Fair winds and following seas :)
Monday, May 29, 2017
Nothing is simple
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Log Entry 242152ZMAY2017
Verbatim
*******
"It has been a very rough trip so far. The weather was pretty when we departed Sydney. Sunny, nice South winds. The wind shifted to the North* directly on our heading. It was so light we could not point worth a darn. Cléia was seasick most of the time. And the battery voltage was low. We kept all the electronics off except the radio and AIS off. Several days of overcast skies and rain, plus we are at the short days and long nights part of the year. The first night we had thunderstorms on my watch as we were making about 1.5 knots. We were almost hit by the C/S Tokyo. We were both running AIS. Why he chose to miss me by 100 feet is beyond me. We tried to tack but the wind was so light and the current so strong. We made almost no headway. Finally out of frustration I decided to motor North to make some progress until the wind changed. We did, which had the effect of charging the batteries. It also burned a lot of fuel for a SOG of about 2 knots. It was very frustrating but I kept my council. The wind finally changed. We were entertained by a 8 hour lightning show that had us on edge. Fortunately we were watching and the storm never quite made it to Reboot. The front passage complete the weather calmed down and the wind shifted to the Southwest. For the first time we had no drama and some decent sleep. Clélia and Camille are great crew and have soldiered through what has been so far a pretty rough trip.".
Fair winds and following seas :).
* See Captain Roger's Rules.
** Yes Nigel, you were right. The solar panel controller set points were wrong. We were not getting a full charge. Since fixed.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
22 May 2017 20:16Z
33 20.89 S
152 39.02 E
Course 005 True
Speed 2 knots
Winds SE variable below 10 knots
Seas SE 1.5 meters
Sky 80%
Bar 1023 steady
A long night. First sail with Clélia and Camille. We made it out of Sydney Harbor under sail and then slowly turned North as the wind shifted. We were doing OK until about 10 pm local. At that point there was a thunderstorm ahead of us. We turned East for the rest of the night. We are now well East of our track and have made very little progress North. The good news is we avoided the thunderstorm. Sunrise was welcomed as I had been cold all night.
Battery voltage is a concern. After overcast skies for a couple of days the batteries were not topped off when we left. Since we sailed rather than motored we did not generate electricity from the engine. As a result we ran a one hour charge from the engine in the middle of the night.
Fair winds and following seas :)
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Underway
Roger / Reboot / W2ZDB / WDB8435
Friday, May 19, 2017
State of the Nation
http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/19/watching-slow-motion-coup-detat/#.WR84WAG5yHY.twitter
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Embarrassing
Special kudos to the Australian Department of Biosecurity who offered to work out a way to get Reboot hauled with XO on board. Fortunately it did not come to that.
Occam's Razor........
Fair winds and following seas :)
Ready to Rally
Fair winds and following seas :)
The fourth picture.
Hyacinthe Gabrielle Roland, a French actress (and possible prostitute) who like "the Polastron," escaped the Revolution. She married Richard Wellesley the first Marquis Wellesley, after they lived together for quite a while and had a few children. One of same, to wit Anne Wellesley, is in Queen Elizabeth's (and therefore Prince Chuck's and Duke William's and Prince George's line, via her mother the Queen Mother's mother's.
Princess Frederica (or Fredericke) is in a private collection.
The Duchesse de Polignac is at the Museum of Versailles and the Trianon
The self-portrait is at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas
Hyacinthe Roland, the Queen's ancestor, is the Legion of Honor building of the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts
Fair winds and following seas :)
Biblical
And [Job] said, (...): the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD".
Had we not had engine problems we would be in the Whitsundays where the forecast is for gale force winds and torrential (but not biblical) rains.
Fair winds and following seas :)
Fwd: Vigée Portraits in Your Blog
English Queens
We (the "Royal we") are aware that the current Duchess of Cambridge is quite attractive. So was Lady Diana. So the question is: Was Queen Hillary's failed coronation an consequence of losing out in the looks contest to Melania Trump? For comparison lets look at some historical English Queens in the photos attached.
Now as for quality looks, let me offer up these three women, all painted by Elizabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
#1: Princess Frederika Louisa Dorothea Phillippine von Hohenzollern, a niece of Frederick the Great, later Princess Radziwill by marriage.
#2: Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, later Duchesse de Polignac by marriage, a great favorite of Marie Antoinette.
#3: The artist in an early self-portrait.
Batteries die in darkness*
This morning I had a epiphany. It's fall. We are only getting 10 1/2 hours of sunlight (here down under.) The charge cycles are shorter, the discharge cycles longer. The battery voltage reflects that. Not really a big deal. We are talking about a 0.1 volt difference. But I do notice it.
Where it does really show up is in cruising. When the electric autopilot, the multifunction display, the VHF, the AIS and the tricolor are running all night there is quite a noticeable difference. (Yes, I use the Monitor wind steering, keep the multifunction display at minimum intensity, and have LED bulbs.)
Fair winds and following seas :)
* Warning - this part gets political. Stop reading if you are only interested in sailing stuff.
The subject is a takeoff on WaPo's new tag line "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Of course the United States isn't a democracy , it's a republic. But no need for WaPo to be accurate. Their anonymous sources assure me that the United States is actually a democracy. Plus, I am protected by their (and the NYT's) paywalls. Who pays to read such crud? Certainly not me.
Frankly my mind is exploding. Each day I am assaulted with more rumors and innuendo. I would stop reading Facebook and Twitter but they have become the de facto communication community for cruising boats. So I burn endless pay by the gigabyte dollars wading through.
Although an anonymous source (I know who it is, I just don't think it appropriate to publish a name without permission) compares this to the fall of the Weinmar Republic, I think this environment is what it must have been like leading up to the Civil War. At least then the issues were semi-clear. I guess the failed coronation of Queen Hillary has created a new War of the Roses. Not reassuring.
Monday, May 15, 2017
Elevator
Fair winds and following seas:)
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Uber (revisited)
Fair winds and following seas :)
Stuck in Sydney
Fair winds and following seas:)
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Uber
I was surprised to find out from my driver the other day that they don't know the destination when they accept the ride. It is not disclosed until you are in the car. So no turning down rides that they don't want. Interesting.
Fair winds and following seas :)
Friday, May 12, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Filter wrench
Indefinite Delay
Voltmeter
Fair winds and following seas :)
Monday, May 8, 2017
Departure (delayed)
Leaving Sydney today. Heading north. May stop to see Aimee in Bundaberg. ETA Bundaberg 8 days. 3 pob + 1 cat. Daily position report via sat phone to WINLINK. Fair winds and following seas. :)
Roger Jones/Sailboat Reboot
US Doc 1046300/Sail # USA 60493
Radio WDB8435/W2ZDB
Sydney departure
Roger Jones/Sailboat Reboot
US Doc 1046300/Sail # USA 60493
Radio WDB8435/W2ZDB
+61 (0) 476 768 335
Radar
Enter Manuel, my new crew for the trip to Cairns. Together we could do this. And we* did. But it took 6 hours on the mast. First we had to find new fasteners. That took four stores and several hours. Although Australia has decent stores they don't carry the diversity of stock found in the U.S. We finally found a specialty fastener store that carried the right size. Then we discovered that the old fasteners for the bracket did not want to come out. After several failed strategies we borrowed a hacksaw from the marina and cut them out. (Yes, Reboot has a hacksaw somewhere, in some locker ...) Next was getting the new pop-rivets to " pop. " We didn't have the hand strength with our tool. After several more ideas back to the hacksaw. Finally we got the radar mounted and new wires run.
We turned it on. Nothing. Oh cr$%p. Out comes the voltmeter. Hum. 4.1 volts. Not good. Opened up the inline fuse holder. Not shiny. Bad. Pencil eraser on the fuse and contacts. 12.4 volts. Power up. Voila! Radar!
With special thanks to Sydney Port Transit Services for announcing a "no wake, no wash" zone while we were up on the mast. And a special place in hell for the cigarette boat idiots who came through the mooring field at full throttle. Twice!
To nephew Bill bemoaning his trips to Home Depot ™ to fix his dryer. You have no idea how well of you are.
Fair winds and following seas :)
* In all fairness Manuel was the "we." I tended the safety line and provided sage advice. Haha.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
World of Warcraft
is happening now.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world/transcript?language=en
Friday, May 5, 2017
Centigrade to Fahrenheit
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
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