I have a request for more boat progress pictures.  This is Eleccentricity, my wacky electric boat, which is now upright in my garage and moving ever closer to completion.

Glassing the insides

After flipping it over I fiberglassed the insides and then cut out the floorboards. They got glassed too. Gunwales (the strips of wood at the tops of the sides, inside and out) were next installed. I was looking for ash but found instead a pair of amazing fir boards, twenty feet long.

20 foot fir boards were recruited for gunwales

Next came decisions about where I would install the dashboard, which would also define the size of the foredeck.

Floorboards cut but not fastened

Remember, I’m making this up as I go along.

I positioned a lawn chair on the boat’s floor and tried various spots for where I would sit behind the steering wheel. For some unknown reason, the steering is always on the right in power boats–like England, Japan, and India do with cars.

Fitting the dash

After deciding where to put the dash I cut out a piece of glued-up ash and glued and screwed it into position. Then I built a framework in front of it to support the foredeck. I wanted to curve the foredeck so it would shed water (rather than dumping water in the captain’s lap). This could not be done with anything thicker than 1/4″ plywood. Now, 1/4″ plywood is pretty thin stuff and not likely to support a middle aged guy with a little extra padding, so I had to use two layers. Amazingly, when you epoxy two layers of curved 1/4″ plywood together you end up with something so stiff it feels like concrete. Getting it to curve in the first place was very difficult, involving lots of clamps and screws, stainless steel of course. Next up: floatation foam in under the floor. Then I’ll start dealing with the daunting mechanical and electrical systems. Stay tuned.

Second layer going on

Framing the foredeck

I’ve been getting dozens of comments per day of the “I’m glad I found your blog, it’s one of the best” variety.  In other words, totally generic. A way to get the email address and webpage of the sender published on my pages (they wish!).

I have great anti-spam widgets which put all these sorts of comments into a separate folder, but I still have to go through it all.  Yesterday I had to review over 150.  A bother. And you just know there’s a software writer out there who made it possible for attention seekers to send bland, generic comments to thousands of blogs with a keystroke. On my site, these spam comments have been accelerating. The search engines are partially to blame. They measure your web presence and assign your importance in search results based on how many times your website is mentioned on the web, even in the comments section of other people’s blogs.

Besides being a bother for blog owners, these spam comments sometimes mask less-than-specific comments sent by real people. So you may have sent something to me and you may not have a website called “f0rtuneteller0nline.not” (slightly altered to thwart their efforts). But your comment may be like his/hers:

Hello there, You’ve done an excellent job. I will definitely digg it and personally suggest to my friends. I’m confident they’ll be benefited from this web site. Regards,

So if you want to get through, please mention something that’s actually on my site.  I apologize to those real people whose encouraging comments didn’t appear. As for my “web strategy” I am not into all the new stuff. I would never send spam comments, tweets or even facebook entries. I’m a dinosaur. I hate iphones. Big flat screen TVs are OK though.

I finally got the pictures off my camera:

The motor well cut was made 6/6

The cradle was built before the flip

Lifting the hull. Will the sides break?

So far so good!

Over and intact! All I got was a bruised elbow.

After a bad bump in the road–an off-brand of epoxy which hardened to a chewing gum consistency and then stopped–Eleccentricity is taking shape. The bottom is done except for bottom paint which goes on just before launch, and the sides are on and glassed.  On June 6,  I plucked up my courage and cut a rectangle out of the bottom where the outboard lower unit will emerge.

My friend Jim sent me some bronze oarlocks so I will have an option when the batteries run down. I am looking forward to “the big flip” which will hopefully occur today. In order to do this I am building a cradle to support the boat upright. If there are pictures of the flip below it means it has happened!

I had pictures of the process but my camera stopped talking to my computer so I have no way to get them out.  These pictures were taken with my video camera. The boat is so big and heavy (eighteen feet long, seven feet wide and so far, 275 lbs.) that I can walk all around inside it without tipping up the eight foot long cradle.  The flip was scary. I was worried the ropes I suspended it from the ceiling with would pull the ceiling down. This process was at the limit of my strength.

It will barely fit through the door!

I’m still sort of making things up as I go along. I have no clear idea of how I will outfit the interior. I could build a standing-height bridge  and cuddy cabin but that would create quite a lot of wind resistance.  I’m anxious to get it in the water with all the batteries and motor in place so I can check the “trim”, how it matches up to the theoretical waterline, before I choose where to add superstructure weight.  Send me your ideas!

Maine currently has no nuclear power plants. Our only one, Maine Yankee in Wiscasset, was decommissioned in 1997. The decommissioning was done responsibly and on budget.   Today Germany and Switzerland have announced that they are phasing out nuclear power. The Fukushima plant in Japan is still problematic, and predictions from the source suggest it may take a year before the situation is stabilized.

Maine Yankee

Still, we have two big problems in our addiction to oil and fossil fuel derived electricity. The most pressing is global warming and the second is enriching terrorists who happen to have lots of oil, or more accurately, friends and family who finance their jihad with oil money.

Recently I heard a sober discussion of the risks of nuclear power compared to those of coal and natural gas derived electricity. With all the splashy headlines and contaminated land, how can we not conclude that nuclear power is the wrong path? But what about  collapsing coal mines, black lung, widespread asthma, weird weather, rising ocean levels and let’s not forget those terrorists.

One thing that has always bothered me about nuclear power has been the way it is presented as “zero emissions”, as if operators just lean out their windows and pluck a fresh fuel rod from the nuke tree and pop it into the reactor. In reality, there are many, many more power-consuming steps to producing those fuel rods than the industry thinks we should know about. I found a non-industry website, http://www.wise-uranium.org which finally answers this question.  After a session of envelope scrawling and unit conversions, I think I arrived at the true CO2 comparison between the big three ways of making electricity. Missing in this estimate is the energy investment in getting fossil fuels to the power plant. A lump of coal just needs to be transported but uranium has to go through many steps, so proportionally, the energy invested in the fuel rods is more significant. And it’s NOT zero. Here is the result:

1. 

   Ready for demolition

   Coal…..936 metric tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt hour

2. Natural Gas ….581 metric tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt hour
3. Nuclear Fuel …..34.5  metric tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt hour

That means nuclear derived electricity releases 3.6 % of the CO2 emissions of coal and  5.9% of natural gas. This is a typical energy expenditure in fuel rod processing. Somewhat different expenditures would result with lower grade ore or the reprocessing of spent fuel. Also not counted is the end-of-cycle energy investment, like what’s happening now at Maine Yankee. Wouldn’t it be nice if the industry were more forthcoming about these energy costs? Can’t they make their argument a little more honestly? Can we trust an elite, secretive industry to provide us with the real information, or will they continue to chant, “Zero emissions”?

A website called mentorseries.com pairs up professional photographers with paying guests for treks to different parts of the world, and in September they are coming  here.  Leading this trek will be Daniel J. Cox, a veteran nature photographer and frequent contributor to National Geographic, National Wildlife and Wildlife Conservation; and Layne Kennedy, whose work has appeared in over a hundred different magazines world-wide on subjects as diverse as wolves in the Northern Hemisphere to boat builders in the Caribbean.

Even amateurs can find photographic opportunities here

Naturally, I can’t paste cool professional photos here, just one of mine, but I can link to the mentorseries website where you can read about signing up for the two day trek.  Also check out their slideshow of  Acadia photos here. Need a place to stay for your Fall photo trek? Our bookings for Fall are still as wide open as a Cadillac Mountain vista.

The economy today makes  folks with a job begin to think of how they might save some money on this year’s vacation.   Those with downsized or part time jobs might want to think of vacations closer to home.   Either situation might make a vacation in Maine just right for you.  People in Maine are very careful with their money.     That means if you know where to look, you too can save much money.

There are lots of things to do here that are free or low cost.

Start with muscle-powered sports.   Hiking and walking have the dual benefit of exercise and enjoyment in and around Bar Harbor and Acadia.   The carriage trails were designed for horses, but that means they are smooth and excellent walking paths.   There are no automobiles, only bicycles, an occasional horse drawn carriage or rider on horseback and other people on the path.     The most popular path is around Eagle lake.   However, one of my favorite walks is closer to Northeast Harbor.   Park at the Upper Hadlock Pond Parking area and cross the road.   Here is a link to the map of the carriage trails.

Take advantage of the free ranger lead talks and walks.   From the visitor center you can get the schedule of talks.   Be sure and arrive a bit early, because there can be quite a crowd that gathers in July and August.   Here are descriptions of one such walk.

Otter Point Walk (2 hours; easy to moderate 2-mile hike) Daily, Tue in French. Discover stories of history and nature along the strikingly scenic Ocean Path. Gorham Mountain parking area – Park Loop Road south of Thunder Hole.or join the night sky program or the Acadia at night program, where you learn to see like the nighttime animals do.   This link to the website has the schedules.    Some programs like the sailing adventures have a cost associated with them, but the majority are free.

This area that we live in has the best of both the sea and the woods for you to enjoy in one package.  You can combine camping out and  staying at a vacation home  here at Sea Cat’s Rest.    Our rental comes with kayaks included!  If your looking for a bargain yet this year, look about 10 miles away from Mount Desert Island.   The rates are lower, and you only spend about 10 minutes more in the car.   The town names to search for are: Lamoine, Trenton, Hancock and Surry.

Bring your own bicycle and you now have doubled the distance you can go with just a twirl of your pedals.   Bicycling is actually the most efficient way to get from point A to point B, plus you can put your bike right on those Island Explorer buses when you don’t want to bike uphill.

Like to read?   Don’t forget our small local libraries.   Read the local paper for free, read Downeast Magazine for free at the library in Ellsworth.   Read a local book, get internet access free at the library in the middle of the day.  Libraries on the island are many, and I will feature them in a future blog.   I especially like the Southwest Harbor Library, right across from the school.    You can cool off on the occasional hot day by spending an hour or two in the comfy reading rooms – and all of our libraries have internet access free – free wifi or on their computers.   Places in Ellsworth that offer free internet include the local coffeeshop The Maine Grind on Main Street, the library and MacDonalds.   In addition our town office here in Lamoine is a free WiFi spot.   Our house of course has free internet for our guests too.

SAVE MORE ON MEALS – cook for yourself.   By staying in a house instead of hotel, you can cook your own great meals, perhaps treating yourself to one or two days of great fresh seafood from cold Maine waters.   We can’t think of anything better than watching the lobster boats out in front of our place, and then enjoying lobsters from your own pot for dinner.   At different times in the year you can  pick the fruit that is in season: blueberries, strawberries and apples.   If you are our guest, we share our garden bounty with our renters.   See our wild food blog for some other tasty treats.

Also for the frugal, coordinate your visit with music and art festivals.  Bar Harbor Brass Week offers free concerts at the park in Bar Harbor, or wander the free art fairs in the summer.     The Belfast Maine Celtic Festival on July 17-18 and the Bangor American Folk Festival August 27,28,29, (free – but donate what you can afford)  and The North Atlantic Blues  Festival July 10th, 11th in Rockland are some of those in our area.

Didn’t bring the right clothes to wear?  It’s cool here, cooler than most places   If you forgot that fact, you can pick up some bargains at the resale shops in the area.   Jalysa’s attic in Ellsworth on Water Street or our new Goodwill Store in Ellsworth both offer fleece jackets at under $10.00 for those colder than they expected.   Need more long pants?  They are there too.  You can also find Maine themed clothing there if you are lucky.   We locals often purchase Maine themed clothing when it is on sale in the fall, and we recycle the clothes when they get too small or we don’t find ourselves needing them any longer.

Go with a larger group.   Find a friend to stay with on the way.   Vacation where you can stay with relatives.    Going with a larger group, you can go in on lodgings and food.   It’s often cheaper to rent a larger house, and vacation with another family or group of friends.   Instead of having to bring along a friend for our daughter, we brought along another family, so that the kids had someone to do stuff with – and we had adults to hang around with.   Have Grandma and Grandpa take the grand kids (along with you) on vacation.   They are bound to help out with treats and special adventures (plus you get to share the childcare and get off by yourself for a while).    Borrow items you need for the trip.   Perhaps you can borrow bicycles, or some camping equipment instead of purchasing new items.

Trade adventures, if you live in a nice place for others to vacation, perhaps you can exchange visits with old friends.   Have friends living in New York while you’re out in the country, perhaps you can each visit each others’ destinations for a bargain vacation for both of you.

For a while I’ve been saving empty wine bottles that guests of our oceanside apartment have left behind with the vague notion that I will someday make a batch of wine. Last year I actually planted a vineyard and the plants did great over the summer of 2010. I did not allow them to produce fruit however, since this is what you are supposed to do for the first few years. Over the winter I bought a few wine kits, reasoning that if I wanted to utilize my eventual harvest to the utmost, I should get some practice in winemaking.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was. The making of the wine consisted of :

1. boiling a couple gallons of water
2. dump a gallon of the boiled water into the primary fermenter
3. add an envelope of powdered bentonite, a type of clay which helps to settle out the solids
4. dump in the juice from the kit
5. pour in enough water to reach the six gallon mark and
6. pour in the wine yeast

This whole process took less than an hour. At this point I had no idea if the end product would be drinkable, but I did know it would be cheap. The per-bottle cost was under $3.

The directions called for “racking” at regular intervals. This is the transfer of the wine from one container to another, to allow leaving behind the sediment. At the final racking two envelopes of fining (clarifying)  agents are added and one envelope of sulphite as a sanitizer. Then in two weeks, bottling, and the first chance to taste the wine.

I’m no great judge of wine, but I will proclaim the two batches I made as highly drinkable. If others agree (given a respectable time for aging) I will offer my guests a bottle or two. Of course I don’t intend to sell them, just please save the bottle!

In the vineyard, I did my first pruning in early April.  Pruning is necessary to limit the number of buds; too many buds produce too many fruiting clusters and produce small, low quality fruit. I haven’t decided whether I will allow fruiting this year (a second pruning operation removes the flowers) but I suspect I will allow a few per plant. The other thing I did which is exciting is to attempt to root the cuttings. This is happening now, and consists of placing the cut twigs into a moist pot of soil over a heating pad. Supposedly I should see root growth in a week or two. When this happens I will move the pots into the sun so that the buds will start to produce leaves. Then I can expand the vineyard to accommodate another 12 plants. These are all frontenac gris vines, a hardy variety developed by the University of Minnesota.

Crossing the bridge into Maine

I came back from a working trip to northern Michigan to find that during my absence four tall spruce trees were threatening SeaCat’s Rest.  Apparently there had been a big storm. One had fallen on our deck, one hung at a sickening angle over our driveway, one had fallen on our power lines (this is #5 or #6 since we built the house) and a big one fell over onto some fire cherry trees and was barely suspended above our roof, 30 feet off the ground. Most of the spruce forest we started with is gone, mostly due to the affects of age. The center wood starts to rot and carpenter ants often invade. The next big blow and they’re down…or leaning. We’ve had trees fall on two boats, a wheelbarrow, the house, outbuildings, fences and the compost bin.

Another spruce gone

This time the biggest challenge was to figure out how to deal with the big tree leaning over the roof, held in place by the young cherry trees. Normally I cut sections out of a leaning tree so that it gradually falls into a vertical position, then tip it in the direction I want it to fall. But this time the tree was so tangled up with the cherry trees that removing a few sections only produced a shortened spruce, still leaning toward the house.

I plucked up my courage and climbed to the top of the roof with my fishing pole. The casting rod was fitted with a heavy nut and I cast that puppy halfway to the neighbors property. After finding the nut (not easy) I removed it and tied on the end of a braided cord, substantially stronger than the monofilament fishing line.

and another

Back onto the roof where I pulled the cord up as I reeled in the fishing line. Now I tied off the cord on the roof and headed back down where I tied a 3/8 inch three strand nylon line to the cord. Back up again and now I tied the nylon rope to the top of the leaning tree.  I was trusting the friction between my shoes and the asphalt shingles to keep me from plunging into oblivion as I was standing a few feet from the edge. Now it was a simple matter to tie the rope to my borrowed truck and yank the tree back the other way, away from the house. With little effort the tree was down and the boring task of chopping up the tree was all that remained.

The big winds happen in Spring and late Fall, so summer visitors don’t have to worry about falling trees. But life on the Atlantic shore can be a challenge sometimes, just like everywhere else I suppose…

It’s been a tough winter. The economy, war, disasters and brutal weather. The news shows seem to all be paid for by drug companies as ailment after ailment roll by in commercial messages.  Are we really that sick? What we need is a vacation!

Consider the benefits of a relaxing trip to the Bar Harbor area. You will find the cool sea air charged with negative ions which some claim have beneficial health effects. The ions surround dust particles and bacteria and cause them to drop out. Hospitals use ion generators to sterilize the air in operating rooms. From firstscience.com:

At the New York State Psychiatric Institute, researchers found that negative ion therapy helped to alleviate the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of winter depression. During a trial, people were exposed to high and low rate flows of negative ions while they slept. Many of the patients that were exposed to a higher density of negative ions showed an improvement in their symptoms.

Admittedly, there are more important health reasons to come here than negative ions. Acadia National Park will get you outdoors and moving. Exercise is a life-extender, and within these pages are ideas for hundreds of physical activities, all in beautiful pristine surroundings. There are 120 miles of hiking trails and 45 miles of carriage roads throughout Acadia National Park.

Let’s not neglect the importance of fresh food in the health arena. From the Environment News Service:

Eating a small amount of seafood high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as shrimp, tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish daily can cut the risk of death due to heart disease by 20 percent, according to studies released at the Seafood and Health conference in Washington this week.

You won’t find fresher seafood than what’s available here in Acadia. So to recap: Our cool ocean breezes deliver ion-charged air and relief from the heat of the South or stale air-conditioned buildings. Our ample trails and shoreline offer unlimited opportunities for healthy exercise. And the seafood is fresh and healthy. Once you cross that Maine border your stress will lift like the morning fog. You will find that people are more easygoing and the noise level drops.  We’re close, we’re affordable. What are you waiting for?