Follow up on Oofff!!!
Hate to say it but the medal was kind of a “Gimme”; There were only two of us in that class. So, last place, woohooo… With that up front, it was competitive. I never lost sight of the other paddler, but he was running a home built Night Heron Design which Nick Schade came up with to improve on the Greenland Inuit designs. Hull speed is about 3/4 mph faster than mine and it showed. I never lost sight of him, but he continually pulled ahead of me and by the end of the race, had near a half mile lead on me. Neither of us EVER stopped paddling (other than to grab some water ’cause that wind was drying everyone out. Dry enough that you couldn’t spit!) and he was using a Wing Paddle where I was using my Greenland. There is a performance difference, but I am still impressed that a GP can still compete with a Wing: maybe not beat it, but it will give it a run for its money. Considering the GP was designed by primitive peoples using anthropomorphic measurements, and the Wings are computer designed high tech paddles, I think that says more about “human ingenuity” than mere words here can express.
And there were participation awards as well, but In this case I ain’t giving the promoters any shit about it. Just showing up at the finish line was a challenge and a half!!! There was a kickin’ wind coming out of the west, straight into our faces for the return trip and getting through that was no fun. Cooling, as the splash from the paddles kept the quickly drying sweat washed off the face, but damn!!! what a battle heading up-wind.
Selkie did frigging PERFECT. No splash off the bow!!! She just sliced right in and didn’t matter if it was glass flat or chop or wave sets. Chop did nothing against performance while wave sets played with her stern a bit, and she did surf a wave face or three. Not much, but enough to give the old dude at the paddle a momentary respite, and a small ‘turbo boost’.
What needs changed though? 6.5 miles will tell you something about your design that “isn’t quite right”. In my case, its the bulkhead footrest I came up with. It worked, worked well, but the angle is ALL OFF. My heels went numb fairly early, and I started shifting around trying to make them comfortable and that put the strain on other parts and by the end of the race, I felt like I had a hole bored into my left asscheek. Nothing wrong with my seat pad, it was all about the footrest and that is easy enough to fix.
Even though I felt stiff and unstable for the first mile, that wasn’t ‘a boat issue’: that was a “I’m in need of seat time” issue, and by the end of the first mile, my hips had loosened up and my mind put into ‘sea-legs’ mode and I was fine. Wave-sets off the rear quarter didn’t goose me after that first mile like they did when I started out, and I was paddling smoother with each hundred yards traveled; not the epileptic seizure splash and churn that I started with. I really needed to get A LOT more seat time in before this race, but is what it is, and now I have my mind conditioned for the rest of the paddle season.
B, the indomitable, stubborn persistent bullish paddler he is, came across the line last of the entire group. He had done the long distance run so had to do two laps to my one, and that wind was kickin’ EVERYONES ass. Even the surfski’s were looking rather dogged out when they crossed the line at the last. B was in a Perception Vizcaya (yeah, the blue one I used to own.) and while its a great little recreational boat, B (and meself vicariously) found it ‘It ain’t no race boat’. Great hull design for shallow waters where you want to ride over debris and what not, but seeing the double wake pattern along its gunwales tells me it creates its own drag.* You are fighting the boat to move forward at anything over ‘mild cruise’ (3-4mph). if you go for higher, you have to double your efforts to hold it and that wears you down. B did that for 13 miles of open water, 6.5 of which was in a head wind of at least 8mph with gusting up to 25.
And this was the first big paddle of the season. Wooofffff!!!!
T, bullheaded and stubborn herself, chose to do the same lap as I did, but she did it in her Duck; An inflatable whitewater ‘kayak’. She fought probably twice as hard as B and I did because she was still set up for whitewater, not flat water and the bow of her Duck kept trying to fly off the water when she was headed into the wind. I watched her crossing the bay towards the finish line and a halfway serious gust would lift the front and turn her boat ninety degrees to her heading, and she would have to fight to correct it. She paddled half the race from the kneeling position to keep her weight forward and stop that, but that’s a very hard position to paddle in if you don’t have the ‘saddle’ for it. She did finish, and I could hear the exhaustion in her voice while talking to her afterwards.
That fight she had was why I am saying not giving the promoter shit for the participation awards. Just crossing the finish line yesterday was a challenge and those that did, deserve something ‘just for showing up to the fight’.
Damned good day out, and I mentioned to B that I hadn’t felt this relaxed since around August of last year. I need to get out to the Church of the Two Bladed Paddle a whole lot more often. The world seems brighter today for it.
* In comparison, in Selkie, I didn’t see the first wake wave until well near my cockpit, while moving at nearly 5mph. And it was a lot smaller than the wave the Viz was making: it never rose to the gunwales like what I saw on the Viz. No way to change the design of his boat, but I am certain he will keep in mind what its capable of, and more importantly what it is NOT capable of, in the future.
Cynic!!!
I don’t like being the cynic, I don’t like going through my days always seeing the negative. I have to make effort to see positives and BOTH wear me out. One because it burns energy to keep moving, the other because it takes energy to wade through the mess of the world to find the diamonds.
Maybe thats why I like my four-feets so much. They don’t have a malicious bone in their bodies, and everything is fine in their world so long as Dad is around and the food bowls are full. I can just relax around them because they don’t give a rats ass about the world at large. And they make me laugh with their innocence: very few people other than children have the same effect.
I try to emulate the approach to life of my fuzzies, but the world refuses to go’way. (I’d have to find a retreat REALLY far out to do that)
There IS good in the world, and every-time I find it, it has one aspect that reinforces my view on things: NO GOVERNMENT. People are basically good at heart, and it shows in how we interact on a personal basis. Not all mind you, but MOST. There are the evil shits of the world at the local personal level, but they can be avoided or dealt with, again at the local personal level, and they have little effect over the bigger picture. Unlike Xi-den, and other world leaders pretend. Those shitstains make choices that affect millions of innocents directly, and yet are never held accountable. Seemingly: Their time will come, and NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE. Whatever ‘maker’ you believe in, there will be a reckoning for them, and I hope such entities will find that the penance is far worse than the crime. Maybe they will return as a lab-rat in one of Phizers lab,,,, or as a beagle pup with its head locked in a box and its vocal cords paralyzed (looking at you Faucocini!!!).
Again the Taxicab Confessions from 2012 is making it rounds again, and is still as relevant now as it was then(HT to Francis for linking this again) That the troubles of the country could be resolved by ‘noon tomorrow, just by dragging 100 people to street and putting a bullet to the back of the head’,,,, I think the number is closer to 535, but we all know that is just the visible part of the problem. It may put the “Skeered” into those NOT visible, but I would be surprised if that invisible sector doesn’t have back up plans in place for ‘that day’.
Yeah, I’m a Cynic. I would cheer the event, but I would be looking for the snap-back to happen at the same time.
The worst part of being the Cynic: When I have ‘had enough’ and wish it would all just burn down. Happens often enough that I know how to fight it back, but there are days where that is a struggle unto itself. Those are the days where I pull out certain books and delve into knowledge reinforcement: I know there will come a day where the rebuild begins and people like me are going to have to do what we can with what we have and the ‘what we have’ may be a whole lot of nuthin’. The advantage is that we are not starting from ground zero, IE, in a cave with a stick and rock and no knowledge. We still stand on the shoulders of Giants and their accumulated knowledge is all around us. One of those books is “build your own Metal working shop from scrap’ by the late Dave Gingery, RIP. Now, I know many a machinist that see the Gingery builds and give them the side-eye, but when you are starting from nuthin, I can’t see where the Problem is. You can use the first build to build better(including getting rid of that RH threaded lead screw for a proper LH thread one) and each evolution resolves to higher accuracy. You could build those ten thousandth accurate machines from the one you built from scrap, you just have to be meticulous in your efforts and advance your skills to harder materials(IE Cast Iron). And it all starts with a home-made foundry using materials that are ubiquitous in the world. Aluminum scrap, Sand, Clay and Charcoal. (and yes, his stuff is clonky, and over-engineered, but some of that has to do with the strength of Aluminum versus Cast-Iron. ). (another source for stuff that can be done in the ‘backyard’ is ClickSpring on UToob. Do a search for that name and the AntiKythera device and you will find a rabbithole that will swallow you up for DAYS!!! link is to the first in the series.)
Not that we would ‘Need’ to go that route; there are many a home machine shop scattered about the country, and many a ‘hobby machinist’ that could/will fill (some of) the gaps of the JIT system as needed when such time comes. Even the 3D printers will be useful so long as they can keep in feedstock. (and I have been looking into a 3D printer for making my patterns for casting. Been using wood, bondo and wax, but they tend to be ‘clonky’, not the materials fault, but the pattern makers fault.). and there are benchtop CNC machines that make detailed milling of soft materials fast and plentiful. There is a growing list of ‘Makers’ out there that will fill the gaps when things get downright stupid in the global supply market. (there is an app where you can order custom made parts, in bulk, for your idea from such ‘makers’, though I don’t recall what that app is currently. I need to research that again and get digging.)
My “Cynic” takes a break when I pick up the tools and books; Thats when the Rational Optimist in me breaks its chains and surges to the forefront, knocking the Cynic on its heels. I have so many ideas in my head that the RA wants to create, yet the need to eat takes precedence. Maybe I could sell my products, but there is ZERO market here local for such as Kayaks, Greenland paddles, or homebuilt tools that you can buy at Lowes or Harbor Freight, cheaper than I can buy the materials to make them out of. So, I work for others for now, doing what I do, including making tools and jigs to make my job easier, faster, more accurate. At least in writing, my works are selling (some, but nowhere near enough to count on.) and I keep plugging away here on the blog; venting, waiting, watching,,,
And that watching and waiting,,, Can’t trust much of anything these days. So many sources are compromised, and yet so many still trust the Enemedia to do the right thing, which they have proven time and again since 2008, they won’t do: TELL THE TRUTH. BCE and others have shown that the whole missile on a train station in the Uke is most likely a false flag done by Krainefeld to genny up support from the ‘free world’. (note: I say ‘most likely’. not a claim to fact, but the evidence is pretty damning.) Seriously, NOTHING about the current distraction of the week/month rings true; doesn’t matter what side you look at. And the fact that of all the wars in the last 40 years, THIS ONE, is the most obscure and obfuscated one we have ever seen, even with the plethora of smartphones and cellular/internet services. Seems to me that there are underground actors at work suppressing and massaging the messages, long before the Enemedia get their grubby tentacles on it.
And it is all to hide the fact that the VaxxnottaVaxx is literally killing folks, and not just a few, but in gobstopper numbers. The Reports for “All causes” as listed by the insurance agencies is going off the charts, and that is causing many agents to peak blood-pressure levels. (and probably creating more deaths from the BP spikes when they see the P&Ls for the last year.).
and to hide the shenanigans of the FRAUD from the eyes of the sheep. Can’t have the Gaffs and what not hitting the plebes full in the face: Pitchforks and torch sales might go up. As well as tar, feather pillows and fence rails. They definitely do not want to see a surge in Hemp Rope sales,,,
But people are becoming ‘Woke”, and not in the sense the Lefties have claimed as their own. Oh no, quite the opposite in fact. Disney is in for a make-over if they keep up their Grooming standards, and when the dam breaks, Pedo’s around the country are going to be scrambling for outbound flights in record numbers. Or dying,,,
UPDATED
Thanks to Irish for posting this. Perfect addition to this post
all over the place blurb
THIS makes me happy.
I was watching my meters all day (off n on) checking to see how my new PV rack performed vs the Roof-mount that I had been using. MUCH BETTER. Heck, even towards the end of the day, when the sun had set but there was still light out, I was seeing 13.4 vdc at the meter. May not have been enough juice to push the electrons INTO the batteries, but there was still some usable juice feeding my ceiling fan (that NEVER gets shut off. Poor thing has been up there running purtmuch non-stop for 6 years. I shut it down only to clean the cobbies off.)
And all of that playing with wires, batteries, panels and other sundry parts of a system, with the current events of a supply chain issues, I was reminded of one of Oblammy-o-boys legacy items to the rest of the free world. Many people don’t recall it, but people like me, that rely on batteries for our daily power, recall it quite well. Oblammy shut down the LAST lead mine in the US. It did far more damage than you can account for to justify some Environmental issues that didn’t exist. Yeah, lead is poisonous to people and many living things. So what; that lead is still there in the ground doing what its been doing since it came to reside there, and it may even leach into ground water from that point. Doesn’t matter. What it did to the industry was force most battery manufacture to CHINA. There are still a handful of US makers, and they rely on battery recycling to compete, which is a good thing since Lead/Acid batteries are 98% recyclable (or better, I don’t recall the actual numbers) Unfortunately those batteries also tend to be priced quite a bit higher than the Chineessium variant. And rightly so, since the latter don’t hold up as well. My Deeps that I paid top dollar for? 6 years of service. The chineesium version I recently picked up (4 months ago) toast; can’t hold a charge over 12.2. They were ran down ONCE, and that set the stage for failure (deep cycle my ass). That the older US versions are holding the line says a lot about the difference in quality. Yeah, i’m kinda pissed about it, but I do know “you get what you pay for”. I did expect a bit more than 4 flipping months at those prices though,,,,
So, while playing with all that stuff yesterday, I pulled those two boat anchors out of line, and set them aside for later replacement. I don’t want them damaging the good units, dragging them into the depths of failure. I haven’t the funds to do a full replacement, yet, but its taken a priority. And it WON’T be with the same. I’ll eat that loss by replacing them with a top notch American brand. In the meantime, I baby the units in place, which means that I will be spending a bit more for fuel to run the genny when I need AC power. (computer time is the majority of that.)(my Honda genny will run 8 hours, wide open, on a gallon. I use the eco feature and I get double that, and my lappy doesn’t mind the difference. My power tools do, but not the ‘puter.)
Now, Yesterday I mentioned DoomnGloomers talking about how the failing narrative of ‘Rona is nothing to get excited about, and how I do not agree with them. I said that said failing narrative is the foundation of growing skepticism across the board. Well, yesterday I was vindicated in my thinking by something overheard at the local foodmart. A older lady, talking about how she forgot how good it feels to not be wearing a danged mask, and how people smile at her more, and that maybe now the supply chains will get busy getting her favorite stuff back on the shelf. She missed the point that GOVERNMENT is to blame, but she does get that all of the many issues were fomented by the whole shutdown thing. That she openly stated she felt good without a mask tells me she has been one of the many brainwashed and is now seeing things ‘a bit differently’. This failing narrative is failing like the house of cards it was. Much faster than I expected.
I am just waiting for the spin up in retaliation from our current Inept FRAUD. What happens next is anyones guess.
Its the details that kill ya
Alternate title: Sunday’s a bust
Spent lots of time energy and resources setting up the cockpit deck on my kayak. The resources being the fiberglass and resin more than the wood. The wood in this case is fine, but little details that I didn’t know, caught me, bit my ass and wasted a several hours of my time and more than a little of my working capital in wasted resources.
I had the kayak in the rafters of the house last night to help with the cure of the fiberglass and the linseed oil I had soaked the frame in. The linseed oil did its thing, and the glass did something else entirely. Oh, it cured, cured good and hard too. But this morning when I took it out, that deck looked as wrinkly as the surface of a peach pit. NOT the surface I was shooting for to say the least. SO, dive into the nets and see if there is something I did, didn’t or need to do. Five minutes of research and I hit the ‘FacePalm’ moment.
First order of business is to get all of that resin and glass off the deck. (interestingly enough, the interior side where i used the Matte, did just fine, and I will tell why as this goes along). Bust out the scaper to get the bigger chunks and keep my glass dust to as low as possible. Then the sander with 40 grit pads to get the rest. Gotta take it all the way down to the wood. Two hours later and several discs of paper, back to ground zero.
So what detail did i miss? Seems that wood and resin are not completely copasetic in bonding; they need a middleman so to speak. That middleman is varnish: Varnish loves wood and soaks in creating a mechanical bond to the wood. Resin loves varnish and ‘mates’ with it to create a chemical bond (stronger). But resin is a larger polymer and can’t absorb into the wood the way the varnish does. Additionally, the resin “gasses off’ and that is what caused the wrinkles, gasses under the glass and the outer surface had cured already so couldn’t vent.
So why did my matte work where the fabric didn’t? Rough surfaces. I didn’t do much prep on the inner side of the wood since it won’t be seen and there were lots of saw marks, grooves and what not that the resin could get into to make a bond. I also used more hardener in it to speed up the cure since it was getting cold and I didn’t want to fart around too much. With the matte being thicker, was able to hold the heat from the reaction better, so cured cleaner, inside to out versus what the fabric side did.
The deck is all sanded now, minimal traces of the old resin (mostly in the joints where the wood comes together. it stuck very well to the glues in the joints) but the whole deck is flat and smooth as a babies butt now. One heavy coat of spar varnish on it and its sitting in the sun letting the heat of daylight drive that varnish into the surface.
I did not know that little detail of the varnish middleman or I would have done that first off. Its those little details that will kill you.
So was it a wasted weekend? Not at all; I revel in my failures as they are the BEST teachers. (so long as they don’t kill ya that is). This is not a mistake I will make again, EVER. So I may be out a little cash on materials, (not in the budget this week, what with a truck in the shop and hours being down,,, I’ll make it happen though.) But my knowledge has grown, and I consider the price paid a minor tuition in the school of hard knocks and busted knuckles.
It’s time to go off and do my domestic duties for the week, Not much I can do on the kayak until that varnish cures, and I need to pick up more glass and resin anyways. Just a little wrinkle in my time loop this round, one that tells me this one has been completely re-written for something better. Looking at the lines of the boat as she sits in the horses all ‘nekid’ without a skin, I see a sleek torpedo of a boat: My itch to get on water will have to wait till she is complete.
More later, probably about the cannibal feast I am witnessing in the EneMedia, with links to others seeing similar.
Sunday ‘Git-r-dun’! apologies for late post
Been busier than I could express on this end. Between the domestic duties thing, laundry, straighten up after a four day weekend of running hells-bells all over SE-KY, and ‘Oh yeah, there’s a kayak frame on my porch’ realizations,,,,
While doing the laundry, I cleaned up those parts I cut out on Wednesday, drilled alignment holes and ran both through a belt sander to get the edges lined up to perfect match. (yeah, redneck machining trick 101). Later on, Dad and I went to my Uncles place for lie-swapping and cowboy coffee (that shit WILL make you hair stand on end!!!). He has a 48” Bench Brake and I was able to get a perfect bend in those two parts as needed. Pics will be posted, just not today since I haven’t the band width to upload those files here on the hill.
Get home, loaded my side porch with a couple loads of Cherrywood that has been seasoning for about three years. My dad is trying to clear out his wood shed of the dead weight to clear space for all of this pin-oak he picked up the past couple of weeks. No worries, I have no issues taking what he doesn’t want. Makes what i have in my shed last that much longer and the way this year has started; every little bit is gonna be needed IMO. And I kept tripping over that kayak frame on the main porch,,,, Load up an armload of wood stack it, go in for something, and start noodling on the kayak, “oh yeah, I gotta finish putting wood up”. Back to loading wood, noodle with the kayak, load wood, re-think what I was gonna do on the kayak, clean the stove out and start a new fire, sharpen my chisel so I can get clean cuts on the kayak,,,
You get the picture. Some days I multi-task pretty well, and not even realize it. Sitting here, I look at all the stuff that I did get accomplished and swear to you I didn’t even TRY,,,
She is almost ready for skin. Setting up the deck stringers and that will be done shortly since I only need 4 small spacer blocks to finish that off. and she will be ready for skin.(but not today, the sun is gone and its getting colder than I care for out there.)
Kinda.
Still don’t have that coaming finished yet.
Still looking for a donor’Yak for a cockpit I can use as a mold, and if I don’t see one soon, I am gonna break down and buy some marine grade plywood and go that route. Skin is here and waiting on me, Dope is on its way and will likely be here before I am ready for it (but thats a plus.). LOL, funny how I ‘compromised’ and said I wasn’t going to cut that skin off until I had a coaming DONE, and here I am almost ready for new skin and still don’ t have that coaming. Yah, I can be obstinate even with myself.
One thing I did that wasn’t ‘constructive’ was taking her off the cradles, putting her on the floor and sitting in her. I wanted to finalize where my feet will be so I could set up the footpegs/sliding bulkhead (leaning towards a bulkhead setup) She is gonna be a torpedo. No rocker until you get past my ass and then it is very slight, maybe 2”. She is gonna cut the water like a knife with very little wake. The chisel point bow is going to slice waves instead of trying to climb them so she will be fast even in choppy water. and there is just enough v-hull that edging should make her maneuverable without needing a rudder. The shape is definitely ‘Swede form’ at the waterline so no need for a rudder to control tracking.(that may be partially true, Wind may indicate need of a skeg or rudder, but until I have her out I won’t know if she is weather helmed or neutral, No/near zero rocker, she may be neutral in that aspect).
Numbers that I can say for certain right now. Length 16’2” Beam 23”. Loaded waterline 15’10” Beam @WL 20”. Not as long as a surfski, but no wider than one, She won’t be much of a river-runner, but open water; she is gonna be a Barracuda. Search for ‘barracuda attack’ on UToob and see what I mean. And I THINK she will be much more stable than Duh!kee is. More near flat hull where Duh!k has a sharp V almost her whole length. The only time Duh!k feels stable to me is when the water is trying to stand up, and I don’t get out in storm waters often enough to need that “Bobber” attitude.
Working on a post for the AM, gonna have several links for ya: HIGHLY recommend you follow them, forward them to others and try to spread messages. Kind of a “Make these Viral” bleg. Look for that tomorrow. Don’t want to put anything in this post on those lines for ‘reasons’, you understand when you see them.
More tomorrow, stay tuned for that.
Better than expected.
Took Serena to the lake today for a test run on the new set up. Checks for performance changes and leaks in order. A new skirt to test as well.
Performance comes in MUCH better, she holds 4knots with bare inputs and an easy 5.5 with steady power pulls. Able to edge easier, with my weight forward she doesn’t want to slice off unpredictably, and setting blade as a keel rudder works like a charm. It took a couple tries to figure the correct placement of the paddle blade to make this work, but watching my bow wake, you can see the boat drift left by a wider wake on the right, and it doesn’t ‘turn’, just drifts aside. (easier to see that when you are on a glassy lake: one reason I chose to go in the early morning before the wind started chopping up the surface)
Having built up some confidence in the Arc, (gotta come up with a new name there) I tried a couple other techniques I hadn’t tried before. Edged turns, braced leans (super fun ) etc. Sweeps seem to work better too. Likely due to being more centered in the boat.
Started getting hot so found a convenient stump sticking out of the water and used it to practice some hip flicks and to check for leaks in my handiwork. Woot!!!!! Dry all around. Considering my Snapdragon skirt leaks during capsize and this new skirt did not, I consider the price well within reason. So now I have 5 skirts for 3 boats. (Well, technically 4, but the Feathercraft K1 is still out of service for repairs.) Of those skirts, the 3 I spent high dollars on are the worst for leaking. The Seals skirt may as well not be on, it leaks so bad nor will it hold up under a capsize: it implodes every-time. The two snapdragons are great when it comes to keeping splashes out but leak at the lip when submerged. Its not so bad as to be a worry of sinking, but is irritating. The MountainSurf and Appalachian Extreme are bulletproof above or below, AND able to be pulled with one hand unlike the SDs, which wanna wrestle going on and coming off.
Anywhoooz, I had fun and added to my growing knowledge of boat building, hydrodynamics, and self-limitations (that last is a bar that keeps getting moved up.) I refuse to let the world direct my aimless path of self-improvement, so to all the haters in the world burning police stations and trying to make “A better world”: Y’all need to get off the pot and start looking inside yourselves to see where YOU can improve. The world does just fine without your damned socialist inputs.
Gonna do it!
I shared in another post that I’m contemplating another Kayak. Well, I made my decision today.
Took Duh!k out for a spin on the lake after attempting to repair the leaks she acquired on that last scrape run down the river.
Nope, leaking worse. Not enough to sink me, or not enough to sink me fast, but definitely leaking more than I am comfortable with. The scrape marks aren’t the issue. Its the seams at bow AND stern. I buggered the welting up good, scraping along the Cumberland river two weeks ago and the leaks are graduating from drip to dribble.
So, while Duh!k can still float, for awhile, before needing bailed out, she isnt going to be trustworthy of a longer run. My fault of course, so she hasn’t been ‘trashed’, and there may be some strange thing I come up with to seal these leaks from the inside. (Can’t just reach back in those cubbies, they are 6′ from the cockpit)
Besides, she was the learning boat, and she has taught me well, and still has that potential for more, like the rolling thing! What little water she is taking on is minor compared to what I will deal with when rolling.
So! The other boat is on the drawing board, and the plans are being laid. First order of business is to go ahead and get all the little geegaws and stuff together before hand, unlike with Duhk, where I ended up waiting for stuff to ship, and one one occasion ‘over-engineered’ out of antsy-ness.
I’ve already discussed the details I am looking for in previous posts, so no need to go there.
As for why the sudden ‘git-r-dun’ shift. It spurred from a conversation. Someone mentioned failure/success and talked about how they’ve never been successful: and I thought to myself ‘only because you’ve never Failed! And only because they never TRIED!” (And there are those that say ‘I could never do that’ and I have to clamp down on my tongue to keep from saying ‘You’re right!’. Most people would take it as arrogance but its more agreeing with them, because they have already talked themselves out of “Do-ing”.) So, while Duh!k was a success for a first time boat where I had no real experiance to support me, she has failed. The failure is due to my inexperience, both in the build and use, so I take that failure, learn from it and make this one that much better. More elbow grease, more research, more materials, combinations thereof, but this one WILL be better.
I won’t bore you all to death with continual updates, but I will post the occasional pic as things go along. Thats in the near future: gonna order all those geegaws and bric-a-brac before the saw blade touches one gunwale. Those geegaws are extra sinew, skin and dope kit, more pigment, and another sprayskirt for a larger cockpit opening. I’m considering ordering the coaming and skirt together from Brian as the coaming takes way more clear wood than I have available currently. It requires a piece over 8′ long and I do have sections that length, but not clear. Pin knots sneak out on you when steaming them. I have had three attempts and had each attempt split out on me ; so far. Thats fine as the wood can still be used for ribs or lammed up for deck beams; it wont go to waste.
Addendum: I started writing this just after returning from the lake. Next Yak is still on, but I managed to fix the leak in Duh!kee. I mixed up a batch of 5 minute epoxy and injected it (killing a good 50cc syringe) into the skin of the area where the dribble was at. I then clamped off the area with a handclamp and a section of polyethylene cutting board, tipped Duh!k tail high and poured 5 gallons of water into her. The water was to force the epoxy back out any offending holes. I waited 20 minutes, removed the clamp and had to pry off the plate. Sanded the exposed epoxy smooth, but no leaks! Then did it again on the stern.
She should be good to go now.
But I’m still going to follow through and make another one. Just improved from all the silly mistakes I made on Duh!k.
Keep watching,,,,
I’ll keep saying it. Watch this stuff and you are gonna want to learn more about it.
The basics aren’t hard. If you were to want to start ‘mining’, thats a whole different game, but learning what it is and how it is used; that, you want to learn.
Seeing how the last couple of posts about this are showing growth in credible markets, I am seeing the beginnings of a snowball effect. Keep watching.
Ch-ch-ch-changes
LOL, one of Bowies all time best.
But face it, changes are really all we know now. Things have accelerated into the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ stage years back, and the throttle is still wide open.
Even here, the changes keep coming; maybe at a slower pace, but happening even as you read this.
Y’all know I am never without a book in my possession, constantly “edumicatin’ ” myself, knowing I will never ‘know it all’ but never settling for ‘good enough ‘. Heck, just the recent project of” writing a how to manual “taught me, and reinforced some areas, and corrected fallacies in others. Its always a good thing when you can improve yourself and situation and the book did that before I ever hit the publish button. Maybe it will continue to do so afterwards.
One of the books I am reading right now is “life after Google” by George Gilder. George is something of a prophet in the tech worlds and when he speaks, many listen. You can find out more about him by reading the wiki about him. But his book, its gotmetathinkin’.
We live in fast times. Fast communication being the foundation to , almost the driving force behind it. Examples: nano second micro trades on wallstreet: where they are trading for percentages of growth several hundred times a second. Not at all possible without lightening quick comms. My writing and publishing a book with worldwide distribution in less then 3 weeks: not possible 20-30 years ago.
And if you think I’m harping against it, bear with me. Change is never comfortable, but change is all we know now.
Keep in mind what I am reading for a few as I change lanes. I’ll bring it all together at the rest stop.
For the past 12 years since just before Oblammy-o-boy lied on a bible, after the Fed started “QE to infinity and beyond”, people, myself included, have been going on and on and on about “that which can’t continue, won’t ” and yet, we see more and more propping up and the house of cards still stands. We see signs of unrest everywhere, especially in Europe, but even here in the States to a lesser degree, and it all stems from one point, out of control governments grasping at straws to maintain power.
Georges book talks about how certain powers are the dinosaur wrestling with the black tar of the pits. He even shows why they are in trouble and unsustainable.
They can’t evolve anymore; they are stuck in the paradigm they wrote for themselves and can’t see the trap under the dust covered surface of the tar.
I’m hearing more and more, 2020-2022 as the window when the hockey stick ‘growth’ of the markets hits correction (in a freefall manner from all descriptions)
Before you start to scoff look here for a second.
See that little ‘bump’ between 1920 and 1940? THAT was before the “Great Depression” . Contemplate the depth of that time for a moment. Consider the size of the bubble; then and now.
What happened? Why that upward curve to the moon? Two things: loss of a gold standard for one, which created the fiat currency we all take for granted. That opened the sluice gate. The other reason was government, out of control and losing all restraint as time went by.
So what does this have to do with ‘life after google’? Well, if George is right, and I see signs from other sources that he has the right heading programmed in, blockchain and cryptocurrency is the next step in our evolution. Blockchain is the area where you are going to want to start your learning curve because it will be the foundation of all that follows, like our high speed communications and endless information flows. I have reason to believe that when the house falls and the dust is settling, every major government is going to be tying its physical currencies to one of the several cryptocurrencies floating around out there. That will be the only way they will be able to hold the reins of power. If that happens, its only a short stop to when megaplexcorporations start to tumble. TBtF banks will be hard hit if not swallowed whole during the transition. Why?
Because blockchain puts all the control back into the hands of the holder. The holders will be everyone that uses them, IE every single one of us.
On my other page about PGP, you are introduced to crypto, that public key/private key is where blockchain starts. Your public key will hold a chain to everything about you and only YOU can decrypt that. (Heed the warnings I post on that page, they become even more important as this grows) ( a similar tech, but not the same application. Stay tuned for more) (I am even seeing efforts to make blockchain for voting and it even was used in a couple of states recently. This is not a gimmick, its very very real.)
Where does that put little guys like you and I? Heading upwards if you keep your wits about you. There will be so many changes coming so fast, no one can say where it will all go. What we have seen so far is going to look like a snail and slug race when this ball lets loose.
I know it seems out of line with my blog in general, but look at it as a prep. Information is king of the world right now, who controls that info is in essence king as well, that is currently Google. When this thing breaks loose, google is going to get knocked flat. Be ready because then the ball is in the air and
Ch-ch-ch-changes!!!!!
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