Category Archives: Sailing

Ship of Tools

“A number of the organizing groups [for the latest Gaza Flotilla] are fronts for Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, raising money and political support for these organizations and often controlled by them. In other words, revolutionary Islamists are using Western pacifists and leftists to achieve their own ends.”

Read it all.

Meanwhile, even an NYTimes’ reporter admits Gaza is doing very well, thank you. Just not very free if, for instance, you’re a woman who wants to drive a motorcycle. Hamas forbids it.

Elissa in drydock

Elissa-night-shotWhen it comes to boats, the work and the expense never ends. Especially when the boat is more than a century old and needs a whopping bottom job.

Furling topsails and t’gallants

Furling_topsails_and_t'gallantsA busy afternoon aboard the Texas tall ship Elissa out of her home port of Galveston.

Abby’s Kindle broke, too

Nice to see the 16-year-old sailor attempting to solo circumnavigate the planet is alive and at least semi-well, considering the dismasting of her boat in the rough Southern Indian Ocean. Presume she will be rescued soon by the Aussies.

If she can blog, we can presume she won’t under too much stress waiting. But it would be nice if the saltwater hadn’t corroded the power port on her Kindle way back in April. Or if Jeff Bezos had seen the way clear to deliver her a new one.

A full Lake Travis

laketravisrisen

It probably won’t last at this height of slightly more than 681 feet above mean sea level, not if La Nina kicks in and we get another dry, scorching summer. But it’s certainly an improvement over last summer’s view of this then-dry upper end of Cypress Creek Arm.

Sweet Elissa

573px-Elissa-shipAnytime’s the right time for another good snap of the Tall Ship Elissa.

Subchaser

As he did for the Abercrombie in Little Ship, Big War, Lt. Cmdr Edward Stafford tells the compelling day-to-day detail of life aboard an even smaller warship.

SC 692 was about as small as they came in World War II, other than PT boats. Like the PTs, the subchasers also were made of wood. Meaning, among other things, they had to be careful about scraping up against steel hulls. Stafford commanded it in the Caribbean, across the Atlantic and throughout the Mediterranean, mainly for the invasions of Palermo and Salerno.

The story is, appropriately, on the minutia of a little ship which seemingly everyone on bigger craft could order about. But it’s rarely boring, especially not when a shore battery is finding the 692’s range or the sonar and radar are failing at crucial times. Or the weather and rough seas are standing the little boat on its fantail or bullnose.  Once again the grandson of Admiral Peary of North Pole fame turns a little story into a big one–and a fun read.