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Mast step structure exposed |
Well, we’ve got the mast step on the Telltales Sailing Collective’s first boat opened right up and now we’re deciding how to put it back together. Working on boats I often find this the hardest part of the repair- there are so many materials and approaches available that it can be overwhelming, especially in a case like this where there is no ‘standard approach.’
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The fiberglass we cut away to expose the internal structure |
Fortunately with a little critical thought we came up with the correct repair. In the first case, mild steel has no place ...
Read More
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Mast step structure exposed |
Well, we’ve got the mast step on the Telltales Sailing Collective’s first boat opened right up and now we’re deciding how to put it back together. Working on boats I often find this the hardest part of the repair- there are so many materials and approaches available that it can be overwhelming, especially in a case like this where there is no ‘standard approach.’
 |
The fiberglass we cut away to expose the internal structure |
Fortunately with a little critical thought we came up with the correct repair. In the first case, mild steel has no place ...
Read More
 |
Yep folks, that’s forty-year-old mild steel holding up the mast! |
I’ve written before about bizarre and highly questionable design elements in 1970’s Cape Dorys (Side note: I always hesitate when I pluralize Cape Dory, like I want to write ‘Cape Dories’ but I know that isn’t actually right). Now that the Telltales Sailing Collective has been given a nearly identical Cape Dory 27 I’m getting a trip down memory lane. But I’m pleasantly surprised to find that this time around is a little different. That rebar and mild steel isn’t pretty and from a technical perspective it’s fairly artless but ...
Read More
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Yep folks, that’s forty-year-old mild steel holding up the mast! |
I’ve written before about bizarre and highly questionable design elements in 1970’s Cape Dorys (Side note: I always hesitate when I pluralize Cape Dory, like I want to write ‘Cape Dories’ but I know that isn’t actually right). Now that the Telltales Sailing Collective has been given a nearly identical Cape Dory 27 I’m getting a trip down memory lane. But I’m pleasantly surprised to find that this time around is a little different. That rebar and mild steel isn’t pretty and from a technical perspective it’s fairly artless but ...
Read More
A little while back I mentioned that we’ve started a sailing collective here in New Orleans, but I haven’t said much about it yet other than to
intoduce the boat, a Cape Dory 27 nearly identical to my CD28. It’s not yet in the water but it is inching its way in that direction as our newly minted collective learns about and embarks on the handful of repairs we need to make before launch day. The biggest task at the moment is a bottom job, one of the most miserable things on any diy sailor’s to-do list, but many ...
Read More
A little while back I mentioned that we’ve started a sailing collective here in New Orleans, but I haven’t said much about it yet other than to
intoduce the boat, a Cape Dory 27 nearly identical to my CD28. It’s not yet in the water but it is inching its way in that direction as our newly minted collective learns about and embarks on the handful of repairs we need to make before launch day. The biggest task at the moment is a bottom job, one of the most miserable things on any diy sailor’s to-do list, but many ...
Read More
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Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd Global via NYTimes |
Has anyone been following this series in the New York Times about the ‘Outlaw Ocean‘? It’s some of the best reporting I’ve ever read about the oceans by one of the last few papers which has the budget for this kind of reporting. The series reports on smuggling, illegal fishing, abusive working conditions and forced labor, even slavery and murder and paints a damning picture of wide scale abuses in shipping and fishing industries. It’s also full of riveting stories, like the chase of the Thunder, where a vigilante ...
Read More
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Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd Global via NYTimes |
Has anyone been following this series in the New York Times about the ‘Outlaw Ocean‘? It’s some of the best reporting I’ve ever read about the oceans by one of the last few papers which has the budget for this kind of reporting. The series reports on smuggling, illegal fishing, abusive working conditions and forced labor, even slavery and murder and paints a damning picture of wide scale abuses in shipping and fishing industries. It’s also full of riveting stories, like the chase of the Thunder, where a vigilante ...
Read More
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Nada at anchor outside of Burtonport Harbor |
Let me tell you about Burtonport, a small fishing village on Ireland’s most hospitably inhospitable NW coast. The village is a small cluster of houses, big enough for a doctor’s office and a pub but not a grocers. This actually good-sized for the northwest of Ireland, where craggy cliffs jutting hundreds of feet up out of deep water and prevailing onshore winds make viable ports few and far between. That’s the inhospitable part: this couple hundred miles of storm-wracked coastline is so nautically infamous that you can pick up a map marking four-hundred-odd ...
Read More
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Nada at anchor outside of Burtonport Harbor |
Let me tell you about Burtonport, a small fishing village on Ireland’s most hospitably inhospitable NW coast. The village is a small cluster of houses, big enough for a doctor’s office and a pub but not a grocers. This actually good-sized for the northwest of Ireland, where craggy cliffs jutting hundreds of feet up out of deep water and prevailing onshore winds make viable ports few and far between. That’s the inhospitable part: this couple hundred miles of storm-wracked coastline is so nautically infamous that you can pick up a map marking four-hundred-odd ...
Read More