Conference unifix::sailing

    After spending two years at night classes to get my Royal Yachting
    Association Yachtmaster ticket I finally fouind a plaque fitt for
    my bulkhead in a store by the shore of Lake Geneva :
    
    	"Navigation means when you arrive anyway"
    
    
    This takes pride of place where once there was one saying :
    
    	"I am the captain of this ship - and I have my wife's permission
    	 to say so"

    While on the subject of plaques, I have a powerboater friend who has
    one in the cabin of his boat that states
    
    	"Marriages performed by the captain of this vessel are good
    	 for the duration of the voyage only."
    
    And one of the sailboats in our yacht club has one over the nav
    station that says, simply,
    
    	"Pointy end forward, and white side up."
    
    ... Bob

    Most of the humor on Fat Tuesday can't be printed here, but one
    event that happened still sends the crew wild in its re-telling.
    
    We had this French-Canadian guy sailing with us once and we told
    him to look around and see where one of our competition was.  He
    looks around and says "I look to windward, I look to leeward, and
    there she is, gone."
    
    Dave

    Examining the frantic knots tied by my non-nautical guests, I like to 
    quote Gary Jobson with the following:
    
    "If you can't tie good knots, at least tie lots of them."
    

    I saw in one of the recent issues of Sail or Cruising World a 
racing crew with the following shirts.

Crew:  I take orders from the guy who writes the checks

Skipper:  I write the checks

A testimony to the high cost of racing?

Brian

Quoted by Phil Herting, Condor Ltd. president, originally from a former 
boat-builder employer of his:

"The easiest way to make a million bucks in the boat-building business is 
to start with two million and get out quick."

    One of our favorite sailing stories from WAGS:
    
    About 4 years ago, after finishing a race down in Boston Harbor, we
    were passing another sailboat whose crew we had just met that week-end.
    To impress them with our sailing skills we decided to pop the chute and
    just blow on by.  Well, to our embarrassment, the chute went up
    sideways.  Needless to say, we didn't sail by them.  After taking it
    down and putting it up correctly, we finally caught up with them again.
    At which point four of them lined up on the windward rail holding up
    pieces of paper with rather large numbers printed on them.
    
    	9.0   9.5   9.0   6.0
    
    After the jeering died down, one of our crew pointed to the gal
    with the 6.0 in her hand and shouted "Russian judge!"
    
    ... Bob
    

	The cost of sailing....

	My wife and I were on a day cruise and talking about the day when
we got a boat big enough to cruise overnight.  She said that she'd finally
have time to write all those notes to people.

	I said that we couldn't afford it because it would cost $100 for
each 'Sea' note....

	Dave

    This past weekend, after the last race of the Volvo Newport Regatta,
    several hundred sailboats congregated under the two cranes that
    would lift them out of the water back onto their trailers.  One
    of the Etchells skippers, who had finished much farther down in the
    fleet than he was accustomed to, found himself about 50th in line.
    
    The prospect of waiting several hours in the rain was just too
    unappealing.  Plus, all the crews pulling out ahead were heading
    straight to the beer tent.  The "good stuff" had been running out
    fairly early on the previous nights.  It had not been the type of
    day that a few cans of diet pepsi would make up for.  So the skipper
    gave up his place in line to check out a "secret" crane farther
    down the shoreline past the point of land.
    
    The crane was in fact working.   The crew fetched their trailer,
    hoisted the boat out, and jumped into their truck.   Congratulating
    himself on his cleverness, the skipper gunned the engine, making
    a bee line for the beer tent.  An Etchells with its trailer weighs
    about 5000 lbs.  Even a truck engine makes a lot of noise pulling
    that much weight.  No one inside could hear the shouts from passersby.
    They rounded a curve past a large tree, then, CRASH.
    
    They had forgotten to pull their 40 foot mast out.
                   

	re .-1


    I did that once myself, but it wasn't a tree we intercepted, it was
    the power-line serving the local sheriff's office. The mast came
    down amid an exciting light show and the transformer on the power pole
    went up in smoke. The sheriff was not amused.

    My buddy (it was his car) got a ticket for driving a vehicle that was
    25' too high! When he got to court, he found out that the standard fine
    was $10 per foot. Fortunately, the judge thought it was funny, and
    let him off for $10. My friend's insurance company had to pick up the tab
    for the transformer.

    It's the kind of thing you only do once...


    --RS

    Then there's the story John Gould tells, in one of his many books
    of Down-East humor, about the newlyweds who sailed into port for
    the night.  While they were ashore having dinner, the harbormaster
    tied a length of fishing line to the top of their mast.  After they
    had retired for the night he sat in his rocker up on the dock and
    sawed back and forth on the line well into the wee hours.

    In the morning when they complained about how rough it was, all
    the locals had a good laugh at their expense.
    

    re .10 & 11	  Gee, I thought we all said it was the power boaters that
    had  "Mutton for brains"  :-^)

    	R
    

    RE .13
    
    Yeah, and I've also heard it said on many an occasion that some
    sailboat owners have more money than brains.
    
    ... Bob

    RE .14
    
        Not for long....
    
    
    

    Seen in the booklet for the Newport in-water boat show:
    
    (paraphrased)
    
    	66' sailboat; hot-tub, ... , complete with all the
        "Bills and whistles"...
    

This is from Jim Thayer, via "Messing About in Boats":

Seems a ship came in from a lengthy voyage and two of its ropes, thoroughly 
dried out, were sent ashore to tie up.  Before long they drifted off in 
search of refreshment.  They burst into the first bar they saw and 
exhuberantly demanded beer.  The beligerant barkeep thundered, "We don't 
serve ropes!" and ordered them out.

Somewhat chastened, they entered the next joint, only to be told, "You 
look like ropes to me, get outta my place!"  Arriving, now dejected, at 
a third establishment, one rope said to the other, "Go in and look it over 
while I fix myself up."  So saying, he tied himself into a granny and 
proceeded to frazzle his ends.  Thus disguised, he walked confidently 
inside and ordered a drink.

The barkeep eyed him suspiciously and inquired, "Ain't you a rope?"

"Why no," the rope answered ingenuously, "I'm afraid not!"

;-)

An annonymous noter sent this and made me enter it.  Read before it gets 
deleted.

[forwards deleted]

The local Kiwanis Club was meeting on Wednesday night, and the guest speaker
was to be a Sex Therapist speaking about Sexual Intimacy in Marriage.
Unfortunately, the speaker got snow-bound at a distant airport, and the local
Kiwanis leader asked a member who was a physician if he would fill in by
speaking on the same topic, which he did.
 
When the physician got home, his wife asked about the meeting, and he
explained that he had to fill in for the guest speaker.  "What was your speech
about?", she asked.  A bit embarrassed to admit the truth, he replied, "I
spoke on Sailing."
 
The next morning, the physician's wife was at the grocery store when she met
the wife of one of the other Kiwanis members who said, "My husband tells me
that your husband gave a wonderful and helpful speech last night!"
Thinking about what her husband had told her about his speech, the
physician's wife replied, "You know, it's funny, but I never thought of him as
an expert.  He's only done it twice.  The first time, his hat blew off, and
the second time he threw up and swore he would never do it again!"

Article 120 of clari.feature.dave_barry:
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Dave Barry)
Subject: IT'S BEST TO IGNORE THE CALL OF THE SEA
Date: 19 Apr 92 00:05:42 GMT

DAVE BARRY
	
	(EDITORS' NOTE: Editors who object to the name of the band ``Big Dick
and the Extenders'' in paragraph 6 of this column, can instead use ``Big
(nickname for Richard) and the Extenders.'')
	There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea.
	``Hey, YOU!'' are the sea's exact words.
	If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone
immediately. That's what I should have done recently when I was called
to sea by my friends Hannah and Paddy, who had rented a sailboat in the
Florida Keys. They love to sail. Their dream is to quit their jobs and
sail around the world, living a life of carefree adventure until their
boat is sunk by an irate whale and they wind up drifting in a tiny raft
and fighting over who gets to eat the sun block. At least that's the way
I see it turning out.
	The only safe way to venture onto the ocean is aboard a cruise ship
the size of a rural school district. Even then you're not safe, because
you might become trapped in your cabin due to bodily expansion. Cruise
ships carry thousands of tons of high-calorie food, and under maritime
law they cannot return to port until all of it has been converted into
passenger fat. So there are at least eight feedings a day. Crew members
often creep into cabins at night and use high-pressure hoses to shoot
cheesecake directly down the throats of sleeping passengers.
	But on cruise ships you rarely find yourself dangling from poles,
which is more than I can say for the sailboat rented by Hannah and
Paddy. The captain was a man named Dan, who used to be a race-car driver
until he had heart trouble and switched from fast cars to sailboats,
which are the slowest form of transportation on Earth with the possible
exception of airline flights that go through O'Hare. Sometimes I suspect
that sailboats never move at all, and the only reason they appear to go
from place to place is continental drift.
	Nevertheless we were having a pleasant day on Captain Dan's boat, the
Jersey Girl, doing busy nautical things like hoisting the main stizzen
and mizzening the aft beam, and meanwhile getting passed by other boats,
seaweed, lobsters, glaciers, etc. The trouble arose when we attempted to
enter a little harbor so we could go to a bar featuring a band headed by
a large man named Richard. This band is called -- really -- ``Big Dick and
the Extenders.'' We were close enough to hear them playing when the
Jersey Girl plowed into what nautical experts call the ``bottom.''
	The problem was an unusually low tide. Helpful people in smaller
boats kept telling us this.
	``It's an unusually low tide!'' they'd shout helpfully as they went
past. They were lucky the Jersey Girl doesn't have a cannon.
	We'd been sitting there for quite a while when Captain Dan suggested,
with a straight face, that if some of us held onto a large pole called
the ``boom'' and swung out over the water, our weight might make the
boat lean over enough to get free. I now realize that this was a prank.
Fun-loving sailboat captains are probably always trying to get people
out on the boom, but most people aren't that stupid.
	We, however, had been substantially refreshed by beverages under a
hot sun, so we actually did it. Four of us climbed up, hung our stomachs
over the boom, kicked off from the side of the boat and NOOOOOO ...
	Picture a giant shish kebab skewer sticking out sideways from a boat
10 feet over the water, except instead of pieces of meat on it, there
are four out-of-shape guys, faces pale and sweating, flabby legs
flailing, ligaments snapping like rifle shots. We instantly became a
tourist attraction. A crowd gathered on shore, laughing and pointing.
Some of them were probably sailboat captains.
	``Look!'' they were probably saying. ``Captain Dan got FOUR of them
out on the boom! A new record!''
	Meanwhile, next to me, Paddy, a middle-aged attorney who is not,
let's be honest, built like an Olympic gymnast, who is in fact built a
lot like a gym, was saying, in an usually high voice, ``We better bring
the boom back now. OK? Now? OK?? WE BETTER BRING THE BOOM BACK NOW!
BRINGTHEBOOMBACKNOW!! I SAID ...''
	``HANG ON!'' Captain Dan was shouting. ``She's about to move!''
	People on shore were now taking pictures.
	``IT'S AN UNUSUALLY LOW TIDE!'' a helpful boater was shouting.
	``Please,'' Paddy was saying, very quietly now.
	``I think she's moving!'' Captain Dan sang out.
	In fact the Jersey Girl was exhibiting no more flotation than central
Nebraska. As I clung to the boom, listening to Paddy whimper, two
thoughts penetrated my pain: (1) He was PAYING for this experience; and
(2) If you have to die, you want it to be for a noble cause. You don't
want it to be for ``Big Dick and the Extenders.''
	It turned out we didn't die. We finally got swung back onto the boat
and began thinking about leading our lives without moving any muscles
ever again. And eventually Captain Dan got the boat unstuck. He needed
the help of a motorboat. I am certain this was also true of Columbus.
	
	(C) 1992 THE MIAMI HERALD
	DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

	When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly
        forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful.  Of course there have
        been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like.  But in all my
        experience, I have never been in any accident...  or any sort worth
        speaking about.  I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my
        years at sea.  I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor
        was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of
        any sort.

				-- E.J. Smith, Captain, RMS Titanic, 1907

    Well, when Smith DID 'decide' to have an accident he didn't fool
    around!
    
    Jeff

I know that this is not strictly sailing, but I thought it would be enjoyable
to others.

Alan, if this is inappropriate, please feel free to remove it.

Doug Claflin
dtn 244-7042

From UUNET
Thought you might like this
Laurie

--------------------------------------
Subject: Whale Bits

     I am absolutely not making this incident up; in fact I have it all on
  videotape.  The tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent a
  reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that
  washed up on the beach.  The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass
  was placed upon the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory
  that highways and whales are very similar in the sense of being large
  objects.

     So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon the plan -- remember, I am not
  making this up -- of blowing up the whale with dynamite.  The thinking here
  was that the whale would be blown into small pieces, which would be eaten by
  sea gulls, and that would be that.  A textbook whale removal.

     So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite
  next to the whale and set it off.  I am probably not guilty of understatement
  when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most wonderful event
  in the history of the universe.  First you see the whale carcass disappear in
  a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy spectators shouting
  "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone changes.  You hear a new
  sound like "splud."  You hear a woman's voice shouting "Here come pieces
  of...  MY GOD!"  Something smears the camera lens.

     Later, the reporter explains:  "The humor of the entire situation suddenly
  gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell
  everywhere."  One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter
  of a mile away.  Remaining on the beach were several rotting whale sectors
  the size of condominium units. There was no sign of the sea gulls, who had no
  doubt permanently relocated in Brazil. This is a very sobering videotape.
  Here at the institute we watch it often, especially at parties.  But this is
  no time for gaiety.  This is a time to get hold of the folks at the Oregon
  State Highway division and ask them, when they get done cleaning up the
  beaches, to give us an estimate on the US Capitol.

   Re: .22

   The previous reply ("Whale of a tale") is a Dave Barry column. 

   If you are going to violate copyrights you should at least give
   credit to the author.

                                               - Dave

    I've seen that thing a million times on the net in one form or another.
    Either it's been mail or in notes and I'm sure I've seen it in here
    several years ago. I never heard of any connection to Dave Barry so it
    is quite possible the author of the note didin't know it either. It's
    difficult to credit the author if you have no idea where it started. 

re. 22

This is a piece of a Dave Barry column, originally published in May 1990,
titled "BREAK OUT THE DYNAMITE: ANOTHER IN A SERIES OF EXPLODING ANIMAL TALES".

See note 602 in the HYDRA::DAVE_BARRY notes conference for the full text.
(The rest of it deals with exploding cows.)

--RS

    Try reading Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) for
    similar whale-splattering stories.

A bit of humor from a boat-hunting friend:

The Yacht Broker Dunce of the Week award goes to a fellow on Long Island.

me: The listing says the boat has a GPS but all I see is a SatNav.

broker: Is there a difference?

    Bumper sticker on the the pickup in front of me this morning
    
       Have you flogged your crew today?
    
    Some old management techniques die hard..... 

    > "Have you flogged your crew today?"
    
    The last time I saw that was not on the bumper of a pickup,
    it was in the head of the boat that we raced in the Marion to Bermuda
    race in June (owned by Paul Sears, a former contractor to DEC and
    contributor here).
    
    Bill
    

    re .29
    
        I got mail today from a non-writing noter. The sticker is his.

    OK, I'll fess up. I am the one with the flogging bumper sticker. The
    bad news is I am not a sailor, but a power boater. I hope that
    confession doesn't get me thrown out of this conference!!
    
    A person who worked for me brought it back from a small California dive
    shop a few years ago. Said he thought of me when he saw it.
    
    Bill, you should have seen the sticker before since I am also up at 
    Fay's Boat Yard.
    
    --Harlan  

[sent to me by a fellow sailor .....]

A sailor finds a magic lamp on the shore and when he rubs it a genie
appears. The genie thanks the sailor for freeing him from his prison and
grants the sailor one wish. The sailor thinks for a minute and asks for
new sails for his sailboat. The genie is disgusted. "With all the
poverty, hatred and hunger in the world and all you can think to ask for
is NEW SAILS? Take a few minutes to think it over." the genie commands.
The sailor thinks for a while and then smiles, "OK," he says, "New sails
for everybody!" 

I told you the best things in life are free.

Doug
dtn 881-6355

[found on the internet and sent to me]

Excerpt from a maritime legal document...

It is with regret and haste that I write this letter to you, regret that
such a small misunderstanding could lead to the following circumstances,
and haste in order that you will get this report before you form your own
pre-conceived opinions from reports in the world press, for I am sure that
they will tend to overdramatise the affair.

We had just picked up the pilot and the apprentice had returned from
changing the 'G' flag for the 'H' and, it being his first trip, was having
difficulty rolling the 'G' flag up, I therefore proceeded to show him how.
Coming to the last part, I told him to 'let go', the lad although willing
is not too bright, necessitating my having to repeat the order in a sharper
tone.

At this moment the chief officer appeared from the chart room, having been
plotting the vessel's progress and, thinking that it was the anchors that
were being referred to, repeated the 'let go' to the third officer on the
fo'cstle. The port anchor having been cleared away but not walked out, was
promptly let go. The effect of letting the anchor drop from the 'pipe'
while the vessel was proceeding at full harbour speed proved too much for
the windlass brake, and the entire length of the port cable was pul led out
'by the roots'. I fear that the damage to the chain locker may be
extensive. The braking effect of the port anchor naturally caused the
vessel to sheer in that direction, right towards the swing bridge that
spans the tributary to the river up which we were proceeding.

The swing bridge operator showed great presence of mind by opening the
bridge for my vessel. Unfortunately, he did not think to stop vehicular
traffic, the result being that the bridge partly opened and deposited a
volkswagen, two cyclists, and a cattle truck on the foredeck. My ship's
company are at present rounding up the contents of the latter, which from
the noise I would say were pigs. In his efforts to stop the progress of the
vessel, the third officer dropped the starboard anchor, too late to be of
prcatical use, for it fell on the swing bridge operator's control cabin.

After the port anchor was let go and the vessel started to sheer, I gave a
double ring full astern on the engine room telegraph and personally rang
the engine room to order maximum astern revolutions. I was informed that
the sea temperature was 53 degs and asked if there was a film tonight. My
reply would not add constructively to this report.

Up to now I have confined my report to the activities at the forward end of
the vessel. Down aft they were having their own problems.

At the moment the port anchor was let go, the second officer was
supervising the making fast of the after tug and was lowering the ship's
towing spring down onto the tug.

The sudden braking effect on the port anchor caused the tug to run in under
the stern of my vessel just at the moment when the propellers was answering
my double ring full astern. The prompt action of the second officer in
securing the inboard end of the towing spring delayed the sinking of the
tug by some minutes, and thereby the safe abandoning of that vessel.

It is strange but at the very same moment of letting go the port anchor
there was a power cut ashore. The fact that we were passing over a cable
area at that time might suggest we may have touched something on the river
bed. It is perhaps lucky that the high tension cables brought down be the
foremast were not live, possibly being replaced by the underwater cable,
but owing to the shore blackout, it is impossible to say where the pylon
fell.

It never fails to amaze me the actions and behaviour of foreigners during
moments of minor crisis. The pilot for instance is at this moment huddled
in the corner of my day cabin alternately crooning to himself and crying
after having consumed a bottle of gin in a time that is worthy of inclusion
in the Guinness Book of Records.

The tug captain on the other hand reacted violently and had to be forcibly
restrained by the steward, who has him handcuffed in the ship's hospital,
where he is telling me to do impossible things with my ship and my crew.

I enclose the names and addresses of the drivers and insurance companies of
the vehicles on my foredeck, which the third officer collected after his
somewhat hurried evacuation of the fo'cstle. These particulars will enable
us to claim for the damage that they did to the railing of the no. one
hold.

I am enclosing this preliminary report for I am finding it difficult to
concentrate with the sound of police sirens and their flashing lights.

It is sad to think that had the apprentice realised that there is no need
to fly pilot flags after dark, none of this would have happened.

For weekly accountability report I will assign the following casualty
numbers T/750101 to T750119 inclusive.

Yours truly,

Master