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Date Posted: 21:14:57 08/23/08 Sat
Author: RadioRay (I know that you know this...)
Subject: Re: Neil's Boat
In reply to: Jay 's message, "Re: Neil's Boat" on 11:01:36 08/21/08 Thu

... Jay and the others speak the truth. My 'engine' is in a landfill in Maryland - somewhere. This boat has never been sailed by me with an engine. Sailing in and out of anchorages, both remote (easy_ and crowded as in Annapolis (know what you are doing) is a delight for more than a few reasons. The main thing is that you are a sailor. You are not faking it. If the world went to pieces tomorrow, you'd be doing the SAME sort of sailing a month from now. You 'won a skill' set and are not faking it, up the point that you 'feel' that there is not ehough wind. Man - you can sail in the slightest drafts that you can barely feel on the hair of your arms (I do this) when you boat is NOT dragging the 500-800 pounds of engine, tanks, exhaust plumbing and PROPELLOR in the water.

I COULD have wasted 10.000 dollars in an engine installation. Instead, as planned, I chose a FINE European build boat with a blown engine (removed) and sailed her home. I'm a live aboard right now, making peanuts but not requiring much because live-aboard costs are so low. I improve 'Milenka' with each month and as she sits' now, is as fine a SAILboat as I ever dreamed. I lack at this point !. enough fresh water storage for this ex-mountain man to make it to th eAzores reliably, 2. a wind vane steering system (which I am designing right now, based upon Lechter's book on the subject). So - what do I gain? What to YOU gain?

I can sum this up in one word: "freedom!"

I'm an engineer, working ashore in very rural Virginia, living aboard my '27 feet of of freedom'. She's a Dutch boat, made for the north sea, sleek, tough and easily repairable with my present skills. I can single hand her in gales (BTDT) and if the job(s) go away tomorrow, I sail when I feel like it, because my former engine compartment is filled with Basmati and jasmine rice, sproutable seeds, Indain 'retort' packed meals for EZ, on the move meals when cooking is not possible, grains for long term and SPIVCES, cheese and canned meats.


See - the mountain men always had a 'grub stake' which was a year's supply of food. this is good practice for a sailor and for a small boat sailor, it's a FINE trade for the engine that only stink-up your boat with diesel, drags 100% of the time under sail and turns you into a 'commuter'. Look: when you are a sailor and not tied to the land any longer, 'schedules' are relative to the wind. When you do not have conditions to sail - anchor. when you do sail. It REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE>

The 140 miles here from my former house were some of the most concentrated, yet satisfying miles I've ever spent for one reason: I Was Sailing With Purpose. (I've heard that before...) I was moving from my land based life centered on thinktank, cutting edge government engineering to a life of the sea. I changed from a skilled landsman to a beginning waterman. I'm skilled in the mountains, deserts and forests, and now am pursuing the life of a liveaboard, traveling man who has less cartilage than skills, so I sail to save the knees and see the 73% of the world I have not yet seen.

I have TWO words of advice: "Do It!"

Who told you that you have a tomorrow? Go - think, plan and pounce when you find your boat - then make it happen. That boat allows you to paint on a new canvas for your life: the sea. It's not the distance, it's not the flags of the places you go as much as your GOING that matters.

Remember: when you breath your last - as we all will, it's sliding into the gates with a Martini in one hand and chocolate in the other, shouting "Wheeeeew! What A Riiiiiide!" that matters. Not the 'uniformity' of your existence, which is a walking death. The LAST things tha tI want to hear is God telling me: "I gave you life and you wasted it..." Better to be using it to excess. Last htat I heard, we only get one round here, so best to make it a good one.

forget those who are naysayers! Have THEY ever surfed a small boat on wave trains? Have they ever ghosted to a rendezvous with sail friends in a secluded harbour on the slightest breeze that most would never even notice? Have they ever done anything they have not seen on TV? Go! Do! and in one year look at the pictures of you now - you will be pleased with the difference.

I remember the campfires in the No Return Wilderness of Idaho, the night sky of the White River of Colorado above 10,400 feet and the endless birch trees of eastern Europe back when it was communist. The ocean is BIGGER! Go , go , go! Better to try and fail than to dream and shrink from the challenge.

Better to a Moitessier than a Walter Mitty.




>RadioRay
s/v Milenka
near Weems, Virginia - USA

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