Hiatus

I apologize for the long hiatus in posting something here.  There have been two reasons for this; I will address the second reason in the next post.

There is a lesson in this, expecially for us "seasoned" sailors...  listen up:

I have had arthritis in my spine for a long time; I am no stranger to back pain.  In fact, I have had two spinal fusions already, L4/L5 and L3/L4.  So, the back pain I was experiencing early this summer was not a surprise, just a slight intensification of what I normally feel.  With one exception:  sitting down immediately relieved the pain.  Why is that unusual?  Well (putting on my engineering hat), sitting down should have made very little difference if the pain was arthritic - since L3-L5 were fixed in position, sitting down would have made no difference to L2 and above - sitting or standing L2 and above bear just about exactly the same weight.  It was a mystery - one which I solved with Excedrin, all thru June and July.

We spent an idyllic month aboard Eolian, living at anchor in the San Juan Islands, moving very little, reading, and crabbing.  Trips to shore were only determined by the longevity of the wine supply.  Excedrin continued to hold the back pain at bay.

In August, things began to change.  First, I noticed that I was walking kind of "flat-footed"...  that is, the forward part of my foot and toes were slapping onto the ground and providing very little "lift off" when walking.  This was accompanied by excruciatingly tight calf muscles.  Weird.

And then one day I was unable to board Eolian, except by crawling aboard on my hands and knees.  OK, something was definitely going on here.

I left the marina and camped out in my primary care doctor's office until they managed to squeeze me in - the doctor examined me and immediately ordered an MRI, which I got a day later.  While this was happening, I managed to score an appointment with my favorite neurosurgeon down in Seattle.  Total time duration from requesting an appointment with my primary care doctor to the neurosurgeon appointment: two weeks - a miracle.  He examined me and my MRI, said "Holy cow!" (well not exactly...), and scheduled me for surgery 2 weeks later, the first opening in his schedule.

In those intervening two weeks I essentially lost the remaining use of my legs completely.

The MRI and then later the surgery revealed a synovial cyst growing and squeezing my spinal cord.  There were actually two cysts; only one shows in the MRI slice above.  The neurosurgeon managed to dissect the cysts off of the sheath of my spinal cord without tearing it and letting my cerebral-spinal fluid leak out.  He also fused the L2/L3 joint which will prevent future formation of cysts, and finally he replaced the disk for good measure.

So,  No boating blogs posts - in fact, no posts at all.  But that is changing - I am getting better every day, tho it will still be a while before I can once again board Eolian.

It is too bad that it is far more difficult to search for causes of symptoms on the Internet than searching for symptoms of causes.  A search for synovial cysts will produce results showing exactly my symptoms.

Here are the learnings I have from this experience:

• Do not ignore persistent spinal pain, or hide it from yourself using Excedrin.
  
• Spinal pain is nothing to take lightly.  TV ads for various devices are all well and good.  BUT see a doctor, get an MRI, and see a neurosurgeon - let him recommend a device, if that is appropriate.  Uninformed self-care can lead to a wheelchair.
• If I had had single-payer health care like my neighbor who has waited an entire year to get an appointment with his VA doctor, I would now be a paraplegic.
• Do NOT put off dealing with back pain!  The best case is that you will live for years with pain while only delaying the inevitable.  That's the best case.  The worst case is that you will become permanently crippled.
• This was my third spinal fusion and my fourth spinal surgery.  I can say with personal experience that recovery from the surgery will take less than a month (about 2.5 weeks in this latest case).  Recovery of function will take longer, depending on how long you lived with the pain before the surgery.  See, living with the pain will cause you to curtail activities, and hold yourself in distorted positions in order to minimize the pain.  It will take you longer to unlearn/relearn and rebuild unused muscles than to recover from the surgery.  How much longer?  Well, that depends on how long you lived with the pain and avoided the surgery.

And most of all...

• Life is NOT a dress rehearsal.  If you want to cruise or live aboard, MAKE IT HAPPEN, NOW.  Don't put it off... You never know when it will suddenly not be possible for you...

Hiatus

Rigging Modern Anchors

If you have read this blog for any length of time, the name Drew Frye will be familiar to you.  If not, then I will tell you that Drew is an individual that takes nothing for granted.  For Drew, rules of thumb are fine, being derived from long experience handed down over the centuries, but  conclusions and rules derived from hard data are better. And Drew goes out and collects that data.

Bearing this in mind, know that Drew has written a book, based on hard data, about anchors and anchoring techniques.  Here is what he says about it:

"Working with a bricks and mortar publisher to get this in print has been a lengthy process for me, but well worth it. It encouraged me to dive far more deeply into the technical side than I might have for my own needs, and the result is the most technically detailed book on yacht anchoring written. And I don't feel I'm bragging unfairly. I simply did the work. [...] I spent years with a load cell, digging around in the mud. Hardly glamorous, but science is mostly about diligent work."

Rigging Modern Anchors

First print edition, 2018, by Seaworthy Press. About 156 pages.

I've been setting and trusting anchors with my life (climbing) and my boat (sailing) for 35 years. I've been testing and documenting anchor testing for 5 years, and I've spent the last two sifting, collating, and analyzing all that I have learned. The result, I believe, is a complete description of what is actually going on below the waves, not just descriptively or as oral history from an old salt, but with numerical back-up everywhere I could provided it. I hope it helps. I know I sleep better. From the back cover of the book:

“Rigging Modern Anchors” demystifies anchoring with today’s modern anchors. Through years of systematic testing, Drew Frye has produced a new benchmark of understanding based on empirical data instead of anecdotal wisdom, passed down from one sailor to the next without proof or deep understanding. In “Rigging Modern Anchors” we dig deeply into the how and why of anchoring, using hard numbers as our foundation.

Included are in-depth discussions of anchoring basics, loads, scope, and the effects of cyclical loading, soil consolidation and bottom characteristics on holding power. Special attention is given to problem bottoms such as very soft mud and rock. There are anchor-specific observations, discussions of tandem anchors and rigging methods, plus an extensive appendix containing test data, open source designs for bridle plates and anchor turners, strength and toughness for various chain types, anchor connector recommendations, anchor sizing guides and more.

Proper anchoring technique, rigging, and gear selection is vital to the safety of ship and crew. Instead of hoping your anchor and rigging scheme will hold, read “Rigging Modern Anchors” and be sure.

 

This book would fit nicely on any yacht's bookshelf, and would provide good reading evenings when the wind is howling outside...

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Update!

If you have Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited, the book is available for free for a limited time!  Here's the link.

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Rigging Modern Anchors

How To: Shuck Oysters

It has come to my attention that not everyone knows how to shuck oysters.  Like many things, it is not hard, but it does require the right tools.  I like this Oxo oyster knife - it is sturdy and has a slight curve up toward the flat side, which you probably can't see in the picture.  Sorry.  The back side has a reinforcing rib which makes it quite stiff and sturdy.

Oxo Oyster Knife

So grab an oyster.  Hold it with the hinge end (the thick, usually pointy end) towards you, and with the flat, or flatter side up.

Your snack awaits

Now, where to insert the knife?  Examine the edge of the oyster and you will see a zone, approximately half way between top and bottom, where the layers of the shell are very close together.  If you are lucky, you may see a dark band near the center. This is the junction between the lower and upper shells, and is not actually sealed. Instead the oyster is mightily holding the two shells together with its big muscle.

Where does the knife go in?

Nolw here's where you could get hurt.  Professional oyster shuckers (at an oyster bar, for example), frequently wear a chain mail glove on their left hand - you probably won't have that, so be *very careful*!

The moment of truth

Touch the knife, flat side up, to the junction between the lower and upper shells, about halfway between the tip of the shell and the hinge. Apply some pressure and twist the knife a little to help it penetrate the joint. Don't worry if you don't get exactly on the junction... the twisting motion will guide the knife tip to the junction. DON'T POKE YOURSELF IN THE LEFT HAND! If you're pushing really hard, you're doing it wrong. Twist more; push less.

Once you get the tip between the shells, swing the knife side to side while slowly pushing it in further, keeping the tip against the inside of the upper shell.  What you are trying to do is to cut the muscle that is holding the shells together.   It will be about midway across the oyster.  You'll know when you cut the muscle - suddenly there will be nothing holding the shells clamped shut.  Open carefully by twisting the knife, being careful not to spill the liquor inside, and be sure to scrape any meat off the under side of the upper shell.

Enjoy in your favorite way!

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*No oysters were harmed in making this post - this was a re-enaction.  We ate them last nite...

How To: Shuck Oysters 

Salt

It was a bucket list item.

Some of you may know that in my land-side life, I am kind of a gear head. So when my son, on the occasion of my still being alive after completing 70 trips around our local star, presented me with a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats for Speed Week, I was ecstatic!

Just in case you're not up on this stuff, Bonneville is where the world's land speed records are set.

Sunrise on the salt

The place is surreal. It is a salt desert - a dried up sea. It is dead flat, for miles and miles, and yes it is salt...  just like on your table.  Clean white salt.

Now here's a weird thing... Tho it is hot (100°+ most days), there are patches of water showing here and there... water that is so saturated with salt that it is syrupy.  And there are patches of moist salt too.  So not all of the flats are suitable for automotive travel, let alone high speed runs.  Each year the course must be carefully surveyed to ensure that it is safe.

Later in the day, the umbrella was unfurled

For Speed Week, the salt flats are invaded and a city is created.  And aside from the vehicles that will be competing, there is another whole host of vehicles, many not street legal, running back and forth driven by some real characters.  Adam described it as "Burning Man, but with nitromethane."

The event is BIG.  The pit area was perhaps 3 miles long and 5 rows deep.  The course itself is 10 miles long.  In fact, it is so long that it is not possible to see from one end to the other because of the curvature of the Earth.  There are timing traps on the first 5 miles of the course; the second five miles are for deceleration.

Six courses

Actually, there are six courses.  Why so many?  Well, first of all, this is one of very few venues of this type worldwide, so there is a lot of demand.  Second, there are classes for any type of vehicle you can imagine, and not all of them need 10 miles to reach their top speed.  For example, on one of the short courses a competitor on a 50cc Honda step-thru motorcycle turned in a blistering run at 58 mph.

Oh, and by the way, this event is all about breaking records.  There are no second place finishes.  If you don't break the previous record for your class, you fail to qualify for a second timed run (two runs are averaged to make the official speed).  The 50cc Honda failed to qualify - the previous record was 62 mph.

I have been to a lot of car shows and swap meets.  One of the joys of these events is the sound of a guy firing up a big V8 - something you hear fairly frequently.  But here it was an entirely different vibe.  Here when an engine was fired up (and there were lots of them!), it wasn't for show - it was for tuning or to warm it up.  In other words, it was serious business.  And something else - a lot of these engines were running on fuel, not gasoline.  An entirely different, sharper, exhaust note.

Some might want to make a comparison to drag racing.  Well, we talked to a drag racer who was there; he was just as awed as we were.  The fastest he’d ever driven was 180 mph...  there were cars here going more than twice that fast. More, a drag racer's engine only has to run for a few seconds, and then typically gets completely rebuilt after each run.  Most drag racing engines don't even have cooling systems.  The requirements here are far different.

An observation:  all the really serious cars here had rudders.  When your speed is above 200 mph, aerodynamics are extremely important.  When you are above 400 mph, they are everything.

Even the Jag gets fitted with a rudder

The Carbiliner - we called it the spaceship

A Lakester

A streamliner being transported to the starting line

Batmobile?

Those are drag chutes in the tubes under the rudder

Slippery!

Finally, a video of a 300+ mph run. I'm sorry that it is so zoomed out - because of the bright sun on the salt, I couldn't see the screen on my phone so I left it zoomed all the way out and just tried to keep it pointed in the general direction of the car. Even this was difficult... remember that curvature of the Earth thing. You'd be looking back toward the starting line, trying to see something moving. Mirages made this difficult. and then you'd see, maybe, a dot. And then it would be past you in a flash if it was a 450+ mph run, turning back into a dot. I had a better chance at capturing a slower run...

Salt