Jump to content

christopherG

Guest
  • Posts

    178
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by christopherG

  1. i think that any boat participating in an NSPN trip should already have been exposed as "deck-rigging-less" at the beach briefing, surely? this is rare nowadays, although some home-built boats have no decklines.

  2. wax is exactly right -- long-distance sailors have been doing this for aeons. francis chichester (he became sir francis chichester after his return) discussed this in his book about sailing alone around the world in gypsy moth IV. he made only one stop (in sydney) for supplies and took nine months doing it (1966/67).

    captain joshua slocum was of course the very first to complete a single-handed circumnavigation (i expect you all knew this already?); but he took his time (two or three years, i seem to remember), whereas chichester was racing the clock. the former arrived home in new england in 1898.

  3. (i) those birds feeding so actively were terns of the "comic" type (those ornitholgists among us know what i mean) and (ii) those creatures were obviousy homo clam-diggerans -- forgive patty her poor latin spelling!

    nice, nice day -- thanks, all!

  4. i was stung severely, as a child, by a portuguese man-of-war when swimming in the indian ocean and carried the "scars" for many months. the tentacle lodged up one arm, around my neck (as a necklace) and down the other arm, leaving marks across one shoulder -- i was probably only nine years old and the pain was severe. i believe this incident most likely sensitized me to all sorts of other allergies that lasted until adulthood -- interesting, huh?

    however, this started as a question about jellyfish in LI sound...i'm not really contributing anything, i know! stuck here in saratoga, NY, stepping around the equine manure, i can only about being back on the ocean!

  5. he won't have to return the "brighton rock", for it is what you would call "jawbreaker", i ...hard candy with (in this case) "brighton" written through the length of the thing, internally. every british resort features "rock" with the name of the place in it.

    i have spent a lot of time on that particular (entertainment) pier, as a child!

  6. why, thank you, dear people! we have huge fun and sustain some damage (nothing too serious); but how can one paddle with steve maynard and john carmody for an entire weekend and learn? they are awesome teachers...i think everyone who is serious about sea kayaking should aspire to and experience this level of tuition! (no, i know that not everyone is as addicted as some of us...)

  7. dee, my first aid kit has been carried in one of these boxes for a few months, already, and i have to tell you that, while i like the boxes well enough, those four "locks" are not as good as you think they are. i do not find them particularly strong and they prise open easily.

    report again on your satisfaction level when you have used them for a while...

  8. mary, if you take out the existing seat and play around with the foam replacement, i suspect you may find that the correction might be very, very little in terms of inches of movement of your gluteus maximus. if that is the case, surely you'll still get in and out easily enough?

    if it is the case...then you have to start thinking about it all over again (or sell the boat to me)! the foam seat is much more comfortable than the fibreglass one, anyway (i think you'll find).

  9. men and women? i don't know about that. of course i'd love to own the (20-vol.) set of the OED; but that's hardly practical (one could buy a kayak for the price), so i'd settle for the compact as my daily reference. however, it is the concise that will fit into a body's backpack, no?

    regarding sculling with the rudder: never heard of . here's a thought: why "queen anne's salute"? if it refers to the queen anne to whom i think it does, she would hardly have known of the existence of inuit, i suspect? therefore "the second queen elizabeth's salute" might be more appropriate? and if it refers to the pose of the salute, with rifle in hand, then it will be wrong on one side, since a military salute would have been made on the left side -- if you see what i mean?

    i shall now desist...tootle-OO!

  10. the words "scull", "sculls" and "sculling" have been around much longer than modern kayaking, david! the sport of rowing is where you might most expect to encounter them; but also "sculling" has denoted the action of propelling a dinghy or tender (probably out to one's yacht, presuming one owns such a thing!) with one oar over the stern, operated by one hand and with the oar restrained only by an indentation cut into the transom...

    as far as dictionaries are concerned, on what else would one depend but the concise oxford?

  11. you to be familiar with using the extended paddle, i think -- it's just another talent for your repertoire, after all -- it can be a useful last resort for rolling when you are tired and it can be very useful in turning across a beam wind in rough water. the extended paddle gives you huge leverage and is immensely powerful in a roll -- don't you do the pawlata roll, for instance?

    there's nothing difficult about it.

  12. The Germans may own ROLLS ROYCE nowadays, Jason; but I'd be pleased if you'd spell the name right, at very least...it has, if nothing else, been a symbol of all that's best about Britannia for a . Their engineering really is top-drawer, don't you know? Witness the illustrious Merlin V-12, mechanically-supercharged aero-engine, which itself derived from the Eagle of 1918, all the way up to the latest turbine engines for the aircraft industry. In addition, the percentage of vintage Rolls Royce vehicles still on the roads is apparently very high -- indeed, I first learned to drive on one, built c.1920! (No, I was not born thereabouts! It was already a very old motorcar...)

    What has this to do with kayaking, you ask? Hmmm, let me think...well (this will be tenuous), various coachbuilders did put "boat-tail" bodywork on Rolls Royce motorcars -- is that good enough? Then again, my learned friend Kates refer to "the Rolls Royce of replacement backbands", did he not? It seems to me that by implication the name stands for "the very best"! Toot toot!

  13. dear old sylvester,

    there is discussion elsewhere on this website about the increase in fuel consumption when roof-racks are left in situ with no boat actually them. someone wrote that they could remove their rack in 5.312 seconds and someone else wrote that malone J-bars took about four hours to remove -- or something like that!

    i suggest that you forget all about these complicated and environmentally-wasteful contraptions and either give up sea-kayaking or perhaps we could start experimenting with velcro -- some of that marvellous stuff on the roof of the car and some more on the hull of your boat should do the trick? i suspect that speed will need to be limited to about 20mph and this should bring about amazing results for overall fuel consumption!! (there be a problem with your own famous police force -- don't the new hampshire highways post speed as well as maximium?)

    if everyone tried this, i'm sure we could negotiate a group-buy price on velcro? we could finally bury the thule vs. yakima argument and all live, thereafter, like brother and sister -- no, wait: bad thing for this new element that is trying to form an nspn dating service...sorry: that would never work!

    seriously, though, if you can find out whether the rain gutters of your car are similar to my old 1990 audi 90, then i have a set of towers for you: not entirely pretty and pristine; but serviceable and well-preserved by regular applications of motorcycle chain lube, which is really sticky stuff and keeps corrosion at bay. there are rubber feet that sit in the "gutter substitute" (not gutta percha -- that's something else!) and clamps that come down to the inside of the door frame exactly as, i think, jason mentioned...

×
×
  • Create New...