not to worry. last time I heard, dougie was sailing a Hunter 19 and hoping it
was a Deerfoot 56. dougie tends to hope the world thinks him a genius.

From: De Clarke
Date: 1/7/2004 4:48 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: 3ffc8cd3@darkstar

DSK wrote:


De Clarke wrote:

I'm looking for a Colvin Gazelle at a reasonable price.

Aluminum or steel? Junk rig or schooner? Commissioned, 'completed,' or
project?

If Mr King had taken a moment to read the URL included in my posting,
his questions would be answered. I included a URL for further details,
in order to keep the "advertising" posting as brief as possible.

How did you pick the Gazelle and wouldn't something else do as well?

My business, I think. In any case the web page referenced by
the URL discusses possible less-preferred alternatives.

Anyway, try all these links, especially the bottom one.
...
http://tulis.dsinet.org/misc/bart.gif

I confess I am puzzled by this response -- why be gratuitously
insulting? I can only assume that Mr King did not read my sig
block. As a s'ware engineer, would I ignore the best search
engine on the net? hardly :-)

JFEI and to defend myself against Mr King's imputation of incompetence
and stupidity :-) yes, I have used Google. I have also written my own
web crawler to scrape about 15,000 yachtworld listings (price-limited)
every couple of weeks for anything remotely like the boat I'm looking
for. I've placed ads in 3 different sailing mags. I surely wouldn't
be posting to Usenet -- and exposing myself to its notorious, nay,
legendary culture of rudeness -- if other means had been successful.
3 years of boat-hunting and several K miles of plane travel to survey
hopeful prospects have not yielded results so far... other than furthering
my education the importance of regular maintenance on steel hulls :-)

I am aware of about 8 Colvin Gazelles f/s in N America at this time,
and so far all of them are (a) on the wrong coast, (b) the wrong rig,
or (c) out of my price range.

I have narrowly missed buying 2 Gazelles in the last 2 years for the
usual reasons -- seller changed mind at last minute, or prior offer
was accepted.

I am now trying to use the sailors' WorldWideGossipNet to find the boats
that are not listed w/brokers or fancy online databases, but are lurking
in marinas and mooring grounds with handwritten For Sale Signs on the
rigging, or stored in someone's uncle's barn.

Of the URLs Mr King offers, 3 are boats I already know about
(listed on yachtworld) due to my own semi-automated web crawler.
(Again, if he had bothered to look at the URL he might have noticed
the text reading "I am already watching yachtworld.com...") There
is no indication that the fourth boat is for sale at this time.

The fifth and final URL is the uncalled-for bit of rudeness to
which I refer above.

AFAIK Mr King and I have never met, never done business, have no history
or connection whatsoever -- so I can imagine no possible grudge or
personal animosity that would explain the disrespectful tone of this
"helpful" response. I am mystified. Is this some kind of trolling game
-- hazing newbies to the newsgroup? Or (I am not familiar with this
group and its history) is Mr King habituallu rude to everyone, w/o any
bias or preference? In either case, Usenet certainly seems to be living
up to its reputation :-)

I would like to thank those folks who have -- with genuine courtesy and
helpfulness -- called and emailed me already with info about some rather
interesting boats. Others w/info, tips, leads etc., please visit the
URL :-)

http://www.ucolick.org/~de/boat/Wanted.html

and send email or leave a message by voice; after such a warm and
friendly welcome, I am not highly motivated to visit the newsgroup
again...

de

--
................................................. ............................
e Clarke, Software Engineer UCO/Lick Observatory, UCSC:
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:Web: www.ucolick.org | of you. --Kurt Vonnegut :
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