Fuel Efficiency

Siesta in Transit
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Gas is expensive. Diesel is really expensive. Sailing is free.

I should have bumper stickers made. Sailing is free.

I love the irony of that statement. Let us remember it contradicts another favorite saying of mine, “Owning a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest is like standing in a shower and ripping up $100 bills.

However, as a cruiser, you really can start to take advantage of the freeness thing. It's not like you are in any great hurry to go anywhere, right? So if you pull out of the anchorage and the wind is only 6 knots, what the hell. Put up the sail and let the wind carry you towards your destination. Never mind that the resulting speed over ground is something less than a full trot for a chihuahua in a hurry to take a piss. This mode of travel earns you the privilege of smugly reducing your carbon foot print while you take in the sights.

Unless and until the children get bored.

Peels of laughter skating perilously close to hysterical rise from the children's hull where Aeron and Mera play some rather vigorous wrestling game in an attempt to keep themselves amused. There is roaring and growling and giggling and then a small blond head pops out of the hatch. “Are we there yet?” asks Aeron. “Yah!” screams the birthday girl Mera, “We're there, right?!”

Jaime at the helm is possibly the worst. “Oh god I'm bored. Omigod I'm so bored. I'm so bored. This is so boring. Wow. This is just... boring.” She leans on the wheel and stares bleakly through her sun glasses past the sparkling seas at the stunning vista complete with basking sea lions, green skyline, and distant sail boats. “Oh god I'm bored.”

A Way to Pass Time
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Dr C, of course, is blissfully unaware of the mutiny brewing aboard. He's busy cutting holes in something. Or rebuilding something else. Or possibly changing some fluid or other.

Ten minutes go by, “Are we there yet?”

Um, well not yet. It's only a 3 mile trip today but at 2 knots per hour on a very broad tack the amount we'll have to travel over ground would just about take us to Canada if we straightened it out and went as the crow flies. It'll take us... let me do the math. Hold on a second.

Three hours. Omigod.

“Dr C, we really need to motor. We really need to motor,” I inform the captain. Saving fuel and money be damned. Get me to the shore on time.