Words of wisdom...

As announced in the last update, Sailorgirl is 2 years old! Yippee!!! Whee!!! Yahoo!!!!!

What that means is that the site got bigger. Bigger also got slightly confusing as things morphed.

So it was time for a bit of a clean up. You'll notice a new section on the front page - the Trivia, Facts and Stuff section.

The section Sailorgirl Adventures is just that - places I've gone, people I've met, adventures I've had. Trivia, Facts and Stuff is miscellaneous stuff that shows up. Stuff I want to know, stuff that amuses me. Hope you too are amused.

Tip: If the carbeurator on an outboard clogs up try cleaning the needle jet with a piece of thin wire. The wire inside a twist tie is the perfect size.

Another Sailorgirl Adventure!

Chewing the Fat

"God made the vittles, but the devil made the cook," was a popular saying used by seafaring men in the last century when salted beef was staple diet aboard ship. This tough cured beef, suitable only for long voyages when nothing else was as cheap or would keep as well, required prolonged chewing to make it edible. Men often chewed one chunk for hours, just as if it were chewing gum and referred to this practice as "chewing the fat".

They should have read the Sailorgirl Galley section!

Another Sailorgirl Adventure!

(OK, so I picked a good one).

Fact: A genoa (or genny) is a jib whose clew reaches abaft (aft of - behind) the mast. It's size is designated as a percentage of the foretriange. (The foretriange is the area between the forestay and the mast). Genoas range from 110% to 170%.

In the news....

- Kiwis trounced. And you thought that just because Switzerland is landlocked that they couldn't sail...

Broken headfoils, blown spinnakers, broken booms, filling with water (isn't the water supposed to be on the outside?), and a really cool shot of a dismasting...

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Back in the news...

In November 2002, Sailorgirl passed on a story about Richard Van Pham. (click here to read the original news). One day he went for a 35 mile sail in California. Pham was found off the coast of Costa Rica after spending months adrift in the Pacific. His boat was scuttled and he was sent back to California where someone gave him another 26-footer.

On January 30, 2003 the Coast Guard spotted him about 20 miles off California's Orange County. When Pham didn't respond, the crew boarded the boat and discovered it had no communications or navigation equipment, or visual distress signals. Van Pham told them he had been under way for three days and was trying to make his way back to Long Beach, CA when he became disoriented. Weather conditions when he was found included 6 mile visibility, light winds and 1 foot seas.

Sailorgirl Attitude:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

     Mark Twain

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Adventure is...