Jim Woodward wrote:

There are thousands of small working sailboats in Eastern Indonesia
(Nusatengara -- Bali, Lombok, Rinca, Komodo, Flores, Solor, Alor) --
they usually sail when the wind is right and often motor on a
putt-putt when it's not. They're taxis, delivery trucks, fishboats,
family cars, etc.

Most of the sails look like they were cut from tablecloths -- large
blue and white squares, for example. I'm not sure we saw anything
that would be recognized as "sailcloth" here.

A lot of the same sort of boats we saw use blue poly tarp material for sails. At night, it's a roof, by day,
it's a sail, come harvest time, you can use it to gather rice.... now *that's* efficency. Who says modern
technology has done nothing to improve mankind's lot!



Since they obviously do the job, perhaps we should start a fad here
for blue and white sails. Would save money....

Depends on what you mean by 'do the job.' I suspect that these sails performance on points of sail more than 30
degrees above DDW would disappoint even Parallax.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

DSK wrote in message ...
Jim Woodward wrote:

There are thousands of small working sailboats in Eastern Indonesia
(Nusatengara -- Bali, Lombok, Rinca, Komodo, Flores, Solor, Alor) --
they usually sail when the wind is right and often motor on a
putt-putt when it's not. They're taxis, delivery trucks, fishboats,
family cars, etc.

Most of the sails look like they were cut from tablecloths -- large
blue and white squares, for example. I'm not sure we saw anything
that would be recognized as "sailcloth" here.

A lot of the same sort of boats we saw use blue poly tarp material for sails. At night, it's a roof, by day,
it's a sail, come harvest time, you can use it to gather rice.... now *that's* efficency. Who says modern
technology has done nothing to improve mankind's lot!



Since they obviously do the job, perhaps we should start a fad here
for blue and white sails. Would save money....

Depends on what you mean by 'do the job.' I suspect that these sails performance on points of sail more than 30
degrees above DDW would disappoint even Parallax.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Doug:

If you have low standards and low expectations, you will often be pleased.

Parallax wrote:

Doug:

If you have low standards and low expectations, you will often be pleased.

Agreed. Ever read Jonathan Livingston Seagull? 'Perfect speed is already being there.'

The trick IMHO is to have relatively low standards & expectations on the things that don't matter much, and pick a
few key things to really demand (& be) the best.

DSK