this website has gone ballistic.

Yup, kudos to @Tideland Prius, he's "done something for America".

 

When you get zero alerts on threads you follow, no activity - as though we were all napping - or the zombie apocalypse was underway, you pretty much know things are down ...... again

 

'This website has gone ballistic'... and apparently, unintentionally bunker-busting as well

 

I always send a note on the Facebook “PriusChat” but everything has an “End of Life.” Someday, iPriusChat might not come back and that will be a sad day … or a new beginning.

Bob Wilson

 

I always save anything gen2 and 3 I think may be useful. Most renamed for clarity. I have many gb of such in an easily searchable location.

 

As the cook said in the Gordon Lightfoot song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald:

it’s been good to know you.

 

Worked on a 40-foot commercial fishing boat off the coast of Central California about the time that song came out. It was just myself and the skipper, fishing about 40 miles offshore in 1,100 feet of water for rock fish.

It was a 1950s era diesel with some sort of GM engine IIRC.

Anyway November Santa Ana winds came up, gusting to 70 mph and quickly turned the placid Pacific into a raging monster.

We were O.K. as long as we kept the boat "quartering" into the 30-foot wind waves. That is do not head directly into the waves, but turn the bow about 25 percent to starboard and ride right over them. Luckily, few, if any of the waves were breaking.

All good, until the Jimmy engine quit. I checked out the engine, which included going under the deck -- this was a small boat -- under deck meant on my belly with half-foot to spare from the bottom of the deck. No standing room, just slither on my belly room. We could not figure it out, meanwhile sent a useless mayday. This was an old boat. No radar, no loran or any other aids to navigation except a compass and paper charts.

Knew we were going to die, as all the boat needed to do was to turn broadside to the waves and it would flip over....without an engine it is tough to stay headed bow forward.
The skipper broke out the good whiskey and we toasted to a quick and painless death.

Somehow, we were knocked about mercilessly, but we did put out a sea anchor, which is a parachute-like contraption that more or less helps keep you pointed into the waves. Quartering is better, but...

Well, managed not to sink.

As the seas calmed, Coast Guard found us some 16 hours later.

I have had a couple near-deaths, but none that drug on as that...

Oh, the song Mendel mentioned...it was a big hit at the time and we sang it a few times as we prepared to die.

Do not recall exactly was up with the engine, but bet it was an electrical issue. I worked that boat for several months and it was always electrics wigging out.

 

Wow.

 

Ditto to that... seriously, wow

I've nearly drowned twice (once in 40 ft of water as a 5yo hanging on then not so much, to an inner tube whilst my father spearfished nearby... and saving my brother from drowning in an irrigation reservoir we were fooling about in, which nearly got me too) so have this definite tension around true stories of nearly drowning / dying at sea (grandfather on my mother's side was a fisherman who died at sea)

As for Gordon Lightfoot... 'Beautiful' never fails to calm and brighten my thoughts. Could be because it reminds me of a lot of Hawaiian slack-key guitar songs:

Like this one:

 

I remember the wreck in the news - and the song.
I may or may not have played it aboard a 300' ship that was hove-to for ship's safety in 50-foot seas.
For some reason or other I've not yet been afflicted by sea sicknesses - and indeed when seas get to be really REALLY scary, I find that almost nobody is.
The lizard brain seems to take over and tell you that you have bigger problems!!

Nature in general, and her oceans ESPECIALLY are wrathful to those who disrespect them.

The U.S. Navy Hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" puts it thusly:
"....oh hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea!"

If you're foolish enough to believe that the sea has been tamed by modernity, then I would advise you to stay in port!!

 

Our Navy somewhere around the Philippines steamed forward into a typhoon losing hundreds amongst the 60 ft waves. Iirc 3 battleships among others? Those were the days before weather satellites & doppler radar perfection

 

And nothing of substance was missed.

 

Canada too.

 

Search is still broken since this latest mishap

 

That sea anchor saved your life and kept the waves from rolling your boat. I don't know of very many vessels that still carry one, much less maintain one.
My dad used to repair and maintain the SF PAL boat for free in the mid to late 70s. It was just a wood 30 footer, but we went out with the "at-risk" kids and some single parents, fishing for the day in the bay. We rarely ventured out into the ocean and could always see land, when we did. As you stated, No GPS - Just a compass, radio, and charts.

PS. Radios don't do you any good, if your electrical system is on the frisk..... Most boats in that era relied on a simple automotive CB radio, since that was what was affordable at that time. Not water proof, especially salty sea water. I believe they talked the police maintenance department to donate and install an old wrecked squad car unit, into the boat for emergencies. We used to listen to police communications traffic in between bites....

 

Geez, once again I've sent topic off on a tangent. My super power?

As long as we're in the rough, we've been watching this guy for about 4 years now. The missus happened to stumble on his YouTube channel, the episode where he was setting sail from Los Angeles (~30' sail boat, I believe Canadian made), bound for Hawaii, the first leg of his round-the-world sail. He's currently in Thailand, and the episodes currently being posted Are in Malaysia, where he has the boat "on the hard" for a refit.

He just it the wall on finances, due to knackered inboard (has had 2 rebuilds), dingy (leaky/tattered/done), and sundry. His current girlfriend proposed starting a go-fund-me, which he did with great reluctance, and was swamped with generosity.

 

Yea - it never hurts to have a spare 12v for the transceiver. Dad got training after WWII / how-to on ship/boat 'tube' radio repair pre MOSFET. Picked up the mantle decades later via amateur radio. Maritime frequency emergency channels (iirc) being primarily 156.80mhz - also 156.45 & 156.60 (AKA channels 16, 9 & 12 ..... they're VHF radios). Sometimes referred as the 2 meter band, representing a full wave antenna. CB on the other hand is 11 m radio - which is also divvied up in simplistic terms as channels.
In an emergency tho you operate on any frequency you need to in order to get a hold of someone, fish & game , CB , even military spectrum. Though you can be sure there will be inquiries