Super Snark Sailboat - Aft port view

I just bought this sailboat, an 11′ Super Snark. I’ve wanted to learn to sail for a few years—this seemed like the perfect sailboat with which to start. It is purportedly unsinkable and very stable. The ABS clad EPS foam hull certainly seems very durable and indeed, could not possibly sink even if completely swamped.

I had it out for the first time this weekend and had a fantastic time. This was my very first time sailing, but I found the boat quite easy to handle – the basic sailing instructions I’ve read were enough to get me underway with this small sailboat. With a little ‘effort’ I was even able to capsize the Super Snark and shortly thereafter learn how easy it is to right this boat. I’ll save the details of that story for another time.

After the first trip out I realized that all the wood parts – rudder, tiller, keel, transom – needed some attention. The marine plywood rudder was delaminating, and though it would be simple to cut a new one, I thought it might be worthwhile to repair it. After gluing and clamping the rudder in several places, I sanded and varnished all of the wood parts.

I also plan on painting the outside of the hull – navy blue. I’ll keep the white gunwhale and medium blue bumper as is. This motif should work nicely with then existing blue-white-blue-white striped sail and equally well with an Egyptian cotton colored sail I’d like to have.

Super Snark Links

• CastleCraft Repair Tips for Snark Sailboats
• CastleCraft Super Snark Sailboat Parts
• Snark Sailboats Group on Yahoo! – Membership required
• How to Sail a Boat – wikiHow
  [This article is short and to the point. I think it's worth a read if you are new to sailing.]
• Grog’s Boating Knots Index [Note: start with the figure eight and bowline knots.]

Want a New Snark Sailboat?

I was surprised to learn that Snark sailboats are still being made – not only the Super Snark, but also the Sea Skimmer, Sunflower, and others. If you don’t have the time or inclination to repair an older boat, a shiny new Snark is still a relatively affordable way to start sailing. Here are a few links to the best prices available through Amazon.

Rigging the Super Snark

Super Snark sail: detail of head grommet and stay

More Snark Upgrades

Splash Deck – I am planning to sail in the bay at Stone Harbor, New Jersey in late September. It can get choppy there – and while the summer boat traffic will have diminished I have yet to deal with the wake of a decent sized powerboat. The splash deck covers the area of the otherwise open hull from the mast step forward to the bow, shedding water the boat might take on from chop and wake. Coming over the bow. I am nearing completion of a wooden splash deck and I am excited about my design and the results. I will post photos and detail soon.
Boom Vang – Provide downward tension on the boom for better sail shape and to minimize ‘bounce’. Use the free end of the halyard through the gooseneck of the boom and back to the cleat.

Traveller – create a bridle using a short length of line between the two screw eyes on the inside of the transom, leaving enough slack in the line to come up and over the tiller with clearance. Thread a small block on the bridle before fastening the line on the eyes. Then the tack end of the main sheet is secured to the dead eye of the block allowing the tack to travel along the bridle.

Telltales

Tiller Tamer – Loop a short bungee cord around the tiller and connect to the screw eyes on the inside of the transom. This should exert just enoungh tension on the tiller to bring the rudder back to center when the tiller is released.

Daggerboard Retainer – attach on or two screw eyes into a small plywood plate on the stern end of the daggerboard trunk. From these eyes, run a bungee cord around the aft edge of the daggerboard. Pulling on the bungee allows the daggerboard to be raised or lowered – releasing it should hold the board in any vertical position.

Kickup Rudder – Design and make a two-piece rudder to replace the old one-piece rudder, allowing for easy beaching of the sailboat.

1. I’m trying out the free version of GPS Log for the iPhone. A nice App that lets you record GPS coordinates, notes, and photos, then export them to a variety of formats, notably kml, the format used by Google Maps.
2. Just installed the GeoTag plug-in for WordPress (which is the CMS that drives this site). This post is the first one I’ve tagged with GeoTag. The plug-in allows you to tag any post or page with gps info via google earth or direct entry of coordinates. It provides fully customizable google earth maps on the public facing post or page. GeoTag will also read a kml/kmz file at whatever URL you provide.
3. Fire up the Magellan handheld GPS. Since my iPhone is a first generation model, it has no built-in GPS receiver, and so uses cellular triangulation to obtain a position. Fortunately, GPS Log (iPhone App) allows direct editing of the rough coordinates, so I can correct them based on another sample taken with the Magellan GPS. In the field I will probably just mark the Point-of-Interest on the GPS, then later match it up with the iPhone records. Yes, this is kludgy; but it’s the best solution I can think of until I throw down for a new iPhone.

Some ideas and requirements:

The solution must be lightweight, compact, and require as little fumbling with devices possible. The iPhone is ideal in this regard, but that I will also need a separate gps.

I think the info I gather, along with some commentary, will be good fodder for some future letterpress work.

GPS Log exports kml and gpx via email, or to GPS Log’s servers. What would be even better is interfacing directly with WordPress on my web server.

I like to think of a pond as a model of nature…

Although generally considered a hobby, model-making is also a skilled craft requiring study and practice to master. As with any craft, there are numerous principles, rules of thumb, and tricks of the trade one learns to become proficient at modeling. While I only dabble in model-making, I have learned that some of the principles and techniques of the model maker can be used to one’s advantage in designing and building a successful, aesthetically satisfying pond.

For example, in model railroading there is the principle of selective compression, which refers to the process of selectively ignoring uninteresting or redundant features found in a model’s subject as a means of reducing spatial requirements and at the same time emphasizing the most interesting features in the model . In nature, the features we perceive are often, though not always, quite large in scale. However, on closer inspection, these natural features are composed of certain recognizable details that are repeated, or that are bound together by larger, more simple figures/shapes. By carefully modeling small concentrations of details, we are free to compress larger shapes and distances into much less space, while still finding them pleasing, or ‘convincing’.

Thinking of a pond as a model of nature does not preclude the possibility of deep integration with architecture or architectural hardscaping. On the contrary, it creates an opportunity to bring architecture closer to the natural world, and invite natural features and irregular beauty into the built environent.

When designing a pond…

• Consider all views
• Relate to the surroundings, whether architectural, terrain, natural materials, hardscaping, or landscaping
• Pay attention to available light throughout the day, cast shadows, reflections
• Be aware of the projection of sound, from both waterfalls and pumps.
• Combine activity with quietude. Fast moving water/still water. Breezy plants/solid objects or background shapes.
• Look at the background
• Remember that even slight changes in elevation add interest
• Depth is as important as width. That doesn’t mean the pond has to be deep, just that water depth is part of the whole composition
• Remember that there’s a landscape beneath the water, too. Unless you have really bad water, you will see it

Prehistory

Coleco Pong – Dad had one at the little house he lived in after my parents divorced. I was maybe 8…or 9 or 10, which would be sometime 1977 – 1979.

Commodore Pet – at Heinz Semder’s import office in Brooklyn. I only really sat in front of it.

Borroughs 68000 – I took a Pascal programming course at Franklin & Marshall when I was in seventh grade. We used terminals (Honeywell or Teledyne?), but I have no idea what the OS was. Once they toured us through the Burroughs 68000 mainframe room. What a cool memory. A roomful of well organized blue refrigerator shapes. Whisking tape machines…and those massive, multiple-platter hard disk machines that were about the size of a dishwasher. Capacity? I don’t know. Each student had a chance to make a punched card—probably with our name.

Mattel Intellivision – Shared it with my step-dad for years.

Commodore Vic-20 – Dad bought this and I started learning BASIC programming. Cool sound chip, simple as it was. 1/4 audio tape storage.

Commodore 64 – My first computer. Awesome sound chip, SID. Programmed in BASIC, Logo, Pascal, broke things in 6510 assembly language. Massive external 5-1/4 floppy drive. Used GEOS for a short time before it finally fried…something in the power supply must have shorted, because when I opened it up, paths on the circuit board were warped and wavy. Melted!

Atari 1200XL – My friend Rick got this for Christmas. Best thing I did on it was write a program to make random geometric shapes. We thought they results would make great OP t-shirts.

Apple Macintosh SE – Borrowed from Casey Dixon, who would later become my wife.Apple Quadra 605 – The first computer I bought on my own.

Apple Quadra 630 - Second computer I bought.

iMac – This was Casey’s.

Apple PowerMac 8200AV -

Apple iBook – Casey’s first generation iBook I think.

iMac G4 17″

Apple Powerbook G4 – One of many laptops I used at Ritter. Other machines I used there include Quadra 950 with Daystar accelerator, PowerMac 7200, PowerMac 9500, G3, G4.

Apple Powerbook G4 – 15″ Casey’s last school computer.

Apple iBook xxxx – I’m not sure which one Casey has right now.

Dell Latitude 810 – My Develisys laptop. Ah,…Microsoft Windows. Words cannot express…

iMac 24″ Intel Core Duo – my current machine.

M15 is the antithetical celebration of the anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq, which is commonly regarded as March 15.

Visit Lancaster Voice for more details on the M15 event and peace efforts in general; and see the Iraq Veterans Against the War website to learn more about their plan to end the war.

A Spanish translation of the poster is also available.

First public sighting of the poster: Lancaster Dispensing Company, a nice 18 × 24 in format inkjet.

Stay tuned.

Here’s a small linoleum cut that I just finished. This peony will illustrate a collaborative letterpress piece I am doing with J C Groff. In the final piece the peony will print white on a medium toned paper. The body, typeset by Jim, is excerpted from a letter he sent to me. One hundred fifty finished prints will be submitted to the APA. I’ll try to remember to post the finished piece. And yes, I did notice that it has been exactly six months since I last posted to the site. Ouch.

Here�s an up-close look at a recent sketch I did in preparation for cutting a linoleum block for a client. That�s all. I just thought it was neat.