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Thread: New Boat 4 Sled

  1. #3721
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    Quote Originally Posted by AlanH View Post
    That's a fascinating little boat and a unique rig.
    Not the rig Gilboy started with, a schooner. Mainmast swept away in capsize. Gilboy deployed emergency steering for last 1,000 miles. BTW, PACIFIC cost $400 new.

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  2. #3722
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    A Schooner? With only one mast and two booms. Tell me more.

  3. #3723
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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    Not the rig Gilboy started with, a schooner. Mainmast swept away in capsize. Gilboy deployed emergency steering for last 1,000 miles. BTW, PACIFIC cost $400 new.

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    I can't imagine a more un-handy rig on an 18 foot boat, but he probably led the sheets to a central point. I would love to see some more photographs of the boat. It's decked over...can you say "wet"?

    Look at the length of the keel. That boat wants to go in a straight line. Turning is optional. I wonder how it was ballasted.

    I might have to get this book!

    Love his hat!
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  4. #3724
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    Happy Earth Day!

    Back in the day, a classmate, Denis Hayes, began promoting his idea of initiating a day of celebration of the Earth, its wonders, and fragility. After graduation, Denis went to work for Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who bought into Denis' idea and issued a call to action. 20 million mobilized for the first Earth Day, 50 years ago, and the rest is history. Or is it? Out of that first Earth Day came bedrock environmental protection laws such as the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act, all currently being undermined by the current administration.

    By 1970, I had been fortunate to have made 4 Transpac races. Though I'm sure there were small amounts of plastic in the Eastern Pacific even back then, I don't remember any being visible.

    Today, in the glassy calm of the Pacific High, a crew is never out of sight of plastic. An estimated 17.6 billion pounds of plastic enters our oceans every year, the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck’s worth of plastic every minute. With only 9% of all plastic waste generated being properly recycled, recycling has been promoted as a feel good marketing campaign giving false hope and assuage guilt in the attempt to solve the plastic crisis.

    Following is a revealing report by Emily Petsko of the ocean conservation organization Oceana detailing the myth of plastic recycling:

    Three arrows chasing each other in a triangular loop: For decades, the consuming public has recognized this symbol as a promise that “this package can and will be recycled.” However, the perceived promise of those interlocking arrows is a hollow one, as most plastic products – save for those with the numbers one and two on the bottom – are not recycled in any significant amount.

    The arrows with numbers that you find on your soda bottle (usually a No. 1 plastic made with PET, or polyethylene terephthalate), your yogurt tub (often a No. 5 made with polypropylene), and other everyday products are part of the Resin Identification Code (RIC) system that was created by and for the plastics industry in 1988.

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    Each number signifies a different category of plastics – of which there are seven in total – and this system was designed to tell recycling facilities what type of resin can be found in any given object. As it turns out, they were never a guarantee that the item in question would be recycled.

    “Resin Identification Codes are not ‘recycle codes,’” ASTM International, the organization that administers the RIC system, writes on its website. “The use of a Resin Identification Code on a manufactured plastic article does not imply that the article is recycled or that there are systems in place to effectively process the article for reclamation or re-use.”

    If you find this surprising, you’re not alone.

    According to a survey of 2,000 Americans that was conducted by the Consumer Brands Association last year, 68% of respondents said they thought any item bearing an RIC would be recyclable.

    (In an effort to reduce confusion, ASTM International altered the symbols in 2013, replacing the arrows with a solid triangle. However, manufacturers aren’t required to change their equipment to incorporate the new symbol, which is why you still see the arrows on many plastic products.)

    Consumers widely misinterpret RICs and, as a result, they “wish-cycle.” Many well-meaning and hopeful consumers place any plastic item with an RIC in their recycling bin, regardless of whether they will actually be recycled.

    So instead of resulting in more plastic being recycled, this approach all too often slows down the sorting process, drives up recycling costs, results in higher rates of contamination, and ultimately sends more waste to landfills, incinerators, and natural environments. Our recycling wishes, in other words, are being turned into garbage.

    The myth surrounding RICs makes us believe that plastic is recycled far more often than it actually is. In fact, only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled, and many of those recycled items belong to just two of the seven resin categories.

    Susan Freinkel, author of the 2011 book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, told Oceana that “the only plastics recycled in any significant amounts are No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, which cover soda and water bottles, as well as milk, juice, and detergent jugs.”

    A new report by Greenpeace takes this a step further, arguing that No. 1 and No. 2 bottles and jugs are the only plastics that can legitimately be called “recyclable” and advertised as such. That’s because they are the only resins that have “sufficient market demand and domestic recycling/reprocessing capacity,” according to the report. The remaining municipal plastic waste is often referred to as “mixed plastic.”

    Ever since China shut its borders to the world’s mixed plastics in 2018, the U.S. has struggled to find a market for its plastic waste, especially No. 3 through No. 7 plastics, which are less valuable.

    Some states (like Florida) and cities (like Erie, Pennsylvania) have urged residents to recycle only plastic bottles and jugs, which are generally made of PET (a No. 1 plastic) or HDPE (a No. 2 plastic). Cuyahoga County, the second most populous county in Ohio and home to Cleveland, has adopted this approach.

    In 2015, local authorities told residents to ignore the numbers and instead sort by shape, placing only higher-value plastic waste like bottles, jugs, tubs, and jars in their recycling bin. After China’s plastic import ban went into effect, the list of items you could actually recycle in Cuyahoga County got smaller. Now, only bottles and jugs (like laundry detergent containers) are accepted.

    “[RICs] were never meant to determine recyclability,” says Diane Bickett, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, which serves as a countywide resource for recycling information. “People have been confused about that since 1988, when they started appearing on the bottom of the packaging.”

    Even with Cuyahoga County’s efforts, roughly a quarter of all items tossed in recycling bins are contaminated, and some of that is because of the unrecyclable plastics that are still being “wish-cycled.” In response, the Solid Waste District’s communication efforts are focused on getting a new message across: Waste reduction.

    “We’re just trying to tell people that we’re not going to recycle our way out of our waste problem,” Bickett says. “There’s just too much material, and too much waste, being generated.”

    Freinkel, in her book, talked to a plastic industry spokesperson who referred to recycling as “a guilt eraser.” The spokesperson told Freinkel that “as soon as they [consumers] recycle your product, they feel better about it.”

    “Recycling,” writes Freinkel, “assures people that plastic isn’t just an infernal hanger-on; it has a useful afterlife.”

    Of course, that is also a myth. We all need to separate the hopeful and increasingly fantastical act of recycling from the reality of plastic pollution. Recent data indicates that our recycling wishes, hopes, and dreams – perhaps driven in part by myths surrounding RICs – will not stop plastic from entering our oceans.

    Instead, if we truly want to protect the environment and marine life, we need to campaign for more plastic-free choices and zones, and for the reduction of plastic production and pollution.


    My hope for Earth Day 2020 is not only continued awareness on behalf of 2021 SHTP competitors to leaving clean wakes, but also to minimize the amount of disposable plastic carried across the Pacific and brought ashore at Hanalei Beach Park, only to end up in Kauai's overflowing landfill.

    Here in brief is Kauai's local government statement on recycling: Plastic containers that are not bottles and jars even if they are #1 and #2 plastics are not recyclable on Kauai.... Plastics #3-#7 are not recyclable on Kaua'i because they have low market value and we do not have a materials recovery facility on island to manage this material at this time.
    Last edited by sleddog; 04-22-2020 at 08:54 AM.

  5. #3725
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    Thank you, sir. It was sobering to realize that all the plastic I saw out there was created in my lifetime. Your hope for this Earth Day is well taken. Perhaps the powers that be will address the issue in the race documents. It would not have deterred me from entering if the 2018 rules forbade leaving plastic in Hawaii.
    Lee
    s/v Morning Star
    Valiant 32

  6. #3726
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    The last time Sled and I raced in the SHTP (2008), this was one of the equipment requirements:

    "4.12 Storage facilities to contain all rubbish on board up to the arrival ashore. Recyclable rubbish shall be contained separately from non-recyclable rubbish."

    While most skippers avoided plastic containers anyway, the rule could be expanded to require taking them back to the mainland.

  7. #3727
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    We need a “moon shot” program to create a plastic replacement.

  8. #3728
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    They have bio-degradable plastic but of course it isn't at the same low price point of regular plastic. Laws could easily change the scaling.

  9. #3729
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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    End of an era yesterday when Matson's SS KAUAI (720') was towed out the Bay and under the Golden Gate for a last time, bound for Panama Canal and the shipbreakers in Brownsville, TX.

    Attachment 5258

    Captain Bob, on this Forum, served as Chief Mate on KAUAI beginning in 1983, and was one of her captains 1996-2002. I was fortunate to share a voyage, Seattle to Oakland, aboard KAUAI in April, 2000.
    Thanks, Captain Bob, for a memorable voyage on your old ship. Sad to see her go for the last time...
    Attachment 5259
    As the retired Matson container ship S.S. KAUAI, currently under tow by the RACHEL, crosses the Gulf of Tehuantepec on her last voyage through the Panama Canal and to the ship breakers in Brownsville, it's a good time to reflect the "six degrees of separation" this ship brought to singlehanded sailing, and to the SSS in particular.

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    sleddog at the 12" wheel of SS KAUAI, surfing downwind at 22 knots in 30 knots TWS off Port Orford. It took a full minute for the ship to respond to a change in helm.

    KAUAI's master, Captain Bob, owned the Lapworth 36 BELLWETHER and with his family on summer vacation was at anchor in Hanalei Bay, June 29th, 1978, when WILDFLOWER came sailing around Puu Poa Point to finish the first Singlehanded Transpac. I recognized BELLWETHER, and Bob from a brief encounter 4 years earlier in Mazatlan. Bob was as surprised as I meeting at Hanalei.

    "What are you doing here? Bob asked as WILDFLOWER sailed by.. "Finishing the Singlehanded Transpac," says I. "Has anyone else finished?" I queried.

    "Don't know," Bob says, "there's a Santa Cruz 27 anchored over there. (Norton Smith on SOLITAIRE , first-to-finish, a day before WILDFLOWER.) "What, is there some sort of race coming here?"

    Thus began the first welcoming committee for the first Singlehanded Transpac: Captain Bob and I in BELLWETHER's Sabot dinghy rowed cold beers over to subsequent finishers, 23 in number over the next 5 days.

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    But that wasn't the end of Captain Bob and the SHTP. During his Matson career, Bob kept track of SHTP racers' position reports, and would alter course of SS KAUAI (and SS LURLINE) to sound his horn in greeting to solo racers Mid-Pacific.

    Captain Bob and I ultimately sailed many miles together, and he went on to a fine career as ocean racing navigator aboard such well known boats as RAGTIME, OAXACA, RETALIATION, LOVE MACHINE, SUNSET BOULEVARD, and the maxi CONDOR, as well as owning the Hawkfarm BELLWETHER, homeported in Haleiwa.

    One final pic, taken by Capt. Bob from the bridge of SS KAUAI, as they passed WILDFLOWER 116 miles west of Santa Cruz on my passage home from New Zealand in 1997. Bob could see WILDFLOWER on radar at 12 miles in these gentle conditions, and I could see the KAUAI visually at 10 miles. As KAUAI passed WILDFLOWER at 22 knots, her crew gathered on the ship's starboard rail, Bob saluted with 3 blasts, and Ralph the radio officer, who had been my contact during our passages, just shook his head in wonderment and retreated into his radio room.

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    Last edited by sleddog; 04-23-2020 at 12:47 PM.

  10. #3730
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    That's a wonderful story and a terrific photo of you and Wildflower! And you driving the big ship! Like a kid in a candy store. But it didn't cause you to go over to the other side and buy a power boat, did it?

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