David H Sorenson writes: >Our new >president is proposing a cap and trade carbon tax which will likely >triple fuel prices when enacted. I know that initially the congress has >drug its feet on this. But I fear it is inevitable. $8+ a gallon fuel is >coming. Just for fun, I compared the cost of fuel to the cost of maintaining my boat for the past 5 years (I track all of my expenses in Quicken, so it's pretty easy). Fuel costs were roughly 5% of overall expenses. Now, if I cruised full time I am sure they would be higher, but I'll bet even Dave Cooper's are still not more than 15 or 20 percent, and he's underway most of the time. I also remember a professional sailmaker on the list here who detailed quite convincingly that it was cheaper for him to run a trawler than to maintain a sailboat. What I'm saying is that this appears to be une herring rouge, as they say in France. And if you really want to be efficient and are considering a sailboat, slow your trawler down to sailboat speeds. At 6 knots (which is a VERY high average speed for a sailboat) I'm doing 1100 RPM and burning about 3 GPH, and that's for a 100,000 pound boat. Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration Solutions Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

R C Smith Jr writes: >Come on Scott, are you saying that $8 diesel is okay? Yes, I am. Indeed, within our lifetime we can certainly expect that it will go much higher than that. >Your hourly fuel cost >becomes $24...Annapolis to Miami will be $4,000 (or $12,000 for me). And >the only reason is a 300% tax? Haven't we seen enough disruptive and >expensive government regulation? (Speaking strictly from a trawlering >prospective, of course.) Then (a) don't go from Annapolis to Miami or (b) get a more efficient boat. In any event, my point was that fuel is a very small component of the overall cost of owning any boat. Even at triple the price (which for me would be about $9.00 per US gallon) fuel would still represent less than 15% of my overall expenses. This is not even taking into account any depreciation, which further adds to the total cost of ownership, nor is it taking into account the opportunity cost of keeping six or seven figures tied up in a depreciating asset instead of an appreciating investment. The long and short of it that choosing to own a boat (especially a boat of the type we on this list own) is a wholly irrational decision. We do it because we *want* to, not because it makes economic sense. Scott Welch 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

Mike Maurice writes: >Old wooden boats are project boats. I could give you an almost endless >list of issues that an old Pacemaker of that vintage most likely still has. What he said. Wooden boats are very special, and I own one myself. But they are not a bargain. Production boats such as Pacemaker and Chris Craft have the added problem is that they were not particularly robustly built in the first place. Not a slight in any way, but understand that they were not built to last 40 or 50 years. Finally, assume that everything you hear about the boat is untrue. In my particular case, I spent two full days surveying the boat myself, plus another full day with a very good, very experienced wooden boat surveyor, and even with that we *still* found hidden problems that cost many, many tens of thousand of dollars to fix. Now, in fairness, I don't think the sellers misled me, they had only owned the boat for about 2 years and it was obvious that some of the coverups were older than that. But the cost to fix still came out of my pocket. If you really want a good wooden boat, get one that is already restored. Like these two: http://tinyurl.com/c2xt9a http://tinyurl.com/c7e4st Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration Solutions Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

"Rich Gano" writes: >There are wooden boats built like 1960s vintage Fords (found on road dead), >and there are wooden boats built like brick outhouses. I happen to be >bouncing around the Gulf of Mexico amongst all these wood-eating organisms >in a boat built to last. > >I have been aboard old wooden boats built for the short-term enjoyment of >the masses, and they scare me to death. What he said. Everyone contemplating a large wooden boat should read this (no cheating, go all the way to the end). http://www.elvica.com/hull_repair.htm Now do one of two things: Estimate the number of hours consumed and multiply by about $80, to get the cost of having someone else do the labor for you. Or estimate the number of hours consumed and divide by 2000, to get the number of years you would have to work FULL TIME to do the job yourself. Scott Welch 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

"MARY FOX" writes: >Carry you engine/equipment manuals/parts catalogues: Many (most in fact) of the products I have on board have PDF versions of the manuals available. For more recent products these are often available from the manufacturer's web site, while in the case of obsolete products scanned versions of old manuals may be found at various user-support sites. I have been hard at work collecting these and I keep them on my main computer as well as on the backup laptop. It's very, very helpful. I've also found that lots of manufacturers and suppliers (Depco Pumps comes to mind, see http://www.depcopump.com/catalog110/Catalog110full.zip) have their entire catalogs available for download as PDF. These can be very, very helpful to have on board. Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration Solutions Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

Jim Ague writes: >But to keep this on the topic of 'Trawler', why is it that the Supremes find >it OK to do unWarranted searches of water homes, but not OK to do the same >to land homes? Well, the quick answer is because that's what the government decided about 220 years ago. From a recent Supreme Court decision (http://supreme.justia.com/us/462/579/index.html): "Although no Act of Congress can authorize a violation of the Constitution, in 1790, in a lineal ancestor to B' 1581(a), the First Congress clearly authorized the suspicionless boarding of vessels by Government officers, reflecting its view that such boardings are not contrary to the Fourth Amendment, which was promulgated by the same Congress. " It sort of makes sense, because the main sources of government revenue in those days were duties and excise taxes. They wanted the ability to check ships for smuggling without having to get a warrant, which was rather difficult in the days before radio. Hence the name of the early Coast Guard ships, "Revenue Cutters". The other thing that is very interesting is that the US Coast Guard has the right to board any US flagged vessel *anywhere in the world* without a warrant. P.S. I'm not American, nor am I a lawyer. But I do like trivia :-) Scott Welch 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

Mike Maurice writes: >There is no problem with having a shutoff in the return line... unless >you leave it in the off position when attempting to run the engine. How >you prevent that from EVER happening is the tricky part. I faced the exact same problem on Island Eagle. My fuel return lines are about 8" below the top of the tank, and if I ever needed to work on the return lines with the tanks full I'll need the ability to close them off. So, I installed two ball valves right at the tank. Then I made sure that they were both open. Then I put a big label saying "These valves to be left open at all times". And then (here's the important part) I removed the handles and put on on a hook in the engine room. Voila. If I really need to turn off the return, I grab a handle, slip it over the valve stem, and turn it off. The rest of the time, the valves are open because there's no way to close them. Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration and Social Media Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

Here's a picture: http://www.islandeagle.net/systems/fuel#fuelreturn Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration and Social Media Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden

tbehan6468@aol.com writes: >I know that runoff from farm areas and lawns causes problems due to all the >fertilizer that is picked up and deposited in our?rivers and oceans - thus >promoting plant growth (not always good)?but don't all green plants MAKE >oxygen - A good thing ? Have a look at the Eutrophication entry in Wikipedia, it's pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication Scott Welch Product Manager, Open Text Collaboration and Social Media Group www.opentext.com 905 762 6101 "Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." - John Wooden