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Thread: New Boat 4 Sled

  1. #481
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Saratoga
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    336

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    Can't help but wondering if the carburetor replacement is partially due to an overindulgence in Monterey Bay seawater earlier this year...?

    Sounds like a cool place to be "stuck" in though.

    "Proceed as the Way Opens" sounds pretty good too.

  2. #482
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Santa Cruz
    Posts
    108

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    Agreed!
    "Proceed as the Way Opens"
    This base philosophy has always worked best for me!
    A more aggressive approach has, at times, brought me a margin of success, but the fruits of that success has often been tainted.
    I must look at the dunking of the carburetor in Monterey Bay as a result of not properly applying that philosophy.

    And when I looked at the picture of the swimming hole, you posted, my first thought was; Why are you in a hurry to leave this place?
    <H>

  3. #483
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Capitola,CA
    Posts
    3,338

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    Today was the Texada Island Fly-In and Airshow. "Biggest little airshow in BC." Featured were the Fraser Blues, a team of WW II vintage L-17 Navions flying formations and crossings with smoke trails. On their initial pass, about 100' overhead, colors were presented and the crowd sang Oh, Canada.

    It was fun sitting at the same picnic table, eating burgers with the Fraser Blue pilots. And listening to their stories. One of their compatriots, in a P-51 Hawker Sea Fury, had been the only one ever to shoot down a jet with a prop plane (Korean War.)

    There were about 60 single engine planes at the Fly-In, many restored or home built. Pilots and families were camped in tents under the wings. Everyone was having a good time. Down the parking lot were antique cars, including a Buick with wood spoke wheels.

    Two WW II vets, a Super Stearman bi-plane and a T-28 Trojan, capable of 37,000' and 340 knots, entertained the local crowd with flybys and a hammerhead.

    The T-28 had quite a history. After Korea, being sold from the US Military to the French in 1959 where it was used in Algeria and Suez. Then the French sold it to the Moroccans who had it until 1976, when it was sold to the Honduran military.

    Dominating the field was the yellow, two engined, De Haviland “Buffalo,” flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force Search and Rescue Team. The Buffalo, built in 1960, is the backbone of Canadian SAR. 50 were built, about 10 still exist, and the Canadian RCAF SAR own six, of which three are flying missions. The 50 year old Buffalo is unpressurized. The crew use oxygen when they go high. They do not use night vision goggles, trusting instead to their eyes adapting to the darkness. The cockpit instruments are mostly analog.

    The Buffalo was fully equipped for mountain and offshore search and rescue. They could drop flares, pumps, liferafts, even parachute medic first respnders. I talked with the Buffalo's navigator, a young woman, and came away impressed. It was her job in mountainous terrain to make sure the plane maintained a 1.5 mile turning radius between mountain peaks, even in cloudy conditions. Until recently, there was no GPS chart plotter onboard the Buffalo.

    In the Yukon, in Northern Canada, on missions where GPS failure could mean loss of the plane, the navigator explained she takes backup three star celestial fixes with the bubble sextant fixed into the airplane roof.

    The afternoon concluded at the Texada Air Show when the Buffalo went to 13,000' and dropped the two SAR Techs. They free fell for about 8,000' before pulling their pink chutes and landed on the grass in front of the appreciative crowd. They wrapped up their chutes. The Buffalo landed to pick up them up. And they were off on their next mission.

    Congrats to DORADE, just winning overall the Transpac Race (Los Angeles to Honolulu) 77 years after she won it the first time, in 1936. Quite a wonderful feat for an old woodie. DORADE just nudged her rival, the Lapworth 50 WESTWARD, with three generations of the Bell family aboard that 1962 classic.
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    Last edited by sleddog; 07-22-2013 at 07:46 AM.

  4. #484
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Reno, NV
    Posts
    17

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    Oh my here is some flash back memories - I got into trouble making the same tool box as a little girl. My Grandpa was proud. My mother, not so much, with the quote "what is wrong with you? - girls don't make tool boxes!" And so has gone my life... but I had fun and loved my Grandpa's for giving me those skills and memories. I'm glad small communities are still doing such great things for kids.

  5. #485
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Reno, NV
    Posts
    17

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    I concur with Howard! "Proceed as the Way Opens" - I have been humbled many times and have gone back to my version of "In the right way, order, and time - for me and other's".... However, "Proceed as the Way Opens"... seems to resonate with brevity. I can just settle with that for awhile.

    And I also concur - Great place to explore the depth and breadth of a place.

    ~R

  6. #486
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    3,688

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    Merging the girls-with-toolboxes and air show comments . . .

    As the "lights" slowly dim for my Mom (with dementia), one of the things she tells the other residents at Merrill Gardens (over and over) is how her father made sure she had her own tool box by the time she was five. This set the tone for her adult life - as posted earlier in this thread, Mom not only sailed but had her pilot's license and was certified to do aerobatics. As a child, and at her mother's (and grandmother's) insistence, she was also a very accomplished concert pianist and could sew and crochet with precision. Skip's description of the airshow brought back a memory related to all that.

    I posted way back in this thread about Ernie Barter and the submarine he gave me. Ernie was a United Airlines pilot and owned a Stinson Reliant, a large, gull-winged tail-dragger with rotary engine. We had our Piper Super Cruiser. So one of things we did when I was a kid was go to the local air shows.

    With the big Modesto fly-in coming up, Mom got the grand idea that we should all arrive in matching Hawaiian style shirts, in her favorite color (red) and with airplanes all over them. A trip to several local fabric stores finally yielded the desired material and the project was underway. Ernie and his wife were chums about the whole thing - me and my sisters less so - but arrive we did in our red shirts. There used to be pictures but something happened to them.

  7. #487
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    3,688

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    Okay, that brought another one to mind (sorry Skip).

    When I was in Jr. High they still had shop classes. One year the wood shop teacher built an El Toro but didn't know how to sail, so I helped with the maiden voyage. When the mainsheet came untied we ended up plastered up against one of the CG cutters at Government Island. If you did that today you'd probably get shot, but I digress - the story I wanted to tell was about when my Mom took up knitting.

    When Mom started something new she went all-out, and this time it was my Dad who had to be the chum. She knitted him a matching sweater, gloves, and even a beanie hat with a pom-pom - I kid you not - in kind of a light brownish, tannish color. One day around that time I forgot my lunch and Dad brought it to me during shop class. With all of us arranged around our work benches, my Dad walked in wearing the full garb. Remember, these were Jr. High kids - it was mass hysteria.

  8. #488
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Capitola,CA
    Posts
    3,338

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    Thank you all for posting. I love stories and have been collecting them for years. These go into my logbook, which now number 22, 300 pages each. Do not be bashful about writing and posting here. Thank you, Bob, Renee, Capt. Bob, SK, Howard, SleddogSis and everyone!

    Congrats to Renee on winning her first ever race on Lake Tahoe on Sunday with the restored Express 27 PHOENIX. Her finishes were 2-1-2. As some of you may know, under a previous owner, PHOENIX dropped from the Brickyard Cove hoist, "totaling" the boat. Renee has been instrumental in her resurrection. Go Girl!

    The water under WILDFLOWER at the Texada Boat Club dock is 60 feet deep. Yesterday was a big tide, with over 14' between high and low. Very clear waters with about 20 feet viz and 73 degree temp at 3' depth. I've been sounding the Bay with lead line. Found an apparent abandoned boat near my position. Noted on chart not to anchor in that vicinity.

    On a technical note, best guess is the outboard's dunking did not do the carburetor any favors. After $500, the engine shop swore it was good to go last April. The OB did run for a month, 50 hours, and 200 miles before failing. Bad fuel, whether Ethanol or the Nanaimo Fuel dock, are also possible culprits. Fuel in Pacific NW islands is delivered by truck and barge over bumpy roads and seas, and fuel hoses often go underwater..... I'll never know. But carrying a spare “get me home” outboard is now under consideration. It did make me feel better when one of the Fraser Blues couldn't get his airplane engine started yesterday at the Airshow.

    Rowing and hiking have been my exercises of choice. Each evening at sunset I row a mile loop in WILDFLOWER's Avon Redcrest inflatable. With the one piece, 6' oars, stout oar locks, and a simple athwartships rope foot brace, I can average 2.9 knots for 20 minutes in the Redcrest inflatable.

    It's too bad rowing is in the minority. The boat dinghies built these days are mostly designed for outboard motors. Rowing is an afterthought, and the cheesy aluminum oars and the cheapo oar attachments are a disgrace on dinghies that cost several thousand dollars, or more. I think kids should be taught to row, and the value of a quiet anchorage, as opposed to speeding around in a whining outboard at a high rate of speed, disrupting wildlife. My 2 cents.
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    Last edited by sleddog; 07-23-2013 at 08:36 AM.

  9. #489
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    235

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    Hey Bob. Stinson Reliant (the first plane I ever flew in) has a "radial engine", Not "rotary engine". There's a big difference. Some WWI fighters (esp French) had rotary engines. Prop was fixed to the engine and the whole shebang rotated...plenty of torque for turns in the right direction, that's for sure!

  10. #490
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    3,688

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    Hi Ken - yep, it's been enough years ago to flub that detail. Here's that radial engine:

    Last edited by BobJ; 07-23-2013 at 12:40 PM.

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