Who are the real subject matter experts here?

[sailingdog]

Pigslo-

I see you've got the family out for a swim...

[camaraderie]

Hey pigs...was that taken in the Bahamas? I think I met your family!! (G)

[sailhog]

Arnold's wife has really let herself go. Sad to see...

[PBzeer]

Nice family portrait pigs. Reminds me that the pigs that swim together, stay together.

[arbarnhart]

Oh, here's a chance to show some real seafaring expertise! According to English folklore (see fishing industry: Information from Answers.com) pigs are bad news for sailors:
One of the strongest taboos was the word ‘pig’, and fishermen and their families would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid saying the actual word. They would use synonyms such as ‘porker’, or spell it out, but no remotely satisfying suggestion for an origin for this has been advanced. Paradoxically, Gill points out that many families in fishing areas actually kept pigs. The word was taboo, no part of a pig should be taken on board, to see a pig on the way to sailing was unlucky, but the animal itself on shore was not forbidden or even feared.


Here is another interesting pig story...

http://www.nps.gov/safr/forkids/uplo...a_activ_pg.pdf

[arbarnhart]

You are right about the sailboat being the destination. You can see that at the boat ramp. Sailors get outside the buoys and start doing what they came for. Power boaters (and I have been one and still go out on them from time to time) move from one steering wheel to another; they often leave the ramp looking like they are pulling back onto the freeway, still headed somewhere. They might not go far before they throw someone overboard with a couple of boards and a rope and some of them do putt along and enjoy themselves, but most are on the way to that special fishing spot or that quiet cove and when they get there if it is already taken/busy, they have to go somewhere else. My brother is a power yacht captain. He does deliveries mostly. He just got back from a few weeks in the Bahamas, where he had a great time skippering a vacationing family, but the crossings were anything but the highlight of the trip; it was pretty much like long haul truck driving only more monotonous.

Years ago, when I lived in Colorado and my knees and ankles were in perfect working order, I used to ski my brains out (yeah, that's what happened ) every winter. It got expensive and often the slopes were crowded, so I thought back country would be a good way to get around that. Sometimes we would take turns shuttling up Berthoud Pass or Loveland Pass, where you could go timber crashing not far from the road and have someone pick you up at the bottom and take you back up. But I found the more enjoyable stuff to be the true back country, where you had to use real mountaineering skis and work up the ridges to come down the bowls. I took a course and learned to dig pits to check for avalanche danger and ended up going back down the ridge without skiing the bowl quite often. Some of my downhill buddies would say that's why they never bothered with it; you go to all that trouble and then don't get to ski. Huh? I skied all day long; up hill and down and enjoyed every bit of it. I didn't pay $50 (or more these days) to stand in a long line so I could get carried up to the top of a crowded hill and be right back in line before I knew it (I still did/do that sometimes). I went into it thinking I had a destination on each trip, but it turned out that I arrived as soon as I stepped into the skis.

Originally Posted by rewell6

I know nothing about sailing. I'm still a powerboater. Matter of fact we just bought one.

Sailing lessons in the fall and we will purchase our first real boat over the winter. The fuel prices have brought me to my senses. It's true with a pb you go to a destination. A sailboat is the destination.

Mac user here as well. Macs are best. I have a mac server that hasn't been updated or rebuilt in 3 years. It is a '99 model and still runs fine. I don't even know when the last time it was cleaned out.

I want one of those dinghy's. I will trade a '72 FJ40 for it.

Who taught the rat to drive?

[sanctuarysam]

Originally Posted by arbarnhart

Oh, here's a chance to show some real seafaring expertise! According to English folklore (see fishing industry: Information from Answers.com) pigs are bad news for sailors:
One of the strongest taboos was the word ‘pig’, and fishermen and their families would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid saying the actual word. They would use synonyms such as ‘porker’, or spell it out, but no remotely satisfying suggestion for an origin for this has been advanced. Paradoxically, Gill points out that many families in fishing areas actually kept pigs. The word was taboo, no part of a pig should be taken on board, to see a pig on the way to sailing was unlucky, but the animal itself on shore was not forbidden or even feared.


Here is another interesting pig story...

http://www.nps.gov/safr/forkids/uplo...a_activ_pg.pdf

and here all this time i thought bananas were the only taboo on a fishing boat..see, ya learn sumpthin new here every day

[SEMIJim]

Originally Posted by sanctuarysam

and here all this time i thought bananas were the only taboo on a fishing boat..

Bananas? Why? What about on sailboats?

Jim

[arbarnhart]

Originally Posted by SEMIJim

Bananas? Why? What about on sailboats?

Jim

You have to remember these fishing superstitions are very, very old. If you fished further away that you could row, the boat was a sailboat.

[sanctuarysam]

Originally Posted by SEMIJim

Bananas? Why? What about on sailboats?

Jim

well, a good friend (powerboater type) told me to never take a banana or tuna fish sandwich on a fishing trip...so i looked up the banana myth and this is what i found;
"The bad luck theory of bananas is derived from the misfortune of stevedores unloading banana boats from Central America. The cargo most often contained biting spiders that not only were painful, but occasionally deadly. Stevedores considered it bad luck to be assigned to unloading a banana boat. This is the truth behind the myth.

The effect that this superstition has on anglers is real. As you know from reading the first installment in this fishing clinic, Karma is very important. The thought of bad luck causes an imbalance in the captain and/or crew’s Yin and Yang. The imbalance results in a poor catch. Bananas are bad luck only for those who believe they are bad luck. However, one superstitious crewmember can affect the entire boat’s Karma."