Rainbow

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barts
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Rainbow

Post by barts » Sat Aug 05, 2017 3:59 pm

A picture of our new (to us) steamboat, Rainbow, as we approach a mooring buoy in the last light of the day. 450 mm (effective) telephoto.... and some cell photo video of the somewhat rougher conditions as we steamed around the island to pull her out of the water.

https://goo.gl/photos/ncYixFThNM6TyJG26

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
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Re: Rainbow

Post by DetroiTug » Sat Aug 05, 2017 5:19 pm

Love it... Great vids, looks real salty and there is just something about a wood boat, and then with a steam engine and then a following sea..

Is this a transitional step to the Sea Lion project?

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Re: Rainbow

Post by RGSP » Sat Aug 05, 2017 8:21 pm

No criticism, but "Rainbow" has a huge amount of sheer: perhaps it's a local thing. Our sea conditions are, on average, very much rougher than either W or E coasts of the USA, and our sea-boats have to be built to cope with that, but she seems to be coping very nicely with it anyway. Congratulations, and I hope you enjoy steaming her.
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Re: Rainbow

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:03 am

I grant you that what this videos show would be fairly classed as a light chop in a brisk breeze made bouncy by a bit of adverse tidal current.

That said, there are few populated places on earth with such severe conditions as the N.W. coast of N. America. I steam regularly about ten miles South of where Bart took this shots. My bay opens on to the Straits of Juan de Fuca and when there is an equinoctial gale blowing out of the West with a touch of adverse tide, the container ships and oil tankers heave to offshore and wait a bit for things to settle down.

The reality is, of course, that any small boat operator who ventures out in such conditions, whether near the prime meridian or 120 degrees to the West, should have his head examined!

Bart's hull is a copy of a naval "Whale Boat" and is designed to breast very short and steep seas. Compared to his other launch, this one is a "Cape Horner"! Very confidence inspiring.

Bart is now in the enviable(?) position of owning two steam launches. Ah, the suffering.
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Re: Rainbow

Post by RGSP » Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:50 pm

Lopez Mike wrote:I grant you that what this videos show would be fairly classed as a light chop in a brisk breeze made bouncy by a bit of adverse tidal current.

That said, there are few populated places on earth with such severe conditions as the N.W. coast of N. America.
That may well be true Mike, but for the record, the part of the NW coast of Scotland known as The Hebrides, has on average over 10 days a year with hurricane force winds, which are not classical hurricanes but just violent winter storms covering a large area, and our news media never report them, but we get saturation coverage of every real and even potential localised hurricane which hits the US.

My own area in eastern England is much calmer, but even so we are about 5 miles from Felixstowe, which under some measurement methods is the worlds busiest container port, and in the winter months it would be unusual for the port not to be closed one or two days in the month due to bad seas. The "usual" ships there are a bit under 200,000 tons, with an increasing number going over the 200,000. Oddly enough, they don't look that big when you see the real thing, and when the weather is bad they have to sit some miles offshore, so we don't really see them under those conditions.

I suppose what I was trying to say was that Rainbow looks like she could cope with fairly rough sea conditions, which is what you said, whereas most pictures I see of US boats in general suggest they would not. The pictures I see, of course, are what gets published in the international press, and probably don't apply to your area, though in my own defence I've visited the Bay area frequently, and have been horrified (possibly mistakenly) by the floating things, call them boats if you must, that apparently go to sea there.
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Re: Rainbow

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:09 pm

People actually live in the Hebrides? I thought there were only a few mad blue painted Celts up there! (grin)

Quite true that most of our steaming is in protected waters and the craft reflect that. My next hull will likely have even a bit less freeboard than the present one as my favorite waters are small rivers, lakes and bayous. I have spent more item that is likely rational navigating my 11 meter sailboat in rude offshore conditions. My respect is more for steep waves than large ones. But most of us tend seek calm flat waters. "Messing about in boats." says Water Rat. Right?
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Re: Rainbow

Post by DetroiTug » Sun Aug 06, 2017 6:58 pm

The Great Lakes are no slouchers when it comes to rough water. For inland freshwater, they get pretty rough at times, November etc.

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Re: Rainbow

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:05 pm

Perfectly frightful and awful. Glad I wasn't there.

I've never been able to see the attraction of open water like oceans even when the weather is kind and the wind light. I've had to deal with a bit of it to get to places where I wanted to be and the only way I could afford it was to travel in my own sailboat. But the last blow I had to sit out hove to for a half of a day was just an alarming bore.

If I lived in Southern California where the choice is to sit in a marina or fool around in an open expanse of water I would stick to playing the lottery.

To paraphrase a character in a Glencannon episode, I tend to go boating when there isn't a wave "that a pancake with a hairlip couldn't spit over." Like today. Flat water and calm wind in a nest of islands and sunshine.
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Re: Rainbow

Post by RGSP » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:33 pm

On a good day (and there are many of them in summer) the Hebrides are stunningly beautiful, and a fine place to be with a boat, with lots of sheltered anchorages as long as your boat isn't too big. You'd love them.

Storms at sea I just find boring rather than impressive or frightening - you have to concentrate (in a small/medium boat) on keeping the boat safe the whole time. I can't remember exactly how long it took, but I read the whole of "War and Peace" at one sitting. We were up in the high arctic, in one of the western fjords of Spitzbergen, in a 27' work-boat. It was a full gale, but we had sheltered bay. The real problem was that there is little or no silt or mud around Spitzbergen, and the anchor wouldn't hold without help, so two of us had to keep the engine running slow ahead, and keep checking our position, for certainly over 24 hours, and I think it was over 36, but it was possible to read.
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Re: Rainbow

Post by Lopez Mike » Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:59 am

Even in decent weather I find the ocean tedious. I can remember running out of reading material on passage. The last gothic bodice ripper paperback had been so bad that I ripped each page out as I finished it and thew it to the wind so that no one else would have to suffer. The last day before arrival I was down to deciphering Mexican milk cartons. Sad,
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