a zany proposal

[Neil Gordon]

I think we might be able to work out passing beers while under way.

Tie beer to old PFD, toss overboard and commence mutual crew overboard recovery exercises.

[Steve Laume]

Throwing good beer overboard! That would add a lot more incentive than picking up tennis balls for the dog or losing your favorite hat. We would just have to be very carful about the initial drops. I could see collision avoidance being a big part of the maneuvers. Could you imagine the accident report, Steve.

[Cathy Monaghan]

Here's a thought. What if you did it kind of like a poker run? Poker runs usually have the boats speeding off on a pre-determined course with five stops along the way. At each stop you get an envelope containing a playing card. At the final stop the envelopes are opened and the boat with the best poker hand wins.

The participants in poker runs are usually powerboats which are capable of getting from point to point relatively quickly. It would probably take sailboats all day to reach the first stop unless the course was relatively short. So instead of 5 checkpoints in a day, how about one checkpoint per day spread out over a 5 day cruise. Each day would end at a specified anchorage, yacht club or marina and the first boat to arrive gets the "booty". After reaching the final checkpoint on the fifth day everyone would show their booty stash and the boat with the most booty wins -- or just use cards like they do with a poker run and everyone would pick up a card not just the first boat there.

[Tod Mills]

knights jousting.

I can just see someone trying to explain that "no, we WEREN'T jousting, just because we were sailing right at each other with long pointy rods doesn't necessarily mean jousting. No, I didn't know there was a 'no jousting' clause in our policy, but it doesn't matter because we were NOT jousting"

[Didereaux]

Funny that should come up. Was out yesterday and a friend came up and hollered that he'd found his cooler empty (something about the weekend having depleted it)...anywho, generous soul that I am, or slow-witted, I hollered back 'No prob, I have a few extras.

We contemplated and schemed at full volume for awhile and come up with this: I hove to, he slid up downwind close, put it in reverse (I trust the guy a LOT!) and I merely handed a few directly to him.

Later dockside it was decided by all witnesses that we were probably more lucky than skilled...but we steadfastly deny that assumption!

Can't believe the weather this past week. In the 70's, winds a bit unpredictable, but dam it's a great feeling sailing the first week of January in shorts and T-shirts, and even sweating a bit...hank ons ya know. heh
;)

[Neil Gordon]

The United States Navy and our allies long ago perfected underway transfers or fuel, supplies and even me (once). I'm thinking that with crew, a brew exchange isn't that difficult. The boat with the beer simply approaches the beerless bark on its windward quarter. When within range, toss a heaving line and have crewsky transfer the brewsky.

[Oswego John]

Neil,

Instead of using a breeches buoy, maybe a brewches buoy might work.

Hey, don't knock it. Necessity is the mother of invention.

O J

[Neil Gordon]

Instead of using a breeches buoy, maybe a brewches buoy might work.

Sure. Some sort of canvas six pack, with adequate floatation, of course.

[Photo Chief]

Wow, what an educated group. Tod muses about nautical Don Quixotes and Neil... "crewsky and brewsky" wat a weigh wit wurds. I am really happy that I found this site.

I do believe that my previous life as a wantabe big game fisherman may have the answer to a safe, easy, and entertaining transfer method afloat. KITES. Kites are routinely used to keep small baitfish at the surface and away from the boat. The kite is slow trolled if lack of wind is a problem. Now imagine a "brewsky" instead of a baitfish. The receiving boat approaches, unties the catch, and voila. Dual purpose also, something to amuse oneself on lone motoring by flying your kite or even sailfishing. And the grandchildren will love you for it.