# Yup, The Harbor Froze AGAIN!



## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

The last couple of nights have been horrible for sleep. Two nights ago I woke up to ice hitting the hull and when I climbed out of the V-berth to use the head, the weight in the boat shifted and I huge cracking of ice was heard as the boat settled.

From about 3a into the rest of the morning, I could not sleep as I heard cracking and banging on the hull.

Last night there was bumping most of the night from the ice. 

Well, today we woke up to relatively warm temps and no condensation on the Vberth windows are frost/ice on them.

Today I ended up getting a D-Icer. That means no more ice building up around the hull! Yay... I'm so happy. Maybe I'll be able to sleep better on those bitter cold nights when the harbor starts to freeze.

It was an awesome day today with temps hitting the mid 40's. Tomorrow it's supposed to hit 50. Unfortunately we have another arctic front moving through and single digits are supposed to happen a couple of days this week.


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

this is Lakes Bay behind Atlantic City. I have not seen the back bays this frozen in decades. That little bit of green in the middle bottom is the -only- free water as far as the eye can see. The guys who redrive all the dock pilings are going to have a good spring


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## Brent Swain (Jan 16, 2012)

Except for on day in early December, we haven't seen any sea ice here in BC .Its been one of the warmest, driest winters on record. 
A big high and the movement east of the jet stream has meant warm air from Hawaii here, while the east side of the high has sent the arctic air south , east of the Rockies. One possible benefit in Florida may mean the Pythons may go extinct there. They are not evolved for long cold periods.


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## rbyham (Dec 25, 2012)

Doubt the cold will bother the pythons... they will just go indoors.


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## Rhapsody-NS27 (Apr 8, 2012)

When I was looking for a marina to put my boat, I asked a lady about whether boats were hauled out in winter time. She said "we don't freeze here" and this morning, I looked at their web cam and saw the whole bay was frozen. Funny how things work out. I'm sure it's been a long time since that happened.

A guy from work said he's been in this area for 7 winters and this is the strangest winter ever. He said that while it does get cold, what we're seeing now is much colder than in the past.


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

Rhapsody-NS27 said:


> When I was looking for a marina to put my boat, I asked a lady about whether boats were hauled out in winter time. She said "we don't freeze here" and this morning, I looked at their web cam and saw the whole bay was frozen. Funny how things work out. I'm sure it's been a long time since that happened.
> 
> A guy from work said he's been in this area for 7 winters and this is the strangest winter ever. He said that while it does get cold, what we're seeing now is much colder than in the past.


That's what they are saying here, this is highly unusual. When we first got here, the guys were saying there were a couple of cold weeks in January but things started to warm up by Feb.

We even looked up the weather history for this area and saw that it rarely had hard freezes.

But what do we get? We get a whole lot of teens and several days of single digits.

I wish the heck it would start to warm up so I could complain about the heat!


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

It's all caused by global warming. Somebody sent me a link to some blog for a government scientist at the whitehouse, but now I can't find it. Anyway, this dude said the cold weather is "more than likely" caused by global warming. Yep, it's true.

Seems the "polar vortex", that they just invented last week to describe how winter works, normally stays trapped at the north pole. But global warming has weakened the "barrier" that's supposed to keep it there and the "polar vortex" got out. Yep, it's true.

It all made perfect sense to me


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## Fstbttms (Feb 25, 2003)

CruisingCouple said:


> Seems the "polar vortex", that they just invented last week to describe how winter works, normally stays trapped at the north pole.


Yeah, "they just invented" it. 

*Sorry to break it to you, but the "Polar Vortex", the new weather buzzwords that have been sweeping social media, isn't a newly discovered weather phenomenon at all, or even rare.*

The Polar Vortex: Filtering The Science Through The Hype

*The polar vortex was first described as early as 1853. The phenomenon's sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) appears during the wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere and was discovered in 1952 with radiosonde observations at altitudes higher than 20 km.*






*As for the dreaded "polar vortex," which is responsible for the cold sweeping through much of the country? It's there every winter but moves around -- sometimes it's nearer Canada and the United States, other times closer to Asia and Europe...*

Polar Vortex Chill Fails to Make History - Scientific American

*Polar vortexes, though, are nothing new. They occur seasonally at the North Pole...*

Here's What The 'Polar Vortex' That's Hitting The US Actually Is - Yahoo Finance

*The polar vortex forms every year to the north...*

Polar Vortex Blasts Tri-State With Arctic Winds, Dangerous Cold; Central Park Breaks 118-Year Low | NBC New York

*This is not a new phenomenon. Meteorologists have studied the polar vortex for decades.*

What is the polar vortex? - New York News

Just because *you* never heard of it before doesn't mean it was "just invented."


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## Frogwatch (Jan 22, 2011)

Only two places you should find solid water, iced tea and scotch on the rocks, anything else is simply unnatural.


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Fstbttms said:


> Just because *you* never heard of it before doesn't mean it was "just invented."


Oh. Where I come from, for thousands of years, it's just been called "winter". We always figured it was caused by the sun going on vacation down in the Bahamas for a few months every year.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

Here in NY it is bitterly cold with wind and snow.I am old enough to remember the last time this happened - January 1994. I think this winter might have that one beat.

_" But global warming has weakened the "barrier" that's supposed to keep it there and the "polar vortex" got out. Yep, it's true." - cruisingcouple
_
Well, from just a common man perspective it is true - have you noticed that the jet stream is always curved now? Its more like a snake than a jet. Around here the more it curves, the worse the weather gets. And there is no doubt that we are seeing more swings of temp and more big powerful storms, compared to when I was a kid. The Hudson river is frozen now and I have seen more than one tug and barge temporarily stuck in the ice. The Coast Guard moved a larger cutter here to try and break through. Tugs with oil barges are still moving up here.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

You guys bleating Global Warming are so passé.

The sun had died in the ass and a mini ice age is on the way.

BBC News - Is our Sun falling silent?
Sun Scientists Debate Whether Solar Lull Could Trigger Another 'Little Ice Age'


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

There's a lot more to global climate than the local temperatures in one tiny part of the globe. A cold spell in the northeast US does not mean global warming has stopped. We just pay more attention to it because it's happening in a densely populated area.


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Sal Paradise said:


> And there is no doubt that we are seeing more swings of temp and more big powerful storms, compared to when I was a kid.


People's memories are short and their experience limited to the length of their life. In March 1977 Dale Movers tried to haul a two-story house across the ice on Lake Superior. Didn't make it - it broke through and sunk. But we don't have conditions this year even close to what we had then.

Two years earlier the queen of the Great Lake Freighter fleet, the Edmund Fitzgerald, left port on the afternoon of November 9, 1975 under the command of Captain Earnest M. Sorley, loaded with 29,000 tons of iron ore. The next day she was caught in an early winter storm with 75 kt wind and 60 foot seas and she went down with all hands off Whitefish point. None of the bodies of the crew were ever recovered.

And it's been going on for many many years.

In November 27, 1905 the 4,800 freighter SS Mataafa left Duluth Harbor and steamed for Two Harbors. The next day she was caught in a storm with 70 kt wind and 50-60 foot seas. Her Captain, Richard F. Humble, ordered her turned about and head back to Duluth Harbor. Both the tug and the ship could not make it through the canal so the tug was ordered to be cut loose. She got halfway between the piers on the lift bridge when a backwater rolled out. She got hit by heavy water on the stern, driving her prow down to the bottom and smashing her stern into the pier on the north side of the canal. The seas pulled her out of the canal, she got picked up by a 40 foot wave and spun around and slammed her stern into the south pier. The next wave picked her up and grounded her and broke her in two and she sank 600 yards from shore. Efforts to save the crew were fruitless. 9 men died and the body of one of them had to be chopped out of solid ice the next morning.

Oh yeah, these little jet stream curves and minor squalls we got today are nuthin. But if you study maritime history where the quirks and awesome power of mother nature's fury are pretty well recorded without having to believe what some government scientist says, you come to the realization that you ain't seen nuthin yet.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

The jet stream curves are 'something'. Have a look in the BBC link i posted before as they are mentioned in there.


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

The media sensationalizes everything, including the weather, to keep people excitedly gripping the edge of their chair. It's all about ratings and getting reader base, not about reporting the facts. The more they can make people believe the sky is falling (or the planet is warming or cooling) the better it is because the general public eats it all right up.


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

CruisingCouple said:


> The media sensationalizes everything, including the weather, to keep people excitedly gripping the edge of their chair. It's all about ratings and getting reader base, not about reporting the facts. The more they can make people believe the sky is falling (or the planet is warming or cooling) the better it is because the general public eats it all right up.


I agree fully.

It does not mean that everything they report is false.


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## vega1860 (Dec 18, 2006)

*Meanwhile, in SE Alaska...*

Meanwhile, here in SE Alaska, the early December snowfall has been gone for several weeks and we have been enjoying temperatures in the forties.


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## Ulladh (Jul 12, 2007)

We may be just be going through a period of climate change that involves more variability than most have experienced in their life times. 

Maybe the climate will settle into a new normal in 10 years or 10,000 years but I plan on enjoying it while I can, including skiing almost every other day this month on the 50 miles of trails in my local park in Philadelphia.

I am looking forward to maybe an early spring, hot summer, late fall and more time on the water.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

CruisingCouple said:


> People's memories are short and their experience limited to the length of their life.


Well 2 of your 3 examples were well within my lifetime.



CruisingCouple said:


> Oh yeah, these little jet stream curves and minor squalls we got today are nuthin. But if you study maritime history where the quirks and awesome power of mother nature's fury are pretty well recorded without having to believe what some government scientist says, you come to the realization that you ain't seen nuthin yet.


The jet stream is one of the most powerful influences of weather in the North East. Perhaps THE most powerful. Beyond that the big nor easters that blow through here and take 5 days to traverse our area make the outside almost like an artic hurricane. If you think it's nuthin' I can assure you a walk across the Hudson Walkway when is blowing - 40 wind chill will make you think it's sumethin. Just ask the crew of a certain container ship


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Sal Paradise said:


> If you think it's nuthin' I can assure you a walk across the Hudson Walkway when is blowing - 40 wind chill will make you think it's sumethin.


That all depends on your perspective. Up here -40 is balmy. It's -55 as I write this, and we don't think that's too bad. We think nothing of jumping on the snowmobiles at -40 and making a 100 mile run up to Two Harbors in the middle of the night to have some pizza and a beer. When she hits -40 with a 60 mph wind and 90 below windchill then we call ahead to make sure somebody at the other end has a space heater that we can use to preheat our sleds to get 'em started again.

The difference between here and there is that up here it never makes national headlines because there's no new crews that even dare venture up here to check it out.


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## Lubrdink (Sep 1, 2011)

Always amazes me that the news seems surprised when it gets very cold in the winter months. It's what we call winter around here. It was 59 today, and now the temperature's dropping, its starting to snow, and it's supposed to be 4 tonight. Oh no, run about like the sky's falling! 
Goodness, I'd think they were ignorant of weather but I think it's more likely hype to sell advertising because no one watches the network news anymore.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's going to get very hot in about 6 months. It's what they call summer. 
Oh the stress...


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Lubrdink said:


> Always amazes me that the news seems surprised when it gets very cold in the winter months. It's what we call winter around here........


A voice of reason in a world of engineered chaos


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

Yeah, and in 1775 or 6, folks walked across the ice from Brooklyn to Staten Isalnd, the entire lower NY bay was iced over solid.

Nothing new here, except all the tourists and transients have no idea that cold winters have been frequent and normal in NY and NJ. Not so long ago, it was SOP to either haul your boat in the winter or invest in bubblers and expect to chop ice.


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## CalebD (Jan 11, 2008)

So one report from Alaska saying that it is "balmy" up there.
I've been wondering about the weather in Siberia which is normally farging cold, permafrost cold.
They don't report the weather in Alaska or Siberia on most news outlets. I think we are getting the "vortex" those areas usually get.
SNAFU.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

Well of course cold weather in Alaska isn't news, and in NYC it is - that's life. And in Minnesota - which I have visited and I love - it's the coldest of the cold in the U.S. Actually my wife's supervisor is in Minnesota so we get to hear all the time about the incredibly awful winter weather there. Tough people, those Lutherans. 

But - isn't Alaska now in the 40's and having one of the warmest winters ever? Because of the curved jet stream?

Fortunately for the OP, the jet stream is predicted to curve the other way by next weekend, sending a warm south east flow to the easter U.S. and pushing the polar vortex away from us for a while.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> The jet stream curves are 'something'. Have a look in the BBC link i posted before as they are mentioned in there.


Mark,
I looked at your BBC links. Interesting stuff. I had read about the lull in solar spots earlier this year. I guess its pretty dramatic. But I must have missed where they mention curved jet stream.

Also - this is just my idea - but maybe a benefit of the lower solar activity can be seen in the lack of atlantic hurricanes this year? Hmmm..? Imagine if no sun spots = no hurricanes? Just thinking. Be a good year to be in the Carribean..


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

CruisingCouple said:


> That all depends on your perspective. Up here -40 is balmy. It's -55 as I write this, and we don't think that's too bad. We think nothing of jumping on the snowmobiles at -40 and making a 100 mile run up to Two Harbors in the middle of the night to have some pizza and a beer. When she hits -40 with a 60 mph wind and 90 below windchill then we call ahead to make sure somebody at the other end has a space heater that we can use to preheat our sleds to get 'em started again.
> 
> The difference between here and there is that up here it never makes national headlines because there's no new crews that even dare venture up here to check it out.


Of course I am writing from a matter of perspective. Before we decided to stop here for a while I did a check on the historical weather for the area and it showed that this area rarely had hard freezes and generally high 40's during the day.

So when I complain about how cold it is, it is based on what it usually is here. 

BTW, loved your first Q&A video, I watched it the other day and I really need to submit a question for you myself.

I bet it's a helluva lot better house sitting than being on a sailboat in temps like you have up there in Alaska. I assume you have winterized your boat.

We didn't think we'd need to with being on it and keeping it heated, but ended up damaging the two covers on our heat exchanger when the water froze in there. Hopefully that will be the worst of things.

I definitely wouldn't want to be living on a boat in New England with all these Arctic Blasts that have been hitting one after another.

We have a D-icer now so when those harsh single digits hit again over the next couple of days we won't get woken up by ice hitting the hull and/or freezing up under us.


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

Sal Paradise said:


> Well of course cold weather in Alaska isn't news, and in NYC it is - that's life. And in Minnesota - which I have visited and I love - it's the coldest of the cold in the U.S. Actually my wife's supervisor is in Minnesota so we get to hear all the time about the incredibly awful winter weather there. Tough people, those Lutherans.
> 
> But - isn't Alaska now in the 40's and having one of the warmest winters ever? Because of the curved jet stream?
> 
> Fortunately for the OP, the jet stream is predicted to curve the other way by next weekend, sending a warm south east flow to the easter U.S. and pushing the polar vortex away from us for a while.


Yeah, 3 days of regional extremes here:
Mon: 21/5 Tues:18/3 Wed:29/15

Then it is supposed to go back up to daily normals of 40-something and barely freezing temps at night.


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## Minnesail (Feb 19, 2013)

Sal Paradise said:


> Well of course cold weather in Alaska isn't news, and in NYC it is - that's life. And in Minnesota - which I have visited and I love - it's the coldest of the cold in the U.S. Actually my wife's supervisor is in Minnesota so we get to hear all the time about the incredibly awful winter weather there. Tough people, those Lutherans.


Gosh, thanks!

It's -7ºF in Minneapolis right now, this is the high for today. I'm still riding my bike 

When I went to the University of North Dakota they cancelled classes for cold just once, the high was -40ºF and the windchill was -90ºF. Now UND cancels classes whenever the high is below -20ºF.

This has been a cold winter, but not record-breaking cold. This is just a throwback to what winters used to be like.


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

Minnesail said:


> Gosh, thanks!
> 
> It's -7ºF in Minneapolis right now, this is the high for today. I'm still riding my bike
> 
> ...


Yeah... I don't like those cold temps. I was a truck driver for nearly 20 years and I had to work out, drive in, and deal with those extremes too much. These days I don't even like driving in the snow anymore.

I would really prefer to be someplace that doesn't get below 30 for a low. I can deal with temps like that fairly easily in a boat. It is when it gets down into the teens and low 20's too often that life becomes a little more difficult on the boat for us.

We've spent so many years snowbirding in our RV and loved that we didn't have to deal with the extremes of cold or heat.

I wish we had gone a bit further south before we stopped for the winter. But now we are a bit settled in here and I got my van out of storage for use here. It would be a pain to move. Especially when we are almost through the worst part of winter and change in the south is coming soon.

We should have gone another 100 miles south down the river. I think it might have made a difference.

But this has just been a crazy year for everyone in the lower Midwest. I just saw Houston, TX got snow. That's crazy.


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## sidney777 (Jul 14, 2001)

I sent you those links because YOU were looking for a Table for your Sailboat.
I was trying to help you. Thanks for the insult.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

This isn't record breaking winter, but the coldest winter in at least 20 years. 

We have more knowledge of the weather and climate than any generation in the history of mankind. Why can't climate discussions be about that? Instead people get on "teams" that they personally identify with based primarily on ******** from media personalities. They repeat the mantra of their chosen team and hope to "win". It's beyond idiotic. This is a golden age, one where we have learned a tremendous amount about climate and weather.

Want to pretend its still 1930 and we don't understand climate? Not only stupid but boring.


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

sidney777 said:


> I sent you those links because YOU were looking for a Table for your Sailboat.
> I was trying to help you. Thanks for the insult.


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## Minnesail (Feb 19, 2013)

TakeFive said:


> sidney777 said:
> 
> 
> > I sent you those links because YOU were looking for a Table for your Sailboat.
> > I was trying to help you. Thanks for the insult.


Computers are hard.


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

sidney777 said:


> I sent you those links because YOU were looking for a Table for your Sailboat.
> I was trying to help you. Thanks for the insult.


I guess I did mention in passing that I didn't think I would be able to find the original table for this boat.

But I also mentioned that I was going to make one as I had all the parts except the table itself.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I just started getting random messages to my inbox with no explanation. Only a link to a kitchen table and a link to a cockpit table.

Thanks for thinking of me though.


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## Pearson796 (Dec 21, 2013)

sidney777 said:


> I sent you those links because YOU were looking for a Table for your Sailboat.
> I was trying to help you. Thanks for the insult.


I did not mean to insult you. I just didn't how the links were relevant to me until you reminded me that I had answered a post with the intention of building my own table.


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## sidney777 (Jul 14, 2001)

Guy walks into a Bar with his dog and asks "Where can I find a Table for my 30 ft Pearson sailboat" ? Bartender says "I got one out back that I took out of my boat". NSA govn't guy says "Its hard to have a private conversation on a computer; another guy just smiles with a question mark over his head ? Both of them are real Happy. OH, and the Dog doesn't say anything....


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Sal Paradise said:


> We have more knowledge of the weather and climate than any generation in the history of mankind.


I think it's more like we THINK we know more. My grandpa, who was a Norwegian immigrant and settled here in 1912, and was a logger all his life, used to be able to observe the things in nature around him and predict with 95% accuracy what kind of winter we were going to have. That's a lost art. He was 97 when he passed away and one of my regrets is that I did not take the time to learn some of the things he tried to teach me, because I was too young at the time to know better.


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## Sal Paradise (Sep 14, 2012)

CruisingCouple said:


> I think it's more like we THINK we know more.


That is where you and I differ. We now have satelites, computer models. I can tell you the wind and tide predictions for almost anywhere anytime. We have the internet which gives us access to scientific articles and news. I can look up ocean currents, sun activity.. so much information. Personally, I study the weather when I sail - both on my boat and also on my computer.

But in another sense you are close to something very profound, which is why you and I will tend to disagree and it's much larger than weather, it is almost the principal question for mankind at the moment ; will we learn, with all this science and technology and communications, with all this new information - will we learn to change and to use it to solve problems? Or will we rely on old stories, feelings and observations from the old days and try and apply them in the future? This is getting pretty close to political when you look at it that way, but I don't mean to start a political debate.

I am firmly in the camp of science and progress and finding new solutions. I loved my grandpa too but he used a barometer and I use a computer and I know a lot more than he ever could.


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## CruisingCouple (Jan 14, 2014)

Sal Paradise said:


> That is where you and I differ. We now have satelites, computer models.


Hasn't gotten us anywhere. The best that can be done with all the satellites and computer models is to provide a weather forecast with percent chances. Which means it's pretty much a WAG. Sailors in ancient times knew how to read the wind, seas and skies, and knew how to navigate without iPads and chartplotters. They didn't make ocean passages with wooden boats by pure luck.


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