Monday After Earth Day - 2017

Today, being the Monday after Earth Day weekend, I thought the following video and news article might be of interest. Both of these are dealing with us, and with space. But first, perhaps I should answer and obvious (to me, any rate) why? We, you and I, are created things. And the Saints have often referred to the Earth as God's 1st Book. Doesn't it make sense to care and honor such a thing?

The first video was created from photos of the Earth from space. When the Voyager was launched, Carl Sagon worked on the development of it, and he begged the NASA administration to have the Voyager turn the cameras onto Earth as it was leaving our Solar System. The administration relented and gave us the "Pale Blue Dot" photo.




This next link is a Washington Post Article about Space Junk, in particular the stuff floating around the Earth (dead satellites, etc.). It is a review of a new 12:34 minute documentary from the European Space Agency.

May we learn wisdom and perspective in dealing with one another, and the cosmos with which we are intimately connected.

Blessed be,
Joel

Happy Earth Day!

Here's hoping you take some time today to enjoy the wonderful world outside. I find that being out in nature brings a better appreciation of nature and as such a better desire to interact in a sustainable way.

Blessed Be,
Joel

Soup on Wednesday: Food for Thought - Taking What We Learn on Boats to Shore

With yesterday being Earth Day (isn't everyday?), I thought I'd post a link regarding taking what we learn from boating/cruising to our shore lives. So often I see people trying to outfit their boats to reflect their shore lives (i.e. big screen TVs to watch the game, etc.), that I found the post great reading.
The post is over on Simply Sailing (a weekly blog worth following): Simply on Land.
How are you doing with your earth care?
Blessed Be,
Joel

Earth Day - 2013

Happy Earth Day!

Last week I noticed someone had done a yearly carbon footprint for their years travel by sailboat. Primarily they focused upon the carbon fuels they burned. As, at that time, they didn't have an engine, their fuel usage was for cooking/heating and lighting (all kerosene I believe). Rather than engine, they used a yolah (like an oar/sweep off the stern) to move them into an out of harbors.

Doing a carbon footprint inventory is a great way to spend a moment (or longer) reflection on this earth day. Over Christmas/New Years my family fooled around with one. It was interesting to see where we were making huge "earth/environment savings" and where we were making "gains" just by changing some numbers in one category at a time. [Just google/bing "carbon footprint inventory" and you'll find lots of resources.]

But must one give up an engine to have a low carbon footprint (diesel or gas)? And what about "power" yachts?

"Wait a minute, are you going to talk about electric propulsion?"
Yup.

Let me highlight a few things before we start. And before I even mention the caveats below, I should mention that it was how much use our cars got (in total mileage and mpg) that made the difference in our carbon footprint. We made huge gains by simply living on the boat! That said, for those of you who want to lower their boating carbon footprint even more, read on.

The caveats:

1. I highly admire folks like Lin and Larry Pardey and Tim and Pauline Carr, et. al. who sail engine-less. Can it still be done? Absolutely. I'm I there yet? Nope. Although we do try to make passages completely under sail, we've also made passages (gulp. Dare I admit?) under mainly power.

2. I don't have the answers - but I think what's below is interesting for discussion. We still have a highly functioning robust SAAB diesel that burns little fuel (between a pint and a quart an hour), and I'd have to closely do the figures to see how we'd compare between what we have and what would replace it, if we chose to go electric.

3. Lets be honest, if, and as long as, a sailboat has an engine, technically, it is a motor vessel. Yes, our sailboat included.

I've read about electric engines before. They are not a new technology and date back to the same period of history as the internal combustion engines, the concept being roughly 100 years old. Just like the internal combustion engines, they've seen technological advances, too. What has really improved is batteries. Up until recently the easy storage of power to make an engine go (gas, diesel or electric) has been in the favor of the liquid fuels. But now?

And remember, all non-nuclear submarines have run on a hybrid-type technology. Diesel engines generated the electricity while above the service (or at least at snorkel depth - got to get rid of the carbon-monoxide!) while using the batteries to fuel the prop below the service.

Last summer my wife and I won a sunset cruise on Gato Verde (a catamarran operating out of Bellingham). Gato Verde runs on electric engines backed up by a diesel generator. In essence, Gato Verde is a hybrid boat (like a hybrid car - with a major exception being she can run on just wind, and when docked, can be plugged in).

This experience got me thinking.

I didn't much connection together even though we later had a tour of the Blueback (retired diesel electric sub) at the Oregan Musuem of Science and Industry in Portland, and I even had a conversation with a power boater about his wanting to add a little solar-electric outboard to his sailing dinghy.

And upon reflection, I believe WoodenBoat had an article about electric motorboats. Here's one about an electric launch. 

Then I happened across Daniel's Odda Sea blog in which he talks about the hows and the whys of his conversion to electric propulsion. He spends a four part series in the hows and whys (Part 1: Why Electric, Part 2: Installation Tour, Part 3: Power Management, Recharging, and Regeneration, Part 4: Range Anxiety). By the way, Daniel plans on recharging batteries primarily via solar and wind chargers (having a ketch, his wind-generator is mounted on his mizzen mast), via prop regeneration (when sailing at speed, the freely spinning prop can add volts back into the system), and finally, as a last resort, via a gas generator (which he plans on having anyway to power power tools when needed for heavy duty type jobs).

I found his series of articles interesting food for thought.

Having received this gift of God, how do we live that both celebrates, honors and cherishes this wonderful blue planet of ours? I think that's the question, and celebration of Earth Day.

Blessed Be
Joel

Bottom Paint: Earth Day, 2012

Happy Earth Day.

With spring here, many people are working upon their boats, getting everything ready for the summer boating season. Part of this often involves hauling out the boat and applying bottom paint to keep the growth off the bottom of the boat. While I and my family want to keep the growth off the bottom of our own boat, we are also concerned about the environment - God's creation. Is there a way to do both?

It was about a year ago that we hauled out and painted the bottom. Part of the process involved trying to figure out what the bottom had been painted with before, so that we added something compatible. No sense in putting a hard bottom paint on an ablative, we'd just go sailing to have the hard (new) paint ablative off with what was used before. The other alternative would be to strip off all the old paint and then but something new on (in which case we could use what we wanted). We (us and the boat yard) were fairly certain that what had been used before was an ablative paint, so that's what we used again. (An ablative paint slowly comes off as one moves the boat through the water exposing fresh paint and allowing the fouled paint to fall off.)

Once any item is left in a salt water environment it quickly becomes covered in "scum." "Scum" is my "scientific" word for all the tiny miro-organisms that quickly attach themselves to the smooth surface. But it is not long before muscles and barnacles and various forms of weed are growing upon the item. One winter, we forgot to take the milk-jug bailer out of the dinghy when we turned her over on the dock, with the result that the bailer was hanging by it's string into the water all winter long. The next spring, there was an entire colony of sea life growing on, in and around the bailer. We ended up leaving it there (attaching the string to the dock rather than the dinghy) for the kids to look at all summer - their own underwater aquarium.

The problem is when all of this is attached to the boat, the boat struggles to go anywhere. On large supertankers, the fuel bills go up (not to mention the green house gases) and on a sailboat it can mean one has a hard time sailing.

Hence, painting the bottom of the boat with something to keep the critters at bay. What kind of paint/bottom does one use to keep the fouling at bay? I'm not sure there is a perfect paint mixture, in terms of being safe for the environment, effective, and user friendly.

Over concern about copper levels in the Puget Sound, Washington State passed a bill prohibiting the sale of any new boats treated with copper-based bottom paint effective January, 2018. Effective 2020, no paints containing more than 0.5 percent copper can be used on old or new boats. (The law applies only to recreational vessels up to 65 feet in length.)

The problem, as I see it, is that many of the non-copper paints tend to use biocides which I'm not convinced are better for the environment.

In the mix of this personal conundrum, I ran across the following 3 web-page article by Jill Dickin Schinas "The Search for an Effective and Environmentally-Safe Antifouling" (12 April 2012). (Links to the articles here:)

The Search for an Effective and Environmentally-Safe Antifouling (page 1)
The Search for an Effective and Environmentally-Safe Antifouling (page 2)
The Search for an Effective and Environmentally-Safe Antifouling (page 3)

What I appreciate from the Mollymawk site is that they speak not only from a theoretical perspective, but from their own experience, too.

I'm still not sure what the answer is, perhaps you have some insights to share?


Blessed Be


Joel

Happy Earth Day

I was doing some reading over the lunch hour when I read the following quote. As I thought the theme fitting for Earth Day here it is:
"We know, then, that the conflict between the human and the natural estates really exists and that it is to some extent necessary. But we are learning, or relearning, something else, too, that frightens us: namely, that this conflict often occurs at the expense of _both_ estates. It is not only possible but altogether probable that by diminishing nature we diminish ourselves, and vice versa."*
This quote from Berry reminded me of something I once read from James Wharram (the catamaran designer) stating that it is easier, and cheaper, to adjust ourselves to nature, than to adjust nature to ourselves.
Hope you get to spend some time enjoying Earth Day.
*Wendell Berry. Home Economics. Counterpoint. 1987. 10.

Earth Day 2010

Happy Earth Day, a day late.

I took a trip down to the Padilla Bay Interpretative Center with a bunch of fourth graders yesterday. It is always great to be outside, to explore the tide-flats and take the time to see all sorts of creatures. And when you add 4th graders who are exploring a lot of this for the first time, and are bubbling with excitement, it just makes it all the more blessed.

Hope you had time to explore the out of doors and the bit of paradise where you live.

While at the Padilla Bay Interpretive Center, I ran across this poem that I'll share:

Ish River
like a breath,
like mist rising from a hillside.
Duwamish, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Samish,
Skokomish, Skykomish ... all the ish rivers.

I live in the Ish River country
between two mountain ranges whre
many rivers
run down to an inland sea.
~ Robert Sund

Ash Wednesday Quote #1

When asked how seriously to take environmental issues brought about by events such as Earth Day, Wendell Berry replied, "I don't think we can take it seriously until people begin to talk seriously about lowering the standard of living. When people begin to see affluence, economic growth, unrestrained economic behavior as the enemies of the environment, then we can take it seriously. But people are saying, 'Give us everything we want and a clean environment,' and this isn't a possibility."