Steam Flyer

Get a bigger boat Change keel configuration to deep carbon or alum fin and big-ass bulb (ie lower VCG by enough to make a difference) Water ballast tanks & hi-capacity pump system Make rig efficient to depower and learn to sail the boat to best effect You will need to do this last anyway so it's the best place to start. You may decide, after some experience, that it's enough and the other "solutions" (which of course bring other problems) are too much $$ and trouble. FB- Doug

Hard to tell until it's too late. It's too convenient to have that portal to the rest of the world. I helped put in a bunch of power plant controls and pretty much all the ones I know about are compromised by being connected to the outside wwworld; even thought the benefits are slim to none. It's really handy and less expensive than putting in parallel hardware. Power grid knocked out by hackers? Don't blame me!! Anyway it's good to hear something besides gloom 'n doom -DSK

Buccaneer 18 near Atlanta Ga https://atlanta.craigslist.org/sat/boa/d/18-buccaneer-sailboat-trailer/6316216072.html Price a bit high considering that the trailer appears to be too short. Depends on what the rest of the sails & gear looks like. This one looks like a 1980 or thereabouts, high mast step FB- Doug

I think a lot of the people who were less motivated to vote for Hillary... and ended up not doing so... weren't influenced so much by the Russians as by Hillary's shrill self-righteousness and inattention to anything beyond "it's my turn." I happen to know a number of husbands who probably would NOT have voted for Hillary because realizing that Trump was a dangerous clown was not motivation enough; but when the day came, they did, because the fact that the Russians liked him and hated her pushed them just enough to actually make the effort. So, to your full quote he was also elected by the inaction of many Dems. The Russkies smeared her with poo via face-book and they decided not to vote for her - or at all. you now have a fuller explanation but much much more wasted space and verbiage than I intended. FWIW I agree that many Democrats had their motivation lessened by the Russian smear campaign -DSK

Unfortunately the Law is often an idiot -DSK

What about the people who don't hear Trump condemning pro football players in more vigorous and clear terms than he condemns Nazis and the KKK? He was on the news all day yesterday doing exactly that. How far up their ass do those people have their heads? Or do they just agree with Trump that NFL players who insufficiently respect the flag are morally worse than Nazis and KKKers? -DSK

Great perspective, I have not sailed all these different boats. OTOH my perspective is that -any- boat can go thru gales, upwind etc, with the right outfitting and the right skill set. I've sailed boats like 470s in 35+ so have seen a bit of this in practice. The Olson 30 for example can fly downwind but is best handled by a large muscular crew and tends to nosedive. I like frac rigs Lots of small-ish racing-type keelboats available for small coin but outfitting them is going to push the cost up to the top of the OP's price range IMHO. The best ones aren't going to be available for small coin anyway. FB- Doug

I'd go one step further and let people do more of what they want with their own property. Obviously we need the force of law to prevent your next-door neighbor from turning his back yard into a radioactive waste dump; and similar. However the more laws there are, the weaker the enforcement must become (all else being equal). At some point (and I personally believe we have passed this point) our gov't making new laws become almost irrelevant, unless the new law is accompanied by a policy to enforce that new law and ignore several old (but still on the books) laws. As for the YMCA programs; it's a great thing to support. Not required but worth while IMHO -DSK

^ this ^ -DSK

Really? The people that Antifa are against would send you to the gas chamber, if they had the power to do so. -DSK

Yep! Nice how when it rains real hard in Florida or with those pesky tropical storms the sewage treatment plants like to open the valve... Fuck all those holding tank regs and the CG hassling you .... the city has carte blanche ...here in Indonesia the people really know how to treat the rivers...they plant gardens of water spinach and other things. kids play in it some people bathe in it... throw all their plastic bags and trash in it ..shit in it regularly every day... then wash their dishes in it That's right, the future of mankind is to embrace the microbiological soup we live in, instead of trying to make it nice and pretty. Shit in the river, then dive in head first with a smile! Actually, I think this is a holdover from our ancient way of life. Peoples' attitudes change very very slowly, over many generations. Back when we struggled against the wilderness, when there was so much "nature" that nothing we could do would even make a noticable change; we threw our trash out the cave opening and let the bones pile up. Now, our products -are- the environment. We have created a hell of a lot of things that would never have occurred naturally, and the natural world is trying to adapt to what we throw out the cave door... our 7+ billion (and climbing fast) cave doors. I would agree but the law also changes slowly. All these things need to be legally recognized entities, with different categories or perhaps scales of rights. But it wasn't that long ago that we didn't even have rights for large categories of people; so we're making progress. -DSK

Whoring and sailing are the two oldest professions. Chafe is a problem with both. Yeah however "Ugly but practical" is not an asset in the former. Advantage: sailing FB- Doug

Sure. Not trying to make excuses, but they are way way behind and the option of "rip it out and start over" is very unattractive. But it's obviously the right thing to do, what we need is leadership that that can make tough choices and convince a lot of people to do difficult things. I think Obama, with his Blackberry that became obsolete right before his eyes, was told that the various military cyber-security operations could keep the gov't part of the wwweb nice and safe. Partly wishful thinking and partly bad information. It may be that the US cyber capability is the current generations' Viet Nam. -DSK

How the YMCA? http://www.ymca.net/watersafety/ They're not the government, but they are here to help. Our local Y does a water safety program for all 3rd and 4th graders, three steps. One is what to do if somebody else falls in the water: "Reach or Throw, but don't GO" and the kids practice using a rope tied to a plastic jug or a PVC pole to rescue each other; 2 is how to put on a lifejacket and float calmly; 3 is actual floating and/or swimming. I am not qualified to teach swimming but I volunteer with the other 2 stages every year. Unfortunately, anywhere there is lots of water... like around here... there are kids drowning every year. I would like to think that this "Y" program has helped, I do know that several kids have rescued other kids using what they were taught here, over the the past ten years we've been doing it. -DSK

How is President Trump “doing a better job than the previous office holders”? so far I see no indication that he has, and 2018 is just around the corner it will be hard to do a poorer job For a minute there, I thought you were going to repeat the oft-told Republican fairy tale that Obama did nothing about the cyber threat, or about Russian meddling. Both are outright lies. FB- Doug