Nugland

but they remembered, roughly, what they’re supposed to do.

The mainmast in the picture on the left has been removed from that painting (it was crooked), but these two fellows looks pretty good to me. Especially considering how rusty I felt while executing them.

Back to work tomorrow, but there’ll be a little time after to add to these.

A note: these are small test paintings, 5″ by 7″.

I’m going to start painting again — pictures of boats, not the boat itself.

I went on the Googles and found a dearth of yacht portrait painters, so I figure that with a little work on a portfolio, I might be able to cover some sailing expenses (as low as they look like they’ll be) with a commission here and there.

For now I’ll be experimenting with some techniques on a small scale, and I’m researching the history of marine paintings (no need to reinvent the wheel).

This will end a 20 year stretch of no oil painting; wow.

UPDATE: it’s official -

UPDATE II: Painful, but rewarding, I guess.

My nephew Ivo now prefers a more formal look. He will still rock a pirate outfit (among others), but seems happiest in suits. Kids today.

Christmas was fun, and I got a ton of swag for the boat. Now I have to deal with our office moving, and then some more moving; updates to follow eventually.

The mice had gotten to the Loy’s lovely mainsail cover, but they had some extra Sunbrella™ that matched them stashed away. I was able to sew some patches on with my trusty Kenmore 1946 Zig-Zag sewing machine. Not exactly beautiful, but it does the trick.

The Shrill One explains why I’ve been kinda’ bummed out lately in a new must-read blog post. Let’s hope that his hopes are not in vain.

‘Sailing the Centennial’ is a pretty wonkish little piece on, well, sailing the Centennial. More informational than entertaining, but I’ll update it as I learn more.

I put up a page of ideas for people who sail in the ‘Pages’ area (links to the right, or here). It’s a ‘Page’ because I plan on updating it as new stuff occurs to me. Enjoy?

We got down to the marina on Sunday and were able to button the Centennial up for the winter.

The Loys had provided a nice tent sort of thing to cover the cockpit. It should keep snow and rain from causing too much trouble for us.

Barely pictured in the right of the above image is the catamaran “Recess” out of Ann Arbor (go figure). My parents figure that she’s probably owned by one of their teaching colleagues. She’s about the same length as Centennial, but over twenty feet wide (by my guess). Kind of intimidating, really.

Here’s a pic of my budget GPS Chartplotter. $300 from eBay. It runs Windows 2K on a ruggedized Pentium III 500 tablet computer left over from some Department of Fish and Wildlife survey or another. (It’s a WalkAbout HH [Hammer Head] 3, FWIW.)

It has a GPS receiver and runs SeaClear GPS chartplotter software well enough. I could easily add a USB DVD reader and some speakers, and that would turn it into the Centennial’s entertainment center as well.

We took the boat out of the water last Sunday, which went well. My parents came out to help, which was their first chance to see her in person. I think they liked her (they certainly said all sorts of nice things).

We only managed to take her out once all year, but that was OK. The real accomplishment was to get everything set up and tested in anticipation of lots of sailing next year (I now know that there is nothing important that needs to be fixed before next season, which is a great feeling).

That said, there is a lot I’d like to accomplish:

• Replace the tragic deck hatch with a small dog-house. This would allow one to stand up after using the biffy to pull one’s trousers up without banging one’s head.

The existing hatch was a very simply constructed one that was, I’m guessing, intended as a place-holder back in 1980. It was never replaced. A dog-house would also make a nice little seat on the deck while underway.

• Replace the porta-potty with a Lavac head — and plumb it in the Great Lakes-legal manner.

This would lower the head seat-height to a normal level, and the Lavac commodes have a reputation for not being smelly (they seal up completely when closed).

• Fix the Shipmate heater. Sadly, it clogged up the last time we used it (and, sadly, we needed it that night). Should be do-able.

So, the wingnut rump of the Republican party seems to want to expel all the old-school Republicans, and they like to call them RINOs (Republicans In Name Only).

What should people call the non-RINO Republicans? Well, according to my friend Mark Best, the answer is:

BLOND PIGs

Bullies, Liars, Obstructionists and Nuts Driving the Party Into the Grave.

Nicely done, says I.

Centennial spent all of its prior life on a mooring, which made shore power hook-ups semi-irrelevant. Slips (with power included) are remarkably affordable and convenient at Meinke’s on Lake Erie, so I added shore power. Pretty cheaply, I must add.

The inlet you see above was less than $60 from eBay, and the inside bits were all off-the-shelf home equipment that I got cheap at Stadium Hardware.

The main trick I pulled was to use a 20 amp GFCI outlet on the inside (the cord and the plug are rated for 30 amps, so I was conservative). Them are the outlets you see in people’s bathrooms, the ones with a circuit breaker built-in, which makes sense on a boat. I got the one with an LED light that indicates if the breaker has tripped, which should be nice.

We also got the shrouds (the wires that support the masts) all correctly tensioned and ’safetied’ (meaning: I put clips on them so they don’t unwind themselves) as well.

The cord will arrive this week.

Yeah, I think we got it sorted out. What you will need:

• A big onion. You’ve seen ‘em at the store.
• Besan (gram- or chickpea-flour). This is what South Asians make Pakora and Bhajis from.
• Flour. Plain ol’ white flour, please.
• Amchur. (Powdered dried green mango.) This is the magic ingredient. Full of Umami
• Salt
• Pepper




• A deep fat fryer. Totally worth 50 or 60 bucks. I love mine (and don’t even have a microwave). Don’t mess around on the stove-top, you might burn the house down.
• Lard. Seriously, this is the stuff to fry with. Doesn’t break down, doesn’t soak in to your fritters. Canola oil is a passable substitute for the squeamish.

The procedure

A note on quantities: These are estimates; don’t be too fussy. Think in ratios, and remember: cooking was invented way before the metric system.

Get a one-gallon plastic bag and put in about a cup of Besan and a half-cup of flour. Add, oh, a tablespoon of Amchur and salt and pepper to taste (no, don’t actually taste this mix, just add what seems right).

Peel and halve the onion (from root to tip). Then lay it flat on a cutting board and slice thin (1/4 inch or less) half-rings.

A note on onion slicing: Full-ring onion rings look better, but are a hassle to slice and fry. Don’t bother with them.

Put the sliced onions directly into the bag-o-flour mix (they start ’sweating’ immediately) and shake.

Heat up the oil; continue to shake the onions occasionally while it comes up to heat (use the heat setting your fryer recommends for stuff like this).

Remove the onions from the mix and fry them up in batches as appropriate for the size of your fryer. You might shake the onions in a strainer before putting them in the fryer (to get rid of excess mix). Hint: let them get darker than you think they need to be — the oil makes them look more cooked than they are.

Use tongs or a wire dipper to remove them and put them into a colander. Maybe add a little salt? (You can taste them now.)

Serve.

Enjoy.

Remember: Onions are really good for you. This is an honest vegetable side-dish with starch added. Also suitable as an appetizer.

Jo and I went down to Meinke’s on Friday night. We checked out my wiring job (all the lights work correctly!) and sacked out on board.

This morning (Saturday) we got up, made breakfast, and motored out onto Lake Erie and hoisted sail. We were able to do all the things we tried. Neat-O!

We sailed up wind, we tacked back and forth on a beat, we sailed on a broad reach, we dropped the main and sailed some more, we put the main back up (with a reef), we sailed down wind (wing-and-wing, even, for a bit), we found the marina again, and we were able to dock! With a minimum of either drama or comedy, even.

There is a steep learning curve, what as the Centennial is not a member of the Tupperware™ Fleet, but we’re good enough at it already to, oh, escape from zombies anyway.

Good times. In my circle, we observe ‘Talk Like A Pirate Day’ a little differently.

More pics here (from my camera) and here (Jo’s iPhone pics).

Click the above if you want to show Centennial Pride at the Stop&Shop. Or wherever it is that you buy your necessities. All profits go to CafePress.

We got the last sail — the main — on today, and we took a crack at hooking up the mast-head lights (won’t know if that worked until we are down there in the dark, but it feels correct).

Sailing next weekend? Looks like it.

There was light wind — and that right on the Centennial’s nose — so I was able to get the Mizzen put on (’bent’) today. The lazy-jacks seemed to work OK, and the sail cover was easy to get on.

Don’t know if I’ll be sailing on Saturday, but we’re darn close.

Gives a good idea of scale.

This was an iPhone snap; I toned it a little.

As Mark Best tells us, it is every boat-owners dream to get their boat in the water before Labor Day.

And not taking on any water (as far as I can tell). (There’s a boat across the channel, a little powerboat, that has a bilge pump that kicks off every five or ten minutes; Centennial is drier than that, for sures, anyway.)

Sam and I got quite the ride getting her from the launching slip to B-106 where you see her now. She is a complete pig under power. Learning to handle her in a marina is going to be, er, entertaining. A concerned (and experienced) boater jumped aboard when I was struggling and took the helm. He did about as poorly as I had been doing (which, secretly, made me feel a little better). We did get her berthed eventually. I did lose a shoe (!) fending off of a dock (and that was a dock an entire channel away from B-106), but I have lots of shoes.

Poor Jo had to cool her heels on the dock while we suffered. We couldn’t even hear her advice.

Back tomorrow to putz around with the sails. Very happy.