Grog's Boating Knots Index

Grog's Boating Knots Index: "The nautical knots used when berthing a large vessel, docking your yacht, tying up dinghy painters, and managing sails are all aimed at safety and reliability. The emphasis for boating knots is on reliability matched with the ability to untie each knot fairly easily."

Sea Orbiter: Around the World in 730 Days

Is this normal? I mean...have I been missing these most amazing creations every year or are we witnessing a nautical renaissance in boat design this year?

"The Sea Orbiter is a 170-foot vessel that looks like an airplane wing set on its side, designed to drift around the earth while bored scientists inside study fish, plankton, and the ecology of the underwater world while getting on each other's nerves. Powered by nothing but sea currents and blown by the wind, the slow-moving ship will take two years to circumnavigate the earth, giving the scientists plenty of time to figure out what's happening in the underwater world in which two-thirds of this odd-looking craft is submerged.

Showing interest in the ship are NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), which are both quite familiar with sending people to sit inside isolated tin cans for months or years on end in the name of research. While this is pretty much vaporware so far with just a scale model in existence, the ship's designer, French architect Jacques Rougerie, plans to actually build this gigantic buoy and set sail sometime soon. Bon voyage. – Charlie White"

My First Picture Book of Boating Words

Happy Black Friday, but seriously my friends...Avoid the mall...shop online.: "This little book is a perfect way to teach small children about boats and subjects common to the water. Your child will bring it to you over and over again to look at the pictures and learn about boats."

Invasive snails close Capitol - and Happy Thanksgiving.

Now this is a headline that caught my eye! Probably because I only read the first four words and think - Sci fi screenplay with giant snails chasing screaming people out of the capitol building: Don't loose your stuffing...Turns out its just your average foreign species upsetting the balance of nature story...and it affects boaters. Just an eight of an inch!?! Darn those pesky mudsnails!

By the way, did you know Ancient Romans used snail slime as an early form of roll on deodorant? But first the news from Capitol Lake.

Invasive snails close Capitol Lake boating.

"Scientists have confirmed that Capitol Lake in Olympia is infested with aquatic invasive New Zealand mudsnails.

The state Department of General Administration, which manages the 260-acre lake, has closed all three boat-launch areas.

Measuring an eighth of an inch, New Zealand mudsnails also have been detected in freshwater canals on the Long Beach Peninsula and in the lower portion of the Columbia River. They can live in either fresh or brackish water and can reproduce asexually, said Allen Pleus, state Department of Fish and Wildlife aquatic invasive species coordinator."

Snail Fact to impress your friends and family around the supper table tonight.

1. The largest land snail ever found was 15 inches long and weighed 2 pounds!

2. Snails' bodies produce a thick slime. Because of this slime, they can crawl across the edge of a razor and not get hurt.

3. Some snails have been known to live up to 15 years.

4. Snails are hermaphrodites which means that they have both male and female reproductive organs.

5. Snails have six vagina's, two of which are located in their mouth.

6. Snails usually travel in irregular paths, often traveling in a circle.

7. Snails reply mainly on their sense of touch and smell when finding food because they have very poor eyesight.

8. Snails cannot hear.

9. Snails can retract one or both of their tentacles at a time.

10. Snails are the armored cousins of the slug.

11. Because of the suction created by their slime, a snail can crawl upside down.

12. Snails are nocturnal animals which means they are more active at night.

13. Garden Snails mainly eat garden plants and vegetables, but they will also eat decaying plants and soil.

14. The fastest snails are the speckled garden snails which can move up to 55 yards per hour compared 23 inches per hour of most other land snails.

15. Ancient Romans use snail slime as an early form of roll on deodorant.

16. Garden snails hibernate during the winter and live on their stored fat.

17. Garden snails breathe with lungs.

18. Garden snails evolved from sea snails that had anal sex with giant land slugs about 600 million years ago.

19. The garden snail is cooked and eaten as a delicacy called escargot

20. May 24th is National Escargot Day

The Bluefin Tuna in Peril: Scientific American

I'm embarrassed to admit, I never realized the Blue Fin was a warm-blooded fish!

"All tuna are not alike. The canned tuna fish in sandwiches and salads comes from either skipjack, a meter-long species that is caught in prodigious quantities around the world and served as “light meat tuna,” or albacore, another small fish that is marketed as “white meat tuna.” The yellowfin and the bigeye tuna are larger species that are also heavily fished, but neither makes for particularly wonderful sushi, and they are usually served grilled. But the bluefin tuna, a giant among fishes, is the premier choice for sushi and sashimi and has become the most desirable food fish in the world. As such, it has vaulted to the top of another, more insidious list: it is probably the most endangered of all large fish species. Heedless overfishing is steadily pushing the bluefin toward extinction, and the species may soon disappear unless entrepreneurial fish farmers can learn how to breed the tuna in captivity."
Reaching a maximum known weight close to three quarters of a ton and a length of four meters, the bluefin is a massive hunk of superheated muscle that cleaves the water by flicking its scimitar-shaped tail. Whereas most of the approximately 20,000 fish species are cold-blooded, possessing a body temperature the same as that of the water in which they swim, the bluefin is one of the few warm-blooded fishes. During a dive to one kilometer below the surface, where the ambient water temperature can be five degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit), the bluefin can maintain a body temperature of 27 degrees C (81 degrees F), close to that of a mammal. The bluefin is also among the fastest of all fishes, capable of speeds up to 80 kilometers per hour and able to migrate across entire oceans. It is such a marvelous swimmer that when scientists in the 1990s endeavored to build a mechanical fish, they used the species as a model, designing a robot with a tapered, bullet-shaped body and a rigid, quarter-moon tail fin [see “An Efficient Swimming Machine,” by Michael S. Triantafyllou and George S. Triantafyllou; Scientific American, March 1995]. The researchers found that the tail’s efficiency lay in the interaction of the vortices created by its rapid flexing, but the hydrodynamics of their electronic models did not even come close to that of a true bluefin. “The more sophisticated our robotic-tuna designs become,” the Triantafyllou brothers wrote, “the more admiration we have for the flesh-and-blood model.”

iPhone Knot Guide

"Need to tie a knot? Knot Guide will teach you the ropes!

Knot Guide NOW includes the following 78 knots, 66 of which are unique:

Alpine Butterfly on a Bight, Adjustable Bend, Adjustable Loop, Anchor Bend, Arbor Knot, Ashley's Stopper, Bachmann Hitch, Blake's Hitch, Blood Knot, Bowline, Bowline on a Bight, Braid Knot, Buntline Hitch, Carrick Bend, Clinch Knot, Clove Hitch, Clove Hitch on a Bight, Constrictor, Countryman's Knot, Cow Hitch, Diagonal Lashing, Double Figure Eight Loop, Double Fisherman's, Double Overhand Stopper, Double Sheet Bend, Double Surgeon's Loop, Figure Eight Follow Through, Figure Eight Knot, Figure Eight Loop, Fisherman's Bend, Flemish Flake, Gasket Coil, Girth Hitch, Highwayman's Hitch, Honda Knot, Hunter's Bend, Improved Clinch Knot, Klemheist Knot, Lariat, Lark's Head, Lumberman's Knot, Monkey Fist, Mooring Hitch, Munter Hitch, Nail Knot, Overhand Knot, Oysterman's Stopper, Palomar Knot, Perfection Loop, Prusik Knot, Rapala, Reef Knot, Rigger's Bend, Rolling Hitch, Rosendahl Bend, Rosendahl Loop, Round Lashing, Running Bowline, Running Knot, San Diego Jam Knot, Sheepshank, Sheet Bend, Slip, Square, Square Lashing, Stevedore, Surgeon's Knot, Tautline Hitch, Timber Hitch, Trucker's Hitch (1), Trucker's Hitch (2), Turk's Head 3L5B, Turle Knot, Two Half Hitches, Uni Knot, Yosemite Bowline, Zeppelin Bend, Zeppelin Loop

14 CATEGORIES include:
Bends, Binding Knots, Climbing Knots, Decorative Knots, Fishing Knots, Hitches (End), Hitches (Middle), Lashings, Loops (Fixed), Loops (Slip), Rope Care, Sailing Knots, Shortenings, Stopper Knots

FEATURES:
* Clear, colorful photographs
* Browse search by category or knot name
* From the 'Knot Categories' screen, select a knot category (description and photo included for each category)
* Next, select a specific knot from your chosen category (description and photo included for each specific knot)
* Swipe the images to move forward or backward through the visual steps.
* Save your favorite knots for easy access
* 'Knot Lingo' screen covers basic terms for knot tying.

People of all walks of life since ancient times have found knots both fascinating and essential. Knots are used in sailing, climbing, tree trimming, jewelry making, and everyday tasks such as hitching a load to your vehicle.
Whether you are a novice or you have experience with tying knots, Knot Guide will assist you!"

Hundreds Of Icebergs Sailing Towards New Zealand - Science News - redOrbit

Hundreds Of Icebergs Sailing Towards New Zealand - Science News - redOrbit: "Over one hundred Antarctic icebergs are moving towards New Zealand in an extraordinary happening that has raised a shipping warning, officials announced Monday.

An Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist stated that the bergs, pinpointed by satellites, have floated past the Auckland Islands, and are 280 miles northeast of the Island.

Scientist Neal Young noted that the icebergs, including some that are 650 feet in width, were in a large group, which implies that there could be more."

Telltails, tufts, indicators, flappers, woolies

"The telltales make the trimming of the sails and the steering of the boat easier. You shouldn't stick too many telltales on your sails - when sailing, the amount of information streaming in exceeds the capacity of the crew, so keep it as simple as possible. In this article we explain which telltales are essential and sufficient at the same time. We recommend not to have more telltales than that. The telltales in the leech should be made of a rather strong nylon strip. Normally they are already installed by your sailmaker. The telltales in the luff should be of woolen yarjavascript:void(0)n glued onto the sail with a colorful sticky-back"

Oracle / BMW Montage

Woman braves five metre-high waves to save her nine puppies after her boat falls victim to a vicious storm | Mail Online

"A British woman stranded in a storm off the Turkish coast abandoned ship and swam 75 metres to the shore in a bid to save her nine puppies.

Laura Hughes, 28, a strong swimmer, balanced a milk crate containing the animals on her head and managed to save herself and all her puppies despite braving waves reaching five metres high.

Following a terrible mid-afternoon storm on October 21, Laura's 14.5metre boat 'Csavargo' had been pushed around the Turkish coast by powerful gale force winds, leaving her close to the Greek island of Rhodes."