Perfect vs. Good

 

From Adam Bager's post The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
 

Perfect is the enemy of good.

- Voltaire

Perfect is the enemy of done.

- Catherine Carrigan

Perfect vs. Good

Scant on wherewithal, experience, knowledge and wisdom. Rich in dreams and hope. Foolish youth embarked into a sun yet on the rise.

We sailed off the charts and beaten paths, beyond the lights and markers. Back ways through reef and slough. Up nameless rivers. Between scattered towns.

*****

It all began with a set of chisels…

They've arrived!!

We’d have flipped for it, but Anke loves opening packages, so she always wins.

A cut here, a snip there. Some eager shucking of wrapper, and a well-made cardboard box was revealed to our greedy eyes. We could smell the cherry blossoms brushed over an industrial green background. They framed a spare script writen in bold, black strokes and arranged in vertical columns.

Kanji… Japanese.

Flushed with anticipation, we canted the lid slowly back on its paper hinge, with each a hand on one corner to share this moment of discovery. 

There! Lying in eight parallel compartments, each aglow with a rainbow sheen of oil. There they lay. Our beautiful set of temple builders’ chisels lying side by side.

Their lemony, heart centered, box-wood handles were steel ringed and socketed. We could see the darker line of steel edge we knew to be hardened, bonded to a laminate of polished metal visible as a sinuous line across the just-so bevel .

Trembling, Anke reached out her hand to lift one, turning it over to expose the underside hollows… Hollows! …that had been ground into their lower face. An ancient method, we had read, to reduce friction while paring.

These chisels were no ordinary tools. They were fit to build homes for the gods! 

Nor were they cheap. For us, they represented a significant investment in our future afloat. As sailors and masters of our own vessels, we would see to their needs as they would see to ours. 

BRAMBLE, a clinker-built British life-boat, was our first home together. She had been converted to a sailing cruiser sometime in the dim past. We had bought her as-is, hoping to learn, through her, initial sailing and boatwright skills. A strategic stepping stone on the way to a proper yacht.

She was in need of serious work. Now we had serious tools. 

Reverently, we took up the chisel appropriate to the task. A gentle, forward pressure and a feather of larch curled upward and back upon itself. Devoid of effort, this magical tool glided forth to do its work. 

Straight and true and clean and — TINK. 

Hmm… that sounded like we hit something. It sure felt like we hit something. And… a gnat-sized chip now marred our previously perfect edge!

We glared accusingly into the cut and a tiny, metallic glint sneered back. It was the jaundiced yellow of a coppery wire strand, souvenir of some long-ago brushing.

Many hours with a stone (finest waterstone, of course) elapsed. Many timorous taps with the special mallet backed the hollows away from the edge, proportional to the material we’d removed. The edge was restored!

Well. To spare you agonizing repetition, our very next efforts met with the same INSUFFERABLE results.

We traded our beautiful chisels to an overjoyed boatwright (who dealt in new construction with only the highest grades of wood) for a plain set of framing chisels. Cheap, robust and easy to maintain the edge.

*****

In hindsight this trade was our first entrance into 'the real world' where perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's not bad in itself, but more like a guideline, really.

Perfect is elusive, fragile and an end-in-itself. Good is at-hand, rough-and-ready and gits 'er did.

It's a choice.

Lofting Low

 

Everything should be made as simple as possible.

But not simpler.

Albert Einstein

Lofting Low

Being naturally lazy, I've spent an inordinate amount of mental energy on making boat-building easier. Over the years, whole swathes of the process have been successfully dumbed-down toward small enough bites for Anke and me to chew. Economical in time, space, money and materials.

One such swathe is is the process of lofting a vessel. 

'Lofting' is laying down the lines which define the shape of the vessel and some its components. All the individual lines need to agree with each other, meaning extensive cross-referencing and nudgings until they do. This is a finicky process, involving patience, focus and good spatial visualization.

Generally, this is done full-size or at some large fraction thereof. The resulting vessel is 3D (three-dimensional), but the lofting is generally laid down in 2D... done on a flat expanse called the lofting floor. Often, it was located in a loft under the roof of the building shed... hence the name.

Still with me?

Okay, let's take a survey of things we need:

• A lofting space - This is generally in addition to the construction space and preferably stays available throughout the build. The lofting floor should be out-of-the-way, amply sized, smooth, sheltered and hopefully warm.
  
  
• Esoteric skills - Lofting isn't rocket science, but neither is it run-of-the-mill. We need to understand the specification of points and lines as they relate to the plans, the techniques for laying them down, fairing, correcting and coordinating and further techniques for taking them up again to apply to our growing vessel and its parts.
  
  
• Special tools - The more complex the lofting, the more tools we will need. Splines, ducks, tacks, pencils (of various colors?), spiling (taking the pattern of a curved or otherwise complex shape) plus related tools... and so on.
  
  
• Time - A fair amount of it, especially if this is our first rodeo. Especially if the vessel's shape is complex. Especially if the loft itself must be built.

I can't count the number of times I've bemoaned this list, only to have someone tell me how simple and easy it all is. Only problem is that I've done it and it isn't.

Let's see what can be done to ease our way...

Simple Vessels in Sheet Materials

The first step is to simplify the problem.

Sheet materials generally lie flat or follow a section-of-cylinder or section-of-cone. Vessels built from them are a subset of shapes which - as a class - are generally much easier to loft and build.

NOTE: Sheet materials may also be tortured into compound curves but that ain't entirely simple, neither!

Simple vessels with fewer and simpler curves are easier to loft and build. In this post and lead image, I attempt a rough hierarchy of vessel shape complexity.

Lofting Space

Clearly, if we can take the loft out of lofting, we're ahead of the game.

Phil Bolger with Dynamite Payson popularized Instant Boats in their book(s) of the same name. A key feature is that the lines are laid down (lofted) directly on flat panels (e.g., bottoms, sides, decks and components) before bending into shape. Such lines are said to be expanded.

Following this practice, one eliminates the separate lofting floor. Time and potential errors are saved as most lines are directly cut to shape the panels (no transfer from loft to materials).

In our (flat and rockered bottom) builds, we've taken to building the bottom first, in sections which are finished, flipped and joined. While still flat, we use this structure as a building platform for bulkheads, sides and other components. Once ready, we assemble the structure building upwards from the bottom. This saves flipping a vessel that has been built inverted.

Esoteric Skills

By this point, the 3D shape of the vessel has been chosen and designed for low complexity. Required skills are accordingly much reduced. 

Spatial visualization is far less taxed. Cross-references are minimal and straight-forward. Curves are simple and simply faired. Corrections are mostly limited to point control (vs the correction and coordination of interrelated lines).

Design can go a long way toward easing or eliminating spiling. Box-Barge/Scows, for example are self-rectifying (if the edges meet, they pull themselves into square). Their parallel sides and dead-flat bottom sections mean 'house-carpentry' for most of the hull (no spiling at all!).

In TriloBoats, the use of whole and simple fractions of sheets mean laying out and cutting are held to the minimum, with attendant reductions in waste.

Special Tools

While a few special tools will likely be necessary in any hull shape more complex than the simple box, simplifying holds them to a handful.

In particular, simple curves allow stiffer splines that are generally three point curves (two control points - one toward each end - plus one somewhere in the middle. Unlike the more sophisticated tools for fairing complex curves, simple weights over a sharp corner suffice (of a plank, say, or paperback book).

Design can often help here, too - employing simple rectangles and arcs of a circle - to eliminate splines and rolling bevels.

Time

Everything discussed here has saved time. Time, time, time, time.

Lofting space comes 'free' with the vessel being built. This is (infra)structure right at hand (no round-trip to the loft, looking for a clue).

Simpler lines are laid down once with straight edge, simple spline and radius, and rarely 'taken up'. Cuts are made directly along these lines. Spiling is reduced.

At the extreme end (box-barge/scows) much time is saved in layout, cutting and squaring up the hull. Spiling, most bevels and all rolling bevels are reduced or eliminated.

Bolger never liked the term instant boat, but we can sure edge closer!

*****

Nothing I've written here is in disparagement of lofting or the complex end of vessel space. I love those Curvy Dogs! I respect those who lavish their skill, time, energy and passion in every aspect of their construction.

But like I said, I'm lazy. What's more...

I'd rather be sailing!

Foraging Ahead: Independence Along the Way

Our Go-to Guide

Good info; great pictures
We also use it to organize notes from other sources

Hunter-gathers by nature
Store information for use,
Understanding that there may be a time
When information is scarce.

― Brian C. O'Connor, Jud H. Copeland, Jodi L. Kearns

This sudden sweet loot appearing...

― Aspen Matis

Foraging Ahead: Independence Along the Way

Anke and I have been pursuing the know-how and means to stay out and away for longer and longer periods. At least to have the option. We've come a long way; still have a long way to go.

We recently spent half of a four month rowing / sailing trip experimenting with near hand-to-mouth forage. During this time we lived mostly from fish and wild plants. We took along our complementary rice / lentil mix (2:1 for complete protein), dried fruit and olive oil, using each very sparingly.

Result? We lost weight and felt great! 

We were hungry more often than we normally tolerate, but not to the point of discomfort, and were eating amply at mealtimes. We quickly learned to make up a 'salad' for the day (fish and berries mixed in)... this allowed us to snack as needed between two cooked meals a day. 

Of note, the 'super-carb' diet of vegetables, fish meat and oils, and fresh berries - the bulk of what we were eating - supported the heavy exertion of rowing up to 12 hours a day (well... mostly more like 6 to 8).

Meanwhile, we were cooking and heating with a rocket stove modified for indoor use. This let us gather wood every few days with ratcheting anvil loppers (quicker and easier than sawing), while drying it onboard as needed.

So we're pleased to find that our sloppy assemblage of skills has brought us near to the point that we could subsist indefinitely, if need be. 

*****

If we wish to venture away for any extended stretch of time - let's say months to years - from towns / resupply it helps to find werewithal along the way... shelter, water, food, fuel and materials.

Shelter is pretty easy, assuming we're sailors aboard our live-aboard vessels... they come with us as a matter of course. When necessary, shelter may be improvised from foraged materials (a big subject... maybe later?).

Water is nowadays only a little tougher. Offshore seawater desalinators are available in manual models and can be DIYed. 

'Longshore, especially in our rainforest, spring and groundwater flows provide plenty of fresh water, which can be easily filtered by compact, cheap and durable systems. These too can be DIYed with simple filtration systems, using home-made charcoal as the active principle. 

A plastic bottle filled with water and left in bright sun for a sufficient time will UV-sterilize its contents (SODIS: SOlar water DIStillation). Sadly, plastic bottles may be foraged along all the coasts of the world.

Food is foragable in hunter (fish, game, fowl) / gatherer mode. 

For sailors, fishing is the easiest, especially if you are willing to eat cod and other 'scrap' fish. I'll include other seafoods in this category, despite not being fish per se... crustaceans and molluscs  (grazing, single shell types are less prone to PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) than bivalves).

Hunting and fowling are another deep subject I'll leave for another time. Consider salting, smoking, jerking and canning as longer term options for preservation without a freezer.

Most environments that are even marginally intact support a wealth of edible plants, and guides are generally available featuring local edibles and those to avoid.

Guerrilla gardens can help concentrate and enhance native plants, and add select, supplemental varieties. In our region, for instance, high-carb plants are few and far between... guerrilla potato patches are one way to add them. Alternatively, consider adopting a paleo-, neo-paleo- or neo-lithic diet... all three come much easier once you're out there.

NOTE: These diets are a little fuzzy. Generally speaking, paleo diet allows only wild grains (if at all), neopaleo diet adds early, cultivated grains, while neolithic adds 'modern' whole grains.

Plants can be dried (big weight and volume savings... just add water!), canned and fermented to preserve.

Fuel is used for heating, cooking and power (electrical and possibly propulsion).

Wood and other bio-fuels can be collected from land and shorelines along the way. 

We've had the most experience with wood, and supporting technologies are highly developed. A mild-steel stove or range, for instance, will work with driftwood, where cast iron will degrade. Rocket, gassifying and forced draft stoves are widely available, DIYable, and have the advantage of burning more efficiently and with less smoke. Less wood is necessary, and smaller pieces work well meaning reduced impact ashore, footprint aboard and gathering effort.

Materials are mostly wood in some form, and, nowadays, beach-combed trash. These can be used for repair, replacement and fabrication of new features.

Wood grows on trees, and spars of all sorts - masts, booms, battens, sprits - can be constructed with minimal shaping (especially when your vessel has been designed for tree shapes). Planks, knees and half-rounds (rails) take more effort, but can cover most any ship-board need. Wooden vessels take these materials in stride; resin based and composite vessels can be patched with them but may require further work once back in 'town'.

Beach combed garbage can often be repurposed to fill all sorts of needs. We're living in the neo-plasticene, after all. Planks, fasteners, containers, hoops, chafe gear, (PVC) springs, hose, valves, and so on can all be improvised from plastic garbage. There's an amazing assortment of metal this and that floating about, too, attached to wood or half sunk in sand. Repurposing rulz!

*****

Two additional aspects are key to all this; skills and tools.

Skills include the ability to identify, hunt / gather / process / preserve wild foods, tool use and maintenance. Is ingenuity a skill? Certainly of help! Ditto a sense of humor.

Tools run the gamut and are suited to your approach. Tools for mechanical, wood-working, wood-gathering and transport, fishing rods and reels, firearms, canning, drying, cooking and processing and maintenance are all possibilities to be tailored to your particular approach.

I lump into this category fasteners, wire, zip-ties and the what-have-you that lets you keep stuff from moving. Lubes to keep stuff moving. Consider generalist items that can be used flexibly in unexpected situations.

*****

The learning curves involved vary from low pitch to steep, and all are more or less life-long pursuits. That being said, the journey has rewards from the very first step, and the entire path is rich in satisfactions.

Foraged necessaries extend our time at large on the water, freed from return to the world of shopping and the cash economy with all its demands.

The reward is freedom!

PS. On our return, our first serious guerilla garden plot of potatoes had done well despite record heat early on, followed by exceptional wet! WooHOO!!

Sailing quietly, doing nothing, potatoes grow by themselves!

Spuds in Space!
Well... it's a Rocket Stove.

Optimal is Not Optimal: The Sweet of Suites

Heh. Clever. But I believe...
A generalist knows more and more about more and more
until eventually s/he knows something about everything.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein

If one's only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

-- The Law of the Hammer

Avoid optimization; Learn to love redundancy.
-- From Nassim Taleb's Phronetic Rules


Optimal is Not Optimal: The Sweet of Suites

Let's get it said, upfront. I'm a Generalist. Jack of Many Trades. Proud Master of None.

I'm much less drawn to Rules than to Rules of Thumb. I admire precision, but prefer the loose fit. I'll take one-size-fits-most over tailor-made any day of the week. 

So here's the problem with Optimal. It is by definition the very best solution for a particular problem. Often very particular problem. A problem one can foresee with great confidence and specificity. A can opener. A mouse trap. A barrel bolt. These things have solutions that are pretty durned optimal and are notoriously hard to improve upon.

But problems abound, and each has its own, special way of driving us bugnutz.

Generalized (sub-optimal) tools and approaches cover a much wider range of problems. So wide that they often spill over into other whole species of problem. A suite of generalist tools - especially those which work well together - cover a very wide range indeed.

In discussions I read on the subject, Specialized vs General evaluations tend to measure in degrees of Success (often vs Failure). For example, a Specialized tool has a high degree of success, but only at a narrow task. The Generalized tool is assessed at some lower degree of success, but over a swathe of loosely related tasks. Most such writers argue for the General.

What I think is often missed is that Efficiency is a much better standard. The Generalized tool will succeed... it just takes longer for a small fraction of that range. That it does so over a wider range of problems is a better measure of its advantage over Optimal. It is less efficient at one particular task, but more efficient overall.

Veritas rabbet planes

Consider the Rabbet Plane vs the Chisel.

I'm not knocking the Rabbet Plane. This one by VERITAS is a well designed thing of beauty and a boon to the task. If your life calls for a lot of rabbets, it may pay its way. But it's not happy performing most of the other chores one asks even of a plane. Very bottom line, it's a specialized Chisel.

But which fits better into a limited space toolbox? Which is less expensive to purchase? To replace or repair? Can it do any single thing a chisel cannot? No. Can a chisel do things it cannot? Let me count the ways... (okay, I won't... you get the picture).

Another important consideration is reliability. Given quality components, this is the product of simplicity (less to go wrong) and imprecision (loosely 'coupled' components).

Okay, I once said, I get KISS. But imprecision is a virtue??? 

Turns out that precise, tightly coupled systems are prone to failure. The kind of failure that chewing gum and baling wire can't fix. A little sand in the finest Swiss watch and it will drop to merely semidiurnal success. But one can make a sundial with a stick stuck into sand. If it gets kicked over, stick it again and recalibrate. [We can also use that stick to lean on, plant a seed, pry a up a rock, bind a tourniquet, whack a mole...]

Efficiency, as I mentioned, is a factor here... that sundial has its limitations in this regard. Cost / benefit analysis is the guide. That stick is very efficient, in its modest way.

A final point I seldom if ever see discussed is how well tools (or approaches) work together in suites (combinations). What I call the sweet of suites.

Simple, generalized tools can join forces to accomplish almost anything! Their areas of efficacy overlap, affording redundancy and  choice. A heavy screwdriver can be a prise bar can be a chisel can be a lever can be a...

NOTE: We are strictly warned against abusing a tool beyond its designed purpose. HA.

A sweet suite of tools, skills, approaches, methods, guidelines... what-have-you... covers the ground. Covers it better, to my mind, than any ungainly heap of one-shot wonders.

Sweet.

NOTE: I realize that all this is, in fact, a spectrum. At the KISS extreme, brain + opposable thumbs are as simple as it gets, and all the others are to some degree specialized. The kind of optimal we look for will always be the happy middle ground.

Related Post:

http://triloboats.blogspot.com/2019/12/hand-tools-for-boatyard.html

Fishin'

One of many approaches to Hobo ReelsIs that a KIRKLAND Whiskey Bottle cork capping the bottom???

Rigged with hook, line and keeper

Alive without breath, as cold as death;

Never thirsty, always drinking;

Clad in mail, never clinking.

-- One of Gollum's riddles from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

I'm a-goin' fishin',

Yes I'm goin' fishin',

Baby goin' fishin' too!

-- From Fishin' Blues by Taj Mahal

Fishin'

I've got to say right off that I'm not a fool fer fishin'. In fact, if fish weren't an important part of our diet and livelihood, I'd never set a hook. Anke, on the other hand, you might say is 'avid'.

For me, I'm looking to maximize the efficiency and minimize the sport. To do as little harm as possible, both to those too small to keep and those whose life is taken for ours. To cultivate a spirit of humble gratitude for a fish's life. To console myself with the knowledge that they are fellow predators dancing in the web of life.

For many years, Anke and I have subsisted on smaller fish- rock cod, pink salmon, dolly varden (between a trout and salmon). Lacking refrigeration and unable to carry the weight of jarred fish, these are all we can eat while fresh. Now, however, we have the displacement and tools for jarring, and have our sights set on larger salmon, halibut and dogfish (a small shark).

But these still swim mostly in our future.

Our fishing rods and reels are accordingly very light. Usually the cheap-0 kid's reels. They live on deck, ready to hand, and last a few years. But they're seldom made for salt water and get cranky. And they tend to hang up on this and that at inopportune moments.

Recently, I stumbled across hobo reels! DIY, compact and effective.

Plastic container types offer near instant gratification and are very practical, since they take little or no modification and securely hold a lot of gear for any given size. Check out hobo reels made from PVC.

Wooden hobo reels - whether carved or turned on a lathe - are just plain beautiful. But first, a digression...

At a Renaissance Faire I was once enthralled by a fellow turning chair legs on a pole lathe. He used a living sapling bent over as a spring, sprung by depressing a foot plank. A line connecting the two turned around a pulley on the lathe, and as he worked the plank, spun the leg stock for shaping. 

Unfortunately, it was otherwise a more or less standard metal lathe and, they being generally large and heavy, I hung on to the pole idea but roundfiled the lathe.

Back to hobo reels... one of the vids shows a feller turning one on a home-made pole lathe! OOH... now we're talkin'. It was clear to see that I could dumb his full-feature lathe down to a mini lathe sized for the hobo reel. An hour of cobbling from materials on hand and this is the result:

Ever the Muse brings chaos in her wake!
A bungee has replaced the spring pole.

Stock is skewered between a fixed point (left) and an adjustable point (right).
Two turns around the stock and it rotates around the points.

Never having turned anything, I grabbed a rather funky piece of firewood to try it out. To my surprise, the result would have been a keeper if I'd used better material! On to HR2.0...

Go small, go simple, go fishin'!

My Spice Jar HR left
and Lathe-Turned HR right

*****

A few preliminary tips and tricks...

• I've found that a single hook (vs. a treble) at the end of a line is easy to stow. Lure and / or bobber can be loop tied (pass a bight of line through a hole and around the item to form a cow hitch) as desired. Hook can be set into holes drilled around the spool base, or stowed in storage cavities with its line pinned by the cap.
• Braided line (vs. monofilament) seems to work well, is much easier to handle and has enough friction for loop ties.
• Instead of carrying one or more bobbers, an eye-screw can attach any found bit of flotsam with enough buoyancy.
• For a bobber, consider a stick which can be thrown much farther than a typical bobber, hook and lure can be cast from a (rodless) hand reel.
• If using a container, consider one with a pronounced flare (like one end of a spool) toward the casting end. This helps lift clear of the wound line while casting, reducing friction.
• A throat gorge (spine of wood, bone or metal sharpened at both ends and attached from the middle) is far easier to improvise than a hook. A fish swallows the baited stick which then toggles sideways to set. Size for target fish.

Our go-to fishing sources:

Indian Fishing Methods by Hillary Stewart
Living Off the Sea by Charlie White


A Coupla good, how-to vids:

And check out this guy's Rodless Reel!

COVID-19: Ozone Generators for Sterilization

Diagram from PrimaZone

COVID-19... Some dis-assembly is required.


 COVID-19: Ozone Generators and Sterilization


We've been using an ozone (O3) generator for several years, now, to sterilize our boat cabin and holds against various fungi including dry rot, mold and mildews. We also blow into a garbage bag to sterilize small items, now including masks, gloves and other PPE.

 << Our EnerZen unit costs about $85 as I write.

An advantage over UV sterilization is that it fills a space, where UV is line-of-sight and won't work in the 'shadow'.



While several studies suggest that ozone (O3) 'kills' COVID-19, this hasn't been fully established.

A word of caution... this type of generator sterilizes the space by elevating O3 concentrations to lethal levels for a short time. No People, Plants or Pets while working and until fully aired out. Don't even want to breathe a little of it. We amateurs should probably leave the building, even if you're only doing a single room within it.

Here's a quick article that hits the main points. And another in more depth.

There is another kind of ozone generator on the market which uses low levels of O3 to ionize particles to help purify air with people in the room. Some are being marketed as helping against CV19. These are not recommended by most medical authorities ever, and especially not now.

If breathed in, ozone irritates, inflames and even kills cells all along the respiratory tract. This makes the cells even more susceptible to virus and bacteria, and if infected, inflammation is a serious co factor for worse outcomes. 'Safe' levels for O3 can be understood as merely 'negligible damage' even when threat of infection is low.

Incidentally, ozone also clears away smells from such maritime nuisances as locker funk, diesel or gas, wet dog, bilge, etc..

Thinking of you all, especially in these somber times.



NOTE: Most hospitals have ozone generators for sterilizing operating and patient rooms. PPEs can be treated for re-use in room-sized batches. Even if it only reduces viral load, it is better than some of the desperate measures (such as paper bags between re-uses!). Please help spread the word your health care professionals.

NOTE: For sailors using ozone in the Spore Wars, be aware that ozone is extremely oxidizing, the heat-producing reaction behind spontaneous combustion. Be sure there are no oily rags lying about!

Models and Mock Ups

Building it isn't TOO much harder
(a LOT more expensive, though).

Shall we have an adventure now,
  Or shall we have our tea first?
-- From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Mock Turtle Soup: Models and Mock Ups


If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd say a model is worth a thousand pictures. I reckon that makes a model worth a million words!

It doesn't have to be a museum piece. Building in scale is important, so you can measure directly from the model. The more detail you build in, the more you'll solve and anticipate problems ahead of time. But TriloBoats are boxes... there's not so much to figure out on that score.

Note bulkheads, deck and framing lines...
almost all layout happens on sides or bulkheads.

We used doorskin (this time) and cardboard, held together by hot melt glue. Crude, but tells us all we need to know. A couple of scale models of ourselves (and a pet or two have since materialized) to picture lines of sight and boarding issues and there ya go.

We laid out the principle (side) component landings, and window cutouts.

Next step is to start marking it up with material counts:

• Ply Sheets -- Sides, bottom, bulkheads and transoms, decks... each gets written up in place.
• Copper Plate and Angle -- Sides and bottom; along both chines.
• Framing -- Chines (bottom and sheer) and nailers, bulkheads and transoms, decks.
• Nail Counts -- Parallel to framing, one or two sides... How long? How often?
• Surface Areas -- How much for paint, sheathing, glue?

Writing our results in place beats a list by far... we can see at a glance what we've counted, and what not. Much less likely to over or under count. A different check mark for each pass through lets us check and recheck.

And we can just sit there and stare at it!

Amazing what cardboard and hot-melt glue can do!

*****

Mock-ups are different. The trick here is to be able to get the feel of a feature in full size.

We've got a collection of chairs, tables and counters picked out that we can go to for the feel of things. We might set up a mock 'gangway' to get a feel for how tight things have become in our present state of 'middle age spread'. And maybe a (literal) fudge factor? A strip of plywood simulates the overhead.

We like to look down (not just out) from our windows to see what's happening close up. This ability is affected by the height of the lower window opening and our distance from it (the closer we sit to the window, the lower we can look over the frame). Mocking up lets us see how our furniture height and location will interact with our view.

Window height has been a big issue for us. Here, we mock up the shortest windows in prospect, in their correct location on the sides.  If these are okay, the rest is gravy.

And it's okay.

Not a bad view for below-decks in a sailboat!

*****

Same table, different model.

Bushcraft Bits and Baubles

DILBERT by Scott Adams

The more you know, the less you carry.
- Mors Kochanski


Bushcraft: Bits and Baubles

One of the great ironies of our time is that low-tech bushcraft skills are being furthered and spread on the internet, a high tech platform.

Many traditional skills and approaches are being recovered, advanced, adapted, and more importantly, shared by people from around the world. Instead of going extinct or languishing in some small, isolated community, this wealth is being spread far and wide.

In this post, I'll present a few, choice bits I've recently come across.


Vertical Fire Logs

There are skads of videos on how to make and use these in several variations.

Max Egorov (Advoko MAKES) is producing bushcraft videos, often mixing high and low tech. His approach is both innovative and experimental. It's well worth checking out his other offerings.

Here, I'll present one that briefly covers several versions of vertical fire logs, vertical grilling and a great recipe! Great ideas come thick and fast, so I'll give a time guide of highlights:

0:00 - 0:27    Introduction
0:27 - 1:12    Digression (?) An interesting but more complex Log Stove
1:12 - 2:00    Split Log Stove and Tent Warmer
2:00 - 4:05    Digression (?) Frame Saw from blade and field materials
                        NOTE: Elsewhere, Mors Kochanski suggests carrying a saw blade around the waist 
                                     in a belt constructed as its sheath.
5:15 - 5:50    Log Dogs
5:50 - 6:15    Vertical Log Stove
6:15 - 8:30    Spiral Cut Potato with Sausage (vertically grilled)
8:30 - End     Getting fancy plus Vertical Slotted Grill

Pine Tar Extraction

Pine tar (aka Stockholm Tar) is a thick glop at the heart of many marine recipes for wood preservation. It's also medically useful as antiseptic (farm veterinarians still use it for treating wounds in stock animals).

Again from Egorov, his is the simplest and one of the more reliable methods I've seen (he calls it 'oil' in the video):

Flip-Flop Winch

Where's this one been all my life??

If you have line (and what boat doesn't?) this winch can be improvised in the field. It generates a huge amount of force that can move your vessel/vehicle, logs, rocks or even uproot trees.

Take care to stay out-of-line with the tensioned lines... should they break, whiplash can be deadly.

Other videos mention the use of stakes to stabilize the winding pole (perpendicular to the line of pull), but correct set-up (shown in this but not all videos) minimizes the need. Worth looking around, though.
       

Creek Stewart has a number of short, to-the-point videos covering a range of skills.

NOTE: A good piece of on-board gear is the Maasdam Rope-Puller. It's like a come-along, but uses a clutch to pull along a length of line for much less set-and-reset. Rated at 3/4 tons of pull.


Pole Compass

Here's a trick for those times we're caught out longer than we expected, perhaps without the durn compass. It's getting dusky going on dark and we've got to get through a stretch of woods or brush and end up near our boat. A bearing with a compass helps, but keeping true is tricky in the dark.

Hence, the Pole Compass, from the late, great Mors Kochanski... he has many offerings emphasizing a practical minimalism:

Note that this method only works when you know the direction you want to go. It's an aid, not a substitute, for orienteering!


Roycroft Ski Shoes

Snow shoes are extremely useful to us some winters, but a pain in the neck to stow the rest of the time. Not only do these Roycroft Ski Shoes come only when called into being, but they are just SO COOL!

This video starts with a comparison with other types of snow shoes before taking a closer look at their construction.

This one gives another take with a little more detail, and presents a binding system I find simpler and more intuitive:

Wood Shavings

Here's another one I missed despite a life out-of-doors:

When making shavings for a fire, one usually whittles away from one's self (safety first!), most often spraying them in a wide arc across the wet ground.

But I seen it done better in some video... DUH! 

Stick your knife by the tip into a log or plank with the blade facing away from you. Holding it firmly by the handle, draw your shaving stock toward you at an angle to the edge. Rotate - to catch an edge rather than a flat - and repeat. Shavings accumulate docilely around your knife's tip.

DUH!

NOTE: Hold your stock from the end toward you and keep your fingers your side of the edge.


Rules of Three

Rules of Three help prioritize your focus in survival situations.

• You can survive three seconds without hope.
• You can survive three minutes without breathable air (unconsciousness generally occurs), or in icy water (loss of motor functions generally occur).
  
• You can survive three hours without shelter.
• You can survive three days without drinkable water.
• You can survive three weeks without food.

I consider the last three to be the most useful.


*****

Once you find a useful tidbit, chances are there are a hundred related approaches. It's easy to get lost in the wilderness of the internet. But oh, the riches it holds!

Let's make the most of it!

Hand Tools for the BOATYard

Our two tool boxes, vice and grinding wheel.

We carry a full array of hand tools necessary to build the boat from scratch. 

Timber tools to leverage our options with materials gleaned from beach and woods. An array of fasteners, wire, line, rod, plywood, 1x and 2x stock, aluminum plate and  flat-bar... enough to fix or fudge most anything. Goops, glues, paints and puckies. Enough sailcloth for a whole new suit. Heavy movers to lift, shift and haul the boat. Tarps to work under. 

Everything necessary for stop-gap measures or measured, permanent repair.

-- From BOATYard vs. B.O.A.TYard


Hand Tools for the BOATYard

 I wrote the above a number of years ago, about the distinction between a BOATYard - that 'yard' we carry with us - versus the B.O.A.TYard - The BringOnAnotherThousandYard we pay money to haul out into, somewhere in the Medean bosom of civilization.

Now it's winter and we're cleaning our tools... they look so pretty I thought I'd share.

Here's what we think of as a 'full array' of hand tools.

First, we have a general division:

1. Small  'Twiddly Box' - This lives easy-to-grab under a companionway step. It contains all we need to handle about 90% of everything. 'Twiddly' cuz it's all the twiddly li'l bits.
   
2. Large 'Big Box' - This lives out of the way, but as accessible as possible. It contains all we need to repair our vessel.
   
3. Vice and grinding wheel - These live clamped at one end of the (galley) workbench until needed.
   
4. Others (not shown) - These include a hacksaw, clamps, crow-, prise- and rockbar, sledge, jacks, hoists and pullers, crosscut and rip timber saws. Bowsaws and axe, Rigging, electrical, paint/glue and spare tools. These would (in theory) let us build a vessel from drift logs.

In this post, We'll take a closer look at the first two

Twiddly Box contents

.
Lessee...

• Files - Mill bastard, feather, point, 4-in-1 rasp, rasp bits (rat-tail AWOL).
• Blades - Bad Knife, razor, saber blades for the multisaw (right of tray), utility.
• Drivers - Slotted, bit driver and angling bit driver with bits, offset phillips and slotted (top right of tray), allen wrench set, slotted brace drivers (lower right of tray).
• Grippers - Nippers, pliers, vice grips, adjustable wrench, socket wrench and (universal+) sockets and adapters, 'universal' chuck wrench.
• Miscellaneous - Multi-tool, saw wrest (set), raker guage, Clamptite, step drill set (lower left), knife sharpener, spark plug gapper, mini pipe cutter, zip-ties.

Main Tools

Our main tool box extends the Twiddly Box... we rarely use this one without the other:

• Files - Mill bastard, feather, rat tails, round. 4-in-1 rasp.
• Bits - Auger, spade, large twist, small twist drill set.
• Blades - Good knife, drawknife, chisels and gouge, cornering tool, cold chisel, low angle block and bull-nose/shoulder planes, cross- and ripsaws (Japanese), hack-, coping- and keyhole saws, scraper.
• Beaters - Carpenter's- and ball peen hammers, hatchet and small splitting maul (not shown... live at wood range).
• Drivers / Drills - Large slotted (square shaft), long phillips, angling bit driver and bits, 'improved' Yankee style driver (uses bits), 'eggbeater' drill, brace, right angle drill adapter, large allen wrench set, punches.
• Grippers - Large vice grips, adjustable wrenches, channel locks, tin shears, nibbler, clamps.
• Layout - Quick- and leaf square, bevel guage, 12 and 50ft measure tapes, plumb bob/chalk line, compass, pencils.
• Miscellaneous - stud finder, cutting angle guage (both to right of compass), sharpening stones, propane torch nozzle, glass cutter, small prise bar, red cedar for plugs and wire twist for threading, tongue depressors.

*****

Most of the better tools were acquired second hand. A few were bought at full, expensive price (e.g., the bull-nose/shoulder/rabbet plane). Others are lesser tools that only need work adequately once every many years. Yet others are the rare good tool at a reasonable price (e.g., 'disposable' Japanese saw blades.

Between yard and estate sales, flea markets, local and on-line auctions (like Ebay.com), hardware store back alleys and the occasional grit-your-teeth purchase, I'm guessing these tool kits can be put together for a couple hundred dollars or less.

How's your haggle hangin'?

REVIEW: Buck Knives PAKLITE Combo

Buck 684 (Top) and 135 (Bottom)
Photo from Buck Knives

Ah! Sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!
- from Naughty Mariette by Victor Herbert


REVIEW: Buck Knives 684/135 Bucklite Paklite(R) Combo and Sheath!!!

A while back I wrote Good Knife, Bad Knife involving the carrying of two knives; a better quality 'good knife' for sharp, clean cutting and a lesser quality 'bad knife' for all the rest.

As usual, I'm putting up with two, inferior sheaths on my belt and putting off building a decent, double sheath.

And then... AND THEN...

Along comes Buck Knives' Paklite Combo. Two quite decent knives at - if you shop around - a quite decent price (about $45 at this writing).

Both knives are well made of good quality steel. Useful shapes. Jimping (notching) in the right places. Comfortable, secure grip handles.

I use the 684 hunting knife as my good knife. The rubber handle gives more control, power and comfort for fine work.

I use the 135 as my bad knife. I was concerned that it's hollow grind on a thin blade (0.1in... it's designed as a caping knife) wouldn't stand up to the rough use we require of it. But after a year of abuse, I can report that it has done very well. The edge is easy enough to touch up and holds quite reasonably well.

Should I lose one or several, I've found 135s for as low as $20, delivered. That's a little rich for my bad knife standards, but they fit their sheath perfectly. And a skeleton knife / sheath opens the door to many, many other less expensive options if I'm feeling cheap.

Showing my set, above and apart
with Anke's, below and assembled

Now, knives that are both economical (cheap) and useful abound. What is in short supply, to my mind, are decent, inexpensive sheaths to hold them.

In every case, I've either endured the sheath supplied, or built my own. In all these years, I've worn two on the belt and never gotten around to building a double sheath to conveniently carry both knives.

These blades are better than cheap. But what's truly makes the Combo stand out is their supplied sheath system.

Somebody really thought this one out!

The system has two main components:

A sturdy, durable (and modifiable) polyester holster secures two separate but interlocking sheaths. Features include

• Vertical and horizontal belt loops... loops are snug for a firm carry (not floppy).
• Snap-down security flap... this may be folded back and tucked behind sheath when knives are being actively accessed.
• Snap-down to sheaths... locks them securely into the holster.

The sheaths are hard polypropylene. Features include:

• Symmetrical... sheaths hold their knife equally well either way, for left or right hand carry.
• Slender, integrated design... together, they are less bulky than many of the single sheaths I've encountered.
• Separable sheaths... they can be separated and slipped into a pocket.
• Interlocking tips... these securely unify the sheath tips into a unit when used in the holster.

My only quibble is that the 135 skeleton blade fit just a bit loosely in its sheath. This allowed a slight rattle, and if working ass-over-teakettle with the flap open, could fall out.

Easy fix... a couple round turns of seine twine in the skeleton sheath provides enough friction to resolve these issues. More turns = more friction, so you can adjust to taste.

So I'm happy with this combo set of blades. I'm WAY happy with the sheath!

Down the road, I'm likely to modify the holster to accept a marlinespike.

Hey Buck! Hint, hint!! Howzabout a mariner's version?

Sewing Kit: A Stitch in Tiny

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle...


Sewing Kit: A Stitch in Tiny

A stitch in time saves nine, as they say, and that is never more true than when underway.

On the road, a minimal sewing kit keeps weight down. On board, it helps declutter the living space, since a more comprehensive kit can be stowed less handily but out-of-sight.

This little kitlet shown above has been a companion since my hitching days. It still handles 90% of all the sewing I need do.

Waterproof Matchbox (Coglan's™, among others)
Polyester Thread (Gutermann's™ #10 Black 100m)
2 Needles (One heavy, large eye and one small, fine eye)
Tailor's Thimble (I.e., no cap; sized to index finger)

That open top tailor's thimble is important, as others likely won't fit in the standard matchbox. Stow with narrow end down.

There's a little extra space left in the kit. Consider a sheathed Exacto™ blade for cutting thread, and maybe a Bandaid™?

Another 9% of my sewing is handled by the Speedy Stitcher™ (shown below). This is for heavy duty work, such as leather or canvas, and develops a chain stitch. There is another type with the spool stowed above the handle, in line with the needle. This makes sense, though having tried both, I prefer the in handle variant. Beware of cheap imitations!

I haven't carried the Speedy with me on the road, though it would have come in handy at times, but it  has a place of honor in our middle kit.

Watch out for the pointy ends!

Speedy Stitcher™