My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on October 29, 2010

Checking on a couple more sailboats this October and nearly convinced that we’ve found one that have me reaching for my wallet and counting pennies. I wish I could say that the timing for a boat was right, although I don’t really know when that time is. Too soon and we don’t have the time to sail, too late in life and age concerns begin to creep into the dream.

Anyway, this Westerly Corsair CC is well seasoned and is well equipped.

Here are a few photos from the broker:

		Westerly Corsair CC VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Specs
Builder: Westerly
Designer: Ed Dubois

Dimensions
LOA: 36′
Beam: 12’6
Maximum Draft: 4’11
Displacement: 15,500

Engines
Engine Brand: Volvo
Engine(s) HP: 28
Engine Model: 2003
Cruising Speed: 6
Maximum Speed: 7

Tanks
Fresh Water Tanks: 84 Gal. S/S
Fuel Tanks: 42 Gal S/S

Specs
Builder: Westerly
Designer: Ed Dubois

Dimensions
LOA: 36′
Beam: 12’6
Maximum Draft: 4’11
Displacement: 15,500

Engines
Engine Brand: Volvo
Engine(s) HP: 28
Engine Model: 2003
Cruising Speed: 6
Maximum Speed: 7

Tanks
Fresh Water Tanks: 84 Gal. S/S
Fuel Tanks: 42 Gal S/S

• NEW cushions (10)
• Teak bulkheads & Cabinetry
• Drop leaf table
• Teak and holly sole
• (8) Large Opening ports w/screens

• Custom mattress in Aft Cabin
• Cruise and Carry AC unit 7000btu
• Flatscreen TV/DVD/CD, wall mounted
• (4) Opening deck hatches w/screens

• Flavel 2-Burner LPG stove w/oven & broiler w/ counter top cover
• Seafrost 12vdc holding plate refrigeration front opening
• Hot & Cold water pressure
• Fresh water foot pump
• Large dry goods locker
• Stainless Steel Sink
• Abundant Storage throughout

Deck

• NEW nonskid deck (09)
• Teak cockpit grates
• Double anchor rollers
• Vetus manual windlass
• 22 lb. Quickset 100′ chain
• Bruce anchor 200′ chain
• HT chain and Nylon rode
• Salt water washdown
• Stainless steel bow pulpit
• Stainless steel stern rail
• Double lifelines

• Zodiac 4-man Liferaft w/cradle, needs re-certification
• Cape Horn Wind Vane steering system
• ACR Rapidfix 406 EPIRB
• Zodiac CRF285 dinghy
• Dinghy anchor & rode
• MOB sling
• Jacklines
• Teak toerail
• Shade Tree deck awning
• Close cell cockpit cushions
• Magma LPG BBQ grill
• Dodger w/half hard windshield
• New nonskid deck (09)
• Bimini

• 2003 Volvo 28hp 3-cylinder diesel
• 100 amp high output alternator
• Heat exchanger
• Racor fuel/water separator
• New Cutlass bearing (10)
• Dripless shaft seal, water injected
• Single level throttle/shift lever
• Whitlock pedestal steering with push/push cables

• Lavac head w/holding tank
• 6 Gal. hot water heater
• Rule electric bilge pump
• Henderson manual bilge pump
• (2) #10 aluminum LPG tanks
• LPG detector system
• Kyocera 135W solar panel w/controller
• 2 blade spare prop

Electronics & Navigation Equipment

• NEW Garmin 545 Chart plotter at helm (10)
• Chips US, Bahamas, Turcs & Caicos
• Raymarine SL70 Radar/GPS/plotter
• Raymarine ST4000 Autopilot w/remote
• Raymarine 2kw mast mount scanner
• Garmin 128 GPS

• Icom IC-718 SSB/ham radio w/modem
• Icom AH-4 auto tuner
• Horizon Maxi VHF radio
• West Marine handheld VHF radio
• Navman knot/log/depthsounder
• Speedtech digital barometer
• Aquasignal compass
• Ritchie SP-5 compass

Electrical System

• Heart Freedom 10 inverter/charger
• (3) Seagell GP31 service bank w/separate selector switch (08)
• Engine start battery (10)
• Link 2000-R monitor
• (4) 12vdc cabin fans
• Rotary Battery switch
• 135 watts solar panel w/controller
• International running lights

Category: Sailing | 3 Comments »
Tags: sailboat

Posted By RichC on October 28, 2010

Brenda and I are spending just a few days away from Ohio and work as we’ve often done in October and are enjoying time together in Florida. Besides relaxing on the beach, Brenda has succumbed my desire to look at a couple sailboats (we missed our annual trip to the Annapolis boatshow). The weather has been great … although we did have a bit of wind for this cellphone self-portrait … scary photo below huh … therefore “Happy Halloween!”

Category: Personal, Photos, Travel | 2 Comments »
Tags: delray beach, florida

Posted By RichC on October 27, 2010

Federal stimulus funds are political hot potato as the Novemeber 2010 election draws near, but it is still good to know where the money is being spent. According to Biodiesel Magazine,  the Ohio Department of Development will be using "$8 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to help biodiesel and ethanol companies fund new or additional refining equipment." The $8 million is being awarded to applicants in amounts from $500,000 up to $1,000,000 in order to make Ohio a leading biofuels producer her in the U.S. The state of Ohio received a total of $96 million in total from the ARRA State Energy Program.

Interested applicants must reside in the state of Ohio and be able to invest at least 25% of the total equipment cost. The project must also be completed with 12 months and provide a direct economic benefit to Ohio. According to the article, "applicants will be judged on four categories: project readiness, financial ability to meet the 25 percent requirement, economic/ employment impacts on Ohio and possible job creation and retention during construction phases." Perhaps a group like CinciTDI should initiate a business venture to produce and distribute biodiesel like BioWillie?

Category: Biodiesel, Environment, Financial, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: biodiesel, biofuels, government, ohio

Posted By RichC on October 26, 2010

As the strong front approaches from the Indiana area there is a tornado watch in for the entire Cincinnati area, but warning have been issued everywhere by the National Weather service in anticipation of tornados (odd, thought the “warning” label was maintained for actual tornados?). Radar images show a heavy band and local reports from Indiana describe heavy soaking rains associated with this front.

The local WCPO television from Cincinnati Ohio has some great coverage and interesting HD radar technology (below) that can be pulled up on the web.

Category: Weather | 4 Comments »
Tags: severe weather, tornado

Posted By RichC on October 26, 2010

In the hyper-sensitive political environment and deeper ‘left’ verses ‘right’ split in America, there are some subjects which some in the media see as off limits to open discussion. The fallout for even broaching certain subjects is that the self-proclaimed “speech police” have little problem threaten ones job or flat out firing perceived offenders — it happened to seasoned news analyst and ironically ‘liberal’ political commentator Juan Williams last week.

In a recent The O’Reilly Factor program, Juan Williams in opposition to Bill O’Reilly’s “Muslims kill us on 9/11” lightning bolt comment on ABC’s The View, Williams attempted to stress the point that “extremist Muslims” attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and that broad brushstrokes were not helpful. His conservative debating partner Mary Katherine Ham points out, Juan stresses "the distinction between moderate and extremist Muslims no fewer than three times during the exchange.” In making his point, Juan Williams shared his personal feelings – not opinions that he endorsed or expected others to emulate:

"Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality. I mean, look Bill [O’Reilly], I’m not a bigot, you know the kind of books I’ve written on the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts. But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it’s not a war against Islam."

Williams is a distinguished journalist dedicated much of his career to writing about and documenting the African-American civil rights movement and senior national correspondent for NPR, formerly National Public Radio for the past 10 years and has never been accused of prejudice or having bigoted positions. Nevertheless, he received a phone call after his exchange with Bill O’Reilly and was fired over the phone. To add insult to the classless firing, NPR’s CEO Vivian Schiller had the unprofessionalism to insult his character and questioned his sanity smirking and suggesting Williams “feeling” should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist—take your pick," a comment she apologized for the next day.

Beside being an NPR news analyst, Juan Williams was also employed as a guest panelist and fill in host on the FoxNews cable channel. His role was to express the liberal viewpoint and counterpoint to conservative guests on commentary news programs.  In the past few years, NPR management commented that his point of view were seen as "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices” and they requested Williams not be identified as an NPR host when appearing on FoxNews. Their position was that FoxNews didn’t present balanced news and that their slant was decidedly conservative – interestingly FoxNews hires far more liberals than NPR hires conservatives … is the pot calling the kettle black? [my comment]

As a long time listener of NPR and as someone who enjoys the format of in-depth and calm voiced discussions on a variety of subjects, I was disappointed with their firing of Juan Williams. I don’t often agree with his positions, but as a person, he may just have been the most polite debater FoxNews has hired. Beside his viewpoints, I doubt he as a person could have been disliked by anyone.

When I listen to NPR, I know exactly what I’m getting when I tune into their network and their member stations … and yes, it’s a left leaning point of view, be it politics, books or the environment. At the same time, I also enjoy the less gentle and more argumentative right leaning points of view expressed on FoxNews — many of its programs. I don’t believe there are many fair-minded people who see things any different than me? I’ve secretly wished NPR would hire a few conservative voices to offer opposition to hosts and callers … just as FoxNews hires liberals to express a viewpoint from the left. Sadly, things do not look to be headed in that direction under current management.

It’s hard for me to believe that Williams was fired because of the comments above, yet several other NPR “news analysts” and program hosts offer commentary far more offensive and keep there jobs. I think NPR was gunning for Juan Williams ‘because’ he was ‘on’ FoxNews and saw this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him. Their blunder may just have put the spotlight on their media organization – their colors and stripe are now on full display to the nation. Not only do people see their hypocrisy, but they also saw the 1.8 million dollars in funding given by left wing activist and billionaire George Soros. This might just be enough of a push for taxpayers to say, now why are we still funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? With the deficits where they are, hundreds if not thousands of media choices and skewed management in public broadcast advocating progressive views and outright support for liberal politics in America, now is the time to eliminate funding for this kind of media organization.

Follow-up: Juan Williams landed on his feet and his contract was not only renewed at FoxNews, but according to reports his duties were expanded and he received a significant raise.

Category: News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: juan williams, muslim, npr, opinion

Posted By RichC on October 25, 2010

Since I ran out of time for blogging today, here’s a great photo from a photo contest by the Herald Sun in Australia with the subject being “Reefs.”

Category: Photos | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 24, 2010

Five years? Has it been that long?

Every once in a while I check in with my blog’s Way Back Machine (links to the right) and noticed that “Years ago on this day”  5 years ago hurricane Wilma crossed the southern part of Florida.

Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005

Category: Archive, History, Personal, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: blog, History, my desutory blog, myarchive

Posted By RichC on October 24, 2010

My daughter recently started tracking her 2001 Volkswagen Jetta TDI fuel economy numbers on Fuelly.com and we have both been impress at the significant improvement since replacing her tires. Although she doesn’t have a lifetime of postings for her car, the regular private calculations haven’t been near the 50 mpg mark. She (we) couldn’t be happier with the improvements.

As I’ve shared with friends before, I’d highly recommend considering a small diesel TDI when considering a first car for teenagers, college students or in her case, a medical student trying to stretch her travel dollars. One caveat for those less adept to doing minor maintenance items is to beware that good quality and fair priced independent repair shops for diesel cars are sometimes challenging to find – check with a local TDI group like CinciTDI.com or the larger TDIClub.com. (that reminds me, time to come home for an oil change … and visit with your parents)

Category: Automotive, Biodiesel, Diesel, Volkswagen | 6 Comments »
Tags: diesel, fuel efficiency, fuelly, mpg, tdi, volkswagen, vw

Posted By RichC on October 23, 2010

My friend Jeff and I use a shared folder on Dropbox to send files to each other and this morning he send me a short ‘portrait’ oriented video clip while on his trip to North Carolina. I chuckled when opening the file because by default it is in a “landscape” format (sideways), then wondered how I would encode it vertically?

I’ll give it a try  below …

Category: Misc, Photography, Video | No Comments »
Tags: canon 5d, encoding, jeff, mp4, photography

Posted By RichC on October 23, 2010

DiscoveryNews had an article in MSNBC highlighting an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) call the DEMON which has fewer moving parts and uses “bursts of air” rather than traditional hinged control surfaces in order to control the aircraft. According to engineers and those working on the project, fewer moving parts will make it easier to maintain and could make it more stealthy … besides the BAE Systems images is pretty attractive too.

‘Flapless’ aircraft steered by air bursts

Plane has fewer moving parts, making it less likely to break and easier to maintain

Look Ma, no flaps! Pieces of the wing and tail that move back and forth to help control aircraft, flaps have been used to control flight since the Wright brothers — until now.
Engineers have completed a flapless flight by using bursts of air to control an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) they call DEMON.

The research will lead to UAVs that are safer, more maneuverable and more stealthy.
“To make an aircraft fly and maneuver safely without the use of conventional control surfaces is an achievement,” said John Fielding, DEMON’s chief engineer and a professor at Cranfield University in the United
Kingdom.

The eight-foot DEMON weights 200 pounds and has a maximum speed of 172 miles per hour. Seen from above, the aircraft has a distinctive diamond shape with an elongated nose, a concept known as a blended wing-body configuration.

Most aircraft manipulate their motion and direction with control surfaces found on the tailing edge of the wings and tail. When raised or lowered, air hits those flaps and the aircraft changes direction.

Instead of the traditional flaps along the tailing edge of the wings, the DEMON uses bursts of air to turn one way or another.

A flapless aircraft has fewer moving parts, making it less likely to break and easier to maintain. It could also be more stealthy, since a moving flap could show up on radar.
DEMON’s first flight took place on Sept. 17 at Walney Island in Cumbria. Engineers from BAE Systems as well as Cranfield University, Imperial College, and several other U.K. universities all worked together to complete the flight.

Flapless actuators have been in development for years, said Mark Costello, a professor at Georgia Tech. The biggest benefit of these synthetic jet actuators is that they have no moving parts.

“Moving parts make it harder to maintain and repair (an aircraft),” said Costello. “A solid state device like a synthetic jet actuator means fewer things that can break.”
The DEMON won’t go into commercial production, said BAE in a statement, but the technology used in the UAV will be transferred to other aircraft.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39672627/ns/technology_and_science-science/#

Category: Aviation | No Comments »
Tags: aircraft, airplane, aviation, uav