Hi Keith,
I just finished perusing your electricboating Google site, and I have to say that we are very likely going to become _extremely_ good friends (whether you like it or not, at least until I'm served with the restraining order :) I found your site very informative and precisely aligned with my preference for wise-guy humor - the more, the better! I'm still wearing a Jack-Nicholson-as-The-Joker grin from ear to ear after reading of your trials and tribulations. I can't get over to meet you soon enough!
It's too bad that we didn't get acquainted sooner - I could have saved you a _lot_ of grief with some of the things you discovered. Then again, we best learn the things that are seared into our minds (if not also our fingers and other appendages) by painful experiences. I could also have caused you a lot of (potentially more) grief by getting you into advanced trouble by introducing you to some engineering concepts that we "real" engineers are sworn to keep secret from the general public, lest they become educated and, hence, dangerous (mostly because we then couldn't continue to overcharge them for the highly experimental nature of our services that must be obfuscated at all costs, lest we confirm their suspicions). Oops, I think the other professionals monitoring the site have just called up a relative of Tony Soprano to have me meet wid da fishes for some nappy time. I am hereby invoking the Bart Simpson Defense: "I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! You can't prove a thing!" ;)
Your comment on tides is spot-on and, having been both a sailboater in many locations around the U.S. and the rest of the planet for the past four decades, and an amphibious assault planner during one of the many phases of my Navy career, I am extremely well-aware of the importance of tides and currents. I got to pull into Inchon, South Korea, aboard a Navy ship, and holy cow, talk about tides - the brow moved vertically about 30 feet in just one afternoon! Now I understand how we were able to surprise the north Koreans (those whom have been to South Korea in the military will understand the capitalization) during the assault at Inchon - nobody in their right mind would have attempted sailing ships of any size into that area without knowing full-well that they would likely never leave intact. Then again, the world has had to repeatedly relearn the lesson that we are not exactly in our right minds here! :) When I moved my Ranger 29 over to Oakland from Fort Mason this past Wednesday, I timed it to occur during the peak flood time, as I only have an extremely-cut storm mainsail and haven't received the jib from the guy I bought the boat from, yet (we had to get the boat out of the Marina East Basin adjacent to Fort Mason ASAP, as they're about to start demolishing docks in the East Basin to make way for the spiffy new ones that will be built in advance of the Americas Cup races to be held in September 2013).
It's a good thing I did use the tide, as the air was pretty light and, as it was, it took all my skills of jibing on beam-to-broad reaches to get into the Oakland Harbor Channel, and not be swept right by the 2A buoy en route the mud flats in Alviso! When I passed under the West Span of the Bay Bridge, I had no choice as to which side of the Easternmost bridge tower I was going to pass - the current was about four knots, bouncing off Treasure/Yerba Buena Islands, and taking me to the West of the tower - right into the shipping channel, where what meager wind there was just died or eddied due to the islands, the bridge towers/center-pylon, and the concrete-and-hills canyonland known as North-of-Market in downtown San Francisco. Thankfully, the container ships going in and out of Oakland that afternoon happened to be passing under the bridge just before and after my exercise in driftology occurred. It sure would have been nice to have _any_ kind of drive system then!
Let me know via a direct reply to my Yahoo jim_ranger_26 user account (via the pop-down menu next to the To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com when you do a reply to this message from the Group web site) when you're generally available. My schedule is pretty open, except Thursdays around noon or around 3 PM (lately, it's been noon) and Fridays after noon - I'm often coming from the Monterey area, so, it can take a couple of hours to get to AT&T Park. I volunteer as a senior docent and restoration engineer at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on occasional Saturdays and Sundays until about 3 PM, and that puts me the closest to you (well, your boat), although it would be no trouble to set aside a dedicated day/evening to meet with you.
I'm publishing this schedule info so that other locals will know when we might also meet, pair-wise or group-wise. If there are particular boating events (or any other public events, for that matter) which you plan to attend in the future, that would also be good to know among us locals. I believe it was Ben Franklin who said, "We must hang together, or we will most certainly hang separately.", or words to that effect that a Google search would confirm, but, I'm too lazy to spend the minute it would take to perform!
Anywaaaay, Bravo Zulu on the site, and I'm really looking forward to meeting you. Now, off to follow the many excellent links on your pages!
All the Best,
Jim
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "aweekdaysailor" <aweekdaysailor@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> I converted a 30' '78 Hunter, and sail SF bay. Details here:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/electricboating/
>
> Solar is pretty much a waste of money unless you can cover every square inch of your deck (otoh, you can probably go off-grid with a wind-genny in our area - I did the math once, and if you go out 1/week it works).
>
> Pay close attention to the section on tides :) It's like the Marines..."No better friend; no greater enemy"
>
> -Keith
> (p.s. PM me if you want to go out some time and see what it's like)
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