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| 25 new of 480 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 295 of 480:
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Nov 21 00:37 UTC 2003 |
Thanks, Joe, for taking over! Sindi was starting to exhaust my knowledge
of big ship terminology as I only sail small ships.....
But I happened to hear on TV, and just looked up with Google, that the
"whole nine yards" comes from the nineyard "length of a Browning .50 cal.
machine gun ammunition belt" - so if you shoot off the whole belt, you
have given the enemy the "whole nine yards".
Joe, you have to have twelve (12) yards to rig nine sails on a
square-rigged ship. Right?
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keesan
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response 296 of 480:
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Nov 21 01:23 UTC 2003 |
Jim also read something about a bolt of cloth holding nine yards.
What is a gaff?
Do I correctly understand that there are three masts (fore, main, and in the
rear mizzen or formerly spelled mizen). On each mast is a lower sail, a top
sail, above that a royal sail and sometimes above that a skysail, and to the
outsides of these sometimes a staysail?
So what is a balance-reefed trysail? What is a top-mast, as in fore-topmast
staysail or main top-mast-head? A marline-spike? I still don't think I have
staysail distinct from studding-sail.
The only sailboat I have ever helped sail had only two sails - main and jib,
I think they were.
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rcurl
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response 297 of 480:
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Nov 21 02:13 UTC 2003 |
I leave most of that to Joe, who seems to be into big ships.... 8^} But a
"gaff" in the sense I used it (not a hook for pulling fish aboard) is a
spar that supports the narrowed top of a trapezoidal sail rather than a
triangular sail. This allows the same sail area but without the height of
a triangular sail. However it is not as efficient for the same sail area.
The gaff supports the top of the sail like the boom supports the bottom.
Staysails (pronounced staysals) are clipped onto the fore-stays that
support the foremast from before. The jib is a staysail, but larger
ships have many forestays and sails can be put on all of them.
A marlinspike is a tapered rod put into a hole on the railing of a largish
ship to which a halyard can be cleated. It provides a temporary cleat.
Sindi, it is time for you to check out a book on sailboats, which will
give all the names of the parts. Let me know when you learn what the
gungeon and pintle are - you'll be ready to take the UM Sailing Club
exam.
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gelinas
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response 298 of 480:
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Nov 21 02:55 UTC 2003 |
How do you count four yards for three sails, Rane?
I've also heard that the belted plaid was nine yards of cloth. So the three
explanations (and I've heard all of them) are: the length of the cloth used
in the traditional Scottish costume, the number of yards on a three-masted
ship, and the length of a machine-gun's ammo belt.
A belaying pin is used as a temporary cleat. A marlinspike is used to
separate the strands of a rope when splicing.
A good unabridged dictionary will probably have an illustration of a fully
rigged ship.
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glenda
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response 299 of 480:
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Nov 21 03:36 UTC 2003 |
I have never met a bolt of cloth (other than, maybe, a specialty handwoven)
that was under 25 yards, with everything but the heaviest wools and fake furs
being closer to 50 yards.
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rcurl
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response 300 of 480:
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Nov 21 07:46 UTC 2003 |
Joe is right. I think I've not been thinking sailing for a while and the
old grey cells are luffing a bit. I was, actually, visualizing a lower
yard, below the lowest sail, to better set it, especially when beating,
but I reviewed a number of square rigged ships online, and they sheeted
the lowest sail to the rails. I suppose if they didn't set the lowest
sail, four yards would be used for three sails, but....oh well.
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fitz
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response 301 of 480:
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Nov 21 12:29 UTC 2003 |
Is the poop deck used for what it sounds like?
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goose
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response 302 of 480:
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Nov 21 14:19 UTC 2003 |
This has been a very enjoyable set of responses...thanks Joe and Rane.
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keesan
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response 303 of 480:
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Nov 21 17:23 UTC 2003 |
I know, at least, what beating is - going against the wind. It took the ship
3 weeks to beat north 100 miles along the CA coast and 1 day to return.
Today Jim has a sore throat and runny nose and I have been sneezing for two
days. Not sure who got this cold first but the timing could have been better
as my immune system is scheduled to conk out today. We are avoiding our
visitor from Chicago so as not to get her sick. I was going to avoid her for
a few days in order not to acquire imported diseases. She offered to cook
and drop off some chicken soup but we don't eat chickens. Jim is going to
treat his cold with a hot bath after he finishes trying to fix the boiler of
a friend who is practically living in another city while his mother is
recovering from hospitalization. She and the nursing home hate each other.
They sedate people who don't cooperate. They put them on chairs with alarm
cushions so they won't try to get up and go to the bathroom on their own and
maybe fall. They change their clothes to pajamas at night (I wear my pajamas
all day) whether the patients want this or not. This makes the patients'
children feel guilty for putting them into the nursing home but what else can
they do with parents who are not thinking clearly and are very weak?
They also make them do 2 hours a day of physical therapy and I am going to
write the friend's mother and encourage her to exercise hard so that they will
let her out sooner (or at least let her walk around on her own).
Please share your ideas on nursing homes. The patient in question lives alone
and has been refusing to take insulin, drinks a lot of soda, is incontinent,
and is not acting very logically. She had to be hospitalized because of
extreme weakness following weight loss and high blood sugar. Medicare will
pay for a nursing home but not for a nurse to come by to give insulin because
the doctor is trying to force her into a nursing home, probably so he cannot
get sued for not doing so.
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gelinas
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response 304 of 480:
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Nov 21 17:46 UTC 2003 |
"The 'poop' deck on a sailing ship is the aftmost deck at the ship's stern,
and takes its name directly from the Latin 'puppis,' meaning 'stern'"
(http://www.word-detective.com/100297.html#poopdeck).
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rcurl
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response 305 of 480:
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Nov 21 18:34 UTC 2003 |
It might be added it is a raised deck, above the main deck. Joe, do you
know why early warships, in particular, had poop decks? Later commercial
sailing ships didn't. Was it to provide something like a castle tower
that could be defended more easily when boarding was a part of warfare
at sea?
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flem
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response 306 of 480:
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Nov 21 18:39 UTC 2003 |
Here's a bit about "the whole nine yards".
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/nineyards.htm
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gelinas
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response 307 of 480:
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Nov 21 19:50 UTC 2003 |
No, I don't know why a raised deck was added. However, I seem to remember
seeing it on the great rowing ships of the Mediterranean: galleys, biremes
and triremes. I'd never thought about the 'why' of it.
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rcurl
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response 308 of 480:
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Nov 21 20:48 UTC 2003 |
The captain had a nice stateroom underneath (according to the movies) -
with stained-glass windows sometimes. Maybe with merchant ships the
captain had to lump it with the crew....
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gelinas
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response 309 of 480:
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Nov 21 22:00 UTC 2003 |
I suspect even merchantmen had at least one (relatively) decent stateroom aft,
for the captain.
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keesan
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response 310 of 480:
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Nov 22 00:05 UTC 2003 |
On this ship (in the book) the senior crew had their own little badly lighted
room and the officers slept somewhere else. The junior crew slept in steerage
without permission to put nails in the wall to hang their clothing. There
was one 10 year old and two 19 year olds, 4 other crew (and one who drowned)
and three officers, a nigger cook, a steward, and a carpenter. The crew spent
most of their time rowing to and from shore and carrying hides, once they
reached California. Food was salt beef, salt pork, biscuit, and for a treat
something made with flour and molasses, and grog, and tea. The cook had a
pet pig.
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twenex
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response 311 of 480:
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Nov 22 00:21 UTC 2003 |
Sings: "Oh, a life on the ocean wave, is better than being at sea..."
No, I don't know what my grandfather was on about when he used to sing that,
either.
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gelinas
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response 312 of 480:
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Nov 22 01:47 UTC 2003 |
After you finish this book, Sindi, you should try Patrick O'Brian's series
that begins with _Master and Commander_ (the movie is, apparently, based
on a later book in the series). It's fiction, but he uses period records
as the background and for a lot of the details.
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slynne
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response 313 of 480:
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Nov 22 02:17 UTC 2003 |
I just saw _Master and Commander_ tonight. It is pretty good especially
for anyone interested in things nautical.
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keesan
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response 314 of 480:
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Nov 22 03:14 UTC 2003 |
Jim just had out Master and Commander on CD, to try reading books on CD. Her
prefers them on tape so he can speed them up. I will ask him about it.
I liked a book about how the Chinese discovered America in 1421, also
Australia, Antarctica, and lots of Pacific Islands. They spent a few years.
We are apparently going to have a Chinese Thanksgiving dinner, possibly at
the house of some Macedonian friends with our imported cook. Jim is trying
to come up with appropriate cooking utensils such as a large steamer. She
brought him her castiron wok (not very useful on an electric stove) and
assorted other little gifts such as three bags of split peas, some duct tape.
We like people who don't waste things when they are moving.
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rcurl
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response 315 of 480:
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Nov 22 03:47 UTC 2003 |
Sindi, you should read Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum -
see how it's done by a real salt.
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keesan
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response 316 of 480:
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Nov 22 13:41 UTC 2003 |
I am not all that focussed on sailing, actually. Now I am reading a book on
the first three billion years of life on earth, which discusses how people
are related to sponges and corals, and to starfish, and how giardia probably
used to have mitochondria but the RNA (DNA?) from them moved to the nucleus.
And fungi are closer to animals than to plants. Slime molds are in there
somewhere. Grex is a slime mold.
I have started taping the 12 library CDs that we have been renewing for two
months, but today we might try to get the CD writer working. I am avoiding
crowds and individuals until at least Monday so we have the time now. I am
feeling a lot less tired than this time last cycle because of the lower dose
of prednisone so I can still go on long walks. Only 1 or 2 pounds instead
of 5 pounds fluid retention means I am not up most of the night urinating and
I have slept as late at 7 am. With the usual awakenings from hot flashes of
course, but only once an hour or so. No more prednisone until December.
I am trying to find out how many square meters of body surface I have. I just
learned that they usually give everyone the same amount of vincristine despite
theoretically adjusting for body size, but now they have cut my dose in half.
The max dose is 2 mg and that is what they give everyone. I want to check
whether everyone also gets two syringes of doxorubicin, the one the causes
the laryngitis and peeling feet, in case they can cut that back too. Maybe
the tables linking height/weight and body area are online somewhere.
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keesan
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response 317 of 480:
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Nov 22 15:15 UTC 2003 |
I found a site for calculating body surface area at
www.halls.md/body-surface-area/bsa.htm. Mine is 1.5 m sq, with average women
being 1.6. At 93 pounds I was 1.4. The vincristine dose is 2 mg.
My lean body weight is 90 lb and ideal 131 lb (mine is probably lower than
that since I have small bones). Weight at 10th percentile.
When I weighed 93 lb my lean body weight was 82 lb, which explains why I did
not have much muscle strength. The body apparently preserves about 10 lb as
fat and sacrifices muscle instead. At 120 lb I would have lean body weight
of 98 lb (another 8 lb of muscle) which I could certainly use.
My current BMI is 17.1. Low normal is 19. I am up from 2nd to 10th
percentile in weight versus height.
All these figures are automatically calculated when you type in weight and
height and use a javascript browser to calculate.
This site is full of ads for pills to lose weight.
It is not a good idea to eat breakfast at the keyboard after having taking
vincristine as the oatmeal is not good for the keyboard (shaky hands).
If I can continue to gain one pound a week by January I will be somewhat
better insulated as half the gain will be fat. I was 112 lb for the three
years before getting sick and could sit comfortably and did not need to wear
two sweaters at 70 degrees.
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keesan
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response 318 of 480:
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Nov 23 20:28 UTC 2003 |
Today is probably the low point in my cycle. My tongue and throat feel raw
but I still don't have Jim's cold so we took me out for a walk in the balmy
weather. Two cycles ago on this day I barely made it across the street and
back. Today I made it to Eberwhite Woods and around the woods and back and
a few additional blocks. I had to stop and rest a few times. Jim would sit
on a log breathing downwind while I sat on him facing the other direction,
as I still am too bony to sit directly on logs.
We have confirmed that the grey and black squirrels are smaller than the brown
ones and do not have the white fur on the underside. THe former are probably
Eastern grey squirrels in two color variations, the latter fox squirrels.
We did not see the small (red?) squirrel in the woods.
Not too much greenery left to look at. The trees can be identified by their
bark but I only know black cherry, white and red oak, and hickory (shaggy).
We admired a lot of shelf fungus on fallen and standing dead trees. The shelf
fungus is found on the bottoms of logs and mosses on the tops. We also saw
some rounded largish stones in the mostly dried up creeks, granite.
My elbow and knee joints feel sort of loose - perhaps some connective tissue
is not regenerated. My leg muscles feel somewhat numb. Different from the
numbness in hands and feet (numb/tingly), more that I cannot feel the usual
feedback when I use them.
The short-term pain in my upper arm muscles has returned.
Things are still tasting relatively okay.
I have been losing hair in places other than the top of my head, but not leg
hair, which must not grow as often. My eyebrows and lashes are much sparser.
My fingernails persist in growing strongly and I still have a struggle cutting
them with one hand. If I put my finger on the table and prop the toenail
cutter against the table and lean on it, it cuts the nail.
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keesan
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response 319 of 480:
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Nov 24 15:21 UTC 2003 |
Lots more hair coming off my head today and I hope last night was the low
point because I had aching insides of my knees, elbows, upper arms, spleen,
and ribs, and raw tongue and throat. I finally had an interesting dream
around dawn before the 7:20 garbage truck woke me up, which involved among
other things Marcus Watts with a beard that covered all but his eyes. I had
been reading someone's travel stories about Afghanistan, where the women went
out dressed in large bags, I think without anything showing but hands. And
the dream involved our neighbor (who called late to help with geting our CD-R
drive to work) starting up a restaurant with a Korean cook - I had also
been reading travel stories about South America, where the Korean immigrants
own lots of restaurants like they do in Ann Arbor, and we now have our own
Chinese cook (who promises to send over some good leftovers until I get
well enough to visit with her).
I don't like Mondays - garbage trucks, blood draws, infusions, CT scans are
all scheduled for Mondays.
The sailors have just weathered a 3 day gale that blew away or shredded every
one of their sails. Luckily their sailmaker had prepared a few new ones for
their return voyage. I have out a library book on atlases of exploration with
several illustrations of sailing ships. It looks like the large square sails
(used for sailing downwind) are normally hung down from the boom (yard?), not
attached to it at their bottoms like the mainsails in smaller sailboats. The
triangular sails can be attached along one of their two upper edges, or
attached only by their three corners (sometomes to a piece of wood that
projects forward - what is that called?).
There are lots of words for rope - tack, sheets, halyards, hanks, frapping
lines, bolt-rope, footropes. What are brails and gaskets and gaff?
spritsail, martingale guys.
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