The forecast was 3 to 4, North / North-west. Great for sailing in Pevensey Bay. Except I don’t think we got more than f2.
My wife isn’t always available to sail with me, and friends sometimes have other commitments, so finding crew isn’t always easy. So I’ve been wanting to give single-handing a try for a while, but didn’t want to attempt it with another pair of hands just-in-case. So today I took my wife and she agreed to do nothing while I tried to single-hand.
Below is a link to a web-page that tells of one sailors experience in Samoa at the time of the recent tsunami. The tale is both wonderful and tragic but is written in a straightforward and gripping way. I think it should be widely read, so I am linking to it here.
I can’t say that I hope you enjoy it because it’s not that sort of article. But it will make you think.
Today it was announced that Dutch authorities have taken into care a thirteen-year-old girl who wants to be the youngest person to sail solo around the world. What business is it of social services (or the Dutch equivalent)? I don’t condone parents sending children off to take part in dangerous activities, to live their own dreams through their children, but if the child has the necessary skills then why shouldn’t they attempt something like this?
Today was supposed to be the day that friends and family came to look at the new[1] boat. Because we’ve not been sailing long everyone has been quite excited for us. It took us the best part of two months to get the boat ‘home’, and because everyone was so keen to see it we decided to hold a ‘pontoon party’ where they could all gather on the dock, look at the boat and enjoy alcohol and some chips and dip, olives, canapes, whatever. Some people didn’t confirm, some people cancelled, some people had other plans… so we called it off.
That was a bad start to the day; plans made for weeks were thrown out. What to do? Well, …
I’ve not posted much for a while, there’s a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, in draft, I’ve just to organise my notes and get around to posting… if only I could get away from…
It’s official, we’re now boat owners! As of about 5pm today ownership of "Kooshty", a Trintella 29 transfered to us, well, it’s in my name, by she’s ours.
Real back-up is expensive, whether it be media or time. How much you spend on back-up (time or money) should be based on the value of your data, and the cost of the time that the data may be off-line (or the value of that data in some other measure).
When specifying a server for a small company I’ve been told that the price looks expensive. I explain the hardware in the server and it’s cost, and when I get to the back-up device that’s when they choke. No one ever expects their hardware to fail, that is a user’s biggest error. On a long enough time-line hardware always fails. What I say to the bean counters is this: All of your data, details of everything anyone owes you is gone, you could get no income from any debt that you currently have, and you wouldn’t know that you should how do you recover? This back-up device will ensure that that doesn’t happen…. That tends to persuade most people.
Sweat, we do it when it’s hot, or when we exercise. It’s part of the body’s method for regulating our temperature. Moisture, and some salts, are released from millions of glands in our skin, the evaporation of this moisture cools the body. If we don’t sweat, we don’t cool, if we don’t cool we overheat and that is not a good thing.
So, what’s the problem? The problem is that in our modern ultra-sterile world sweat is seen as something unpleasant, and best avoided. To this end there are countless products designed to stop us sweating, they’re called antiperspirants; "anti" meaning against, and "perspirant" meaning sweat, or what comes out when we perspire. These products stop us sweating, but sweating is essential for our body to regulate it’s temperature, it is bad for our health if we don’t sweat.
Budget airlines, does anyone like them? I don’t use them through choice, I often find I can get where I want to go cheaper with [British Airways][1] if I book early enough. That wasn’t an option this time because the holiday was a package deal, so it meant flying with the carrier specified by the package operator.
At least our flight wasn’t at some antisocial hour of the night, but it might as well have been. The flight was scheduled to take off at 0800hrs. This meant check-in time of 0600hrs, but, as budget airlines are known to overbook, we thought it wise to be early. So that’s 0500hrs, less the time to drive to Gatwick, park the car and get to the terminal. That’ll be 0400hrs then.
The weekend of the August bank-holiday was, as it usually is at the Sovereign Harbour Yacht Club, the date for the RNLI regatta. “Aeolus IV” took part in races all three days, here are details of our escapades.
