Your avatar...

Cruisingdad · #1 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Ahh, I think it is time for a new one for me! THe previous pic is where I took my life in my own hands and let the wife steer while I sat on the deck with the kids, enjoying a nice glass of wine (and in a glass-glass too... I am a real risk taker... snicker!!).

Anyways, I went through a lot of pics and decided to use this avatar:

It is a pic of me and the kids sitting atop Fort Jefferson of the Dry Tortugas, overlooking a USCG Cutter and USN Navy Seals boat anchored close together. The USN boat was actually on loan to the USCG (how does one navy branch loan a boat to another... only our government!!). Anyways, certainly one of the most memorable trips and fun trips of my sailing life. We had finished coloring easter eggs on the boat and playing hide and seek just a few hours earlier. I suspect the kids will remember that day/week a long time!!

SO, where di you get your avatar? If you change yours, let us know what it is a pic of!

Brian

mgmhead · #2 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

My avatar is of 'Ivan' the Russian submariner. An artist friend of mine painted a powder room with a 360 degree mural as though it were the coning tower of a Russian sub. Ivan is painted on the six-panel door, leaning against the periscope. If you look closely you'll notice that he's not actually looking into the eyepiece.

It's one of a kind, whimsical and I like it.

Mike

smackdaddy · #3 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

My avatar was recommended to me by someone in FC back in the day. I think it sums everything up very nicely.

Boasun · #4 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Mine is a sextant. From the idea that you need two or more means of navigation and not depend on the GPS. Also when I sailed on the big ships I used the sextant daily (before GPS). So am very familiar with that instrument of Navigation and never acquired dependency on the GPS.

GPS is the equivalent of a cheap drug. Once you are in the habit of using it, YOUR Brain shrinks down to a size of a pea. Then you are useless to you spouse and everything else. For you no longer know how to think.

jaschrumpf · #5 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Boasun, you should be able to answer this question for me then:

How does one tell when the sun is at the meridian when taking its height? Obviously you can't use a clock to say "It's noon! Take the reading." So what does the navigator use to tell that the sun is at its maximum height?

Boasun · #6 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Take a series of sun sights around noontime and plot them on a graph. The apex of the curve is your meridian.
The other is a bit harder. Sight the sun with your sextant and keep adjusting it until you are tempted to turn the knob in the other direction. That is height of your meridian.
I always worked out the time of the meridian and shot the sun at that time. There is a method for this in an older Merchant Marine Officer's guide. And I found it to work wonderfully. This requires knowing your actual speed and True course.

Cruisingdad · #7 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaschrumpf

Boasun, you should be able to answer this question for me then:

How does one tell when the sun is at the meridian when taking its height? Obviously you can't use a clock to say "It's noon! Take the reading." So what does the navigator use to tell that the sun is at its maximum height?

You could do it Boasuns way, but I have an easier way: On your chartplotter, right beside the exact GPS coordinate, is a button that will give you the graphs and times. Then pull out your blackberry and verify it with google. Then stand on the deck of your boat, hold up your sextant, and if you angle the mirrors just right, you can see the bikins motoring by - and the moons that happen afterwards.

Now which way is better, I ask ya?

Brian

fjon · #8 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Nice idea, CD. Mine is a detail from a painting "Sail" by I think, John Groves, the English painter who illustrated the Patrick Obrian Aubrey/Maturin series. Here's the whole painting.

and another of Grove's paintings, "Dawn Wind Easing"

And "Dover Calais Packet"

Groves is clearly a sailor who get's the wind in the sails right and captures the sea better than anyone I've seen.

I will probably soon be changing avatars to one of my pics of my new boat.

eherlihy · #9 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Mine was taken by a very good friend.

It is of me and the Admiral preparing to stop to pick him up at the Moakley Courthouse, in Boston. We were on a chartered Pearson 34.

Many people think that the background is Italy.

David3 · #10 (**permalink**) 06-02-2010

Mine is a picture of me taking on gas, about half way between California, and Hawaii. The picture was actually taken by my trusty right seater.