my weblog - [editor@h2onotes.com]

The General Aeroplane Co. hangar at the Detroit Motor Boat Club. The location south of Riverside St. just west of Alter Road on the Detroit River. This picture taken after successful flight testing, in May of 1916. The altered lighthouse still stands, the barn, hangar and house area is now a trailer park.

Indignation spread through the online sailing community when word got out that the U.S. Coast Guard planned to make anyone on a boat shorter than 21 feet wear a personal flotation device full-time. As usual on the Internet, the story got way ahead of itself, but the Coast Guard had in fact floated the idea to the National Boating Safety Advisory Council, which suggested looking instead at how to get people in small boats to wear the PFDs they're already carrying. So an industry workshop devoted to the topic will be held at the Miami Boat Show, Feb. 13th.

But no regulation has been written yet, and even if it were, it would be a very long process, says Jim Muldoon, a past president of US SAILING who has chaired the NBSAC for five years. That's good news, because we're already making progress toward safer sailboat racing without an unnecessary and onerous new regulation.   more...

photo by Tom Verbeke

Well we have survived days with too little wind (sub 2 knots), days with too much wind (30+ knots) and everyone still had some great sailing.  Fall is the best.  With the last race scheduled for October 30, 2004 the Fall Series at Great Lakes Yacht Club looks to be another success.

The race for overall first place in the PHRF Class 1 goes to the winner of the last race with Epic and Pterodactyl tied in points after 4 races. PHRF Class 2 has been dominated by the Santana 35’s with VMAX in the lead. Clifford BRD has sailed a steady and clean series to lead the JAM Class.

The final race of the season is Oct. 30 come in costume to vie for the coveted “Jack O’ Lantern” of fame and the best Costume Flag. Race results, pictures and overall standings are posted at http://www.greatlakesyc.com/racing.html

-- Tom Verbeke GLYC 2004 Race Chair  

photo by Tom Verbeke

It's hard to pin point exactly what it is about a well varnished piece of wood that strikes the chord of beauty in us that it does. Part of it might be the wood itself, a piece of teak or mahogany from half way around the world shaped by a knowledgeable hand some decades ago, the way the grain flows, or the glint of the sun off the wood and the varnish, the union of natural and man made elements; something protected, yet still on display for all to see.

Whatever the poetry existant in varnished marine hardwoods, there is no shortcut on the long journey to the point where you can wistfully gaze at it. As with so many other boat projects, the magic is all in the prep work. Our 1964 boat has had varnished mahogany cabin top for its long life, and after our time cruising in the strong light of the tropics followed by the abrupt and time compressed transition to shore side living, varnish concerns fell to the bottom of the list. The 10 coats of varnish we'd been religious about keeping up with while cruising eventually started chipping and peeling away, leaving bare wood. It was time for a varnish intervention.  more...

October is when monster walleyes go gangbusters. Try these five deadly tactics to cash in on the feeding frenzy this fall.

Don’t be in a rush to put your walleye tackle into winter storage just yet. Sure, the fishing has been hit-or-miss lately—it always is when summer languishes before giving way to autumn. But some of the year’s best fishing for heavyweight walleyes lies just ahead. Stay with it a few more weeks and you won’t regret it. Walleyes are about to go on a feeding binge.

No fishermen are more attuned to the fall walleye blitz than tournament anglers who participate in annual championship events at season’s end. A championship victory is a career-maker, and these guys take the challenge seriously. They’ve tried every trick to put them in touch with big fall walleyes. They can tell the great techniques from the mediocre ones and have refined methods that will produce on your favorite walleye waters, from small rivers to the Great Lakes.    more...

The fact that a wild trout will nab a bit of baloney and occasionally something as ridiculous as a cigarette filter drifted into its lie is mostly ignored by hatch-matching anglers. But it ought to tell you something. The inimitable Lee Wulff once wrote, “I’ve taken trout with dandelion heads, blueberries and little wild strawberries. They’ll chase pennies and dimes as they sink… Maybe they thought blueberries were beetles, the strawberries salmon eggs. Maybe they just didn’t give a damn.”

On top of that, what can drive seriously observant anglers to strong adult beverages is a trout’s confounding penchant to take a hard lure or natural bait that has nothing to do with what’s hatching from the water or falling from the sky.   more...

Taking trout during the spawn requires a whole new set of angling skills. The rules that governed late-summer trouting have changed.

If trout can be called voracious in spring, they might best be described as meddlesome in fall. Whether it's the spawning urge raging in brook and brown trout, or the drive in rainbows to pack on some winter insulation, these fish are operating under new compulsions, and none of them is polite.

The rules that governed late-summer trouting have changed. The same shortened hours of sunlight inspiring the fall foliage on the mountainsides are going to keep the fish in the game all day long as they begin to spawn. This is not to say that water levels and temperatures are unimportant, but the priorities of the trout are shifting, and your methods need to change as well.   more...

After an angry Great Lakes storm, a friend of mine found his boat parked on a sandbar. It had to be lifted by a crane, and then hauled to the boatyard for inspection and repair. The salvage and towing tab was several thousand dollars. But his regular boat insurance policy and special towing coverage teamed up to foot the entire bill. Needless to say, he's never late with a towing policy payment now.

So, who should have towing coverage? First, look at your boat insurance policy. Typically, it includes towing and assistance coverage with a limit of $500 or so.

That may be plenty for a small boat on inland lakes or near ports. But it isn't enough if you have a big-ticket problem offshore. That's when a towing policy from one of the following companies might be a good idea.   more...

This is a taxing time for boaters. April 15 looms, and for some of us, boating weather is still several weeks off. The IRS can't blame us for sharpening our pencils and figuring how to minimize one (taxes) while maximizing the other (boating).

The taxman lets you deduct qualified interest paid for your home in your itemized deductions. Same for your second home, and that home can float.

Mortgage interest is pretty straightforward as a tax write-off. It counts as long as the money is used to buy, fix or refinance the home (boat).

For the interest deduction, here's what you have to do:   more...

No boater wants to be upside down at trade-up time. Bankers call it "negative equity" -- owing more on a loan than the financed item is worth at that point. But it's common in this industry, and that can make it tough to trade in your boat for something bigger. Here's how to test whether you're financially ready to trade up:

First, on graph paper, record with a dot the balance you owe at the beginning of each year. (Your lender can provide this information, as can many online planners.) The balance declines slowly at first, and then plummets as each payment pays more principal and less interest.

Next, use an X on the graph to estimate the boat's value at the end of each year. Where the X and dot cross each other is when the boat is worth more than you owe. You want to reach this point, at least, before trading.   more...

KALKASKA, Mich. (AP) — Dennis Iott has scooped up another load of potatoes, the bulky harvesting machine spewing dust as it rumbles back and forth. Now he leaps to the ground and activates a computer-operated system to water an adjacent field of rye.

Normally there's no need to irrigate this late in the year, but the fall has been unusually dry. Fortunately for Iott, groundwater is plentiful here in rural northwestern Michigan, even when rain is scarce.

"We can't grow our crop without irrigation," says the 48-year-old farmer, who grows seed potatoes for other operations that supply potato chip factories. "It's not a question of making them look pretty. It's a question of survival."   more...

A group of community leaders wants Syracuse to become the first city in the United States to cool its downtown buildings with lake water, saving millions of dollars in energy costs.

The naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario's bottom would be pumped to Syracuse, used to remove heat from air conditioning systems in public and private buildings, and recycled into Onondaga Lake.

An intended bonus: Millions of gallons of clean, oxygen-rich water from Lake Ontario would help speed the cleanup of Onondaga Lake, one of the nation's most polluted bodies of water.   more...

As a result, the plan has remained stuck in neutral.   more...

A Toronto researcher says most communities are underestimating a potential source of cheap electricity - raw sewage.

University of Toronto professor David Bagley collected waste water at a North Toronto water treatment plant. He took the sewage into his lab, dried it and then burned the solids to see how much energy they produced. He estimates the energy produced from sewage at three treatment plants could produce more than 100 megawatts of electricity. That could be enough to keep a small town going for a year. But Bagley says few take advantage of this resource.

"Our measurements show that there's enough energy that we should be able to completely offset the electricity needed to run the plant, and have extra left over the send back to to the grid."

Bagley finds communities are reluctant to invest in the equipment they'd need to convert sewage into power. But he's hoping to to design a cheaper and more efficient system so more people can get the most out of their sewage.

David Bagley's report, "Experimental Determination of Energy Content of Unknown Organics in Municipal Wastewater Streams"

National Geographic on using bacteria from sewage to produce electricity

The U.S. Department of Energy has more on renewable and alternative energy sources