Richard Jernigan -> RE: Any body like Boats (Jan. 28 2014 19:01:23)
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Beautiful work, Anders. Really a lovely boat. Well designed and well built boats are objects of great beauty. One of the most beautiful man made things I have ever seen is the Gokstad Ship in the Viking Ship Museum at Oslo. It is absolutely utilitarian in every respect. There is no extraneous decoration whatsoever, yet it is profoundly beautiful. I enjoyed my Wylie 34 (10 meters) while I lived in the Marshall Islands, but I'm not that nostalgic for it now. In the tropics maintenance is a constant chore. The ocean is always trying to destroy your boat. While in San Francisco before I bought the Wylie I went shopping. The yacht broker bragged about the rod rigging on a bigger boat he showed me. I later found out he was the biggest selling broker in the Bay Area. I told him I wanted wire rigging so it would show me when it was beginning to corrode, by sprouting whiskers. The broker said, "But this is Nitronic steel. It won't corrode." I replied, "Where I live the question is not whether something will corrode, it is when? Crevice corrosion in rod rigging is almost impossible to detect. Sailing from Honolulu to Kwajalein in a big boat a friend of mine lost an upper shroud on a broad reach in a 60 knot gale. Fortunately he was able to come about before the mast came down. Before he left Honolulu, he had the boat surveyed by the leading rigger in Hawaii. My friend showed me the souvenir piece of Nitronic rod. It was an intact outer shell filled with white powder." A couple of friends with bigger boats, 40-50 feet (12-15 meters), spent far more time working on their boats than they did sailing them. Big boats are supposed to be faster, but my boat held the speed record from Hawaii to Kwajalein, 2100 nautical miles in 13 days on twin headsails and a Monitor self-steering windvane. It got a little bumpy at times, though. RNJ
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