Boat Plans Nz | Idle thoughts on electricity

Boat Plans Nz

SOMETIMES I just sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits. But on those rare occasions when I think, I think there are two major problems for the world to solve. The first is how to store electricity more efficiently. The second is how to transmit large amounts of electricity without wires.

Solving the second problem would make the first problem moot, of course, but since neither is anywhere near solution, it doesn’t really matter.

At present we hobble along by storing electricity in batteries. They aren’t very efficient. Think how often people have to charge their cell phones. They aren’t even safe. Think how many lithium-ion batteries overheat and catch fire in cell phones and Boeing 787s.

As far as transmitting electricity without wires goes, Tesla, the Great Electrician, was demonstrating 100 or more years ago that he could do it over short distances. And that is how radio works, too, of course. But what we need is a method of transmitting much larger amounts of electricity directly through space to the appliances or motors that need it, without frying up any soft-fleshed human beings who get in its way.

Imagine how the world would change if cars and trucks could drive endlessly on electric power. Better yet, imagine how it would change boats. No more smelly, heavy, complicated internal combustion engines. Think how the mammals of the sea would appreciate that.

But then, I think, if boats could use electricity to go anywhere in the world they liked, with power transmitted from satellites, or reflected by satellites, would anybody bother to sail any more?

Most small powerboats can’t carry enough fuel to cross oceans. You need a sailboat to do that. But if you could use clean quiet electricity to explore the glories of the South Seas, or cruise your own coastline, and go directly where you wanted, even if it were against the wind, why would anyone want a sailboat?

Of course, there is a glamour to sailing, a direct connection to the old days of the sailing ships and the mysteries and customs of the sea, which itself hasn’t changed in all the centuries we’ve known it.

We all know and understand that sailboats are largely impractical, but there is something about them that touches the human heart.

So when I thinks that it’s pretty certain that sooner or later mankind will invent a better battery or learn to transmit electricity, I also wonders if it will mean the days of sailboats are over, and how soon that might happen.

Today’s Thought

Indebtedness to oxygen

The chemist may repay,

But not the obligation

To electricity.

— Emily Dickinson, Poems

Tailpiece

“Angela darling, the bank has returned your check.”

“Oh, wow, that’s great. What shall we buy with it this time?”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans Catamaran | On boat neglect and boat fever

Boat Plans Catamaran

THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR when many are so busy with parties and presents and family and Christmas trees that their boats tend to be neglected. Its not such a bad thing, as long as the neglect is not long-lasting. Boating fever can resume with fervor after a refreshing break, and we can all look forward to a new season of sailing in the coming spring.

As long as there had been Christmas, it has been thus. In fact, 100 years ago this is what Thomas Fleming Day, editor of The Rudder, had to say about it:

"When Winter gets up his hook and stands offshore, the boat fever comes on strong and the itch to be away on the blue again takes hold of us. Sunday finds the boys sidling off towards the yards and wading around in the slush looking over the laid-up craft.

"They walk round and round them, peer at the stern, eye the bow, comment on the spars, find fault with the bottom, and curse the price that makes it not for them. Year after year this is our amusement. Spring after spring we go through the same yards, see the same boats, and express the same opinions regarding their appearance and condition. If those boats have ears, how tired they must get, how weary of the silly comments that the boat-fevered busybody makes each March under their hulls.

"A few weeks after, the yard is almost cleared, except here and there a poor old cripple or rich mans forgotten plaything is left standing surrounded by a raffle of timber and truck. Over by the fence, lying on its side, is a once crack-a-jack racer, too rotten to be moved and going rapidly to punk.

"And we look on her and think of the days when we will be lying up against the fence, dismantled and broken, while our successors are out cleaving the blue and making a mainsheet haul of health and happiness."

 u  Well, he ended up a little maudlin, there, didnt he? I guess he was rather depressed after a Christmas that had gone on too long and kept him away from his boat.

But we, as his successors, can look forward happily to cleaving the blue once again. So Happy Christmas. Happy Hanukah. Happy Kwanzaa.

Todays Thought

Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want — and their kids pay for it.

— Richard Lamm, former Governor of Colorado.

Tailpiece

"My girlfriend thinks Im a stalker."

"Your girlfriend thinks that?"

"Yeah, well, shes not actually my girlfriend yet."

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans Aluminium | Heres what to give a sailor

Boat Plans Aluminium

A few years ago some of my landlubber acquaintances asked me what they should give for Christmas to their friends who own boats. I responded with a column of advice. I’m not sure that it did any good, but I’m thinking there’s no harm in repeating it now. So here goes: 

TINKLE-TINKLE, TINKLE-TINKLE. The man with the kettle is reminding us to give, and give generously. This week there will be sailors all over the world who are receiving Christmas gifts from non-sailors. And it is to the non-sailors that this column is directed.

All right . . .  listen up now, you lot. What are the traditional gifts a non-sailor like you gives a sailor? I’ll tell you: a couple of battens for the mainsail. A stainless shackle or two for the bosun’s bag. A woolly watch cap for cold weather . . . let’s face it folks, I’m sorry, but this is not generous giving. The sailor in your life deserves better.

Now, heavens above, before you protest, let it not be thought that I am a purveyor of ingratitude. I believe as much as the next man that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I, too, believe it’s the thought that counts. I also believe that you should give according to your means and I am an ardent admirer of fiscal responsibility, thrift, frugality, prudence, parsimony and similar human traits that Mr. Roget reminds me of in his thoughtful Thesaurus.

On the other hand, the problem facing us today is that your average sailor does not want a silly hat or another mainsail batten to add to the pile of spares already cluttering the cockpit locker. What he really wants is a couple of gallons of anti-fouling paint at $150 a gallon. Or a 35-pound CQR anchor for $600. Or a new color GPS chartplotter for $800. Or a jib furling system for $2,000. Or a new diesel engine.

Yeah, wow, a new engine. That would please him no end. That would make a really good Christmas present. Ten thousand ought to do it. Fifteen, maybe if they have to build new engine beds as well. It sounds like a lot but it’s not really, honestly it’s not, when you consider the huge amount of joy it will bring. A really huge amount of joy. Honest.

It’s not too late to correct your Christmas mistakes. If you haven’t been generous before, you can be generous now. Tinkle-tinkle. Do your bit to make a sailor happy. Truly happy. Tinkle-tinkle.Give till it hurts. Tinkle-tinkle. I mean, really hurts. Tinkle-tinkle. On behalf of sailors everywhere, I thank you and wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. 

Today’s Thought

Money-giving is a very good criterion . . . of a person’s mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.

— Dr. Karl A. Menninger
Tailpiece

“What’s that you’re burying?”

“Oh, just one of my chickens.”

“Chicken be darned. That looks like my dog.”

“Yeah, right, the chicken’s inside.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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