New Boat 4 Sled

[sleddog]

Five years ago, while playing in sawdust and glue, I started this thread to celebrate the passing of WILDFLOWER, and New Beginnings.

While gluing and screwing the hulls of the new boat in the garage, friends would scrawl messages on the walls. Before they are covered over, here are a few:

"Speed, Comfort, Cost: You can only have 2 out of 3." ~H.S.

"If you don't know what it's for, take it off the boat." ~H.S.

"There are no straight lines in nature" ~Ted Pearson

"A string won't oppose gravity."

"We aren't superstitious, we just believe it causes bad luck." ~H.S.

"We're shittin' in the clover now." ~ Hap Laurilla

"Just because we look confused doesn't mean disaster is imminent."

"All forces on a multi-hull, or any hull, are inward." ~H.S.

"The narrower the catamaran, the heavier (displacement) it must be." ~H.S.

"Best laid plans are merely good ideas. ~Gary Adams

"I don't know where I've been, and I've just been there." ~Butch Cassidy

"The further the boat gets from the driveway, the smaller it gets. ~H.S.

"I have finally arrived at an age at which things I remember most clearly never happened at all ~Mark Twain

"If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own ~Scoop Nisker

From Rocks and Sands, and Every Ill,
May God Preserve the Sailor Still. ~ Mariner's Prayer

And if you need an emergency rudder blade, go see the For Sale, Rent, or Loan Forum, below.

CU all in Half Moon Bay.

[sleddog]

For those who have visited aboard Nelson's flagship HMS VICTORY, or the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION ("Old Ironsides), you know cannon balls and "ships of oak and men of steel" altered the course of history.

Currently moored to the guest dock at Santa Cruz Harbor is another ship, small boat really, that did something important in World Events. This all but unnoticed 30 foot wooden ketch with tanbark sails is the GOLDEN RULE, designed by Hugh Angleman and built at Wilmington Boat Company in San Pedro.

In the 1950’s, the U.S. military used the Marshall Islands as their primary site for atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. These nuclear detonations in the Western Pacific began to wreak havoc on the environment and human health. Readily detectable clouds of radioactive fallout began to drift around the planet. Contamination was found in cows’ and mothers’ milk. Skepticism began to grow about government assurances that there was no danger.

In 1958, the GOLDEN RULE was purchased by a group of activists who set out on a voyage of nonviolent protest toward the Marshall Islands. Their plan, which was well publicized, was to sail into the target zone and sacrifice both boat and crew if need be to bring a halt to the tests.

GOLDEN RULE and her feisty crew never made it to their destination. The Coast Guard stopped the vessel in Hawaii and arrested the crew. But publicity surrounding the crew’s trial and imprisonment helped ignite worldwide public outrage against atmospheric testing.

That outrage turned the tide. By 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and outer space. No nuclear tests took place in the Marshall Islands after 1958.

The use of nonviolent direct action as a fundamental guiding principle of the GOLDEN RULE's crew fired the imagination of future generations and was the forebear of many peace and environmental protest boats that followed, including Green Peace, The seas of the world have never been quite the same since.

After the 1958 voyage, GOLDEN RULE was sold and eventually wound up in Humboldt Bay, badly neglected. She finally sank in a storm in late 2010.When a group of Northern California members of Veterans for Peace learned the damaged ketch was nearby and might be salvageable, they raised the GOLDEN RULE and against prevailing wisdom, restored her to original condition.
.
With GOLDEN RULE's rebuild complete, she is currently voyaging slowly down the California coast, honoring her original crew as a living museum. Her present day crew hopes to educate future generations on the risks of nuclear technology and the importance of the ocean environment.

For today's quiz, one of GOLDEN RULE's bigger sisters won the Transpac. Name the boat and year and win an overnight stay at Capitola Yacht Club. Bonus points if you can identify the furry things in GOLDEN RULE's rigging, and their purpose.

[JohnS]

Nice story, Skip. I can't help with the bigger sister quiz, but the furry things are baggywrinkle and are there to reduce chafe on the sails. (Or so I've been led to believe.

[Wylieguy]

Skip, That would be "SEA WITCH" - which became the prototype for a long series of Angleman ketches. And, yes, baggy wrinkle was hemp line "fuzzed up" and fastened to standing rigging to keep sails from chafing. Seems strange sailing a Wyliecat that I don't have a 2nd mast and any standing rigging to deal with. The only baggy wrinkle aboard "NANCY" is my unshaven beard. Pat B.

[sleddog]

On a blue chart on the bottom of the Home Page of the SSS Forum, there is a note that the 2016 SingleHanded TransPac starts in June, 2016. "Join Us!"

It's not too early to be booking housing in Hanalei. But what's the start date for the 20th Edition of the SHTP? I believe its been set and committees are already preparing for the seminars, sendoff and reception. The Start Date. Do we need a secret password? The 2016 Race2Alaska starts June 23, 2016. I hope to be at one or the other.

[H Spruit]

A free night at the Capitola YC?
Is that YC still located at the wet sand beach in front of the sewer pump house?

[pogen]

Unofficial, July 2 start for SHTP.

[brianb]

See TEXT version of NOR under 2016 SHTP. The pretty version will be posted to the SHTP page on the SSS website.
Brian

[sleddog]

Extra points to John S and Pat B for identifying the charming word "baggywrinkle" as the name for furry chafe protectors wrapped around wire rigging to reduce wear on sails.

Baggywrinkle is made from short strands of old rope woven into a long, shaggy fringe that is then wrapped around the rigging so that it becomes becomes a large hairy cylinder looking like poodles hanging the rigging. These days, except on tall ships, baggywrinkle has fallen out of favor, being replaced by high tech teflon tape and sails that resist chafe better than cotton of yore.

Congrats also to Pat B for identifying GOLDEN RULE's big sister as SEA WITCH, overall handicap winner of the 1951 TransPac Race from San Pedro to Honolulu. Below are two beautiful paintings of SEA WITCH, and as is seen, she can spread a load of sail. There were a number of Sea Witch ketches built, almost 40, all with the word "SEA" in the first part of their name. Sea Witch ketches can still be seen sailing and identified by their upward raked bowsprit, gaff main, marconi mizzen and graceful sheer.

Additional extra points for naming and telling us how to pronounce those horizontal steps up SEA WITCH's main mast rigging.

[Woodbay]

Ratlines . . .