Boat progress

They have added a mast partner in front (far end) and I have been going through the trauma of learning how to paint - doubtful that I will do a decent job even after a week of painting and sanding and repainting.

You can see some asymmetry, which I am assuming will not matter. We ordered gudgeons and pinions for the rudder but the pinions are the wrong diameter. I am wondering if a person can stretch out on the bottom, with their feet below the rear thwart?

Woods Hole Stories #1

I hear some good stories around town. It is worth recording some of them. I can't gurantee the accuracy of my retelling.

Here is one from Damian McLaughlin:
#1
I man was sailing from Europe to America across the Atlantic in a solo, trans-Atlantic, race. He had equipment problems and put in to the Azores to get repairs. When his boat was fixed he headed on back out into the Atlantic, thinking it would be difficult catching up, from a week behind the other boats in the race. As he is sailing along he sees what looks like a life boat and thinks: "Oh man, now I have to go rescue those people, that's the end of my race." But when got over to the other boat it was, in fact, someone rowing solo across the Atlantic. So they had a nice chat for 10 minutes and continued their separate ways. [And both of them knew Damian]

Hear are a couple from Tom Renshaw:
#2
Dave Wald and a friend were paddling Dave's dad George's Klepper folding kayak on a nice March day. They went out into the hole (Woods Hole passage) from the gut (between Penzance and Devil's Foot island) and the cross current hit them and capsized them. So they struggled for a moment or two and then started dying, when the friend said "hey I can touch the bottom" and dragged them out of the water. Dave had stopped trying. They went to the nearest occupied house and dripped on the floor.

#3
During a cold winter in Woods Hole, a schooner full of lumber got caught in the ice and pushed through the hole, upon which, the boat broke up and the pieces floated off on the tide. Now, Sumner Hilton knew what was going on and where the tide was headed - towards Nobska - and he went down there and harvested the lumber - from which he built boats for many years.

Here is one where the names of the guilty are omitted.

#4

A group went out rowing in the hole. As you enter the main current you need to beware of it hitting you broadside and kicking up the bow of your boat. One fellow had a bucket full of water on the back seat, for ballast, and was warned about having too high a center of gravity. He ignored that and ignored advice about entering directly into the main current from the side. So up went his bow, the bucket turned over, and he summersaulted into the drink. This was early in the summer when the water is cold. The group was not able to get him back into a boat until they had floated over to Juniper Point. I think now he is a bit traumatized.

Boat progress

Easy to be happy about this.

Persistence of unfinished tasks

I make simple mistakes at the sink: picking up the Ibuprofen rather than the bar of soap, etc. These mistakes are a windows into aspects of cognitive processing. So here was one:

In the morning I was looking at the pill bottle thinking I wanted a pain killer. But I decided I had only a mild and temporary headache, so I did not take the pill. Later in the day, going into the bathroom to wash my hands with a vague plan: "use object on back of sink", I did not pick up the soap but, rather, the pill bottle. As I reflect on this, it seems I had some residual desire to take a pill and, in the absence of clear task specification, that elevated the pill bottle to serve as the "object" in the task.

In my framework, an unfinished task is part of a narrative structure guided by Truism #7. So the above error is seen as a bi-product of the truism. This, together with the observation that the truism remains operable and persists for, at least, a day. together these gives us a sense of duration for something like a narrative truism.

The error is a small and very simple example of a "subconscious motivation". Imagine how our motivation evolves when tens, hundreds, or thousands of small sub-motivations are present in the same moment. Sure, behaviorism explains it but internal mental state is the simplest implementation of behaviorism.

Wings help a running bird turn on a dime

Watch a turkey take a corner. You heard it here first folks: running dinosaurs benefited from the added high speed maneuverability afforded by wings. Flight would be a side effect.