
matter,
courtesy of the Coast Guard, who did a training exercise during the
extraction (go to the "aloft-adventure begins" sub gallery)...

Then click on the subgallery "crash landing - chapter 1" the first 4
pix of
which are from the helo, taken about 2 hours after low tide. Note the
forward port corner of the solar panels where there's no longer a wind
generator :{))


L8R

Love from Skip and crew, still wondering when you're going to come
whip our
asses in your banana boat...

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hand. You seek problems because you need their gifts."

(Richard Bach, in Illusions - The Reluctant Messiah)

On 5/1/2010 12:42 PM, Flying Pig wrote:
Hey Skip:


Heh. We MOSTLY have all our systems working at once, but one or more of
them need attention fairly frequently...

I doubt I had 1/3 of your complexity and that defeated my attempts for
100% op so my hat is off to you for even coming close. Like I eventually
replaced all the parts (one by one) of the auto pilot yet it never
worked for more than a few hours. One single part was 2.5 boat units
too. Yikes.


A sea bean is a very hard nut-like shell, smooth-ish. Do a google for sea
beans, and you'll have the picture. After months, or sometimes, probably,
years, in the ocean, and more on the beach, they get weathered and checked.

Hearts are neat for fan pulls, drawer pulls, or big necklaces. Hamburger
and purse beans are nice for earrings, small drawer pulls, and necklaces.
Mary beans, very rare, are nice for Christians, as there's a cross on the
front imprinted by the way they're formed in the pod.

We use a flap wheel sander in the drill, then a buffing wheel on the bench
grinder, with, first, tripoli rouge, then a wax-and-compound designed for
boats, finished with a boat wax. Takes a really grungy bean and makes it
glow.

Gosb, you have lapidary power tools (bench grider??) aboard as well? I"m
surprised 47 or so feet do it for you. I think you have more power this
and that than I do onshore.

I am familiar with sea beans. Here they a

http://www.earthy.com/Fresh_Sea_Beans__8_oz_P1513.cfm

I did a search and I think there are two things which aren't at all
alike called the same thing or maybe let that sea bean float around
while and it becomes a hard thing. Beats me.

"slide" wrote in message
...
On 5/1/2010 12:42 PM, Flying Pig wrote:
Hey Skip:


Heh. We MOSTLY have all our systems working at once, but one or more of
them need attention fairly frequently...

I doubt I had 1/3 of your complexity and that defeated my attempts for
100% op so my hat is off to you for even coming close. Like I eventually
replaced all the parts (one by one) of the auto pilot yet it never worked
for more than a few hours. One single part was 2.5 boat units too. Yikes.

No kidding. We're sort of holding our breath on our ST6000, as we've heard
of other failures. OTOH, ours is hydraulic, and aside from the last time we
were in Charleston (see prior logs for that story) where the pump's bolts
had worked loose, allowing the hydraulic fluid to leak, thus bleeding off
the required pressure in the system, we've had no mechanical issues with it
(YET!)


Gosb, you have lapidary power tools (bench grider??) aboard as well? I"m
surprised 47 or so feet do it for you. I think you have more power this
and that than I do onshore.

Don't forget the rotary grinder with the cutoff wheel for making conch horns
(and many other uses, otherwise), the grinding stones for making the
mouthpiece, skilsaw, jigsaw, 1HP hand grinder, buffers and the like :{))

The Morgan 46 (actually a 45 hull, but with the bow roller cage, they named
it differently to differentiate between them, especially since the interior
and deck/house were redesigned by Moorings for their use - Beatrice
Foods/Morgan immediately saw the benefit and started marketing the retail
version - the 462s - simultaneously with the 461s which were bought/marketed
by Moorings) is universally described by those visiting as by far the
largest 46 (not really, as above) they'd ever been on.

The storage is prodigious. We carry lots of tools, a year or so of dry
goods/jarred goods (corralled in milk crates; we've seriously reconsidered
the horror stories of glass aboard, as, even in our wreck, we have had not
the first failure), and ample fuel and water.

To say we're thrilled with the boat is an understatement. Aside from the
usual 1-2-3s (regular maintenance to keep ahead of the curve for the times
when we may be on the hard), and my since-new dissatisfaction with the arch,
we have next to no issues.


I am familiar with sea beans. Here they a

http://www.earthy.com/Fresh_Sea_Beans__8_oz_P1513.cfm

I did a search and I think there are two things which aren't at all alike
called the same thing or maybe let that sea bean float around while and it
becomes a hard thing. Beats me.

Try this http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plmay97.htm for a better perspective
and knowledge...

L8R

Skip and Lydia, enjoying the wind and solar power which is keeping us up
during all her grinding/polishing and our dual simultaneous computer use -
she on Skype and Facebook, me on trip reports and stuff like this, today


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain