Random Picture Thread

My first attempt to perform an "Eskimo Roll" in a kayak. Well, at least I made it half way around.

 

just keep swimming, swimming swimming

 

The handling of that cat-kayak will be numb at best.

 

I think we are all mature enough to accept there are different boats for different folks, and different tasks too.

I wouldn't enjoy paddling the cat-kayak just now right after melt-off, my decked kayak keeps my legs out of the wind, but it doesn't have much storage space for fishing stuff. My ultra-light canoe has plenty of space and will move if I sneeze - backwards of course - but I would not like to try landing one of the local fat and frisky rainbows from it. The canoe I am finishing is designed for gunkholing and should be able to turn in its own length with a couple of flips of the paddle, but it's not the boat of choice for a long straight haul across a big lake on a windy day. They're all different.

We all put different emphasis on different things. At 73 and still weakened after a couple of years of debilitating disease with a long name and a nasty cure, I will be favouring my 20 lb canoe for a while until I work myself back into some kind of shape. However, if someone else would handle lugging it around I might like to try the cat-kayak one the water warms up a bit.

As for an outboard, sorry, no motors permitted on local waters!

 

Well stated.

The strong possibility that the cat-yak might be sluggish to turn could be an advantage to a newbie frustrated with keeping a canoe going straight, or a kayak going in the right direction (gone backwards myself). I try to stay open minded until at least one first hand experience.

Going fast on windy waters is not on my criteria. Fishing, stretching and storing stuff is. I have a few sketches for building my own small cat, so this topic is of special interest to me.

http://usaboatreview.com/archives/2009/swath-ships/swath-ships.html


On a larger fishing boat, I'd like to be able to take a pee after my morning coffee, so a cat makes sense there too. My aim and legs are not as good as they used to be.
http://www.launcestonsandblasting.com.au/gallery/13888.html


http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/military-recon-powerboat-concept-15137-5.html

 

Speaking of pontoon boats, back in the 70s, some friends and I came into possession of some Army surplus bridge pontoons. We decided that for an adventure, we would build a sweep boat to navigate down the Salmon River in Idaho. We constructed a steel frame to lash the pontoons to and attach pivots for the sweep oars front and back. Plywood seats and weather tight boxes for stowing cloths and bedding were added along with some large steel surplus ammunition boxes for food and other gear. It was an ugly craft but we made three successful trips down the main fork of the Salmon before we sold the monster to some outfitters who made us a deal we could not refuse.

 

Image of the Canadarm robotic arm created for the Space Shuttle. Following the retirement of the SS fleet the first of the arms to fly in space was installed at the Canada Aviation & Space Museum in Ottawa.

The usual politicians and VIPs were invited but apparently none of the team who built the thing (at my old company) although a few made it on their own dollar. Nonetheless it was a great event for us neglected old farts in particular and Canada as a whole. My own involvement was limited to one small analysis but it was an experience to be present while it was taking shape.

The Canadian astronaut currently on the Space Station was present electronically but our first man in Space was not invited and (being an opposition politician these days) he is creating a huge fuss. As a consequence news space has been given over to the spat rather than providing good images by professionals. Politicans are SO stupid sometimes.

Fortunately we have some images by an amateur here http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinhay/sets/72157633393964573/

You may be wondering where the gripping fingers is on the space robot. Grappling a free floating satellite in Space presents a different challenge to picking up something that is held by gravity: if you tap something it starts to move and spin - at which point you've probably lost it forever. So the Canadarm has a clever wire grapple that does not actually touch a satellite until the precise moment that is captured. One of the images at the above link show it but regretfully I cannot find a video but page 3 of this document shows the principle -

http://resources.scienceworld.ca/pdf/Space%20Science/ExploringSpace_8Canadarm.pdf

 

Yes and had we continued to produce the Avro Arrow it's evolution would have resulted in a Canadian built space shuttle. As it was the Arrow had the capabilities to touch the the enveloppe and we're talking the late 1950's early 60's. Another stupid political move. Our loss was NASA'S gain as the Arrow engineers became some of their top scientists. Please excuse the Gov. of Canada advertisement I don't know how to electronically erase it and erase that I would as these were the so called wise men that killed this beautiful bird.

 

Errors by Canadian politicians don't BEGIN to compare with errors of USA politicians!

Don't you know, we're so arrogant even our SCREWUPS are the best of the lot!

 

With the hindsight of history, canning the Arrow may have been the right thing to do. It was nothing like the Space shuttle BTW. The operational envelope of the Arrow was similar to the UK's English Electric Lightning as I recall, both fairly typical of the era, both were fine aircraft but no ground breakers. Following the ramp-down from a wartime economy, neither country really had the ability of the US to carry forward on all research fronts, despite national pride.

Cancellations of other programs in the UK attracted the same kind of resentment from both the people affected and the media. Canada and UK were duplicating other development work that the US was engaged in, in high-tech areas such as commercial aircraft, computing and submarine detection. Competition is all very well, but rising costs largely put a stop to such duplication.

Although many of the Avro Arrow development team joined NASA, most remained in Canada and many were active in the Canadarm space robot program. I know a lot of them.

Pride can be a destructive force. I watched my first company take on an industrial collossus led by an incredibly ambitious and able man which was swallowing other enterprises in related areas, because the management wanted their company to compete in size and scope. The effort did not succeed. They also declared war on another entrenched competitor, throwing development money around and losing their position in other markets that they were well-placed to dominate.

Many of the employees saw the disaster coming including myself: Eventually they fell victim to the same conglomerate and neither exists today.

Politicians aren't the only folk that can act stupidly.

 

Terry she was far ahead of anything that flew and that was without full testing under her the more powerful Iriquois engines. I think we could have pulled it off when one considers sales to other countries or even some sort of partenership with England or a U.S. company. It's the same old problem we have excellent R&D results but just don't have the population/tax base to carry them thru. Ok I best get off this topic and search for some different random photos. I have many excellent old vessel photos but don't know how to operate the dam computer so they show up physically larger on the screen. I have no problem scanning, transferring to a file and reformatting to 400 by 600 but can't figure out how to make them appear physically bigger on the post. As I have often said my computer skills are not the best but I do know how to make them fly.

 

Vn: as far as I know the images always show at their original size, but if you have the right kind of software application you can change the size, crop etc. before sending the pic. Photoshop will do it of course, but most printers come with a free application that will do all that basic stuff. Not much point in making a pic larger though, it won't get more detailed . . . besides, anybody viewing an image on a browser can change the size and the touch of a mouse. As a general rule I don't change images unless their files are very large - 100K+

 

Thanks Terry, Just that I've always wondered how I could post a larger image, example like those posted on post 5089 prev. page. The next time my computer geek brother in law visits I,m in for some lessons. I have several old books on cape horn square riggers showing full page photos and it would be neat to post as such. Meanwhile i will dig a few up and post in postage stamp

 

Do we want them this big?

 

JA, Ain't everything big in Texas ? --Re the photo, yes but not that big I have to scroll to see the whole photo. How did you do that, is it thru the scanner/printer or the computer photo program.
Our family has a few connections with Texas- My Brother in law lives and works in Sam's city (Houston). The other an interesting story - About 35-40 yrs ago my parents in Newfoundland, received a phone call from a person in Texas tracing their family tree and we were informed we were related to a Robert (Bob)Pike a former member of the Texas Rangers and that his badge and spurs were at the Rangers Museum. We have never followed up on it so this should be an interesting part of our landyacht "Around the Continent" trip coming up in a couple of years. Sad to say time will not allow the Mexico part. Another interesting connection -- During the Civil War/ War Between the States, A Texas regiment fought alongside Gen. Albert Pike in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas . I have been for some time now tracing our family connection with him. Albert origionally being from Mass. and Newfoundland being the first of the "fourteen" New England colonies.