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Thread: New Boat 4 Sled

  1. #2421
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    Capitola,CA
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    Though we do not usually think of cats as being particularly seaworthy, surprise is in the wind (and it is windy here in Capitola after yesterday's dry frontal passage.)

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    For a prize of an exquisite trimaran, complete with rotating mast, designed by H.Spruit, be the first to
    correctly match the following famous ship's cats and their predicatments.

    Blackie a. Survived secret seaplane somersault with Admiral Nimitz in Alameda Estuary. (plane sank.)
    Mrs. Chippie b. During 130,000 small boat miles under her paws, survived two pitch-poles off Cape Horn.
    Trim c. Met Churchill and Roosevelt, sunk on battleship, rescued.
    Pwe d. His death nearly caused a mutiny
    Oscar e. First to circumnavigate Australia, navigated for Flinders proving Oz was a continent.
    Cap f. Sunk on enemy battleship, rescued by a destroyer that was then sunk, rescued by aircraft carrier that was sunk, rescued again.

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    Last edited by sleddog; 02-19-2018 at 03:06 PM.

  2. #2422
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    I would hazard a guess there is no weather location more carefully monitored in California than Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo/Los Osos and Port San Luis harbor.

    The Diablo Canyon Power Plant has 23 weather monitoring towers measuring temperature, wind direction and speed from a number of altitudes. Offshore, there is a Waverider buoy which records swell height and direction as well as water temperature. Near shore, there is a sonic radar system which records even more data about wind direction and speed along with a high frequency radar network which monitors ocean currents. While the information is used for plant operations, the primary function is public safety.

    Last evening's winds at Diablo were reportedly 46, gusting 55. That's miles/hour. And converts to 38 knots, gusting 49. That's breeze. There's snow in upper Carmel Valley and on the Cuesta Grade on Highway 101, at SLO.

    http://www.tenera.com/weather/
    Last edited by sleddog; 02-19-2018 at 07:51 PM.

  3. #2423
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    Dec 2012
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    Alameda CA
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    497

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    Blackie - C
    Mrs Chippie - D
    Trim - E
    Pwe - B
    Oscar - F
    Cap - A

  4. #2424
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    Sep 2007
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaveH View Post
    Blackie - C
    Mrs Chippie - D
    Trim - E
    Pwe - B
    Oscar - F
    Cap - A
    Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner for your SSS Commodore. Congrats David!

    Briefly, Blackie was battleship HMS PRINCE of WALES ship's cat. During WWII, Blackie achieved worldwide fame after PoW carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to secretly confer with President FDR. As Churchill prepared to disembark, Blackie approached. Churchill stooped to bid farewell to Blackie, and the moment was photographed and reported in the world media. Later, PRINCE of WALES was sunk by the Japanese north of Singapore, but Blackie was rescued.

    Mrs. Chippie, a male tabby, was ENDURANCE ship's cat. When icebound in the Antarctic, Shackleton ordered Mrs. Chippie put down as well as all the sleddogs. There was a near mutiny, and hard feelings remained. http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/chippy.html

    Trim was explorer Matthew Flinders cat, and circumnavigated Australia in 1803, putting the continent on the map. Trim was small, black and white, and the crew's favorite. Flinder's spent much time in his captain's cabin attempting to chart and navigate the then unknown coast of Australia, and it is said Trim likely had a say in Flinder's navigational decisions. There's a great story, in paper back, called Matthew Flinder's Cat. http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/trim.html

    Pwe was the Smeeton's Siamese and lived aboard TZU HANG, which was pitchpoled twice near Cape Horn, the first time with John Guzzwell aboard. Pwe was the saltiest cat of this group and logged 130,000 ocean miles. If you haven't read the classic Once is Enough, you haven't met the Smeetons and Pwe. http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/featuring/adv10.html

    Oscar was a "Swasticat" aboard the German Battleship BISMARCK. BISMARCK was famously sunk when her steering jammed and she could only steam in circles, making for easy prey of the Brits. Oscar, afloat on flotsam, was rescued by a Britsh destroyer, HMS COSSACK, which was then torpedoed and sunk. Again, Oscar was rescued and became ship's cat aboard the aircraft carrier HMS ARK ROYAL. ARK ROYAL was sunk, but Oscar lived again and retired ashore to an old sailor's home in Belfast. There is a portrait of Oscar at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

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    Lastly, after the epic and victorious Battle of Midway, Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, was making a secret flight from Hawaii to San Francisco aboard a Sikorsky XPBS-1 seaplane. Upon landing, the seaplane hit a log in front of the Alameda Naval Airstation, flipped upside down, cracked in half and sank. Nimitz miraculously survived, and so did his cat Cap.
    Last edited by sleddog; 02-20-2018 at 12:27 AM.

  5. #2425
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    Sep 2007
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    San Francisco Bay Area
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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    I would hazard a guess there is no weather location more carefully monitored in California than Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo/Los Osos and Port San Luis harbor.

    The Diablo Canyon Power Plant has 23 weather monitoring towers measuring temperature, wind direction and speed from a number of altitudes. Offshore, there is a Waverider buoy which records swell height and direction as well as water temperature. Near shore, there is a sonic radar system which records even more data about wind direction and speed along with a high frequency radar network which monitors ocean currents. While the information is used for plant operations, the primary function is public safety.

    Last evening's winds at Diablo were reportedly 46, gusting 55. That's miles/hour. And converts to 38 knots, gusting 49. That's breeze. There's snow in upper Carmel Valley and on the Cuesta Grade on Highway 101, at SLO.

    http://www.tenera.com/weather/
    That's good. Now we need some significant preciptation to make that REAL snow. Snow in Chachagua and back in the peaks of the Ventana wilderness is not all that unusual. When I was in high school, I remember some of the Valley guys going up and filling one of their mates pickup truck bed with snow and bringing it to school.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  6. #2426
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    May 2015
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    907

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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    There's snow in upper Carmel Valley and on the Cuesta Grade on Highway 101, at SLO.
    We were camping in Henry W Coe state park these past two nights. We did get snow Monday night; it was magical ... Kids loved it, standing by the fire, under the falling snow, melting marshmallows in the ring fire ...

  7. #2427
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    Jan 2010
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    February 24
    Happy Birthday, Skip!
    Attached Images Attached Images  

  8. #2428
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    East San Francisco Bay is rumbling....55 small earthquakes in the last week, 13 in the last 24 hours. I was just on the phone with PHILPOT in Oakland and she says, "Oh, my, we're having an earthquake." (12:20 pm Friday.) The quake Jackie reported was 3.6. Nothing too earthshaking. More like coming off a wave on ebb tide near Seal Rocks at Lands End. But earthquake swarms like these can be a predecessor to something bigger, da dum.

    Increasing numbers of citizens are moving from California. But not for earthquake reasons. Skyrocketing rents and rising housing costs are the primary culprit. Add increasing earthquakes and drought to the reason there are few, if any, U-Haul truck and trailers to be found.

    I was living aboard WILDFLOWER during the '89 earthquake that pretty much destroyed Santa Cruz Harbor. My friend, sitting in his car in the parking lot, disappeared into a large crack (he was shocked, but unhurt.) The parking lot looked like Yellowstone, with numerous geysers from broken underground pipes. The Harbor bridge was broke for a year, downtown was pretty much destroyed, and there was not a chimney left standing.

    I could tell when an aftershock was coming, and there were many. Inside the boat, it sounded like a train rumbling nearby. Hundreds of fish would simultaneously jump from the Harbor's rippling water. Most of the dock pilings took on a significant lean. It seemed most of town were camping on their front lawns.

    Years later I hiked to Ground Zero of the '89 Loma Prieta Quake in the Nicene Forest, 4 miles north of Aptos Village.

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    Last edited by sleddog; 02-23-2018 at 02:12 PM.

  9. #2429
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    We came up the Coast yesterday from Santa Cruz, across the Bay Bridge, to Berkeley. It was windy offshore, with estimated 25 knots NW as far as Pigeon Point. North of Pigeon Point, the wind backed off to a pleasant 10-15, with sunshine but a bit of chill. Nothing like Tahoe, where friends reported yesterday's lake level weather as subfreezing with 4" of fresh snow.

    Just south of Half Moon Bay we hove to by the side of the road for 20 minutes to investigate Fields of Gold, an expanse of mustard and sour grass. The yellows, with the steel blue ocean and green hills, and pungent smell, were beautiful to behold. I'd guess the area investigated was a square mile, located half mile south of Miramontes Point Road.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x7K98ZhbYg

    Hope everyone had a good sail yesterday in the Corinthian Regatta. Congrats to BANDICOOT, All Germain, first overall Single-Hander, and UNO, first DH. https://www.jibeset.net/show.php?RR=...=r201&TYP=html
    Last edited by sleddog; 02-26-2018 at 11:07 AM.

  10. #2430
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    Remembering...

    Bahamian Durward Knowles was already a sailing legend when we first met in Newport Beach in 1959. He been taught sailing at a young age by his father, worked as a Nassau Bar Pilot, won the Star World's Championship in 1947 and the Bronze Medal in the 1956 Olympics. His red Starboats, all named GEM, were invariably found at the head of the fleet. Durward was in the very top echelon of Star sailors, the best sailors in the world.

    Durward and crew had arrived early in Newport. I was honored to be asked to practice as their tune-up boat. Unlike San Pedro, 20 miles west, where Durward had won the '47 Worlds, the course off Newport has predominantly light airs, 8-14 knots, with a fair amount of Pacific ground swell, leftover waves from better winds to the west, and powerboat slop.

    Local sailors become proficient at handling these conditions, "the washing machine," which are somewhat mystifying at first to the outsider. As a 14 year old I had gotten good at it, which turned out to be a bit deflating to the ever jovial Mr. Knowles. As he wrote of his experience, "I didn't mind so much that Skip kept passing us." "But every time he wiped us off the kid would luff up and say, 'Had enough? I have to go home.'" Durward interpreted this to mean, "Now do you give up?" whereas actually it was too late for me to be out on the ocean according to family rules and I didn't want to get into trouble.

    Durward kept his grin all that week and the next, laughing at practical jokes, one of which was an unidentified competitor possibly named Blackaller repainting the name of Knowles Star from GEM to "GERM."

    Durward Knowles reached the pinnacle of a lifetime of sailing in 1964 when he and Cecil Cooke won the Olympic Gold Medal in the Star Class in Tokyo. They came home to the Bahamas as national heroes, and he was knighted Sir Durward in 1996.

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    Durward continued racing until 70 years of age, and competed in eight Olympics, the last in Seoul, South Korea in 1988 where he was the proud bearer of the flag of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas

    Durward Knowles supported sailing all his long life. He was especially fond of coaching juniors. His last Star sits in position of honor at the entrance to the Nassau Yacht Club.

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    I honor Sir Durward, the oldest living Olympic Champion, who died Saturday at age 100.

    Below is a photo of Sir Durward Knowles with fellow Star World's champion (1988) Paul Cayard.

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    Last edited by sleddog; 02-26-2018 at 01:11 PM.

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