RudderPosts

Movie Review

Do me a favor, would you? Scroll down to the post below called Raid Sweden: The Movie, click the link at the bottom of the page, and  watch the movie--or try to. It's a pretty cool scene, these little open Swedish pilot boats screaming along in 25 knots of breeze. But I suspect the load time was too long for most people. We'd like to post more moving images here, but might have to fine tune our protocols a bit to do that.

So, give it a try, and describe your experience with it in the comments. (We're not looking for a critical evaluation of the cinematography or sailhandling. You can mention these if you want to, but what we're really after is your opinion on the load time and general quality.)

Signature Seattle

This report, from Eric Sorensen, recently arrived at the RudderPosts weather desk. Eric, recall, is the fellow who wrote about Sam Devlin's new cruiser-runnabout for WB No. 188.

“For nearly 30 days now the Pacific Northwest has faced one of the key features of living on the lee shore of the Pacific Ocean: rain. Often, the region's reputation for wet weather is misplaced; in the warmer half of the year, the climate is downright Mediterranean. But the winter rain gets even, with storm pulses coming in daily. Puddles are growing puddles. The ground is a gumbo, sliding off hillsides and dissolving trees of their moorings. On the waterfront, boat covers and spring lines are growing green with moss. Sailors, facing the eternal choice -- sail or work on the boat -- are defaulting indoors to refinish oars or strip varnish from a hatch. The stove in the work shop at Seattle's Center for Wooden Boats is on a steady diet of scraps. Foot traffic on the docks is so light that the resident heron sits for hours unfazed, using the pilot gig DAN as a perch. With so much water, boats and shore birds are all the more in their element.”

Lightering

Art Hall sent these photos over from Bath, Maine, yesterday, with this commentary:

"I wish I had better details. These were forwarded to me by a buddy who is the docking master on a floating offshore oil platform (FPSO) off the coast of Angola.  He works on a rig called Kizomba (you can google that up if you're curious).   I understand it's located about 100 miles offshore.  This appears to be a lightering operation for getting supplies out to the platform or just general cargo to some small African town with no deep draft port. I see land in the background so it's not that far offshore.

"Mostly I think it's a good representation of the third world and their ability to improvise and make do with limited resources. I showed this to one of the naval architects here in the office and he just shook his head in disbelief.... I shudder at the thought of an inclining experiment.

"I can't quite figure these boats out.  Perhaps built just as lighters or retired fishing boats. They don't appear to have power. The lack of deck beams is a testament to their robust construction. Not pretty, but they do the job."

As you know, you can click the photos to make them larger. Anyone care to add detail or insight?