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Messages - asechrest

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1
Spin Zone / Re: Warning: Malware in FannieMuh's posts.
« on: July 30, 2019, 10:09:27 AM »
I was one of the whiners. I think the posts should be deleted. We appear to have a democratic vote for doing so.

2
Spin Zone / Re: Education is a Fundamental Right
« on: June 28, 2019, 01:33:07 PM »
Yep that was it.

But what you said is not true. Each of us chooses to understand or not. Or to take off the blinders that others would wish we wore. Granted, kids are impressionable.

PS - I have kids in public school. They teach natural rights.

3
Spin Zone / Re: Education is a Fundamental Right
« on: June 27, 2019, 05:33:38 PM »
You must have gone to public schools where they carefully avoid letting you understand such things. I didn’t know those terms either until I started educating myself as an adult.

No one has the power to "let me" understand something. Only I have that power.

4
Spin Zone / Re: Education is a Fundamental Right
« on: June 27, 2019, 02:43:27 PM »
Who are you, and how did you get Asechrest's password?

Easy, the password was "password".

But anyway, this doesn't seem too out of the ordinary for me. Can't remember ever suggesting education was a fundamental right. Seems like a good question to pose.

It did lead me to some reading on negative vs. positive rights. I wasn't familiar with those terms.

5
Spin Zone / Re: Democrat Debate
« on: June 27, 2019, 10:37:51 AM »

The attempts at speaking Spanish were brutal. My step daughter, who's fluent in Spanish, was like "wtf are they saying"?

6
Spin Zone / Re: Education is a Fundamental Right
« on: June 27, 2019, 10:36:24 AM »

I posed the question to the kids last night at the dinner table -- is education a fundamental right? The conversation was brief, but interesting. They both answered "yes?" in that rising tone that makes clear they're unsure about the answer. So I rephrased and asked how we get educated. "Teachers". "So if we all have a fundamental right to education, does that mean we can force people to teach us?"

Then there was a comment: "Well we can learn on the internet". And then we talked about web content, and whether we could force people to create it for free for our own benefit.

7
Spin Zone / Education is a Fundamental Right
« on: June 26, 2019, 04:02:07 PM »
Heard this from an NPR guest this morning.

Can anything that requires the time (money) and services of another human be considered a fundamental right?

8
Ah, back when muscle cars meant muscle cars, and not these 4-banger Hondas with loud mufflers.

My favorite is the F-150s with fake engine noise piped through the speakers. Vroom!

9
Spin Zone / Re: Star Trek nerds
« on: May 22, 2019, 12:59:37 PM »
I prefer TNG, but it might be because of my age. I still watch rerun episodes sometimes. Picard is legendary. And there were good lessons in the episodes for a younger person.

10
The only thing new here are the PC rules. Software has been recommending grammar, punctuation, and spelling issues for years. I imagine the suggestions will be underlined like they are now.

11
Spin Zone / Re: Joke Thread: Post 'em if ya got 'em
« on: May 05, 2019, 09:52:34 AM »
My Roomba escaped



The best joke is always in the comments!

12
Spin Zone / Re: John McCain Human Trafficking Fund (Porn Tax)
« on: April 15, 2019, 10:39:35 AM »

Sometimes (usually?), politicians are so unbelievably fucking stupid.

13
Spin Zone / Re: Skiff Challenge
« on: April 08, 2019, 07:47:17 PM »
Here is the recap of the Key West team's primary captain. Warning, it's wall-of-textish, but an interesting read.

Quote
Alright guys, sorry for the delay in posting this recount of our "adventure". At the end of this trip, I was beyond exhausted. There's probably some clinical term for what I put my body through that's synonymous with severe abuse.

I've followed this challenge for years, and I've always wanted the opportunity to run it myself. I was an outside spectator, and like many other small boat enthusiasts, I thought that this would be a wonderful way to tour the coast of Florida on my little boat that I love fishing out of. Sounds wonderful right? And I'm a tough guy, so I can deal with a night without sleep. After all, every Skiff Challenge prior to this one started at first light, and ended around the 40hr mark. It sounded challenging, but totally doable. But then they changed the start time to 5pm after we'd already committed to participating in the race (which involves putting up $5k just to submit an application). Still, ok, just 2 nights without sleep. Harder, but I can do it. Well, I can tell you right now, challenging is an understatement. This was byfar the single most difficult thing I've ever done. This is the type of thing that will show you what you're really made of, even when you don't think you have what it takes. You're forced to have what it takes, and you find a way to have what it takes, even when your body and mind are screaming for you to stop. We did this race in an unnecessarily high 60+ hours (which were a result of admittedly poor decisions based on even poorer information and unwise assumptions). So that made for 3 nights without sleep. Ouch

But anyway, here's a play by play. This will be a long post, so you've been warned

  The weeks leading up to the start of this race, the weather forecast looked ok. I still felt good about it, but I was getting nervous as the gravity of what this race really would entail was setting in. Then the days leading up the race, the forecast got worse and worse. Then the forecast became settled on what was going to be bad weather for us right at blastoff. I was real nervous about starting off in thunderstorms and knowing I would probably have to cross the Gulf in that mess in a boat that had no business doing that, and early on, so I had trouble sleeping since I was worried about it. On race day, we all woke up, and went down for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Heath Daughtry was sitting at a table near us, and this guy had run this race every single year (he started the Florida Skiff Challenge), and consistently put up very impressive stats. I intentionally overheard his conversation on the phone with someone, and he stated "This is going to be the worst conditions we've ever had for the challenge. I'm feeling a bit queasy about this.". As you can imagine, hearing that coming from a hardened skiff challenge veteran like him was not comforting for first time racers like us, with zero experience running a boat anywhere in the state of Florida
    So the rest of the day, we were all nervous and dreading the start of the race. The rain began at noon, and just progressively got harder with no sign of letting up. Then the wind picked up and also got progressively worse. Then came the lightning and thunder. Great. We all met up for inspections, in the rain, and the inspections were done by the man who chairs Captains for Clean water. I don't know what credentials he actually possesses that makes him qualified for boat surveying, but it seemed like he just looked at a placard and said "ok". No engine inspections were done that I could see. So we all got the green light to launch our boats, and beach them at the Florabama bar where the race would start several hours later. We all suited up, and tried to calm each other by having idle conversation with the other teams. I have to say, the Sea Pro team were great guys. Very friendly. They made it clear that they wanted to win this race, but told us that they would not refuse help to anyone that needed it. They told us to monitor a VHF channel and begged us to let them know if they got in trouble, because they would immediately come to our aid. They shared our feelings about the other teams, in that although they were friendly enough towards us, they would do whatever it takes to win, so Sea Pro and KW needed to look out for each other in this mess. That was a fine gesture. So, I know there's suspicion about their engine, but these guys weren't even really full time employees at Sea Pro. They were a dream team of sorts picked out for this race. That brings me to another observation I had. With one exception of one captain, every team consisted of men that were noticeably fit and healthy. By comparison, Mike and I are just your run of the mill overweight family men. So these guys were probably better conditioned for the unrelenting punishment of this race, at least, that thought was going through my mind. Anyway, the rest of the day, the weather steadily worsened, we got interviewed several times by magazine journalists and production crews, and then we all just sat around getting more worked up waiting for the start time. Then the coordinator called us all up for a meeting, and said that we would have to start the race right now to get ahead of this awful weather that was approaching. So then it was go time
  We got in the boat, did some last minute prep, got in our seats and lined up with the other teams. START. Everyone blasted out of the hole and got up to speed impressively quickly... except for us. The prop we picked had a weak hole shot, but it gave us good top speed and good fuel mileage compared to props with better hole shot. We betted on those attributes outweighing the poor holeshot, and those attributes turned out to be not as important as we thought. To be clear, I voiced my concern about that poor holeshot with the amount of open water we'd be in, and the need for better bottom end in high seas, but ... Anyway. Everyone pulled out ahead of us, but we could still see them for a while. We eventually hit a no wake zone, but the other teams hit it first and got out of it first, giving them enough lead to leave our sight. Mind you, we were being pelted with rain, so pulling out your cellphone and checking the other team's positions wasn't really feasible. We ran through the rain for the remaining hours of daylight, alone, and the lightning was cracking all around us. I was nervous about our aluminum towers being likely lightning rods. Then we hit an open bay, and the water was really rough. As dark settled in, we tried to turn on the lightbar. It flicked on, then flicked off. We didn't know why, but it wasn't working. So we tried to turn on the FLIR. It worked on one plotter screen, but then the other screen just displayed an error. We ran into this before during test runs, and thought we fixed it with an inline coupler that would arrest the backfeed of power that's inherent with a FLIR. It didn't matter anyway because the FLIR lens was wet, and apparently, it will only show you a blurred unhelpful image if it's wet. So we pulled out our spotlights which are helpful, but nothing like the lightbar. I shined it just in time, because we were on a collision course with a giant steel unlit channel marker that we narrowly avoided. Then, then soundbar broke from it's mount, and almost fell on my head, halfway dangling by its wires. So we had to stop and tie that down. Then the anchor light swivel mount broke, and the anchor light fell down and illuminated the cockpit of the boat, which as you all know destroys your night vision. Then we discovered our USB plugs were no longer charging our stowed phones. Not a big deal, or so we thought. Then the swivel mount for the VHF antenna broke , so the antenna fell down and we were dragging the antenna in the water behind us. Not great for reception. Then the other plotter screen displayed an error. So here we are with no working plotters. The Port Washington stop was an alternate "Oh shit" stop that we had picked, and it's a good thing because we lost that remaining plotter just before we got there. I pulled out my phone and we navigated (slowly) to Port Washington after communicating to the chase team that we needed to pull in for repairs. On the way in, it became apparent that we took the wrong entrance (there were 2 possible entry points to this landing). The water was riddled with dock pilings sticking up every where. I was frantically shining the light at all of them while Mike was driving, and I ended up shining the light on the bright white deck, blinding both of us. I saw a group of pilings just in front of us, tried to warn Mike, but I guess it was too late or the confusion was overwhelming. We hit it pretty hard coming in. We got to the dock, and our amazing chase crew immediately got to work repairing everything. They couldn't figure out why one plotter wasn't working, and time was a constraint, so we decided to continue on with just one plotter. The problem was that plotter wasn't connected to the transducer, so we had no depth reading. Whoops. We put up the gull wings before leaving since the rain wasn't letting up, and continued on through the man made canal. We lost a lot of time at that stop getting everything fixed. We were too nervous to go full speed in a small narrow canal, so we chugged along at 20mph. I really didn't like not having a depth reading, so stopped and I just pulled the FLIR out of the network altogether, rejoined the plotter screens, and restored both plotters and the depth reading. More time consumption. Then we carried on, and Mike passed the helm to me. I drove out of that canal, dodging poorly lit dredge pipes until we got out to Panama City Bay. I turned on the Radar at that point, and discovered that bay had a lot those unlit giant steel channel markers that the Radar was marking. Thanks Radar. Panama city dock was one of our scheduled refuel stops. We didn't really need fuel, but decided we better top off while we could. I went to the dock, but nobody was there. The chase team couldn't get in. More lost time. At this point I was thinking that we needed to hit open water to make up for all this time instead of continuing on through the backwaters that dump you out in Appalachicola. I pulled out my Windy app on my phone, and the seas were forecasted to be 1' at the Panama cut and beyond. No big deal, lets do it. So we backtracked, made our way out the bay and into the Gulf, and turned South with intentions to run along the coast and turn East into Appalachicola and refuel at St George. That plan seemed to be working well at first. We ran down the coast for a while and it was fine really, the seas weren't that bad despite the worsening weather. As we began to turn West with the coast, all I can say is Oh my God. The water was oppressively rough, and the wave height was frightening. Maybe we could have carried on in that stuff, but I just wasn't sure if it was going to get worse, and the idea that it could get worse made me literally fear for my life. So I tucked tail and about faced back into Panama city bay. So much lost time now, and I did this based on the Windy app forecast. I never used that app again for the remainder of the race. It was my call to go out into the Gulf at that point, and it was a bad call.
   As I ran into the backwater bays leading to Appalachicola, the water was rough, but the conditions were getting better. Mike pulled out the beanbag and went to "sleep". I navigated all the way through the Appalachicola forest, which was easy and calm at that point, giving me the deceiving idea that this run was going to be easier than it had been so far. Then my phone was down to 2%, and I got a text from dad saying he was really nervous and to please call him. I called him, and he said everyone was worried about us. I didn't understand why. I said I thought I knew where I was going, please don't tell me I'm lost or off track. He said it looks like you're just winding through a little creek. Damn it, what's happening? He said that's the way everyone else took. Ok... so I'm not off track. I tried to plug my phone into charge, but my phone said no because the charging point was wet. It was at that time that I told my dad I might lose him and have no real way of communicating any further through the night without my phone. Then, like a guardian angel in brand new white Ford F150 form, there was our chase team posted up at a landing they found along our route that we never previously discussed, just waiting for us just in case we caught hell. I pulled the boat in, they fueled us, reassured us that we were on track and not too far behind everyone else. The took my phone, dried it out in the window defrost, and charged it for me as I drove on to our next fuel stop at St. George in Appalachicola Bay. They refueled us there, and warned us about the conditions in the Gulf, and told us to be careful with detectable nervousness in their voices. We pushed off and considered hugging the coast instead of attempting a straight crossover to Cedar Key. We decided that we had lost entirely too much time and really needed to head South to get out of this weather that was picking back up in intensity. So Mike made the call, and we entered the Gulf from the East Cut. It was awful. The waves were huge, the rain was pouring down and the wind was blowing hard. I kept the bow light bar on just so I could see the waves coming at me and react accordingly. I was continuously knocked off course and had to recalibrate constantly, while changing the throttle and occasionally readjusting the tabs. The worst part was the f***ing prop we had. If we dropped below 10mph, it was an absolute struggle getting the back on plane in those waves, taking up to 30 seconds to get the boat up and going again. It went on like this for hours, until I started falling asleep at the helm. I asked Mike to tap in, and he did... for about 10 minutes. He was getting seasick and couldn't stand to be behind the wheel anymore, so I had to get back behind the helm. Still fighting sleep, I carried on until the sun came up and reset my biological clock. It was like a 2nd wind. I've never appreciated a sunrise more than that one. The seas started to calm down a bit and we could make a little better progress. Then a pod of dolphins joined us, and seemed to cheer me on. I continued on through this, but was still only averaging about 12mph and decided to refuel at Steinhatchee instead, just to get out of the mess we were in. It took about 5 hours to get out of the Gulf. From Steinhatchee, we went down to a landing in Hudson, and on the way was the only time during the entire race that we found water calm enough to open the boat up to top speed of 38mph. This convinced me that speed was not nearly as important as agility, and we never were in danger of running out of fuel at any point. The next legs of the race were pretty uneventful, all the way to Marco, save for a bad move that put us in a no wake zone ( I wasn't driving ). Mind you, we'd been in open water most of the race, were getting relentlessly pounded. That rear seat was a throne of pain, so standing up was the only repreive if you weren't driving. When we refueled in Marco, I neglected to put on my foul weather gear because it was warm, and the water had been calm. On the way down to Key West (in the dark), I got spray with water a bunch of times which penetrated my semipermeable sun pants and settled into my nether regions. With 100 miles of bouncing in that driver's seat for 3+ hours over open water, the wet warm environment of crotch and the constant friction of the bouncing resulted in some wicked chafing of that entire area with a pain like you wouldn't believe. It would take your breath away, trust me. We refueled in Key West with some pre arranged jerry cans dockside, and carried on to Key Largo. Something about how we were hitting the chop on the way really kicked my ass. By the time we got to Key Largo, my entire body was screaming in pain and begging for relief. We met Jim at the dock who wisely advised against heading up the ICW due to all of the no wake zones that would kill our time. He also advised us not exit/enter at Haulover cut. I intended to follow his instructions. If you saw the video the media recorded of us, you can hear Mike saying he wasn't sure if he was willing to go back out into open water for more punishment. On our way out, he persuasively convinced me that going through the ICW was what we needed to do because our fat out of shape bodies needed a break. It sounded appealing. It became apparent that we weren't making good time, and we wouldn't, so we exited at Haulover not knowing we were exiting at Haulover. We just saw an exit, and took it. It wasn't bad really, but I'm pretty sure we just got lucky. Anyway, the rest of the runs continued over open water, until we got to Sebastian Inlet, and then carried on through the ICW which was very difficult to navigate at night. We are now on night 3 of this race without sleep, while all the other teams finished before us, but we're getting real close to the finish line. About 10 miles out, Mike took over the helm and planned to bring us home.
   Then, out of seemingly nowhere, we slammed into a bed of rocks and oysters. We hit it hard. The motor took about 10 direct hits, and the keel of the boat was teetering on rocks. I had a sinking realization that we could have destroyed the lower unit, which would have resulted in us not being able to make it to the finish line 8 miles way. We could have failed the Skiff Challenge 8 miles out. We got out, and had to pick up the boat several times and manhandle it off the rocks and back into deeper water. Luckily, the propshaft and prop were damaged, but still propelled us to the finish line. My dad took a video of the prop damage, with no context, and like a game of telephone, social media lit up and the story solidified into us damaging that prop at the beginning of the race when we hit the log in Port Washington, so "That's why they were going so much slower than the other boats the whole race! Poor guys!" I haven't corrected anyone on that assumption. The truth is, we were beat to hell and took it slow on the East Coast because we just couldn't stand anymore abuse. We knew we lost, and just didn't have it in us to kill ourselves anymore, so we just decided to get home comfortably. We probably had about 2 hours sleep total in 3 days, so our fatigue probably made our bodies feel worse.
   I'm happy I participated in this race, and I know what I would do differently if I run it again. I just don't think I will at this point. Once is enough for, at least that's how I feel now. My wife was extremely concerned for me the whole time, and my daughter literally cried in my arms the moment I got home, in my driveway and wouldn't let go. She hugged me and held on to me all day today, and became worked up when I would so much as leave the room, fearing that I'd be gone again for several days. I don't think I can do this to my family again.
  There were a few bright spots in all the misery. The dolphins were cool, seeing the stars and bands of the Milky Way on the way to Key West was beautiful and humbling, the Keys are a local treasure and a sight to see, and all the support we got on here and Social Media was inspiring. But otherwise, this race took everything out of me and was absolutely horribly exhausting. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and at least now everything else I set out to do will seem easy. Thanks for all the support guys

14
Spin Zone / Re: Skiff Challenge
« on: April 07, 2019, 04:15:25 PM »

So Key West came in last at 59 total hours. Their final hurdle was when they ran aground on a rocky shoal in the dark about an hour from the finish line in Jacksonville. They managed to free themselves. It chewed up the prop and bent the prop shaft but they made it in anyway. I haven't yet seen photos of damage to the bottom of the boat. I imagine the guys are getting some well-deserved food and rest.

I'm hoping Jessie Marlowe will do a full write-up of their experience. In some of the videos at the fuel stops, he looks shell shocked.

15
Spin Zone / Re: Skiff Challenge
« on: April 07, 2019, 04:09:00 PM »
Very cool, asechrest!  Is 70hp underpowered for that size of boat? 

So where is the seat for the second person on the skiff?

I think 70 is pushing it for the Key West 1720, which some would say isn't technically a skiff, and is nearly double the weight of the Hells Bay and Yellowfin skiffs. Those are true skinny water poling skiffs. Back in the day I think the budget setup of the Key West 1720 came with a 60HP 2 stroke.  Still, with the right prop the top speed isn't bad. I think during testing of the 1720 that ran the challenge, they hit upper 30s top speed.

As far as the second seat - the Key West team installed a fancy shock-dampening captain's chair behind the center console where the normal seat would go, then installed another captain's chair behind that. The Hell's Bay team has a sort of side console instead of a center console, so they had a regular chair behind the side console and then a marine beanbag beside that for the co-captain. The Yellowfin team had side-by-side captain's chairs behind the center console.

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