Sunday, April 19, 2009

Well, What Do You Know?

Here are three posts from the world of vaguely nautical blogs this week that made me think or surprised me. Enjoy...

  1. Natural Navigator Picture Puzzle from Captain JP's Log. There are actually several subtle clues to the puzzle in the picture as well as the obvious one. I must admit I got the answer wrong at the first attempt. See if you can solve it before reading the comments or the additional clue and answer posted later in the same blog.

  2. The 10,000 Hour Rule or "What you can learn from Malcolm Gladwell about how to succeed in sailing". Another thought provoking post from yarg.

  3. With all the coverage this week about pirates and how to outwit them, I haven't seen any mention in the mainstream media about how the use by merchant ships of a certain technology may be unwittingly helping the pirates find their prey. Check out Mandated AIS an aid to pirates? on Panbo: The Marine Electronics Weblog.


Well, what do you know?

4 comments:

O Docker said...

One thought that crossed my mind while working JP's 'natural navigation' puzzle was how dependent we sailors have become on our electronic toys.

The previous owner of my cruising boat installed a windpoint instrument that shows very accurately (most of the time) the apparent wind direction and speed. I turned my nose up at this at first (Aargh, real sailors don't need this rubbish), but have come to rely on it more in time.

In my dinghy days, I went by bits of yarn tied to the shrouds and the feel of the wind on my neck, but it's amazing how quickly we get lazy, given the opportunity. I'm probably not as good at feeling the wind as I was back then and tend to just stare at the needle now - not a good thing.

Carol Anne said...

On the Etchells, we've gone more high-tech -- instead of bits of yarn, we use bits of cassette tape as tell-tales on the shrouds. The tape we're using right now is a motivational lecture titled "The Amazing Power of Water."

We used to have a wind vane on the top of the mast, but those just keep breaking. I have no idea why, but Zorro and I just can't keep a masthead fly intact. Seagulls try to perch on it, and it breaks. This doesn't happen to anybody else in the Etchells fleet, just to me and Zorro.

So Zorro and I have to watch things other than that little arrow on top of the mast. Telltales on both sails and shrouds become very important.

Carol Anne said...

Ah, sorry about not claiming the prize for the "creative excuses not to work out" contest ... I didn't realize I'd won ... OK, here's a topic that I've posted on my blog before: my best teachers.

Tell about the most fantastic people who have helped you to learn things, from preschool to the current day. They don't even have to be officially teachers, just people who have helped you to learn things.

To make it even more fun, you could make it into a group writing project, so all of the people in the tillersphere could share stories.

Pat said...

We also have a couple of other reasons for not replacing the wind vane.

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