Connecting Two Ropes

The quickest way to connect two ropes is to tie them together. The most secure way to connect two ropes is to splice them together. When you need to connect two lines you will have to weigh out the pros and cons of each option to decide what is best for you at that moment

If you have plenty of time and the skill needed, splices will offer the best connection. If you are in a rush, a simple knot might meet your immediate needs.

Splices offer a secure, permanent connection which results in no loss of strength. This is because a properly executed splice will evenly distribute the forces across all of the fibers in the line without creating pressure spots of increased load and tension. The disadvantages of splicing is they can be time consuming and require a skill set for each type of line. 

Lines are characterized as Three strand, Single Braid, and Double Braid. Within the single and double braid, they are then broken down into Class I and Class II fibers.  Each type of line (three strand, Class I, and Class II) has its own rules about splicing. As you can see, it can get complicated in a hurry!

The next option is to simply tie the lines together by way of a knot. Knots create areas of increased stress which weaken the line. The bowline is known as the knot that retains the most strength in the line; retaining approximately 80% of the lines strength. Other knots will be more detrimental to the lines total strength.

Sheet Bend

Double Sheet Bend

Fishermans Knot

Some knots that can be used to securely connect two lines are the "sheet bends" and the "fishermans knots". These two knots will securely hold the two ropes together without much risk of the lines separating. They also work on lines that are of different sizes.

You can connect lines with square knots, but these knots are not as secure as a sheet bend or fisherman knot.

If the loss in strength is no acceptable and you do not feel confident in your ability to splice the lines, you might be wondering how else you can connect these two lines. Another option that does not involve splicing or tying the lines together is to seize the lines together.

If you properly seize the lines to one another, they will not slip nor yield. They will be locked together without the time of splicing or the stress of knotting. Seizing will require an additional piece of line, and can act as a permanent solution.

For joining two lines together, it would be best to use a "Flat Seizing Knot". This knot is used to bind two lines of similar size together and never let go. Tying three of these knots in succession will provide a permanent junction that will hold the lines together and evenly distribute the forces over the length of the seizes, providing you with piece of mind.

Tying a Flat Seizing Knot is a lengthy ordeal, taking one much longer than it would to tie a Double Sheet Bend. I personally prefer to tie lines together with Sheet Bends, as it is a quick knot to tie and holds securely once tightened. Sheet Bends also allow for easy separation of the two lines once the long line is no longer needed. 

Higher Education

Is higher education really worthwhile? I have been in school for most of my life, and as I look back at it all, I wonder if it was worth it?

What are the pros and cons of higher education?

Pros:

Better paying job
Better working conditions
Greater social acceptance
Greater flexibility with private life

Cons:

Immense student debt

It is a know fact that salaries increase proportionately with education achievements. According to PBS, the numbers are dramatic. 

Highschool dropout: ~$20,000 per year
Highschool graduate: ~$30,000 per year
College graduate: ~$56,000 per year

These numbers seem impressive and can make a good argument for finishing school. The larger jump is when you get into professional schools. 

Average Dentist Salary: ~$124,000 per year Source

That may seem like a significant jump in salary, but so is the amount of student debt. I completed my freshman and sophomore years of college in Puerto Rico at UPRM, costing $76 per semester (if you had a very high GPA, they would only charge laboratory fees). I moved to Maryland for my junior and senior years, and that totaled to $8000. My college education cost roughly $8,304 and I would be set into the average salary bracket of $56,000.

I then went to dental school where I tried to spend as little as possible. The average graduating student debt from dental school is $250,000. I managed to get out with only $160,000 of student debt. 

This debt costs will cost me $2,000 a month for the next 10 years, costing $240,000 to repay it (making minimum payments). Imagine what the monthly payments must be on the $250,000 student debts!

Making more money is great, but then you end up in a higher tax bracket. You have to pay taxes on the money you made to pay the student loan, and in the 28% tax bracket, the $2,000 monthly student loan payment will cost you $560 in taxes. 

This means that the first $24,000 you make per year is already spent on student loans and will have an additional $6,720 in taxes to go along with it. $30,720 of your yearly income is already spent on student debt and taxes. This leaves $93,280 for you at the end of the year! Not really, the $93,280 will carry along another $26,118 in taxes.

At the beginning of the year, you need to earn at least $30,720 to pay your student debt, that's more then a high school graduate makes in a year! After taxes and passing your student debt payments, your $124,000 has now been reduced to $67,162.

If you have a job, you need somewhere to live and you need to get to work. Due to social pressures, you might feel inclined to buy a fancy house and car to impress people you don't know. The house and car payment will have to come out of the remaining $67,162. Don't forget that you also need to pay property tax, as well as insurances. Soon enough, you will have less money leftover than what the college graduate is earning! Luckily, you live close to work and can work everyday until you die to pay off these debts and try to save for retirement. 

Once you're old and stop working, you can try to sell everything and buy the boat you have been dreaming of to sail over the horizon to new lands! Hopefully your health is still good enough to enjoy cruising for a few years before your body can't take it anymore!

The other option is to not follow the system! I have friends that cruise on sailboats in the tropics, everyday is warm weather and beautiful beaches. They don't have much money, but they do have their happiness. When they need some cash, they work as a bartender; otherwise, they just enjoy life for barely no cost!

There is no doubt that cruising has significant startup costs. First, you need to buy a boat! That can be a pricey ordeal. Next, you need to outfit the boat and stock up with provisions, also costly. Lastly, you need to cast off and sail away; not costly!

Having completed my higher educational studies, I have the disposable income to do the first two steps. The problem lies in the last step! It is not costly to cast off, but I have these massive anchors called student debt that are keeping me here! I work to pay them off, but I also need to save up money to cover my student loan payments for a time while I am cruising around. 

As it stands right now, paying the minimum, I will finish paying them off in 2022; that is a serious anchor! It is a project to not form any other anchors to shore during those years that will prolong our departure. Maddie grew up with the land based mentality of "Buy a house, buy a car, buy buy buy" and it is a struggle to not buy anything we don't need or want. 

When we first met, her sole goal for the future revolved around having a house on land, where my sole goal was to get away from land as quickly as possible. After many discussions, we have come to agree on not buying anything with a loan. If there is no debt, there is no anchor; once again, the third step becomes "not costly" and you can cast off to explore anytime you want!

Marina community

When I first moved onto the boat with Herby, the thing that struck me as most exciting (besides living with him) was the vibrant boating community that surrounded us in the marina.  In general, people who live on boats are very nice.  We all look out for each other in a number of ways and are more than just neighbors.  We’re friends.  Herby and I like to joke that there are four types of people that live on a boat: divorced men who didn’t get the house, retired couples living out their life-long dreams, those who actually work on boats for a living, and crazy young people with wide eyes for adventure.  We joke, but it’s actually quite true.  Herby’s the crazy one and I’m just the one who fell in love with him. 

Living on a boat creates an instant bond between live-aboards in a marina.  We all have similar challenges and passions.  When any of us goes away for a while, the whole community looks after their boat, whether that means pumping out their dingy or keeping an eye on the water line.  We all know each other by name and make an effort to stop and talk if we pass one another on the pier.  It’s a quirky bunch of people who have decided to live this way, but quirky is fun! 

I’m the youngest in the Marina, but I don’t feel out of place with my neighbors at all.  Paula, who lives across from us, insists that Herby and I call her “mom” and our friend Tammy cuts our hair while her husband Bill works on welding projects in Baltimore.  We frequently have dinner with a couple down the pier from us and game nights with a firefighter couple that is close to us in age.  One of the dock masters created a “sunset lounge” on the pier in front of his boat with a few comfy porch chairs and a cooler where a few people join him most evenings to watch the sunset and have a beer or two.  Every year there is a crab feast that includes everyone in the marina who wants to join in the fun.  And so, we all make excuses to spend time together and chat.    

Now, this is not to say that we absolutely adore every person who lives in the Marina.  There are those who have built up certain undesirable reputations, but we all generally steer clear of them.  It is a special quality of boat life, however, to have such accessible friends all around you.  Everyone knows that if they need help with something mechanical or personal, all they have to do is knock on our hull at any time of day or night when we are home.  We have been able to help our neighbors out of their slip or even assist during a midnight emergency after someone fell in the water.  We know that any one of our friends would do the same for us.

This community is close and welcoming in a way that made me feel like I belonged here from the start.  They were quick to offer up helpful advice to me for making the sudden transition from land to water.  Many people think that living in a boat is a lonesome existence, but in reality, it connects you to an entire community of caring people that I have come to know and love.  

Connecting to the Internet

The internet is very important to some people, and life without it may seem unfathomable to them. I go both ways when it comes to internet connectivity, I need it to post on this website and I don't care for it at the same time. As you may have noticed, electronics are a source of frustration to me. I expect them to fail in a marine environment as corrosion sets in. I don't like to rely on electronics, but at the same time I appreciate the conveniences that they have to offer.

Connecting to the internet on a boat is different from a land based structure. Verizon or Comcast won't run a line out to your anchorage! 

For liveaboards who don't take their boat out of the marina, plugging a coax cable into the pedestal will provide the fastest connection available. This will connect them to shore side internet using a "pretty reliable" system. The pitfalls of this system have to do with corrosion. The coax hookup is outside and exposed to the elements, leading to a faulty connection. In time, the terminals will need to be cleaned or replaced to maintain a proper connection. 

If you take your boat out a lot, this will become a nuisance and will quickly be abandoned. The cable is very small and hard to get into the plug without damaging the terminal. The repeated connection and disconnection will lead to premature failure as well. 

The alternative to wired connectivity is to use wireless connectivity. You can tap into local WiFi signals, allowing you to get online quickly and easily. The problem is you are forced to stay in close proximity of the WiFi antenna. If you are in a big city or popular harbor, WiFi will be plentiful and a good connection will be more likely. Sometimes the local WiFi signal available is worthless and you won't be able to load a single webpage. I have dealt with these companies who give you excuse after excuse explaining the poor connection, and then a look on yelp will reveal that they tell these excuses to everyone every time. While some WiFi signals are worthless, others are wonderful! 

Connecting to local WiFi signals is a nifty trick to get online, but it is not as reliable as you might wish it to be. If you like to get online from time to time to check emails and look at weather forecasts, this might be sufficient for you. On the other hand, if you need to connect to the internet everyday for work or other reasons, spotty WiFi signals may become the bane of your cruising life.

The last option to allow reliable internet access is to carry your own WiFi Hotspot. It works off of your cell phones data plan and lets you easily connect to the internet with a reliable and repeatable connection. There are no wires involved and no complex systems to maintain, simply turn it on and connect to the internet.

I use the Jetpack from Verizon. It gives decent speed and works everywhere that Verizon has signal. This lets us reliably connect to the internet, no matter where we are. It also seems relatively resistant to corrosion, I have been using the same unit for over 3 years and it has not died on me yet!

As always, there are drawbacks to every alternative. The Jetpack works great, but only where we have phone signal. Out in the ocean it is worthless, as well as in remote creeks and rivers where there is no signal. The other issue is they work off of your cell phone plans data, meaning that all those videos you stream on YouTube will tick away at your month's data allowance. We survive on a relatively small data plan (keeps the bills down) but we do not have the luxury of Netflix or endless hours of surfing the web. 

When deciding to disconnect from land and live aboard, you don't have to worry about giving up the internet! You just change the way that you connect to it and use the internet. While it may seem like a shock to not watch YouTube for hours, but you will be surprised how many other ways you can unwind with that amount of time while living in a small space on board a boat!

Navigating to Windward

Sailing is fun! Raise the sails and off you go, but in which direction?

You probably have a destination in mind and will want to go in that general direction. When this destination is downwind from your current position, it doesn't take as much planning to get the boat going in the proper direction. When the destination is upwind from your current position, the proper course may seem a bit of a mystery to onlooking power boats.

Sailboats can move in any direction for a long time, except dead upwind. To move a yacht towards an upwind destination, you must set a course for a few degrees to the left or to the right of dead upwind. This course is known as a tack, and the act of changing from left to right of the wind is tacking.

To move to windward, you will end up sailing to the left or to the right of the wind. This will present to you the characteristic image that power boaters think of when they think of sailboats: "I want to go dead ahead, so I'm going to sail to the left of it, and then to the right of it!" With time (lots of time) you will make your way towards your windward destination.

An important thing to remember when working to windward is that longer tacks are preferred over shorter tacks. Every time you tack, you will loose some distance as the boat slows and gets in its groove again. If you loose a few feet of forward distance, then minimizing the number of these episodes will be very advantageous! If there is not enough water to carry out a long tack, then you will have no choice but to complete various short tacks. If the body of water you are sailing in is wide enough, the longer the tack the better.

A very important point to remember when sailing towards a windward destination is that it is best to overshoot the target and fall back to it instead of choosing your tack so you will come directly to your target. If there is any disturbance in your journey, you will slip to leeward. If you are aiming directly for your target, you will now need to carry out two additional tacks to arrive at your destination. If you aim for a more windward target, you will have leeway to allow for leeward slip which will mean that any disturbance will allow you to still reach your target without any additional tacks. As you overshoot your target, you can then begin to fall off and come into your destination with much more comfort and predictability.

While the ideal is to tack up and arrive directly upon your destination, the reality is that the winds will change, current could pick up, or debris could cause you to alter course (crab pots in the Chesapeake are a common offender). If you are picking your course so that you are close hauled and can't sail anymore upwind, then you have no leeway if you encounter a disturbance. You will undershoot your target destination. The alternative is to select an upwind target, to which you sail close hauled while keeping the final destination a bit to leeward of the target. This will allow you wiggle room if you encounter a disturbance and slip to leeward. As you approach your destination, you can alter course for the destination and sail on more of a beam reach. This will afford you the flexibility to turn more to windward if the situation calls for it.

The variability in the wind can be seen in these charts where we were sailing to windward. You can see how we do not follow a perfect straight line because the wind would shift or change in intensity and direction, as well as the influence of the ebbing and flooding tides. This is why it is a good idea to (windward) overshoot your destination and afford yourself the leeway. If you cut it too close, you might have to add some extra tacks to make it to your destination which will make your journey take even longer.