Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Positive Flotation

When we woke up this morning, the temperature was in the mid-fifties and there was fog as thick as I have ever seen. We couldn't see more than 100-200 feet. The weather service predicted that it would lift by 10:00 a.m. (we did wake up before 10:00) but it didn't clear until nearly 1:00 p.m.

We went out with Alan and had a great sail. His boat is larger and has a lot of great gadgetry. We were amazed at how the larger boat smoothed out the choppy bay and made the ride much more comfortable.

Afterwards, we did a little more work on the boat, bought groceries, and grilled chicken and zucchini for supper (with a bottle of zinfandel). The last two nights, we have grilled with charcoal onboard with a small grill and it has worked great.

For those of you who worry that we might someday get into a storm, capsize, and sink -- worry no more. For boats, there is a term called "positive floatation" which means that even if all of the available volume fills with water, there will still be enough trapped air space to keep the boat afloat. We estimate that there will very soon be enough wine bottle corks onboard to provide the necessary flotation.