Doomsday boat.

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by river runner, Apr 29, 2012.

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  1. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    A little more than a companion, the basics of religion.

    This conversation can not stimulate me , it is nonsense.

    You would need an island like Tom Hanks had, only in the movie no one wanted to find or share his Island where in real life you would be fighting -literally for your life every day. You would not survive
     
  2. WestVanHan
    Joined: Aug 2009
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    WestVanHan Not a Senior Member


    Like I said before,

    "There are places where unlimited food and water are free,and you benefit from both land and sea."

    But you know that already,yet persist:

    I really don't see how you get off thinking you know my waters,area,and food potentials better than I do-having spent months of almost every year of my whole life "up the coast".

    Now it's changed to "without buying anything"? Where does it say one cannot be prepared beforehand...with spares and freeze dried essentials?

    From my semi remote cabin,I can catch several species of salmon, herring, sardines,prawns,dungeness crabs,flounder,rockfish,halibut,etc. from within a short distance.

    I could catch a ton of fish in a short period of time and fill up the smokehouse if I had to. Shoot a moose and there's 500 pounds.
    I caught 140 pounds of halibut in 3 days recently-and could have caught multitudes that but for the 2 fish limit.And 8 dungeness crabs.
    Catching chinook on a regular basis as well.

    With my 53' boat,I can get to even more remote areas within a short time,where no one goes. Just throw in some of the freeze dried buckets of essentials,the tanks are full,take my gear and yes-I could live out longer than 2 years if I had to.
    I've spent up to 3 months away..using little of my stores.

    To paraphrase yourself-

    You have no experience doing this on the BC coast. You're just imagining it from your comfy chair. I've done it. Others have done it. I say it's possible.
     
  3. Jetboy
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Jetboy Senior Member

    I'm firmly in the camp of forming community to protect yourselves. I grew up in rural Montana. We would have no problems whatsoever living on our ranch. We could grow plenty of food and raise cattle, breed horses, and have fresh water. The problem is protecting it. During winter it would be easy. Without plowed roads, no one would come or go without our knowing. During the summer it would be more difficult. The keys would be assembling enough people to run a ranch and to protect it against raiders. Having enough weapons to do so - pretty well covered there - I mean it's Montana. Who doesn't have at least half a dozen guns? And I think animal stock would be critical. We only have 4 horses and don't use them much. Not sure if that's enough. I also think dogs would play a critical role in detection of intruders and protection of stock. We don't have unfixed dogs or enough or the right breeds like irish wolfhounds to protect from the wolves.

    The only way I can see boat life being viable is in places with almost no human population like possibly remote raja ampat. The problems there are things like Malaria. Going north might work. There are a lot of resources along the West coast of north America and very few people. Especially up around Alaska. The problem is how to live through the winter. Anyway I think boat living would be very hard, unless your boat is an aircraft carrier. The further North you go, the better chances of survival you have IMO.

    The 70-80% of the population who've never experienced living in a very rural area would have very high casualty rates. Everyone thinks they can just go out of the city and find some land to occupy - everyone else thinks that too. Just like boats. Every little island will have 1,000 boats trying to make it "home".
     
  4. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    Both Westy and Cat have good points in there own rights. Someone mentioned rabbit being good meet, no way, its so full of bugs most of the year you'd never want to touch it. The rest of the time its so lean you could starve eating nothing but rabbit.

    My personal take is that the coming trials are not survivable no mater where you are. The atmospheric chemistry will change and there will be less oxygen, a lot less, The oceans will be uninhabitable because of noxious gas releases and toxic algae. Land near the water will be just as bad. The life band of the planet will reduce down to a fragment of what it is at present and the edge effect will kill off large portions of the fuana, flora will die off due to shrinking micro-climate and the alterations in the atmospheric chemistry. Land, water, mount Fuji, it won't make a bit of difference.

    Yup there will be a few years of panic, but in the end, very little is likely to survive what we have done to the planet.

    Jet
    your accounting for the social upheaval, but not the cause of the social upheaval. Resource depletion and climate change both look like they will hit about the same time. There has been an exponential increase in climate shift. It took about 150 years to gain 0.75~1°C between 1800 and 1950 and only another 60 to gain another 0.75~1°C since then. Extrapolate that out and you end up with another degree by about 2030 sometime, and again by about 2037 and by 2040 we're likely going to be about 5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the oceans have typically gone aerobically stratified with temps changes of 4°C over 1 million year periods ( <--- High Permian extinction event ). So imagine just how severe the die off will be this time. as well as the resultant changes in atmospheric chemistry. Your ranch might survive the first stages, maybe a few years, ten, maybe fifteen at best. But in the High Permian extinction event, everything down to 2lb died. And we've accelerated the process by about 2000 times.

    There is no escape but to immediately bend the industrial might of the world to combat the issue. Which isn't going to happen, so its eat drink and be merry time. Let some clown named Noah build his boat, its not going to make a **** bit of difference. The IPCC has predicted conservatively, but we're exceeding climate change predictions by leaps and bounds. The oceans can only hold up so long and after that, oxygen stops getting to the abyssal plains and then things die from the bottom up. Its a very well known scenario. All that blue and black shale, all that oil shale and tar sands, is the result of anaerobic stratification
     
  5. BATAAN
    Joined: Apr 2010
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    BATAAN Senior Member

    I'm with Boston on how bad it could get, and we're all screwed.
    But in the case of say, if a very intense series of solar flares fries the control systems dependent on imbedded chips in our computers, phones, cars and warehouses and commerce and traffic grind to a halt, food stops arriving at groceries, water stops coming from many taps and people get hungry and have no information as to what is happening so rumor takes over.
    Then the scared civilians of all social and income classes start looking to see who is going to starve and who isn't.
    Then some decide they're not victims, but survivors, and somehow manage to do so, while others perish.
    In this scenario, fleeing by boat to a place the unban hungry have trouble reaching seems sensible.
    I know that BERTIE is always ready for sea, two weeks food aboard, fuel and water tanks full, just in case.
    As far as surviving by boat, anyplace with a coastal kelp forest is a supermarket, which for me, is anywhere local.
    The NW coast of north America is an easy place to live off the sea and land.
    The natives said "When the tide is out, the table is set."
    Their large canoes were ideal for the survival situation and they grew rich and fat, by banding together in tribes and supporting each other.
    Also their traditions involved raiding for slaves and loot.
    -
    My late father, who survived the Bataan Death March and 3 1/2 years in various Japanese prison camps starting with Cabanatuan and O'Donnell (look them up), told me that the death rate was 38% established by research after the war.
    To him, it meant 4 out of 10 men he was captured with, he had to bury.
    -
    The first to die were the religious ones, because they did nothing waiting to be saved by Sky Daddy but found that prayer won't cure being beaten to death by some bored Japanese Marine with a Bushido complex.
    Then the know-it-alls who always had a smart answer found they didn't have an answer to Beri-Beri and Amoebic and Bacillary Dysentery all at the same time combined with a 500 calorie a day diet so they died next.
    Then the lack of protein caused massive edema, all the body fluids drained from the damaged cells and went downhill and men's feet, legs and ******** grew to massive size and the weak ones grew apathetic and died, drowning in their own fluids because they wouldn't stay on their painful feet.
    And on down the line they died and died and died.
    Of all the nationalities in the camps, British, Australian, Dutch mostly, the Americans were the most ruthless with their lack of cooperation and naked competition with each other, leading to the death of literally thousands.
    The Brits shared food, Americans hoarded and sold it, even establishing a 'futures' market in the rice needed to survive day to day, where you could gamble away your future meals and literally starve to death among your 'friends'.
    At one point my dad was weighed on the rice scales and he weighed 40 kilos, but he didn't die, because he was a tough son of a ***** and always figured out how to solve the actual problem in front of him, not what might happen tomorrow.
    He traded a dead man's boots for a can of fish from a Filipino through the wire at night and got enough protein to cure the edema.
    He ate carbon off the rice kettles and cured the dysentery.
    He learned to speak Japanese and be a coal miner and blasted huge coal faces far underground for years.
    At camp Fukuoka 17 he was in the coal mine under Nagasaki Bay when the A-Bomb went off.
    He was a survivor and lived to 86.
    I got a lot of my attitude from him and I don't apologize for it.
    It ain't what you got, it's 'what you bring to the game'.
    End rant.
     

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  6. viking north
    Joined: Dec 2010
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    viking north VINLAND

    So be it, Old Viking the well experienced, fisherman/hunter/gardener/ with a years supply of food socked away ahead of time can't survived up there in his Newfoundland wilderness stomping grounds. A way of life and a place where his ancestors acomplished such for the past 400yrs. You guys keep that mindset and if this flight of fantasy ever occurs there'll be less coming for my food. :)
    With that I'll sign off the thread, with the opinion that survival on a boat at sea would not work however a small boat from land would be an assett. Common sense dictates survival of course is based upon the level of experience, attitude and the challenge we have to face. I.E. force 10 in a 16ft canoe mid atlantic is just not reasonable but f--k ya gotta try.
     
  7. viking north
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    viking north VINLAND

    Well put Battan and my highest respects to your dad --and the other servicemen allied involved===
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2012
  8. whitepointer23

    whitepointer23 Previous Member

    :
    now that makes sense. what sort of boat would coyote have for the end. i am thinking something very fast , possibly with acme rocket propulsion and a giant desk fan for the sails. also some sort of baking apparatus for when he does catch the roadrunner. :D:D
     
  9. river runner
    Joined: Jul 2011
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    Location: Colorado

    river runner baker

    short term, non-lethal

    I'm of the school of thought that this would probably be a fairly short term situation. Less than a year before some sort of order is restored. Maybe as short as a few weeks. I agree that forming a comunity would be a good way to handle the situation, but I'm not sure how this would work if one of these scenarios really happened. If you went to your neighbors to talk about it before things got bad, they might ask the FBI to have a talk with you. If you wait till things are already bad, it might be too late.
    Most preppers spend a lot of time and money on lethal forms of defense. I'm not sure they are considering the consequences when order is restored. The relatives of the people you shoot are going to want justice. Maybe you felt like it was you or them, but you may end up having to convince a jury. Yes, you will want guns, but avoidance should be your first line of defense. There is safety in numbers, but I'm still not sure how well that would come together when the doo doo hits the fan.
    Another thing to consider is this might be a localized event, and by localized I mean just this country or North America. Airports and train stations won't be running, traveling by car won't be an option. You might want to get to France (Ugg!). If you had enough forsight to get to your cruising sailboat, this might be all you need.
     
  10. FAST FRED
    Joined: Oct 2002
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    Location: Conn in summers , Ortona FL in winter , with big d

    FAST FRED Senior Member

    "But in the case of say, if a very intense series of solar flares fries the control systems dependent on imbedded chips in our computers, phones, cars and warehouses and commerce and traffic grind to a halt, food stops arriving at groceries, water stops coming from many taps and people get hungry and have no information as to what is happening so rumor takes over."

    A more likely scenario is N Korea or Iran pop a nuke in orbit.

    Poof 1850 again.

    Have your sextant ,wind up chronometer and almanack and lead line aboard .

    Or going somewhere will be a problem. Electric charts? Ho Ho Ho.

    FF
     
  11. DStaal
    Joined: Apr 2012
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    DStaal Junior Member

    I think it might be worth defining what type of disaster we are preparing for; different disasters would give different plans.

    The current rage seems to be zombie/plague planning. I'd expect in that case mass deaths, but infrastructure/government would stay largely intact. There'd be shortages, rationing, and a reduction of choice, but GPS, radio, navigation aids, would all keep working, and you'd be able to buy most fuels. (If the mass deaths go over something around 60% of the population, this may be only short term however.) In this case, I'd want a modern boat, and I'd want to go just stay at sea for as long as possible: Eventually the situation on land would stabilize, as the plague ran it's course. My main concern is not getting infected; once the population stabilizes (and treatment/containment protocols have been developed), I'm heading back in to help.

    There's also the massive nuclear war scenario: Massive deaths, massive damage to infrastructure/government, but not likely to be total in either case. Expect GPS and radio to still work; though you may not be able to get supplies or parts. I'd want a older-style sailing ship, and I'd head south; Antarctica for preference. (Though there are several choices to countries that are not likely to be involved in the war.) Let the circumpolar currents keep the fallout away from you. When winter comes, head back north a bit, and start trading, and finding where civilization still exists.

    Then there's the EMP/solar flare scenario: No direct deaths, but infrastructure is gone. The government/military will still be in place though, and will probably act fairly quickly. (If somewhat disconnected.) The only working electronics will be stuff that's either extremely simple, or stuff that's been hardened. (Mostly military.) Expect famine, starvation, and disease to follow. I'd want a classic sailing ship, and don't rely on electric anything. Probably the best choice then is to head to the main shipping lanes, and see if you can stumble across any major cargo ships. Offer to get the crew to land, for as much of the cargo as you can carry. (Note: They may actually still have engine power, although they wouldn't have navigation or steering...) Mark the ship's location, and repeat process; basically take over the 'job' of shipping, which will be desperately needed. Your actual main concern is avoiding being commandeered by a government someplace.
     
  12. portacruise
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    portacruise Senior Member

    Where is your location as regards the Exxon spill, and also more recently, the Japanese debris washing up on shore? Saw a Harley motorcycle washed up on shore somewhere on Canadian coast, could come in handy for parts that haven't corroded. Might not be too good for the food supply though, have to head for fresh water out lets or land for sustinance...

    P.

     
  13. BATAAN
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    BATAAN Senior Member

    The Israelis now say the Iranians are too sensible to be stupid with nuclear weapons.
    The NK seem to not be able to build a working large missile and their last Nuke test was a 'fizzle', where it didn't work completely.
    So those scenarios, while within reason, are not likely any time soon.
    The Iranians are not dumb, just saddled with a religious leadership that tends to see everything as black and white, and know quite well the capabilities of US and Israel to smack them.
    The NKs are stuck with the Kim line at the moment, but their situation cannot go on forever. Someone will become sane there someday, surely, and bring it all down.
    Sextant, H.O. 208 (no almanac needed) and log are aboard.
    I could use new charts since some of mine are WW2 vintage so might be a bit out of date.
     
  14. GTO
    Joined: Jul 2007
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    GTO Senior Member

    I've given Bataan negative rep for insulting the service men who died in that horrific war.

    I suggest others do too.
     

  15. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    As usual when disagreement comes up (think reverse bows thread) we are talking about two different things. You are talking about living aboard for 2 years. Easily done. I go entire seasons like that, though you still have to buy things for a boat to keep it afloat.

    Zinc anodes??

    I'm talking survival, as in what a "survivalist" does. Start naked, with no food, no water, no clothing and no shelter. Survive indefinitely based on your survival skills alone. No outside help. That is survival.

    Your scenario is more like going camping. I would agree that anyone can live on a boat a couple years if they prepare for it. What can't be done is long term, self sufficient survival. That can only be done on land. So, I agree. 2 years on a boat? No big deal.

    Heck, you could even enjoy martinis each evening and watch some videos. Your food is already aboard. You can kick back and grill a fish you catch with the rod you bought before you left.

    All completely possible and easy, I agree. This, however, is not survival.


    Two completely different situations.


     
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