Entries | Flotsam & Jetsam

Cruising Blues and Their Cure

Their case was typical. After four years of hard labor their ocean-size trimaran was launched in Minneapolis at the head of Mississippi navigation. Six and one half months later they had brought it down the river and across the gulf to Florida to finish up final details. Then at last they were off to sail the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles and South America.

Only it didn't work out that way. Within six weeks they were through. The boat was back in Florida up for sale.

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The Endless Vacation

My husband, Barry, and I enjoy independent and isolated nomadic living. So we really thought we had it made 11 years ago when we bought a 40-foot ketch and began island hopping up and down the West Indies. Eight years later, however, we'd both had had our fill. The ketch was a constant expense and every safe anchorage for a boat of that size, we'd found, was too populated by curious natives and/or other ships and yachts for our tastes. "There must be a better way," we told ourselves. "There must be a way for us to enjoy an endless round of sailing, swimming, fishing, shelling, contact with wildlife, and -- most important of all -- solitude and privacy. And there must be a way for us to do all this on little more than pennies a day."

A classic article from the Jan/Feb 1977 Mother Earth News.

C/S/K

The yacht design partnership of C/S/K was responsible for some of the finest ocean sailing catamarans ever built. The firm was active in the 1960's - a decade of creative innovation everywhere - but especially in the amped up cultural milieu that was California.

They rode a remarkable wave of opportunity that embraced the California "surf" lifestyle, the public desire for modern "Jetsons" technology, and the South Seas "Tiki" fad that swept the country - From Trader Vic's to Gilligan's Island.

2 C/S/K cats beached in front of the Outrigger Canoe Club, Hawaii.
Photo: Scoop Tsuzuki, Catamarans Offshore.

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Doriak Designs - Classic Wooden/Inflatable Boats!

I met George Kurzman and viewed his 'Bella Darya' (a 33' wood schooner based upon Com. Munroe's sharpies that incorporates a nylon air tube) at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival last summer, and it is a wonderfully creative and charming project. "Doriak Designs' objective is to create light-displacement boats that combine the safety and performance of a rigid-inflatable with the practicality and aesthetics of a custom-made, wooden boat." Doriak Designs.

Bamboo Surfboards

Eco-friendly surfboards from Australia - quoted from their site: Bamboo itself has been found to have multiple applications other than surfboards. Its characteristics include: 1) It is lighter and stronger than fiberglass; 2) Improved buoyancy; 3) Able to be applied to any shape; 4) Easy to apply; 5) Bamboo is a renewable resource and is ecologically friendly; 6) Bamboo grows to timber size in 3 - 5 years, while most hardwood trees take 20 - 30 years. Bamboo Surfboards

Power vs. Sail, Takers vs. Leavers

I've been reading up on theories about the ancient origins of our modern ideas. It turns out we're not as modern as we like to think. Sure, our technology is awesome compared to an early Mesopotamian farmer, but our attitudes about the world and our place in it aren't all that different. I had "The Ishmael Experience" in the winter of 2002. "The Ishmael Experience" is what happens after you read Daniel Quinn's award winning novel: Ishmael. Quinn basically deconstructs our culture's entire sense of self, and when he's done, what was up is down, and what was right is wrong.

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Seeking Reality in the Temple of Denial

Back in the day, the Seattle Boat Show was full of cruising sailboats - the middle of the King Dome (Seattle's domed stadium -- demolished in 2000 to make room for a bigger one) was a forest of masts and rigging that tugged at my soul like a kite - dreams of adventure, tropical islands, freedom.

No more. The current venue for the Seattle Boat show (Qwest® Field Event Center) is nearly empty of sail. The new for 2005 'Sailing Center' is in fact a ghetto - a small rectangle of floor space off to the side devoted to the quaint anachronism called a 'sail boat' - like a Native American Cultural Center that white people visit in our smug superiority; admiring the skills of a people too backward to invent gunpowder or television.

We all know where the real action is: Powerboats! And what powerboats they are; Bigger, Faster and More Luxurious every year.

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