Not So Fancy Gadgets

[webcraft]

OK, imagine your boat costs less than £20,0000 with all the gear for world cruising, and there's just you and your partner going.

Forget the radar, genset, expensive watermaker etc. etc. You are poor but determined, and you are going cruising. You have the basics - sails, liferaft, radio, windvane, autohelm, safety gear etc etc, and you mysteriously have £1000 to spend on desirables/luxuries.

What great cheap gadgets and luxuries would you recommend that you could buy with your £1000?

Here's a wee list to start:

- LED headtorch with 70 hour battery life £30.00

- MP3 CD Player + 300 albums £150

- Good multitool eg leatherman wave £90.00

- Mast ladder £300

- Pressure cooker £30.00

- Decent compass binoculars £150

- World Band radio plus year's subscription £180

- Four bottles of single malt whisky - £70

That's my £1000 - how would you spend yours?


<font color=blue>Nick</font color=blue> -

BlueMoment.Com
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[Twister_Ken]

Add

Carpet slippers
Hot water bottles
Nice pillows
REALLY good clothing system

 

[phanakapan]

laser treatment or contact lenses for my eyesight-just how do other people manage with glasses?

 

[Jacket]

i)A couple of bikes (mountain bikes if you have a big forepeak, folding otherwise. They really extend your range ashore, allowing you to get a lot more out of the places you visit. I'm just trying to work out what I can get rid of on my boat inorder to make room for a bike.

ii)Lots of good reading books.

iii)Lots of decent Bitter, for when you get fed up of the fizzy cats pee they sell in the rest of the world.

 

[Guest]

Laser treatment... maybe, although the stories I've heard about it affecting night vision seem rather worrying (some patients complain that pinpoint light sources appear with a large 'corona' after surgery - not ideal). And not reverseable, so any problems, you're stuck with...

Contact lenses... I don't think they give good enough vision in comparison to a good pair of specs. I'm tempted to wear them in extremely wet weather though, but not for racing as eyeballing racing cans at a distance is not a job that my contact lenses help with very much.

So for me, a good pair of glasses, and a good pair of prescription sunglasses.

Mike

 

[Twister_Ken]

Contact fan

Au contraire - the only time I wear contact lenses is sailing (and at the barbers). Not only does it save all that squinting through salt encrusted glass/plastic, but it also does away with the worry of losing or breaking specs. It also means you can wear 'cheap' sunglasses.

I've never had any acuity problems with them - things are just as clear as with my normal specs - and a lot more so in foul weather. FWIW, I use daily disposables, so no nonsense about sterilising them which is a difficult routine on a small boat.

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Contact fan

Me too, I see much better through contact lenses than specs. Until recently I wore them 18 hours per day for the past 20 years or so, including for swimming, surfing and canoeing. And I always open my eyes under water. Only lost two in all that time, both surfing in very big waves.

 

[sailbadthesinner]

Re: Contact fan

were these hard or soft
i can have hard but frankly it is the fact that i would forget to take them out before diving in and was told i would lose them and get grit in between lene and eye. so have struggled alternating between sunnies and specs
last pair of oakley sunnies cost 260 quid tho and the lenses have had to be re fixed twice which is ok in uk but in the med not so good

Come on brain.get this over and i can go back to killing you with beer

 

[jimi]

Re: Contact fan

Have you tried the daily disposable ones? I use them and generally find them pretty good. They have the advantage that if they start to irritate the eye you can just get rid of them and you do'nt need to bother with cleaning etc

 

[sailbadthesinner]

Re: Contact fan

i have astigmatism so was told i could not have daily disposables as i needed a hard lens
i was told there was a sort of in between gas premeable?
but my optician said give those a couple of years before they get them right and THEN try them.


it is just a pain esp if you have sunnies. i have me glasses in an oilies pocket and then hear a crack as bend over a winch or lean against companionway in heavy sea. worst moment was i just pushed sunnies back and walked to loo
straight into ladies loo.


Come on brain.get this over and i can go back to killing you with beer

 

[pugwash]

One for each eye ?

Sorrry Webcraft, your interesting question has been hijacked!

About contacts. Happened to meet one of the country's top eye specialists the other day who sails on the Solent. I pooh-poohed the idea of contacts for sailing because I need bifocals. He said: That's easy. Use one eye for long-distance and one-eye for chart-work, fitting the appropriate contacts. The brain adjusts somewhere between the two and if you need to see more clearly just close the appropriate eye. Not ideal but certainly good enough for crossing the Channel, he said.

 

[Guest]

Re: One for each eye ?

Hijacked indeed.

One for each eye though... very piratical!

I have an slight (+1) astigmatism, so daily disposables are merely an approximation of my prescription. I find my vision is OK with them, but I'd not really be happy skippering at night or navigating when racing with them in. They're good for playing 5-a-side in the rain, but for sailing I'd rather wipe my glasses before squinting at the horizon.

Pre-scription sunnies are also a problem, as my prescription is slightly too high powered for wrap-around Oakleys (boo hoo). I'm investigating the possibility of some Rudy Project wraparounds at the moment, although this will mean ordering them in the states sadly.

There's one other possibility I've heard of which is contact lenses that you wear when sleeping... these squish the cornea back into the right shape, so you have normal vision without the bother of glasses or contacts during the day...

Hmm...

 

[pugwash]

Re: One for each eye ?

Yes, astigmatism is a right b...d! I'm the same as you, but also (I suspect) more ancient so short-sightedness is getting worse, hence the bifocals. There's a couple of things you can get -- I bought a spray by mail order and a cake of wax-like stuff over the counter in Canada -- which are intended to stop your glasses fogging up (critical in Canada) and have the side-effect of making the lenses more slippery so you can virtually (not quite) shake the water off. And you don't get those awful smeary wipe-marks. This makes a huge difference.

 

[pugwash]

Which brings us back....

...to Webcraft's question. A thousand-quid to spend? Well, I'd spend some of it on good binoculars, wide angle so I can see through them easily while wearing glasses.

 

[phanakapan]

Re: Which brings us back....

Sorry about the hijack- but it is the one thing that would improve my sailing experience 100%- oh and heated socks for winter-and a bloke do to the cooking. Can you get one of those for 1000 quid?

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Contact fan

I've always worn soft. At one time I had some that were slightly larger diameter than standard to help them stay in under water but later I realised that this was probably not necessary anyway. Surface tension is quite powerful!

Later I went to high water content type, still soft, for even greater comfort, not that the others were uncomfortable but the optician reckoned I would be better with more oxygen reaching gthe eye, in view of wearing them all my waking hours.

There are many old wives tales about getting grit under the lens. I have worked in deserts on several occasions, been in a couple of sandstorms, spent most of my weekends and holidays on beaches for years, and never had a problem. Just the same as no lenses at all, really.

 

[pugwash]

A bloke, not a nymphette? NM....

x

 

[Ohdrat]

Re: Maybe....

Phanakapan is hetero.. check out her profile lol

 

[webcraft]

Re: Hijacked

Hmmm . . .

Wonder what would have happened if I'd started a thread about glasses v. contacts v. Lasik . . .

Probably have ended up as a thread about pets on board or French marinas.

Could this be a new sport for the long Winter evenings?

<font color=blue>Nick</font color=blue> -

BlueMoment.Com
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[LadyInBed]

A fitted sprung mattress and if there is anything left over as much of my favourite amber sprit as the remainder will buy.