Bird Brains

by on in Recipes

One of the fun things about living on a boat is you never know what problems you’re going to face.  Maybe it’s keeping your boat from sinking, and maybe it’s keeping your hammock in the shade.  Every day is an adventure.

This morning we woke up to the twittering of little birds, and soon realized that they were building a nest in our rigging.  Cute, right?  How about baby birds falling on the deck during the next strong breeze?  Or rotten eggs up on our mast because we’ve moved the boat and mom & dad can’t find their nest?  And what about the poop?  Not so cute.

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So we spent a significant part of the day trying to get the point across to these little birds that our mast is not a good place for a nest.

We started by sending Sam to remove the nest-in-progress from the second spreader, and to sit up there for a while and play scarecrow.  The birds were quite perturbed by Sam’s presence and wanted to peck him, but he’d shout and scare them off each time they tried.   They gave up, but it was only temporary.

They’d go away and come back, go away and come back.  Eli took a turn playing scarecrow.  We tried Nerf guns.  We tried an air horn.  They weren’t getting the point.  Itty bitty birdy brains.

Eventually the female gave up and only the male would return periodically.  He’d alight on the mast and chirp an “all clear” to his mate, which simultaneously alerted me to his presence.  I’d go out and shake the rigging until he went away again.

Finally, I managed to whack him by swinging a halyard.  There was a small puff of feathers and he fluttered away, beaten but unharmed, to the distant trees.  He fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sailor when his deck is on the line"!

Chore Chart

by on in General

Jay and I are both hard workers, and come from families that value hard work, but this value doesn’t appear to pass to the next generation through the genes; work has to be taught, and to people who really would rather lounge around and play all day with toys someone else paid for, eating food someone else prepared, wearing clothes someone else bought in a home that someone else keeps tidy. But to enter into the life of a family one has to do the work of the family. And real life doesn’t reward sluggards, either. To the best of our ability, we will raise people who can leave our home able to do a myriad of jobs, efficiently and with expertise.

One way we do this is with the chore chart. People ask us how we can have five children on a sailboat, and one answer is that everybody has to pull their own weight. Of course, a 3-year-old “helping” with the dishes is hardly the same thing as a nearly-13-year-old scrubbing down the cockpit, but the principle is the same: if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

A lot of training is required to get the kids to be actually helpful, so that Jay and I don’t feel the need to go around behind them “fixing” things. For a while at least, it is harder to help a kid learn a chore than to just do the chore yourself, but doing it for them or cleaning up after them would be shooting yourself in the foot long-term. A kid who is given a token chore will quickly learn to slack off—if they know you’re going to go back and do it better later, why bother doing it at all? But teaching a kid to do a task and requiring it to be done to your satisfaction is an investment that pays off pretty quickly. I read recently about the Amish expectations of children: a child is a net “loss” for the first six years, but a seven year old “breaks even” (contributes as much as he costs) and by ten, an Amish girl can do all the tasks her mother can, a boy can work a full day on the farm, and they are giving back to the family—a net “gain.” We’re not Amish, but we do have high expectations for our children—we‘re banking on the principle that early training equates to later independence.

A crew member on Take Two gets his or her first official duties at three years old. Rachel just made the chart for the first time. She helps with groceries, sets the table, washes windows, folds kitchen towels, and puts away forks and spoons. The older kids are used to hard work at this point, although they still complain from time to time (complaining usually earns them an extra job). They vacuum the whole boat, do dishes, load and unload the dinghy, take trash ashore, scrub decks, set up for and clean up after meals, and stay on top of the laundry. One would think that I would have time to sit in my hammock more often now that I have such able helpers, but actually, their taking some of the cleaning chores frees me up to do other tasks, like reading with Rachel and schooling Sam, making homemade tortillas or baking bread, writing, or helping Sarah with her quilting project.

For years we have used a monthly rotation with each person getting four or five jobs (some require teamwork) because we found that a month is long enough to get really good at a chore, but not long enough to grow bored with it. We’re doing an experiment this summer with quarterly chores; the kids had more input as to which chores they like to do and I got to assign some chores according to who is the most capable at each task. We’ll have another family meeting in the fall to decide if that system is working.

If someone shirks a chore, there are real and immediate consequences. A chore half-done must be re-done, a chore forgotten costs one a “reminder fee” of 50 cents, and a chore done with a bad attitude earns one more chores. We do offer a monthly allowance to teach money management, but that assumes that the kids are meeting expectations—keeping their cabins tidy, folding and putting away their own laundry, helping with meals, and doing assigned chores “immediately, cheerfully, and quickly.”

Another of our favorite sayings is “Work hard, play hard.” When the work gets done quickly, there’s time left over for skating at the park, snorkeling on the reef, surfing at the beach, riding horses, kayaking, and lots of other adventures, the natural rewards of a job well done.

Terns of Endearment

by on in General

It is Tern mating season. Here in the Keys, we have Lesser Terns, and their “hotel room” of choice is the yellow E or J bouy that marks the extremity of the mooring field, usually off of one of our sterns. Imagine trying to teach astronomy or Greek mythology and being constantly interrupted by a sound not unlike squeaky bedsprings—my lessons are relegated to basic “birds and bees” biology.

Least Terns 

We’ve had lots of time to observe mating behavior as we homeschool in the cockpit on these lovely spring mornings. Their routine goes something like this: the male and female bird stand side by side on the poo-encrusted buoy, bobbing wildly in the wind and chop and fishing-boat wakes. They begin by bowing politely and singing a squeaky little song back and forth to each other. Then the male bird disappears for a few minutes and comes back with a small bait-fish (still wiggling) in his beak, which the female bird tries to grab, but which he successfully keeps just out of reach. They then bow and chirp a few more times, after which she ruffles her feathers as a sign of assent and he responds by flapping wildly and trying to balance while reenacting that timeless dance of love—getting her to hold still by offering the fish at just the right moment. It lasts mere seconds, and then he flies away. She cries disconsolately. (Pardon my anthropomorphism, but doesn’t it sound familiar?)

But this is not the end of it! She continues to call for him, and, sure enough, he comes back—with another fish in his maw, which he offers this time without requiring anything in exchange. He does this not once, but over and over and over again. One morning we noted a male who came back to his sweetheart with a dowry of 19 little fishes before they flew off together, ostensibly to their waterside nest somewhere to start a family. Now here’s a strange wooing-in-reverse; usually the male must prove his worthiness before the wedding night, not after!

One morning, as we watched the process for the umpteenth time, Rachel looked at me sadly and said, “Why did the daddy fly away?” I was startled by her response, but Jay’s recent travel schedule has made her sensitive to separation. She was on the verge of tears, so I had to come up with a reassuring answer quickly. “He’s not gone-gone. He’ll come back in a minute with a little fish. Just wait and see.” The relief was visible in her face when, just as I promised, the daddy came back and offered his prize. I asked her, “Doesn’t your daddy fly away on the airplane? And doesn’t he always come back with money to buy food? He’s just like the daddy bird.”  Satisfied, she toddled off to play with her Legos while we continued with school and chores. If only all of life were that simple.

The Grass is Greener

by on in General

The Grass is Greener on the Other Side of the Hill: a Poem for Jay's 39th Birthday

You’re at the peak of the hill,
You’re at the top of your game.
And after the climb,
I still feel the same:

So much to look back on,
So much still to do,
I’m right where I should be,
On the hill-top with you.

No regrets lurk behind us
No fears lie ahead—
(We made it this far!
We did what we said.)

No matter what the future holds,
Be it joy or sorrow,
I’ll gladly go down-hill with you
On into tomorrow.

Sailing Promise: A Book Review

by on in Book Review

Every couple living aboard a small boat who spends any time on the ocean will recognize that there are circumstances which test the relationship. We know lots of single-handers whose spouse jumped ship after a long passage. In her book, Sailing Promise, Alayne Main tells the story of her circumnavigation with husband Alec in the 90s aboard a Prout 33 named Madeline. While the book chronicles their travels—new places, new friends, new cultures—it also tells the inside story of how the journey affected their relationship. The following is a quote which sums up, for many, what it’s like to live in close quarters on a small boat with a spouse who may or may not handle stress well.

Despite my seasickness and the uncomfortable ride, it was only three days. Although many of the same fears plagued me, I could tough it out for a short passage…I thought of a girlfiriend of mine who had spent a year backpacking with her husband, spending 24 hours a day together, every day. She had said there wasn’t one moment when she wanted to be away from him. Envious as I was, our circumstances were vastly different. All my possessions, my lover, and I were contained inside a tiny 33-by-15-foot boat, which was put to the mercy of the wind, waves, and weather. The only certainties were that things would break and the wind would change. With an added dash of seasickness, a little thunderstorm or a ripped sail, a kind of stress was created that would cause even the most pleasant of people to get irritable. Alec and I dealt with stress differently and this often aggravated things even at the best of times (from the chapter entitled "Wild Horses"). 

Anyone considering a life aboard would be wise to read the book, whether they have dreams of circumnavigating or not. It is an honest look at a side of the sailing life you seldom see in a cruiser’s blog or travel book. Most of the people who buy a boat to travel the world think long and hard about what kind of boat they want, which of their belongings they want to keep and which to get rid of, where they want to go, how they will provision, what tools and gadgets they want aboard, and so forth and so on. But less thought is given to something that may have the greatest impact on whether the people going will be happy at all.

It is important to think about what isolation might do to your marriage, how each of you responds in a crisis, how well you communicate, what kind of outlets you or your spouse needs to reduce stress, how to find contentment in a difficult setting, and how to overcome fears and surmount obstacles so that you can strengthen your close relationship instead of tearing it apart. Through Alayne’s thought-provoking inner journey, it’s possible to envision how good communication and compassion can help two people pass the tests they will surely encounter on their adventures.

The First Ski Trip

by on in Recipes
Our trip to Maine was a huge success.  We made it there and back, nobody got sick, nobody got (seriously) hurt, and everyone had a great time.
 
We didn’t play it up beforehand because of the disappointment we suffered when last year’s trip was cancelled at the last minute.  But now that it’s behind us, we aren’t able to stop thinking about it.  The gratitude we feel toward everyone who made it possible, makes me feel almost… effusive.  Almost.
 
The instigator of the plan, and major player in its execution, was Heather, Tanya’s best friend from college.  She once visited us on H-Dock, where she was known as “Heather from Maine”, and helped make stories that will never be forgotten.  She and her husband, Nathan, have a boy about Aaron's age and run a brewery in Portland.  Her parents split their time between a trawler and their condo at Sugarloaf Mountain.  They are all skiing fiends. 
 
We were welcomed to spend the first part of our trip to Maine at the Sugarloaf condo.  We didn’t let ourselves believe it was really going to happen until our plane was descending into Portland.  The kids’ excitement reached critical levels when we broke through the clouds and they could see the snow-covered landscape below.  The first snowball fight erupted on the sidewalk just outside Baggage Claim.  Another 2-hour drive, and after fourteen hours of travel we had arrived at Sugarloaf. 
 
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Our first day on the mountain was spent just playing in the snow.  It was a day of testing unfamiliar gear, having snowball fights, sledding, and making snow forts.  Basically getting oriented and working out all that childish delight about the white fluffy stuff.  We received several comments from jaded Mainers telling us how nice it was to see kids enjoying the snow.  By the end of February, all the locals are pretty much sick of winter.
 
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The serious work began on the second day, when we signed the kids up for lessons.  We consider it our job as parents to help them find their loves in life, and sometimes they need a little encouragement to try new things.  We did something similar with dinghy racing classes last summer, and the results were… meh.  They learned the basics, but didn’t really want to pursue it.  So we didn’t have huge expectations for skiing.  If they were done after a day, we would have been okay with that.  But that’s not how it turned out.
 
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For three days Heather and her parents shepherded the kids as they progressed higher and higher up the mountain… and came down it faster and faster.  Eli and Sarah on skis, Aaron on a snowboard, and Sam on both.  Even Rachel got in on the action, wearing tiny skis and holding onto Heather.  Tanya and I enjoyed every minute of it… vicariously… from the lodge.
 
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On our fifth and last day on the mountain, we traded downhill skiing for cross-country, and the kids reaction was less wholly positive.  Aaron and Sam asked how fast they could go and were not impressed with the answer, especially the part about going back up the hills, and decided they'd rather sit in the lodge and watch the fire.  But we had mercy and let them slide on inner tubes down an icy slope onto a frozen lake instead.  
 
In three days and countless wipeouts going downhill on skis and snowboards, nobody got hurt.  But after fifteen minutes of tubing, both Aaron and Sam had injuries.  Aaron flipped his tube over and landed on his head (no helmet) and Sam took a bad spill while dragging his tube back up the hill.  Neither was seriously hurt, and both felt much better after a couple hot chocolates, but that was it for the tubing.  
 
 
Sarah really enjoyed the cross-country skiiing.  Eli I think would have rather smacked his head on the ice.
 
We always try to quit while we’re still having fun, and we were totally successful this time.  Everybody wanted more.  We really didn’t know how well the kids would take to skiing, so we didn’t plan to spend more time on the mountain.  Next time we’ll know better.  Yes, there will be a next time.
 
 
 
See all the skiing pictures here. 

Rooted

by on in Recipes
Leaving a place can be hard, like tearing out roots.  But the bonds most difficult to break are often the ones that make a place worth visiting.
 
We left Ft Pierce on January 19th.  We’d been prepared to leave since the day after Christmas, but with all the mooring balls in Marathon full, the timing never seemed right.  I had business travel on the calendar, and there was the ski trip at the end of February to consider.  We needed a secure place to put the boat, and bouncing around in the Keys was not appealing.
 
Then while making Sunday breakfast a few weeks later, we suddenly realized it was time to go.   We had the right wind, the right waves, and the right moon.  We had a couple free weeks on the calendar.  Surely that would be enough time to get a ball in Marathon, right?  If all else failed, we could park the boat at a dock behind a friend’s house down there.  We left that afternoon.
 
The trip down was uneventful and our slowest to date.  We didn’t really have anywhere to be, so we took it easy.  We spent one night underway and made overnight stops in Biscayne Bay, at Rodriguez Key, and at Indian Key.  
 
Our last day was our only sailing day.  Reaching in 15-20, we were making about 8 knots.  A couple guys on a 30-something performance cat spent their morning trying to catch us.  Eventually they succeeded, but they paid dearly for the privilege.  The other boat was certainly faster, but what was a nice comfortable ride for us, looked cold, wet, and miserable for them.
 
Windhorse
 
Of course, no trip in Hawk Channel is complete without snagging a crab pot.  We hooked three, but could only clear two of them, and had to put Eli in the water to get the third.
 
Eventually, we arrived in Marathon and proceeded to re-establish our roots there.  We got on the list at number 6 waiting for one of 15 balls.
 
Over the course of the next week, we carved out a space for ourselves in the Boot Key Harbor anchorage.  As boats came and went, we gradually adjusted our position until we had established a comfortable buffer zone among longer-term boats.
 
We continue to be amazed by the difficultly some people have anchoring their boats.  We’ve seen several that have had to make multiple attempts to get settled, only to drag during a midnight squall.  We keep a wary eye on the boats we don't think are anchored well.
 
Our anchor has held just fine.  In fact, one of the times we went to reposition ourselves, we were unable to retrieve it.  The windlass couldn’t break it out and when we tried to motor over it, but the load on the chain actually caused our bow to dip.  Not a good thing in a catamaran.  We weren’t just dug in, we were hooked on some of the detritus littering the bottom of the harbor.  Old moorings, sunken boats, bicycles, engine blocks; you just never know what’s down there.  I was not looking forward to diving down to clear it.  After much tugging and pulling, we finally got our anchor back, including a very large piece of old mooring chain.
 
Boot Key Treasure
 
It was good to have Take Two firmly anchored, because four weeks later we still didn’t have a mooring ball assigned.

Overnight to Biscayne Bay

by on in General

Making a passage is like hitting the “pause” button on my life. It’s very hard to write in my Day-Timer: “sit in the cockpit and do nothing.” But sometimes that’s really what I should do. Feel the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, the weight of a child on my lap. Relax the rules that keep me sane during my quotidian life because this is not my quotidian life. Even rough passages, which are not very pleasant, have a way of making one sit still and appreciate life (large waves will do that). Overnight passages have the feel of a holiday—a holiday that you dread and anticipate at the same time. The passage we just made from Ft. Pierce to Biscayne Bay was in many ways typical of our other overnight passages. Here’s a peek into our life afloat:


9 AM A friend from the Keys texts us (again) wondering where we are and why we’re freezing our butts off in Ft. Pierce instead of heading south to hang out with them.

10 AM I abandon the attempt to make a big Sunday breakfast and feed everyone granola instead as Jay and I discuss using the weather window to head south.

11 AM  Having decided to “just do it” we figure out what’s on the short list to prepare for departure. I will head to the library to drop off books, to a friend’s house to say good-bye and drop something off from my kids to hers and to the store for last-minute provisions. Jay will prep the boat for travel.

3 PM Hours later, I return with said provisions and we eat a late lunch, unpack groceries and run the engines.

4 PM We get fuel and water and do a pump-out at the marina. This always takes longer than we think it will. Debate ensues about whether we should go now or have a burger at the marina restaurant and wait until morning. We decide to use inertia and just go (“a boat tied to a dock stays tied to a dock; a boat in motion stays in motion). Good friends come down to see us off; it’s so nice to have someone to wave to (though we'll miss them before we're even out of the marina).

5 PM We head out the Ft. Pierce inlet, not into, but away from, a beautiful sunset. We make no commitments to really go until we see how the inlet looks.  A blessing: the tide is running out and the seas are calm, the winds fair. We head south, hugging the coast to stay out of the north-flowing Gulf-Stream. We say a prayer of thanks and ask for safe travel. Then we toss Oreos into the sea and say, “May these be the last cookies we toss on this voyage!”  (See previous post “Traveling Traditions.”)

6 PM We hang out in the cockpit and do nothing. Rachel falls asleep in my lap.

7 PM I make a quick dinner of tomato soup, goldfish crackers and applesauce and set up the kids’ traditional passage movie: The Swiss Family Robinson.

8 PM The wind is out of the southwest, but we can close-haul. We unfurl the jib and boost our speed, motor-sailing at about 6 knots. At this rate, we will not reach the entrance to Hawke Channel for 14 hours. A long, but calm trip. More wind would mean a quick trip, but also rougher waters. No one tosses cookies—YAY!

9 PM  Moonrise: a beautiful orange pumpkin-shaped waning gibbous, perfect for a night sail. Jay plans our course and plots waypoints for Larry and Otto (a.k.a. Lowrance chart-plotter and autopilot) and heads to bed to get some sleep. I make a pot of coffee and get ready for my night watch. Kids eat Christmas candy and finish their movie. Rachel goes to her cabin, and the older boys head to theirs. Sam opts to sleep in the salon, and Sarah insists on bundling up and sleeping in the cockpit. No rules on passages.

10 PM Motor-sailing. I’m the only one up, enjoying my coffee, my snacks, my book and my choice of music. My favorite part of passage-making, even with the fluky wind (sheet in, ease out, furl, unfurl) and the nerve-wracking lights—is that a sailboat? A big ship? A beacon? No, an incoming airplane. It keeps me awake.

2 AM Jay comes upstairs to investigate the flapping sound (me furling the jib). He makes us roast beef sandwiches. I make a cup of hot cocoa and go back to the “hot seat.” Jay goes back to bed for another hour. (Long night watches mean we feel more rested the next day. We used to do three hours on/three hours off, but it leaves us feeling ragged, especially if we have multiple days at sea. We now do six-on/six-off at night and take turns napping during the day.)

3 AM  Jay comes on watch and I go down below for some much-needed sleep. I was beginning to nod off in the captain’s chair despite the cold wind in my face. I set snooze alarms for myself at this time of night so that I will look up every 10 minutes in case I’m reading with my eyes closed.

7 AM Snuggle-time with Rachel. She informs me that the waves are not scary. They are just rocking her gently.

8 AM I get up and make a pot of tea and instant oatmeal for anyone who wants something quick and warm. We sit in the cockpit and do nothing. We’re approaching shipping channels at Port Everglades so we’re keeping a close watch.

9 AM  Jay goes down below to nap. Everyone else reads or does nothing. Aaron, Sarah, and Sam split sunflower seeds and spit shells overboard, a favorite activity while sailing. Cleaning up sunflower seed shells off the side of the boat is a not-so-favorite activity when we get where we’re going.

10 AM Eli takes a watch so I can go make egg-and-ham-and-cheese sandwiches for hungry people.

11 AM Jay comes upstairs to eat something and take the wheel. We pass Port-of-Miami uneventfully. We sit in the cockpit and eat animal crackers. I notice Rachel yawning so we go down in my cabin and read books until we fall asleep.

12 PM The kids play electric guitar (Rocksmith).

1 PM I come upstairs with Rachel to make some lunch. The kids are still playing the guitar. We’re sailing along nicely, and thinking of heading into Biscayne Bay since we don’t motor in Hawk's Channel at night (too many crab pots). I make a snacky-lunch of hummus and veggies, olives, apples and peanut butter, and tortilla chips and crackers for dipping. Everyone loves this kind of lunch, and we only eat like this on a passage.

2 PM We motor into Biscayne Bay and play Farkle in the cockpit (a dice game to which the crew of Sea Hunt IV introduced us last year—thanks!).

3 PM Still motoring and doing nothing. We pass stilt houses and see people canoeing and paddle-boarding. Kids play guitar again. I play a memory/matching game with Rachel.

4 PM I make the kids put down the guitar and they play LEGOs on the dining table instead while I go out on the foredeck for some late-afternoon yoga. I discover that while I cannot do “Tree Pose” on land, I manage to balance on one foot without wobbling on the deck of a moving boat. Hmmm.

5 PM We pick a place to anchor for the night and I start dinner. The kids fish off the back of the boat.

6 PM The sun sets a fiery orange and we open a bottle of wine. We eat a dinner of pasta carbonara, broccoli, and garlic bread. Everyone is in a good mood, laughing and talking.

7 PM We look at The Stars book (by H.A. Rey) and I come up with a star-gazing challenge: who can find the Great Hexagon of bright stars in the Eastern sky? (The stars are Sirius in the constellation Canis Major, Procyon in Canis Minor, Pollux in Gemini, Capella in Auriga, Aldebaran in Taurus, and Rigel in Orion.) We find it, but cannot see the Milky Way because of light pollution from Miami. 

8 PM I read Wind in the Willows aloud and then the kids go to bed.

9 PM  I do dishes and head to bed for a peaceful night’s sleep on the calm waters of quiet Biscayne Bay. The rest of the trip falls into the "Island Hopping" category, so the long part is over.

FAQ: Do you ever get cabin fever?

by on in Frequently Asked Questions

Do we ever! And boy do we get crabby. People always express amazement that we have chosen to live in a small space with five kids. “How do you do it?” they ask, rhetorically. I try to answer honestly: “Not very well, I’m afraid. It’s been raining for three days straight and we’ll be lucky to survive.”

The irony of living on a boat is that although the living space is technically small, it seems huge: we have the whole outdoors at our fingertips: islands to explore by dinghy, kayaks to take into back waters, an open expanse of sea and sky, the cockpit or foredeck in nice weather, and sometimes a dock and shoreside places to go. But when it rains or gets cold, as it has done a lot recently, the world shrinks to a 15 x 12 x 6-foot room, and seven people fill that space pretty quickly. Jay sits at his computer at the desk, I am usually in the galley, Rachel is playing on the floor, and the big kids are doing school or playing games at the table. If we need to retreat down into the hulls, there’s more space and privacy to be had, but for some reason, we all congregate in the main salon and proceed to step on each other’s’ toes and nerves.

In order to stave off boredom and keep ourselves cheerful, we roll up the rug and play Twister. We read aloud. We play board (bored?) games, long ones like Monopoly and Risk. We watch movies. We bake things. But sometimes, we just bicker and glare at each other and get annoyed. We say things like, “I understand it’s been three days since you ran around. But you have to sit down and be quiet anyway.”

If we get desperate to get off the boat, we put on foulies and brave the elements. Last week, for example, we took the waterproof backpack to the library to get some books. It seemed simple enough. The forecast called for “light rain.” HA! While we were at the library it rained buckets and buckets—ten inches in just a few hours. We watched cars stall as they tried to leave the downtown area, which had turned into a grid of canals. There were Class III rapids outside the library front doors as the rainwater headed for the Indian River Lagoon. So we waited for the downfall to lessen, for some of the water to drain off. We waited a long time, fruitlessly. In the end, we rolled up our pant-legs, carried Rachel (so she wouldn’t be swept away) and waded out to our car. We got out of there with no problems, but we were cold and wet when we got back to the boat. The silver lining was that once we changed clothes, there was a pile of really good books to go through, a whole afternoon’s entertainment. And at least it wasn’t snowing.

Finally, when all else fails, we compromise our old-fashioned values and resort to playing video games. Sometimes we even let the children play, too. I know it’s perfectly normal for kids nowadays to stare at tiny moving figures on a screen for hours on end, exercising little else but their thumbs, but we have never aspired to be normal. We typically view our computers as tools, to be used for learning or working. The kids are allowed to use computers for Rosetta stone, BBC’s Dance Mat Typing, computer programming, LEGO Digital Designer, math and spelling games, Rocksmith guitar lessons, and research for writing or art projects. When the work is done, the kids can earn a few minutes (and I mean a very few) on Coolmathgames.com or Microsoft’s Combat Flight Simulator. But on rainy days, or long, cold weekends, we relax the rules. I know it isn’t going to turn them into zombies (right away), but I really hate to see their little staring faces lit by the creepy bluish light. They cluster around the flickering screen like cavemen around the fire. Our intention is to develop their appetites for more enriching and social activities, but when we’re all packed in like sardines for days on end, what we really want is a little peace and quiet.

Black Box Theory

by on in Recipes
"…Every boat possesses an imaginary black box, a sort of bank account in which points are kept. In times of emergency, when there is nothing more to be done in the way of sensible seamanship, the points from your black box can buy your way out of trouble. You have no control over how the points are spent, of course; they withdraw themselves when the time is appropriate. You do have control over how the points get into the box: you earn them. For every seamanlike act you perform, you get a point in the black box. 

 

No matter how good your seamanship, there are times when there is nothing left to do but batten down the hatches and pray. If you have a credit balance of points in the box, you'll be all right. People will say you're lucky, of course. They'll say a benign fate let you get away with it. But we know better. That luck was earned, maybe over quite a long period."
 
When we bought Take Two, one of the first things we did was go through all her gear.  It was an impressive array of mostly useless junk.  At the time we merely noted the existence of her emergency tillers.  These are intended to give direct control of the rudders in case the steering system fails, and are a must-have for any well-equipped offshore boat.
 
Eventually, at a much later date, we pulled those tillers out and test-fit them.  Our impression was that they were pretty much, um… pathetic.  They didn’t have the strength or leverage to apply adequate torque to the rudders.  Any situation that could knock out our hydraulic steering would eat those tillers for lunch.
 
Vigor’s Black Box Theory amounts to Karma.  Everyone knows that if you carry an umbrella it won’t rain.  With that in mind, we decided to build new emergency tillers.  
 
Take Two’s rudder posts are solid 1.5” round stainless rod with machined 1.25” square heads.  At OnlineMetals.com we got some 1.5” square tube to fit over the heads and extend the posts up to deck level.  Ben welded tees onto the top of these extensions, and we got a 48” piece of 1.25” square tube to slide into the tee for a tiller handle.  For added strength we cut some collars from 3” square tube and tack welded them over the bottom of the rudder post extensions to prevent the tube from splitting under load.
 
These are our new emergency tillers.  May we never need them.
 
Emergency Tillers 
 
Update 1/24/14
 
In the aftermath of the abandonment of the Alpha 42 "Be Good Too", and the ensuing questions about sizing for catamaran rudder posts, I feel compelled to add a bit more information about ours.  I stated above that our rudder posts are 1.5" rod, which is what I see at the top of the tube, and to which are attached the steering quadrant and tiller arms for the hydraulic cylinders.  What didn't seem important to mention at the time is that where the posts exit the bottom of the tubes and enter the rudders, they are 60mm (or 2-3/8").  
 
I feel that the 1.5" at the top is more than sufficient for the torque loads that the steering system can reasonably supply (or endure).  I could perhaps wish for more than 60mm diameter where the posts span between the rudder and the hull, and where any bending force would be felt, but the rudders are not thick enough to support anything larger.  We do have heavy rudder stops to prevent the rudders from deflecting more than 30 degrees, which should keep them from developing excessive side loads.
 
We dropped the rudders several years ago during a steering system refurb, but the boat wasn't blocked high enough to get them out completely, so I've never seen what the joint between these two diameters looks like.  If I had to guess, I'd bet that the 1.5" runs the entire length from the top of the tube to the bottom of the rudder, and the 60mm section I see betwen the hull and the rudder is a sleeve to reinforce it at that point. 
 
Of course, you never know the condition of the welds inside the rudder.  The strongest post in the world isn't going to help if the rudder itself just spins around it or falls off.  As in most things, we take comfort that we have another one.