O/T: Abby Sunderland

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:54:25 -0500, the infamous "Lee Michaels" scrawled the following:

You bet. Dad and I traveled (flew) to Puerto Vallarta in '84, we took the ferry over to La Paz, and found out that the water was drinkable there. No trots! The entire city was served by a huge desalination plant.

The bay, OTOH, was a filthy, stinking sewer. They didn't treat sewage and the city sewer outlets flowed directly into the bay. It was gawdawful.

I went snorkeling 13 miles down the road in pristine, crystal-clear water at Pichilingue Beach. When I reached down for a piece of broken coral, I couldn't pick it up. I then kicked for it and missed. When I dove for it, I found that what looked like it was within reach was actually over ten feet down! Amazing!

Anyway, they have reverse osmosis machines in all sizes, for hikers, sailors, and cities.

Ayup. Or pedal powered generators to charge battery banks?

Ayup, and only if you didn't want to eat it raw, respectively. (Ewwwwwww!)

Anyone else read _Life of Pi_? An eastern Indian boy is trapped on a lifeboat with a bengal tiger for 133 days. Fun story. It was primarily fiction, but the author mentioned fish behavior in it.

[Lew Hodgett]

REPOSTING

=============================

"Lee Michaels" wrote:

================================ Basic problem with salt water is the salt.

R/O development for almost all applications are under constant development.

The biggest problem to overcome is the huge amount of power required to get clean water because of the high pressure membranes used.

================================

============================ Very common and as development continues, marine solar panels are finding an ever bigger market.

Cost and required space are the limiting factors.

Wind mills have been around for years, but they have some problems.

Physically you have to mount them someplace away from people and they require 15-20 knots of wind to produce any real power. ================================

=============================== Fishing for food is rather straight forward.

A couple of hundred feet of clothes line, 10-20 ft of steel leader, some surgical tubing and some jigs and some down weights.

Definitely keep a pair of gloves handy.

Trail the rig.

When you catch something, keep going for 15-20 minutes to drown the critter, then a gaff and a baseball bat to finish the deed.

You eat a lot of fish for a couple of days, but without a reefer, that's it.

Propane stoves take care of cooking, dehydrated food solves the need for a reefer.

Lew

[Leon]

You do realize..for God's sake I hope you realize, that to "G o A r o u n d T h e W o r l d" it requires a voyage through several oceans.....

I can't teach you every thing....that should have "your" parents responsibility.

[Leon]

So a couple of years more mature/grown up does not make them wise.

LOL... Now what parents don't think that their child is the smartest, prettiest, bla bla. Her parent may be idiots compared to her. She the child may very well rule the roost as many teenagers do.

[J. Clarke]

And how, exactly, are 40 foot waves a problem? And storms are a part of life at sea. So what?

[Lew Hodgett]

40' waves and storms are a given, most probably higher than 40', but boat is designed to handle them.

Just make sure the jack lines are secured, and your harness line is attached.

Lew

[upscale]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:56:10 -0500, "J. Clarke"

If it's no one's business, then what are you doing here talking about it?

Clarke, you're quite the hypocritical asshole, aren't you.

[J. Clarke]

The subject is that some how "more experience" will allow people to deal with breaking both arms in the middle of the ocean. If you think that please explain how someone "older with more experience" would deal with it.

Do you have employees in their forties? Do they always make their own decisions without any of your input? Did you "ever" veto their decisions? Why?

Doesn't matter how old you are there's always somebody with more "life experience". If you defer all your decisions until you are the one who has the most life experience then you don't do _anything_.

Answer this--if you child enlisted in the Marines would you be having this kind of tantrum over it?

And yet you're raising this huge hue and cry over it.

So what is the problem then?

I see. So how long should a 16 year old be allowed to sail? Minutes? Hours? Days?

I see the point just fine. The point is that you're a busybody who wants to tell complete strangers how to live their lives.

Which is small consolation to the dead.

And yet hundreds of people have done it and all them spent significant portions of their voyages not paying attention to anything.

So how old should one be before being allowed to "walk alone in a seedy part of town"? And would it make a difference if they were boys instead of girls? And how would being 18 make them safer?

[Lew Hodgett]

============================ You may have quite a wait in parts of the South Pacific where if you are lucky, you may get a scheduled air line fly over once a day, and sattelite coverage is spotty.

Prudent seamanship beats technology every time out of the box.

Lew

[J. Clarke]

No, it doesn't. You don't even know what these girls are planning, do you? This isn't going to be one of those deals where they sail to some place and hang out for a while and sail somewhere else and hang out for a while. They're both hitting the Antarctic Ocean (also called the "Southern Ocean" and several other names) as fast as they can, then staying there for the major part of their voyage, then returning home. Jessica Watson has it easy--she starts there and finishes there. Abby Sunderland has to take a long run down the Pacific first, then back north on the return, so her route is longer. But both are going to be way the Hell out in the middle of an empty ocean for almost their entire voyages.

You would know this if you had actually LEARNED SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE PLANNING instead of starting in right away with the ignorant criticism.

You don't have anything to teach a retarded bullfrog.

[J. Clarke]

So how old in your expert opinion does one have to be in order to be "wise"? And when are you going to hit that age?

But not yours of course.

[Lew Hodgett]

--------------------------------------

about covers it.

Lew

[J. Clarke]

What is your point? All the seamanship in the world doesn't help if today is the day that the sea has decided to kill your ship. And there is no ship that the sea cannot kill when it is in the mood. And it doesn't matter if you have a sixteen year old girl at the helm or a 40 year veteran Navy captain.

The SARSAT satellites are in polar orbit--their coverage is not "spotty".

[Leon]

Yawn,,,,,

[Leon]

That is all you have to do??? Just make sure the jack lines are secured and your harness line is attached?

That simple statement will cover every possibly thing that could or has ever happed gone wrong while in high seas?

That sound a bit naive doesn't it?

[Leon]

Do you have any friends in school that might be able to explain this in words you may understand?

[Leon]

I pity your kids.

Apparently you don't have kids...

>

[Lew Hodgett]

================================ Actually it is about as basic as remembering to tie your shoes and making sure your pants are pulled up.

If you don't remain secured to the boat, you probably won't have a chance to do anything else.

Lew

>

[Leon]

For give him, he just needs attention, something that he probably missed out on in his childhood. He probably cannot help it.

[Lew Hodgett]

There is no AAA roadside service at sea.

If you expect others to save your ass with a SAR mission, you may/will have a long wait.

It's a big ocean out there.

Prudent seamanship is your best chance of not needing outside assistance.

Lew