== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Tues, Jun 1 2010 6:02 am
From: slide


Hand held depth finder? I had no idea such a thing existed, but I can
see its use for exploring an anchorage by dink.

$.50 / US gal for water? How much do you think you are spending per year
doing this cruising stuff? I mean all running expenses and repairs. I
don't mean payments on the boat itself if if's financed. Seems to me
that every post I read of yours, there is some huge running expense
documented.


The handhelds are very common among cruisers. Tells temp and depth, and, to
boot, has a fishfinder function as well. About a boat decibuck. It's from
Hawkeye, a "DIGITAL SONAR handheld sonar Px" - and, as is my wont, I'll give
them high marks for customer service. My first unit, well out of warranty,
had a problem. Sent it back, and they sent me another, which works
perfectly.


We know, exactly, how much we're spending, and, on what, as we keep a
spreadsheet of all of our expenses by category. We only have two complete
years at this point, but they're much more detailed than Bumfuzzle's, for
example.

To date, in our entire time out, we paid $5 to fill in Annapolis (our sole
experience of being charged for water in the US), $5.50 in the Sampson Cay
example, and two examples of $10 and $20 in Marsh Harbour, at $.20/gallon.
So far, in 3 years plus, that comes to just over half a boat decibuck in
more than 3 years. Not so bad. We plan our water according to advantage; we
carry a lot of it, so we have some flexibility in where and when we fill.

We thought long and hard about a watermaker, but the acquisition cost alone,
never mind the running costs, either in electricity or consumables, would
buy us more water, even at $.50/gal than we could foresee in our lifetimes.
That said, our buddy boat has one, which came with the boat, and love it,
running it whenever they're motoring. They've offered us emergency, should
we actually run out somewhere in the boonies when we're together, supply, so
we're not worried.on that count.

The boat's clear, courtesy of our wreck, and we're self-insured. Your
vision of "huge running expense" is all in the eyes of the beholder. Our
running expenses - make that total expenditures, including shoretime which
is much more costly than living aboard - for the last three years combined
wouldn't fill the fuel tanks on some of the yachts we've been near, for
example, but, conversely, a single month's total expenditures would likely
exceed a Wilbur/Neal-type boat's annual costs, as they have an outboard, no
refrigeration or other consumables storage overhead, and the entire boat
could be bought for the price of a new set of sails or standing rigging
(with new furler) on ours.

It's all in the perspective :{))

Right now, I'm in the middle of a squall, with very limited WiFi, so this
responses is clipped from the daily digest I receive, so it can wait to go
out, rather than my waiting for the original to show up in the thread on my
news reader. You may well not see it until well after the June 2 9AM
composition :{))

L8R

Skip


--
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
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"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)

Thx for the informative reply.

Flying Pig wrote:
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Tues, Jun 1 2010 6:02 am
From: slide


Hand held depth finder? I had no idea such a thing existed, but I can
see its use for exploring an anchorage by dink.

$.50 / US gal for water? How much do you think you are spending per year
doing this cruising stuff? I mean all running expenses and repairs. I
don't mean payments on the boat itself if if's financed. Seems to me
that every post I read of yours, there is some huge running expense
documented.


The handhelds are very common among cruisers. Tells temp and depth, and, to
boot, has a fishfinder function as well. About a boat decibuck. It's from
Hawkeye, a "DIGITAL SONAR handheld sonar Px" - and, as is my wont, I'll give
them high marks for customer service. My first unit, well out of warranty,
had a problem. Sent it back, and they sent me another, which works
perfectly.


We know, exactly, how much we're spending, and, on what, as we keep a
spreadsheet of all of our expenses by category. We only have two complete
years at this point, but they're much more detailed than Bumfuzzle's, for
example.

To date, in our entire time out, we paid $5 to fill in Annapolis (our sole
experience of being charged for water in the US), $5.50 in the Sampson Cay
example, and two examples of $10 and $20 in Marsh Harbour, at $.20/gallon.
So far, in 3 years plus, that comes to just over half a boat decibuck in
more than 3 years. Not so bad. We plan our water according to advantage; we
carry a lot of it, so we have some flexibility in where and when we fill.

We thought long and hard about a watermaker, but the acquisition cost alone,
never mind the running costs, either in electricity or consumables, would
buy us more water, even at $.50/gal than we could foresee in our lifetimes.
That said, our buddy boat has one, which came with the boat, and love it,
running it whenever they're motoring. They've offered us emergency, should
we actually run out somewhere in the boonies when we're together, supply, so
we're not worried.on that count.

The boat's clear, courtesy of our wreck, and we're self-insured. Your
vision of "huge running expense" is all in the eyes of the beholder. Our
running expenses - make that total expenditures, including shoretime which
is much more costly than living aboard - for the last three years combined
wouldn't fill the fuel tanks on some of the yachts we've been near, for
example, but, conversely, a single month's total expenditures would likely
exceed a Wilbur/Neal-type boat's annual costs, as they have an outboard, no
refrigeration or other consumables storage overhead, and the entire boat
could be bought for the price of a new set of sails or standing rigging
(with new furler) on ours.

It's all in the perspective :{))

Right now, I'm in the middle of a squall, with very limited WiFi, so this
responses is clipped from the daily digest I receive, so it can wait to go
out, rather than my waiting for the original to show up in the thread on my
news reader. You may well not see it until well after the June 2 9AM
composition :{))

L8R

Skip


If I may make an editorial (not to mention impudent comment...)
....this note, that you think of as severely curtailed - is about the
right length for newsgroup readers like me. It leaves me wanting more.
Sometimes, after the third screen of your longer peerless tales, I give up.


Brian W

"brian whatcott" wrote in message
...


If I may make an editorial (not to mention impudent comment...)
...this note, that you think of as severely curtailed - is about the right
length for newsgroup readers like me. It leaves me wanting more.
Sometimes, after the third screen of your longer peerless tales, I give
up.


Brian W

Hi, Brian :{))

Editorializing and impudence are welcomed. You've no doubt seen that I
handle Boob and Willy without killfiling or going into a tizzy :{)) - and,
even, sometimes, get useful info from them by not reacting as many others
do.

It wasn't the note which was curtailed. It was the internet availability.

As to editorializing, I "get it" - but there's no way to tell the story in 3
paragraphs, and to break it up into bite sized chunks (admittedly,
sometimes, when it's going out over winlink, the much-slower-than-dialup and
subject-to-propagation-issues HF radio link for my son to post, I DO break
it up into one-screen chunks because the connection can't stay up for long
enough to do it in one piece) - but it doesn't parse that way - he stitches
them back together before sending them off for me. A little like watching a
video with 3 or 4 avi files. Unless you can stitch them together (my VLC
videolan viewer does that for me), trying to get the entire picture (pardon
the expression) is much tougher than, in this analogy, just sticking in a
DVD and settling back, hitting the pause button if you like, and watching.

That said, there's lots of movies I have on my HD that we haven't, and may
well never, watch(ed). My logs may well be similar.

Meanwhile, there's a referendum on the subject I initiated over in Cruisers
and Sailing Forums, a web-based place. There have been suggestions for a
blog. However, maybe it's just me, but I have a couple of friends who put
out blogs, and while I get a notification of them, with the link to go see,
much of the time, I don't - because a) it's another step, rather than just
opening the mail (which I already had to do to see the link) and b) at
least, in the ones I see, they don't present in an easy-to-read format, and
have everything ever done there as well, cluttering up the instant (as in
instance) post I might like to read. The ones I've seen (granted, there may
be other formats) also require a further mining to get to what it is they're
talking about on the notification, rather than just opening that instance.

However, blogs seem to be a frequent enough suggestion that perhaps I'll ask
my son, the Google wizard (ex-employee, author of the most-used Chrome
browser app), who's offered, if there's a way to set up a blog for me that
would meet my perceptions of shortcoming.

However, if I went to that format, likely I'd not then go to the additional
effort of putting notices here and the other places my log postings go. In
the ongoing referendum mentioned, there was some discussion of ego-centrism,
which I admitted might be true - but my real purpose in putting the logs
where I do is so that someone like I used to be (pick any time prior to now)
who could find my foibles, disasters, explorations and successes valuable,
might see them and store them away as I used to do, in great volume, in my
very earliest days in RBC and the dozen or so Sailnet mailing lists I used
to be on (before they killed them and went to forums). Now that the world
has gone to forums, rather than usenet (just like usenet superceded bulletin
boards - yes, I'm THAT old), if you're not on full-time broadband, getting a
broad-spectrum view is very difficult due to the need to not only open the
web page, but then navigate around in great detail. Worse, for my archiving
purposes, getting all the stuff I might like to store into my computer is
vastly more difficult than just pulling an email or usenet post into a
folder.

As to the bandwidth issue, we're currently helping our buddy boat with
access to our router (he's nearby) so he can do some setup for his time
ashore when they expect to sell the boat. In two 3-hour sessions, some of
which were my refreshing the page on the above referendum, and sending new
comments to those commenting, we've managed to use more than 400MB. Our
subscription will end in another 300MB, sometime today, if this holds. Yet,
my posts here usually, even in the most extreme, don't exceed 25K. Thus you
may have a better appreciation for why I say that anything web-based is the
bane of my existence. Those ashore don't usually have those issues :{))

So, I continue here, in a text-only format, getting each post as it arrives
if I have good enough connectivity, or the digest, if not.

So, as usual, this is long - and, likely, you've left before this point
:{)) - but I'm interested in various blog formats (which won't change my
posting style, but may limit the bandwidth here) in case they might be
useful.

In any event, you know in advance what you'll get with one of my logs; if
they're tiresome, I imagine folks ignore them after having read the first
few :{))

L8R

Skip


--
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 Jun 3, 9:41*am, "Flying Pig" wrote:
*There have been suggestions for a
blog. *However, maybe it's just me, but I have a couple of friends who put
out blogs, and while I get a notification of them, with the link to go see,
much of the time, I don't - because a) it's another step, rather than just
opening the mail (which I already had to do to see the link) and b) at
least, in the ones I see, they don't present in an easy-to-read format, and
have everything ever done there as well, cluttering up the instant (as in
instance) post I might like to read.

Skip,

Most blogs provide incredible control over format. Classically
postings are in reverse chronological order so the latest post is
first and immediately apparent. The blog functions as an automatic
archive making what information may be gleaned accessible to those who
come later.

Some blog software, including Wordpress and Movable Type, allow
integration with e-mail so that you can post by e-mailing your content
to a special e-mail address. This is very convenient and allows
posting directly over Winlink or Sailmail. I've set that capability up
a number of times and it is trivial to do. Some people go back and
edit their posts later to add pictures but that isn't necessary.

A link to the blog should show the latest post. Most blog software
also generates a permanent link to each post that provides an enduring
connection to that specific post.

Incidentally, there is no reason you should have to send your posts in
sections over Winlink. I believe the limit on message size is 120 kB
compressed. Text messages compress significantly. Indeed the time it
takes is long for long messages and imposes upon everyone trying to
share the system but breaking your message into pieces doesn't reduce
the total time to transmit.

73 es sail fast, dave KO4MI
S/V Auspicious

Hi, Dave, and thanks for the note.

"Auspicious" wrote in message
...

Skip,

Most blogs provide incredible control over format. Classically
postings are in reverse chronological order so the latest post is
first and immediately apparent. The blog functions as an automatic
archive making what information may be gleaned accessible to those who
come later.

Some blog software, including Wordpress and Movable Type, allow
integration with e-mail so that you can post by e-mailing your content
to a special e-mail address. This is very convenient and allows
posting directly over Winlink or Sailmail. I've set that capability up
a number of times and it is trivial to do. Some people go back and
edit their posts later to add pictures but that isn't necessary.

A link to the blog should show the latest post. Most blog software
also generates a permanent link to each post that provides an enduring
connection to that specific post.

Incidentally, there is no reason you should have to send your posts in
sections over Winlink. I believe the limit on message size is 120 kB
compressed. Text messages compress significantly. Indeed the time it
takes is long for long messages and imposes upon everyone trying to
share the system but breaking your message into pieces doesn't reduce
the total time to transmit.

73 es sail fast, dave KO4MI
S/V Auspicious


I'm in the very early stages of getting to the point of stupid, rather than
totally uninformed. Eventually, if I pursue it, I'll become dangerous, and,
with any luck, able, and perhaps even proficient :{))

The problem in my transmitting what is never more than 20k after compression
is either speed or connectivity or both. Either I can't maintain a
connection, in general, or, Tx is at the low hundreds at best.

When I get a good enough connection that it goes out at anything over 1k,
all is well.

That is, unless the connection deteriorates along the way, starting at mid
thousand, but deteriorating to low hundreds. In those cases, since I'm
unwilling to risk having the entirety go poof, at the cost of all those
amps, let alone my need to babysit it, I break it up, post all the segments
but then unpost all but the next in line, and deal with it like that.

That's about half the time, in my experience. That's even with aborting an
upload very early on if it's slow, looking for a better connection somewhere
else. Frequently that works; propagation makes it such that I might do much
better 1500 miles away than someplace much closer.

So, yes, it doesn't save any time to break it up - other than having to
start over after 25 minutes on a marginal speed and an eventual failure when
there are 100 more bytes to connect, or MUCH more frustrating, they all get
there, but the confirmation never happens, and I have to start over.

Where are you these days?

73s...

L8R

Skip

--
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 Sat, 5 Jun 2010 07:31:12 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

That is, unless the connection deteriorates along the way, starting at mid
thousand, but deteriorating to low hundreds. In those cases, since I'm
unwilling to risk having the entirety go poof, at the cost of all those
amps, let alone my need to babysit it, I break it up, post all the segments
but then unpost all but the next in line, and deal with it like that.

Propagation has not been good lately but should start improving again.

If I try, I can usually get a Winlink connect at 1400 bytes/sec which
is a fairly good rate, even for longer messages. We download a 25K
GRIB file every day, usually with no problems. Winlink is very good
about piecing together broken messages. If the GRIB transmission
deteriorates to below 600 BPS, I disconnect and try another PMBO
gateway station. Winlink automatically picks up where it left off and
completes the transmission. It's a great service and a good example
of how ham radio can still be useful in the 21st century.

Hand held depth finder? I had no idea such a thing existed, but I can
see its use for exploring an anchorage by dink.

Skip
A hand held depth finder:

Its called a lead line skip. get one on board and use it once a month
as part of your monthy safety checks.

ALso, regarding your SSb email...... trash that stone age crap. It
has one foot in a grave half filled with vacume tubes. Get Irridum. If
you want to listen to the net gab fest get a good multi band receive
only for $300USD and listen to all that dribble ya want. Hell you can
even receive weathefax off it and put to your computer. The only
people who still use SSB TX a
1) fools like you who listen to retierd radio geeks who love playing
with that crap cause it makes them feel smarter than you. So guys like
you buy all that **** that comes with ssb cause you dont know any
better. Personally, less complicated is better that is unless you are
the second typ of person who supports use of ssb tx
2) radio geeks who grew up making a crystal radio set for a merit
badge and soldering Heath Kits together who like to tinker with that
crap. Those kinduse ssb for the same reason old poeple do crossword
puzzels and SODOKU.
3) those stunted personalities who cant stand being quiet or alone
and must forever have an audince at all cost.

Why dont you go learn flashing light/morse code. Did you know that is
required for all USCG license alowed to sail oceans? But SSB is not
specifically required. Why does the IMO and USCG not require vercahnt
ships to have SSB any more skip??


As much time as you sit on the hook you could get GBAN and surf the
internet for god sakes.

bob.

On Jun 5, 7:31 am, "Flying Pig" wrote:
That's about half the time, in my experience. That's even with aborting an
upload very early on if it's slow, looking for a better connection somewhere
else. Frequently that works; propagation makes it such that I might do much
better 1500 miles away than someplace much closer.

Bummer. Do you have and use the propagation tool for Airmail? My
experience seems better than yours. Like you I do sometimes get a slow
connection that I terminate rather than wait. Once I get a solid
connect though all my mail goes through. It generally only takes
checking the top few stations on the prop list. Maybe you have more
mail than I do.

Where are you these days?

I just got back from a mini-cruise to Narragansett RI and down LIS. I
sailed to my college homecoming and anchored off the beach! Way cool.
Now I'm back in Annapolis. Janet (who I don't think you met when we
caught up in MHH) and I are heading out again in a couple of weeks -
still talking about where to go.

On Jun 6, 2:48*am, Bob wrote:
Hand held depth finder? I had no idea such a thing existed, but I can
see its use for exploring an anchorage by dink.

A hand held depth finder:

Its called a lead line skip. get one on board and use it once a month
as part of your monthy safety checks.

I have a lead line that I use for entertainment once in a while, and
an electronic hand held depth finder. Guess which is more useful
surveying around the boat when aground?

By the way, if you haven't run aground you haven't been sailing
anywhere interesting.

ALso, regarding your SSb email...... trash that stone age crap. It
has one foot in a grave half filled with vacume tubes. Get Irridum.

1. vacuum

2. Iridium

3. I have personal experience with Inmarsat mini-M, Iridium,
Globalstar, and SSB with Pactor. If someone else is paying the bills
or I win the lottery I'd go with Inmarsat in a second, although the
dish would be intrusive on my boat. Absent that SSB beats the pants
off Iridium for reliability and easily meets it for speed. Often
throughput is a bit faster over SSB and time spent hunched over the
nav station is definitely shorter for SSB. The only advantage of sat
phones is the ability to dial a phone number of anyone anywhere and
make a connection. Not important to me but might be to some people.

For e-mail, wefax, Navtex, position reporting, and staying in touch
(generally by e-mail) SSB with Pactor is ahead of sat phones on both
performance and value for money. My conclusion is from BOTH running
the numbers and first-hand experience with all the options.

Personally, less complicated is better that is unless you are
the second typ of person who supports use of ssb tx

Are you kidding? HF is much simpler than sat phones.

As much time as you sit on the hook you could get GBAN and surf the
internet for god sakes.

I presume you mean BGAN. Yes? Nice portable solution from Inmarsat but
there are less expensive ones with similar bandwidth.

73 es sail fast, dave KO4MI
S/V Auspicious

Hi, Dave,

This, as is fairly typical, has migrated pretty far from the start, so I'll
address just the pertinent questions, having yet again renamed the subject:

"Auspicious" wrote in message
...
On Jun 5, 7:31 am, "Flying Pig" wrote:
That's about half the time, in my experience. That's even with aborting
an
upload very early on if it's slow, looking for a better connection
somewhere
else. Frequently that works; propagation makes it such that I might do
much
better 1500 miles away than someplace much closer.

Bummer. Do you have and use the propagation tool for Airmail? My
experience seems better than yours. Like you I do sometimes get a slow
connection that I terminate rather than wait. Once I get a solid
connect though all my mail goes through. It generally only takes
checking the top few stations on the prop list. Maybe you have more
mail than I do.



Yes, I do, to both. My logs aren't one-liners, as everyone takes great joy
in pointing out, so connection reliability (vs throughput) becomes an issue.

I do use the prop tool aggressively, along with an automatic
frequency-changing control cable. I've found that certain of the stations
are more likely to connect than others, and I never even try anything which
doesn't show 100% reliability.

I usually define "solid" in two terms: What's the "speed" shown on the
bottom (lowest 100, highest - that I've seen - 400) and what's the tx speed
(anywhere from 100 to, best, momentary, 1600 bytes/second).

So, when I can't maintain a connection, if it's gone along well for MOST of
it but dumps twice, I give up and break it up. Usually, the much smaller
chunks go without failure, though I may have to use several stations to get
a connection (if it doesn't pick up after about 5 "rings" I terminate the
call, because if it can't hear me well enough to start, it's not likely to
persist) to accomplish the multipart upload.

As to my gear, when I'm checking in (not very regularly, but often enough
that I'm recognized) on the Maritime Mobile net, most of the time I'm
pegging their meters, so think all is well there.

Dahdidit dit :{))

L8R

Skip


--
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