windsend

Delayed gratification

Tomorrow, I had been scheduled to go bend on and check out the sails for a new J/160, but it's not going to happen. These sailing trials were originally scheduled for July and then August, but various building problems kept pushing the date back. Now, apparently, there is a last minute problem with the rudder bearings on the special $25,000 custom carbon fiber rudder, so the sailing date has been pushed back again. Knowing the 'intensity' of th owner, I'm very glad it's not us causing this delay.

Meanwhile, I had to call the builder of another 50+ footer today to say that we would be the cause of a delay in the sailing trials of his boat, mostly because virtually all of the Spectra in the world is going to make personnel armor for Bush's war, and it's like pulling teeth for us to get any made into sail cloth. Fortunately, (for me, not the owner) the builder told me that they were also moving back the launch date at least another week because of build delays. I'm still not sure we'll make it, but we won't be as much of a hold up as I'd thought we'd be. This is another project originally scheduled for July completion that will be lucky to be afloat in September.

While these delays are understandable, given the complexity and unpredictability of these multi-million dollar, essentially custom projects, it still must be very frustrating for the owners. To keep having their gratification dangled and jerked away can't be good for their confidence in our industry.

Island Brunch

ML and I went out to the Chebeague Island Inn for brunch today, accompanied by a couple of young women. Despite a dour forecast, the clouds held off and the sun shone for our entire trip and the return. We took the ASAP, MSP's Mako 19, out of the Royal River and arrived at the Stone Pier on Chebeague in about 15 minutes.

We decided to leave our boat on a mooring ($5) rather than tied to the dock (@$7/hour), a choice made easy by the Inn's provision of launch service with a friendly and helpful young driver. We opted to walk the 300 yard up from the dock to the Inn, rather than take the proffered golfcart-style electric jitney, because, due to the Inn's popularity and our failure to reserve a table, we found we would have to wait for about 45 minutes before we could eat.

The Inn, a long, narrow, flat roofed, three story rectangle, fronted with a huge porch, is under new ownership this year and looked good with its new coat of yellow paint and much new landscaping. Inside, also, the improvements were many, but none at the expense of the 'cottage' feel of the dark matched pine on exposed frame construction.

Our wait on the porch overlooking the channel between Chebeague and Little John Island was lazily pleasant, and we were diverted by meeting and chatting with two separate pairs of acquaintances who were also sampling the Inn's hopspitality.

Once seated in the dining room, we found the service was friendly if a little slow, and the food good but not exceptional. The prices, as you would expect on an island, were on the high side.

A couple of us started Bloody Mary's - tasty, with plenty of horseradish. The coffee was excellent, whether hot or iced. I had eggs benedict ($11) and the rest had omelets($8-9). All were very well and simply executed, but with no special or distinctive touches. While the omelets included home fries and toast, the eggs benedict consisted of two lonely English muffin halves topped with eggs, ham, and hollandaise quite overwhelmed by their huge plate. But the ham and hallandaise were excellent and the eggs perfectly cooked.

Lunch finished (total bill for 4 before tip, but including mooring fee: $66), we wandered back to the dock and headed for home. All in all, we all agreed that the experience was well worth the price, with no sour notes, and we're all looking forward to our next trip to the Chebeague Island Inn...

Too poor to pay...

Scheherazade has been delving into the pros and cons of an official backchannel discussion forum for an upcoming conference. The discussion has led me to think more about the number of channels we have available for communication and the bandwidth of those channels. As we try to attend to more than one thing at a time, do we lose the intensity of our focus on each? How many can we adequately handle? Are there lower grade tasks that we perform at al level that doesn't interfere with our top level bandwidth?

She talks about using Google during a conversation to add to add to your understanding of a topic that arises. As the [totally bogus] #1 Google reference for an obscure topic, I know just how misleading such searches can be. Still, I do know that we seem to be able to access our own memories with very little effect on our attention bandwidth, just as for most people chewing gum doesn't entire preclude walking.

I, personally, can't wait for the day that the contents of the web (and by extention all the libraries of the world) are as unobtrusively accessible as to us as our own memories. Universal WiFi, wearable computers, headsup displays - dare I hope for cranial implants? - are all coming.

It seem to me that skills that don't involve communicating with another human being, especially repetitive ones, can largely be learned and then relegated to the subconscious, leaving all our top level bandwidth open. I remember when I first drove a car, it took almost more attention than I had available, but now I can drive hundreds of miles without ever bringing my conscious mind to the task. Accessing our own memories seems to be in this category. Will accessing the web someday be the same? How soon is that coming?

Attention, and our ability to focus it where we will, is one of the great challenges of life. I would argue that one of the greatest achievement we can hope for is to become captain of our own attention. Rich indeed.

Atlantic Sojourn

On Thursday, i made one of my swings down east  to deliver some sails and check out the Atlantic Main we built last week.  My usual route is 295 to Gardiner them up some back roads through Chelsea, Windsor and Somerville to Route 3 and on to Belfast.  One of the best parts of this trip is cresting the top of the hill above Belfast.  Penobscot Bay lies spread out before you, with Ilseboro ahead and Blue Hill and the Sleeping Giant of Mount Desert Island ahead in the distance.  This shot from not-my-best digital doesn't do it justice, but gives a hint.

I stopped at a couple of boatyards where the summer boats of the short vacation residents are beginning to be put to bed for the winter.  Then on to Blue Hill and the Kollegewidgewock Yacht Club.  There I met up with Skipper Will Taylor for a couple of afternoon races on the Pizzazz

The weather was a perfect example of the best a Maine summer can produce.  Crystal clear with a brisk 10-15 knot southwesterly breeze, with just enough oscillation to make for interesting racing.  Despite a couple of weak starts we managed a 1st and a 4th out of 10 boats, so the new mainsail, although to my eye needing a tweak here and there, was deemed a success. 

Then, on to Ellsworth for some Thai food with Phyllis from Acadia sails and her partner Scott.   I delivered a more interesting sail to Phyliis,  but more on that later.   Finally, a long drive home and a deep sleep.

Loft Report

A quiet week in the loft. We await arrival of Dynema/Spectra and Carbon fabric for the Seguin 52 sails that are our next big project. This is a semi-custom Sparkman and Stephens design building at Lyman Morse.

We are using the brief respite while to catch up on some much-needed housekeeping which has been neglected during the crunch of this summer. Renewing the expired inspection and registration on the van, cleaning and oiling sewing machines, replenishing bag inventory, etc. We're also building some of the parts we'll need for the Seguin sails and many other odds and ends.

Tomorrow, I'm off downeast to deliver some sails and check out some others we just built.

Olympus

[Sorry, but I just can't resist...] First, it was the pairs figure skating in Salt Lake. Now, the gymnastics in Athens. Oh, and the diving. Syncronized swimming?

Hey, folks, maybe some people like to watch, but... isn't it time we got rid of judged events in the Olympics? I mean all of them. Anything that is not won by a time or a weight or a distance or a finish order, points or runs scored, or some objective measure - get rid of it

Either that or throw it open to some other subjective competitions. How about Olympic poetry slam? Yoyo? Olympic stand-up comedy? Rock guitar solo? Best-actor-in-a-supporting-role gold medal? Juggling? Great skills all, but are they worthy of the Olympics?

Another for the Record Books

The maxi cat Orange just broke the 700 mile barrier (706.2 nautical miles in 24 hours to be exact). Thats a sustained speed of 29.425 knots for 24 hours. I'm not sure I have ever been that fast in a sailboat for even one second, let alone steadily for 24 hours.

Orange is on an attempt at breaking Cheyene/Playstation's record Atlantic crossing from Sandy Hook off N.Y. Harbor to the Lizard on the Southwest coast of Britain (4 days 17 hours 28 minutes, October 2001, average speed 25.78 knots). Before she started I would have predicted that this record would be difficult to beat, but as I write, Orange is on a record pace and needs only to sail an average of 25 knots for the next 48 hours. (Only 25 knots... did I say that?)

[Update 8/25/04: Orange misses the record by 31 minutes and 12 seconds - less than 1/2 of a percent off. Maybe better sails...]

Expunged

It's a beautiful, sunny summer day, but at the moment I'm doing a chore indoors. I am expunging myself from my old laptop.

I promised my wife she could give it to an Afghani refugee she is tutoring in English. He needs it to study for the medical boards so he can go from being a phlebotomist back to being the doctor he was trained to be. But that's a story for another time and another blog.

Removing all the personal stuff from an old computer is not trivial. There is probably a utility out there that does automatically all the things I've been doing by hand. Not just deleting documents, but all sorts of other data files that don't get stored with your documents the way they should be. Like contact manager databases, e-mail and e-mail archives, browser cookies, tax and personal finance program data, etc., etc. I have been searching these things out and removing them and scrubbing as well as erasing the files. I've also been removing programs that I bought only once and have reinstalled on my new machine. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have purchased so many copies of Microsoft products at such great expense that I feel perfectly happy to pass on Office to the new owner.

When I'm done, hopefully I will be completely expunged from the old machine, but I'm sure I will have missed a few things. Anybody know of a full automated, foolproof tool for this process? Short of re-formating the hard disk?

I'm not sure just how to feel about losing the old machine, but I worry about the bits of my life that I leave behind on it. Not so much that someone will stumble across a credit card number or a bank password, but that I will lose some crucial bit of information I had buried away. Kind of like cleaning out the basement or taking old clothes to Goodwill - I'm sure I will have thrown away something I didn't realize I needed until it is irretrievably gone...

Out of my Inbox

Since I left the office last night at 5:16 p.m. and arrived this morning at 8:56 a.m., the following items arrived in my inbox: 3 'personal' e-mails, 6 work-related e-mails, 8 sailing e-mails, 37 'other' e-mails (a category that includes RSS feed, system and postal server notices, and non-sailing newsletters), and 336 spam emails. I get a lot of spam because I get all mail to bogus e-mail addresses on our domain and because my e-mail address is posted on our website (and here?!).

I use PopFile to preprocess these messages into categories. It does a pretty good job. Of the 300-500 e-mails I get in 24 hours, it flubs 4 or 5, usually by mistaking spam for a message I'd actually care to get or by being unable to classify a message (usually spam) as anything in particular.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time/patience to check every message PopFile classifies as spam to make sure that it's not something I really need to see - personal or work related stuff. That pisses me off. I'm pissed at myself for not having the patience to scroll through all the chaff , and I'm pissed at all the spammers of the world. Go bother somebody else!

Loft report

This week in the loft it is our week to do sails for classic one-design keel boats. We're building a mainsail for an Atlantic and a jib for an International Class. And last but not least, we're doing a suit of sails for a Herreshoff 12 1/2.

Meanwhile, we've ordered some Cuben Fiber cloth for a modern classic currently under construction at Brooklin Boat Yard. This fabric, orgininally created for the 1992 America's Cup Campaign of America Cubed (thus Cuben), is the lightest toughest sail fabric on the planet. Not really in the spirit of tradition, Maynard, but pretty cool stuff, nonetheless.