Charles W. Moore

I am dreaming of sailboats, sunlight, structural integrity of hatches et.al.

One of the biggest deals of our new sailboat is the replacement of the lens of the hatch for many Lewmar hatches.  I called a guy in California to see what he had to say.  A pleasant gentleman, and honest no doubt, said that I would be priced out of the market if I tried to ship them to him to be replaced.  He recommended that I try a much closer place to the boat so that shipping is not an issue.  I did a quick Google search and nothing really impressive popped out of the screen that said  USE ME I AM GOOD so I did send a form inquiry off just to test the waters.

Tomorrow is another day and when I find the right person/company I will edit this thread and add information as it becomes available. Oh Oh, the prices thrown around are significant.

ACR PLB-200 Battery Changeout

A few years ago, too few at the price of new batteries, I bought a Personal Locator Beacon from ACR:  The expiration date of the batteries was 09-2012.  Since we had sold our Inspiration I was not too worried about it and since ACR was charging almost what a new device would cost to replace the batteries I considered it a throwaway device. I opened the device and looked at the batteries and thought I could replace them myself BUT how could I make sure everything was within specification for transmit power, frequency and all the other things like switch activations, etc.

Fast forward to today and I came across the following company that replaces the batteries, does all the system checks and certifications for a “reasonable” price.  I provide the information here as a matter of interest to everyone who has an ACR PLB-200/201 and others who are mariners wanting such a device.  Actually, you could take this PLB along with you if you are going into the deep dark woods, desert, or anywhere you could be in a life threatening situation and want to be found anywhere on earth that has a clear view to the open sky. Current day PLB’s are pretty cheap so if you are an adventurer get one.

The price to replace my batteries is around $135 plus shipping down to him.  The return shipping is paid by them.  Turn around is nominally a week or two.

John Szipszky
Stateside Commercial Marine,Inc.
2854 Stirling Road, Suite K
Hollywood, FL 33020
Ph: 954-926-3665
Fax: 954-926-3664
Monday - Friday 9 AM to 4 PM EST

An afternoon of sailing

After a morning of house type work and a short afternoon nap it looked like the wind was up enough for a sail around Pleasant Lake.  The day was bight and clear except for some cumulus typical for our summer season.  The ripples on the lake were not that encouraging however.  Still, we cast off and motored out in the lake to bend the sails and set up the rigging.  As with any new boat, it takes some time for things to become automatic and we tried a new technique – that was a failure – of hoisting the main sail and then trying to feed the boltrope into the boom later.  That definitely does not work so from now on it will be setting up the boom first  [Things would be a lot easier if she had a topping lift to hold up the boom whilst trying to bend the sails].  Perhaps this winters modifications will add the topping lift.  Another lesson learned is that we need a block on the aft end of the boom to reverse directions so as to pull tight the foot of the main sail.  Trying to do this by had just is too hard whilst you are doing two or three other things to get underway. The sail was leisurely and SAM did a good job of tending the tiller while I fiddled with sails and rigging.  We made several trips around the lake, tacking and jibing a lot, sometimes with good speed and sometimes just barely moving.  It was a good day to experiment and one time a lesson was learned to un-sheet the main immediately and not to wait for an excessive heel to take place :).  That little maneuver was pretty dicey and almost capsized us.  Still we had fun and the motor worked well when we needed it.  We will have the skills to really put her through the paces pretty soon.

Later in the evening, we went to Dairy Queen for a hot fudge/butterscotch sundae.  Man that was good.  It has been some time since I felt comfortable eating ice cream – thank the heavens for Lactose pills to counteract the intolerance to dairy products.  Even now, several hours later, there are no symptoms.

As I write, the time is growing late for me and it is approaching 2330 hrs so I had better wrap this up and get ready for bed.  All-in-all, it was a great day filled with new adventures and lessons learned.  I look forward to tomorrow and all the new things that make life worth while.  The morrow will be Sunday so we will start out with church and the day will end with a gathering of the Alleshouse clan to meet at Scoops for a reunion with Irene’s son Anthony E. Short and family.  We expect most of the Steuben County Family to be there so it should be a fun event.

Well, I will close this missive and say good evening to you all.

Memorial Day 2014

This is the 2nd attempt at the blog!  The first just disappeared and this is not the first time that this has happened but this is the first with no draft backup.  So here we go again. This Memorial Day was under perfect weather conditions.  Temperatures in low 80’s 5-10mph winds and severe clear skies.  Memorial Day in Pleasant Lake is a traditional small town celebration with family and friends.  This year Senator Sue Glick was the Main Event Presentation and officiated by Elton Powers who looked pretty dapper in his suit.  The American Legion Honor Guard made the 21 gun salute and the kids picked up the brass afterwards.  Later, and after the ceremonies our family went to the cemetery where we honored our father and mother.  There are 6 open plots for the rest of their children and spouses.  Who knows but they may be able to get many more than 6 should that be necessary. A & L hosted dinner for the family and we had NY Strip steak along with many goodies made by others.  It was a fun time.  Afterwards, we went down to the beach my sister and I own on the West end of the lake.  The water was refreshing but most took the plunge while SAM and I took out the new little play time sailboat ( American Fiberglass Yellow version).  The wind was about 4 knots and picked up a bit at the East end of the lake.  There was the occasional 8 kt puff that kept things interesting.  After a couple of hours everyone of us old people were getting tired of the sun and wind so we put up the sails for another day.

Bummer & The GoodLuck

We were up early and met sister Ann down at the lake to push the dock into place.  That done we chatted for a while and headed for Angola to do some yard work for Doris. After that we went to the Great Wall for a good lunch time meal and a nap.

Later, we down and assembled the new sailboat for a trial run of adding the sail. Excuse me – I forgot to tell you about the salboat -The American Fiberglass 16′ beautiful saiboat that was given to us by a gentleman near Hillsdale, MI. This boat was is near perfect shape and was beautiful to behold. To add to that it came with a trailer, good sails and a few goodies. It was really in sail-away shape. In our hands it is a loved vessel that will be well cared for and maintained.

Started mowing the lawn but the tractor gave up the ghost – looks like maybe the fuel pump went bad.  It will start if you leave it set for a while.  I’ll try it tomorrow to see if it was a vapor lock.  The gas I used may have been from last winter so I guess this is a possibility. It would be nice if it was.

I am sort of bummed so I will just call it a night and tomorrow will be much better 🙂

Arrived Home Ok

We arrived home yesterday in late afternoon after a long trip from Knoxville.  Theis was a new route for us and is quite nice but more stressful return route through the “Smokies”.  The roads are up and down and twist and turn for several hundred miles, hence, the higher driving stress level.  We left Knoxville North around 0800 and arrived in Dayton to see brother for a few hours.  After the nice visit we drove thru the streets to join on I-75 and then us-33 – OH-127 plus to get to US-30 and then I-69 to home.  It was about a three hour trip.  We were glad to be back home in PL.

This may become our regular route to Green Cove Springs but then again it may be I-75 all the way to I-10 and then eastward to Jacksonville and south.  The I-75 riute is easier since all the mountains are in a bunch at Chattanooga, TN and from there it is smooth sailing.  I like I-75 all the way but Atlanta is a 1 hour pain to endure.   Our route up was via I-95 then to I-26 to I-40 to Knoxville and is a nice trip too.  I guess it depends on the weather.

Con El Viento is ours

Assuming we come up with the cash on-time Con El Viento is ours!  After really tough negotiating and lots of stress for all parties our new boat, an Irwin 43, deal has been accepted by all parties.  There was no celebration party as everyone was tired and wanted to get out of here.  However, we went to the boat this afternoon during the very heavy rain just in time to see one of the little scrubby insect blockers shoot out of the side of the boat.  after that the water came shooting out.  We just watched the gusher and then left when the rain subsided.

Right now there is a big thunderstorm with heavy rain but not a gully washer.  This will be an everyday experience for the remainder of the summer season.  The temperatures right now are great and rolling in at about 80 degrees.  For dinner we had leftovers from last nights celebration at the Outback Crab Shack.  I had crab cakes and SAM had chicken.  We pooled our left overs and tonight it was sufficient for a good meal – our last in Green Cove Springs for a while.

We are packed and ready to go when we wake up tomorrow morning at 0 dark thirty.  We expect to stop at Knoxville North for the evening and will be a 9 hour day expected.  I will sign off for now and return tomorrow, perhaps, if I can get some bandwidth.

Airbus 380 vs Boeing 737

Wow!  Look at the perspective and to think the Airbus is farther away.  Still it is a great airplane picture and I really think about the skies when I am not in the sailing and water mode.

Cool – Man – Cool

Cool weather here – wishing for another month in FL – but the grass is growing and getting greener!  Green is good but longer is bad; however, the tractor has new blades and is ready to go – I think.  The winds have been up around 15 mph with gusts to 30 mph and the breezes cool to positively cold.  I have been wearing my leather jacket and wool shirts.

This will be a very busy two weeks for us.  Each day is filled with multiple events and it makes our heads spin with multiple priorities.  Couple this with new boat activities and you get a sort of tension filled mix of emotions coupled with restless sleep patterns : did I forget to mention a meeting with our tax man on Tuesday?  That makes anyone lose a little sleep and SAM is feeling the brunt of this effort – bless her heart.  I think we are about done with the Quicken software!  This package has become bloated and totally unmanageable by a normal human who is not an accountant.  It asks you a question and if you answer wrong it makes an uninformed decision to add – oh, lets say a hundred or so shares to a totally un-symbol related account.  This is so bogus and we did not notice until this year end.  Wow – we no longer are rich, not even wealthy – and that folks is where all the money came from – double entries on multiple categories on upgrades to the latest version.  Quicken, I really, really hate you so much that you cannot believe .

I will end here since my emotion is spent.  BFN.

I have been fighting a hacking issue at my church. At the same time I have been adding bandwidth and revamping some of the hardware.  Evidently, I have stepped on so toes of (1) malware that is installed on the computer that AVG does recognize, (2) someone behind the firewall deliberately attacking the system or (3) someone really good in China that wants into a machine that contains absolutely nothing of use to them.  Today, I went to the church and found it hacked again with malware installed – some sort of data miner. I went to the uninstall programs and apparently eliminated the threat (This I really do not believe) by uninstalling it.  Then scanned with AVG and reviewed scan and settings. Since I did not have the scan on boot option checked the scan list and found a weird sequence initiated at 10:36 today.. All other scns were where I set them at the wee morning hours: this makes me think that the threat got to AVG. It all started on Friday when I discovered the IT computer totally locked up and sort of trashed.  However, this is not totally true as I think it really started a week earlier when I set in place some draconian bandwidth restriction policies. Someone somewhere did not like that!  Since then we have only been tightening up.  What is happening is probably beyond me and my capabilities  but I guess we need a managed switch.  It is really impossible to implement a complete computer wipe and rebuild as we have a LOT of volunteers who use their own machines.  Couple that with the smartphones and tablets and I think you get the picture: Layer 2 and 3 management on the front end of the LAN. I wish I was gifted with the abilities of the whiz kids in the movies who solve issues like this in minutes 🙂