Crazy sinking-but-not-sinking boat

I just want to make sure that I publish a new blog entry this year, it has been a real struggle to come up with new material. We have hardly sailed at all, because for the first time in eight years we missed our Maine trip. Click on the link below to see more about this craft.


Man Overboard! The Artistic, Globe-Trotting Sinking Ship | Gadgets, Science & Technology

Ocracoke Land Sailing

I've been around watching Paul ( http://paulandpiper.blogspot.com/ ) get his bike car converted to a sailcar, and that has led to great fun zipping around town on this head-turning creation. When the first fall winds started gusting through town, Paul called me and invited me out to the Hank Anderson Park west of Carrboro.

Paul heads down the bike lane on North Greensboro Street.



Carrboro is a bicycle friendly town, with great bike lanes. Too bad more trucks don't occasionally take out the overhead branches. The mast rig on the bike car is 13 feet tall, and it does brush a few branches, but his clearance beats some of the taller trucks, so they do a pretty good job pruning the industrial way.

A short video I shot Of Paul Van Ness sailing his homemade Bike Car in the Carrboro park parking lot.



YouTube - Sailing the VanNess BikeCar



Later we took the rig to Ocracoke Island and had the length of the island and a stiff breeze to propel us.



Finally, we took out the stops and had a tear down this narrow dock at the coast guard station.

Another significant flood on the Haw River in North Carolina

A winter storm passed through central North Carolina January 30th, dropping 5 inches of snow and sleet onto saturated ground. Heavy rains fell throughout the following week, capped by almost 2 inches on Friday February 5th. Between the heavy, steady rain and the thawing snow, a massive runoff was created. The Haw rose throughout the night and my crew and I headed out for a gander at the spectacle the following morning. We drove to the old highway bridge at Bynum, which is now a pedestrian bridge.

A 30-second video of a log racing downstream and nearly crashing into another large tree jammed into the bridge piling.



We went to the 15-501/Haw River Bridge and heard the thunderous roar of the water dropping 12 feet over the dam, which is several hundred feet wide there. Mark, Jennifer and I continued our flood sightseeing by driving northwest along the Haw to land owned by my friend David near Saxapahaw. A short hike led us to this view of the dam.



Mark owns a small parcel of land that includes a remarkable old mill house, built in the 1920's to provide electricity to a textile mill in Swepsonville, NC. His neighbors driveway crosses a bridge over a small creek, which had flooded, leaving them isolated. Fortunately they have a small boat to shuttle to the main road.

The river was flowing over a much higher wingwall. From inside the mill, we could peer out the window and see the raging current covering all the land normally in sight.


Inside the mill, the turbine openings in the floor were filled with brown flood waters almost to the floor level. Normally, these two pits are scary, dark, deep holes. On this day, they are two kiddy pools, only 15 feet deep!



Sunday, I drove out to my land on the Haw to take a look, and could easily observe the flood level by the debris hanging 3-4 feet up in the trees. My canoes were safely tied and the deck fared well, too.

Top stories of 2009: No. 1, Bismarck Dinius acquitted in boat crash case

The following case pitted a law enforcement officer against a sailboat captain, Bismarck Dinius, who was run over from behind, killing one of his crew. One interpretation is that the lawman was protected by zealous prosecution of the sailboat captain on the basis of his being drunk at the time of the crash.

LINK : Lake County News | California - Top stories of 2009: No. 1, Bismarck Dinius acquitted in boat crash case

Hobie Cat Graveyard

in Virginia Beach at 84th St.







Greetings! Back from another road trip, this time to Virginia Beach to visit my parents. Jennifer and I went for a walk on the beach to beach-comb after the massive nor'easter associated with Tropical Depression Ida in November. It lasted for days and destroyed bulkheads, houses, roads and beaches. It caused leaks at my folks beachfront house, but since they rent, the stress was low.

As we strolled toward Cape Henry, we watched cargo ships departing the Chesapeake Bay. On the way back, we strolled the strand line looking for things cast up by the tide. Here we found the Hobie Cat graveyard.

Hobie Cats are a common sight on the beach, and frequently become partially buried in the drifting sand over the winter, but these boats seemed mostly abandoned. Here, a red-hulled Hobie 16 actually has grass growing on top of the trampoline. A security-minded kayak owner is using the Hobie as a tie-down for his yellow craft.





This Hobie has been cannibalized for her trampoline, but I think the thiefs just wanted the metal, since the tramp fabric has been discarded between the hulls.



This Prindle seems intact save the rudder connector has been stolen, and the mast is missing. It seems like the missing mast could be a fatal problem.




Another Hobie 16 missing rudder parts and mast. It takes a real dirtbag to steal a mast for the money the metal would bring. It's no different than stealing an AC unit from a house, ruining a 2000 dollar unit for $40 worth of copper. It's kind of heartbreaking to see these boats left by trusting owners be stripped.




This yellow boat seems like the most beloved boat, with a complete set of parts, mast, lines, and a hula girl on the port hull. The owners should go sailing real soon.

East Saint Louis Bricks

Thanksgiving in the St. Louis area.


Jennifer's folks live in the Southern Illinois/ St. Louis area, so we made a roadtrip to visit. I wanted to get a closer look at the Mississippi River and the economically challenged town of ESL (pop. 30,000) on the east bank. We had to trespass railroad property and hop the floodwall to even see the river. Once over the wall, we saw that the river bank was littered with bricks of all description, so I photographed a few.

















These curious items were on the beach; I think they look like dolphin skeletons. They in fact are insulators for high voltage lines overhead. They had a date of 1983 stencilled on each grey disc.

Annual Haw River Flood

Jennifer and I took a few days to drive up to Paul's dad's place way up high on Bluff Mountain in Ashe County near the corner of NC, VA, and TN this week. As we departed, a terrific windstorm formerly known as Ida swept over NC, dropping loads of rain. We scooted far enough west to avoid the worst, but the rain filled the Haw River basin.

I saw the river crossing under NC 54 as we returned from the mountains to our area, and I decided to visit the parcel that I own along the Haw in Orange County. The river overflows its banks about once a year. Below, Jennifer views the Haw covering the canoe access near NC 54 in Alamance County





Jennifer drove me to the property, and I called Mark to have him join me and see the spectacle. I reached the water's edge and saw that the river was much wider than normal, covering much of the field stretching away from the river. My canoes were far out in the stream, but I needed a boat to tour the flood. I stripped down my clothes and waded out to the nearest canoe, finding it overturned and floating on top of a wooden staircase that allows access to the river in low water. The canoe was tied to an 8X8 deck, which in turn was tied to another canoe stretching downstream at the length of its painter. When I untied the upstream canoe, the deck and other canoe began to drift downstream through the trees. Fortunately, the deck became lodged between two trees, and the second upturned canoe was fast to the deck. I drained my canoe and began scouting around by boat.




Below, the Haw covers the road, leaving behind well-combed grass as it drops somewhat from its maximum flow.




The flood waters were well into the forest, with myriad bugs and spiders above the waterline. By and by, Mark marched down out of the woods (the road was impassable due to a foot diameter tree down). He and I embarked and went out to see the fast-flowing main stream of the Haw, and I pointed out the deck and second canoe in the woods, far from the clearing where I had placed them initially. We went and secured the extra canoe to a tree, and then attempted to tow the deck upstream while it floated in three or four feet of water. Amazingly, this worked, until we got the deck posts entangled in the stairs, which were floating at the end of an anchor line. I decided to go ahead and get wet, and was able to disentangle the lines and manually push the deck back upstream while Mark belayed the deck and me. We retied the deck to very near where it had originally been, and then cracked a well-deserved beer in celebration. When the river drops to within its banks, mud will coat the grass, debris will hang from the trees, parts of the bank may have slipped away, but the deck and all three boats were saved.



Above, a view of my wooden stairs floating just outside of the swift main flow of the Haw River


Below, Mark braces the canoe, with the deck secured behind him in the customary location.