Articles
Venturing: Drink Up!
ORANJESTAD, ARUBA -It’s fitting that this island community’s electricity and water plants are next door to one another. Pipes bring seawater into an oil-fired generating station where it’s boiled and converted to steam to run electrical turbines. Cooled, re-liquefied without its salt content and then filtered through coral sand, the steam becomes fresh water that’s
Modern technology used to save designs of old boats
Despite great interest in wood boatbuilding as a form of craftsmanship, it’s a sad fact that the number of older boats, including many built of wood, is declining as these vessels age or fall into disuse. Relatively few classic yachts, old workboats and small craft are preserved, sometimes by conversion to new uses; most older
Headed East: Roger F. Duncan 1917-2010
Guidebook writers have something in common with composers of music: their work, if it’s good enough, is destined to be heard aloud. Roger F. Duncan, who died May 15, will forever be identified with The Cruising Guide to the New England Coast-and I suspect that generations of cruising sailors will recall hearing Roger’s words read
Venturing: Fitting Out
It’s spring, and although I’m fond of pointing out that we might still have a blizzard (it’s April; we could), my confidence level is high enough to get me started on the boat. Easter is past, Daylight Saving Time is here, the buds are progressing and the grass is getting green. Ducks are building nests
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
New York: Vintage Books, 2005 Soft cover, $15.95 Lost and found Sometimes things get lost. Take the 12,000 pages of detailed records left behind by the Dutch when they turned their Manhattan colony (modern-day New York City) over to the British in 1664. Like similar records in, say, some Maine town office, the papers sat
Journey of a Hope Merchant: From Apartheid to the Elite World of Solo Yacht Racing
University of South Carolina Press Hardcover, 201 pages, $24.99 Making those dreams come true This is a book about dreams and dreamers. It’s the story of a young mixed-race South African, Neal Petersen, who aspires to become a yacht-racing sailor. As dreams go, this one was particularly implausible at a time when non-white South Africans
Venturing: Wood that has history
Up the street in my town a group of guys is merrily taking apart an old building. The windows and the siding are already gone; the sheathing boards and the frame are on their way. Everything is being carefully sorted-wide boards of any value in a neat pile, other boards and lots of two-by-fours in
Venturing: Techno kids
The maritime world was once known for its salty knowledge, passed down through the generations. Old sailors taught younger ones how to tie knots, about the mysteries of dead reckoning, ways to find where you are in the fog, how to predict the weather. There’s loads of lore about sailing, navigating, safety, maintenance-all, in the
Column
There’s an old “Bert and I” sketch involving a tourist who wants to go to Millinocket. The native tries out a few answers involving roads that “turn to dirt now and then,” and finally gives up: “Milllinocket-come to think of it, you can’t get there from here.” These days, if you want to get there,
Venturing: Good neighbors, high water
An article in the Times-Picayune reminds us yet again of change on a waterfront. While I was in New Orleans in early November, the newspaper reported that the New Orleans City Council had approved a zoning change to allow the creation of a new park along the Mississippi River, in a downtown district that has