I posted this not because I think anyone is interested in My vacations. I know some who like the sea and the rocky hills. I know some who like ships, boats  and rocky coast lines.    All of us like a lobster or two. We slept in a canvas Camper and picked blue berries from a sea side  field. We rose with the sun to eat our fill of blueberry pancakes.  The four of us hiked the trails and set talking beside the rocky coast.  We  witnessed  the  power of a raging  Atlantic and felt is power through our rocky perch. We Watched the gentle  rise and fall of a restive Sea.   It was the best of times.

Low Cost Voyaging

This video is dedicated to the many of us that spend so much money and labor in the interest Low Cost Voyaging. Busters struggles failures and successes so much remind some of my own I had to laugh. I laughed not so much at Buster but at myself! But then that is what good comedy is all about . So to all would be Low Cost Voyagers I say, If you can't laugh at this Stay home. Doug

The Dream of Every Young and Old Sailor

We'll here it is!  The dream of every young and old sailor. To find himself on an Island of beautiful and innocent you ladies. That's the dream that crewed the ships of England and the world. The only thing wrong with this video is the girls aren't naked and they forgot the two G's.  Girls and gold!   The plight of the poor sailor who was so ill used as to be too tired to swim away, was only hinted at.  The Gold nowhere to be seen!    I remember seeing this in the movies probably in the 1940's.  Doug

The Moron Brothers

Now here's some fellers that knows a little sumpin about messin around on the water. Play a little music, sing a little, fish some and fry'em. Then they eats'em. Not a one of'm knows nothen about catch and release. I'd Guess! They don't worry none  about runin lights. They poops in a pot and I bet the throw it in the woods.  No water pollution worries for them??   From the looks of the shanty they built I bet it took a dozen cases of beer to make her as crooked as she looks.   Then theres a guy in a little push boat boat with an outboard on her. She ain' got no numbers on her, so I bet she ain't registerd with no inland game and fisheries.   Can't say I blame them not for not signen up with some body named Inland Game and Fisheries.  Heck they ain't inland they's on the water. Any way's!

Kate 2 Sailing

Now here's as fine a lass  as every plied the waters of the Piankitank river in Virginia. A fine mistress she is and not demanding of the pocket book either. She is the same Kate I show  under Construction here.  This long video turned out to be sadly brief due to a camera malfunction.  Since the whole taping thing was impromptu we were lucky to get what we did, I guess.  We had almost no breeze and I found myself pleasantly surprised and bragging of her light air speed and agility. She moved so easily in such light air that I came to the conclusion that she has no need of a motor. Only in a dead calm, would one be considered and with no wind to row against a few splashes of an oar will get you home in good time. There is not an ounce of ballast aboard her and yet as in the video a crew member scrambles forward without just a hint of heeling from his weight out on the gunnel. Stiff indeed! If there was ever a boat that don't need a motor it's Kate.
  She has been a joy to me from the moment I tacked her plans to the side of my  shed and drew her first lines on wood.  Kate is of the design Elver,from  the drawing board of Steve Redmond who is online. Thanks Steve.

Sailing Ships and sailing Men

As a boy in the 1930's, I knew sailors. Most came home and swore off sailing ships for ever.

Drawn to a wild Baltimore waterfront life, they blew their wages on booze, women and gambling. They were shanghaied or signed onto a ship just to have a home for a time. It was not the sea they were drawn to, but instead, family.

A man, known to do his share high up on the yard arms, had respect.

On land, they were lowly and even tramps. Upon the sea, each a respected seamen! To stand his watch, furl canvas in rain and sleet then lend a hand on the bitter end of a sheet, a new boy on board rose to man and mate.

Good people these, though not in a way most of us would recognise.

Among us modern sailboat sailors we may swagger and tell of hanging on with one hand and reefing a flogging sail with the other.

You could with effort, drag the same story from these square rig sailors, though they wouldn't say they were high in the air above mountainous waves reefing and tying as they rounded the notorious capes, driven by snowy squalls. To be 200 ft in the air in gale winds with a sails snapping and booming making every attempt to throw the watch to deck. Cut from heavy cloth, these men who worked, lived and died at sea.

A seaman I knew and was influenced by, was a Mr. Outabridge who fell from the main yard cracking his skull. He supervise the repair of it and inspired the character Doc in the Novel, Of Mooncursers and Other Spun Yarns By Douglas G. Pollard Sr. on sale @ Lulu.com .

My mothers brother Talmage Williams right after World War one was shanghaied aboard a sailing ship in to the far east. After a two year stint when his ship had not made a U.S. Port. He signed aboard a steam ship to Baltimore. Left in port at Tripoli where he had gotten drunk and spent a couple weeks in jail for getting into a bar room brawl. That was his last duty under sail. Arriving home he lost his seaman's papers for a year for jumping ship. During world war two he stayed at sea almost constantly. He made the one and only Mermanske run through the North Sea hauling gasoline. They were close on the German coast and suffered bombings for several days. Talmage said they watched ships burning in the distance every night and all hands fully expected to die on that trip. It was by luck that they  never heard wine of diving German Stuka dive Bombers.

To find men like this today you have to look to our men fighting on the sands of the middle east. So, every Generation has it's men.

vacume quater

Vacuum quatuor from SHIROPPO STUDIO on Vimeo.
Taken from Vimeo