Recent content by newtothis

Well, if you read back through the 39,000 pages of the Steel Boats thread from a few years back, you'll understand why.

A former colleague worked on tankers. He said he'd seen welded deck fitting come off in those sorts of conditions. You won't need to worry about shortening your mast; the wind will take care of that for you.

Laundromat 20?

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

On an offshore race with a biggish crew, we did three on, three off, three standby (usually railmeat or cooking for the on watch). Felt hard initially but after a day it's natural. And you got nine hours sleep in every 24, which is more than I usually get on land.

Hermes/Evri: "Hold my beer."

There is some great post-war cycle touring footage on YouTube of people riding in suits/ties too. My old man (born 1930s) wore a tie or cravat till his dying day. Athleisurewear wasn't really a thing back then.

But as Pete Goss showed with Oddity, you can make modern gaff rigger without making it an ersatz copy of something that should be helmed by someone wearing a smock and a Breton cap.

There's nothing naffer than a plastic gaffer :p

The Anderson 22 was a classic before the first one even launched.

A bit simplistic. https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/company/press/releases/2022/08/welcome-aboard---60-new-apprentices-start-at-hapag-lloyd.html

A mixture of both. For Filipino crew and eastern European officers, the pay - while low by our standards - is high compared to what they could make at home. You're not going to get an awful lot of western 20-somethings signing up for the deep-sea trades on foreign-owned ships, but there are...

I wasn't criticising them for rabidly sticking to the terms of their contract in the face of a customer telling them they couldn't attend because their father had died 12,000 miles away. I was criticising them for for thinking that it was good business practice to stiff a customer that would...

They never had the use of the cycle, as it was mine. They organise an own-bike group tour that had c.130 people on it. Sure, keep the non-refundable deposit, and any reasonable expenses, but to take the full amount, including its profit margin, under the circumstances, means they've lost my...