Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Blog

  • Safe Boater?

    Yesterday I passed my New Jersey Safe Boater’s exam. The sorry story is that last weekend I took the Opt Out exam and failed. I thought I had read what I had been told to read but the questions last weekend had a lot of specific facts I could not remember or had never known (like minimum trailer weight requiring independent brakes).

    The odd thing was, was that the actual safe boaters test was considerably more in line with my past knowledge than the opt out test and I reckon I could have passed it without sitting through several hours of lecture.

    Still, one good thing came out of it all. I now know why my shoe laces have been coming undone for 40 years. I’ve been tying them with a granny knot rather than a square knot. This has dramatically reduced the probability that I’ll fall overboard as a result of a loose shoelace. I’m a safe boater indeed.

    Tomorrow it’s back to the bank to pay off the rest of Dignity a second time. Still looks like April 19th for Ex-Factory.

  • Passed my HAM Technician Test

    Last Tuesday I passed my Technician HAM test. Not too complicated to do. Rationale? Well, I can’t help looking at gear and I can’t help thinking I don’t know enough to make much sense of the choices available in terms of short wave radio equipment. I know one day I’ll need my General license to make use of Winlink so I figured why not start learning now. At least then I’ll have a better understanding of what I read. So the Technician exam is done and I’m now studying for my General license. I did get a book on the Extra license to which is as far as I can go with this. I’ll probably read that too but not sure yet if I’ll take that test.

  • Year 0?

    This morning I have explained what I mean by ‘year 0’ over in the Our Plans section.

  • Factory delay

    What a pain. Yesterday I learned that Dignity is now due out of the factory on April 19th. The email I received stated that she was delayed from April 10th – I hadn’t even been told about that date. So I asked for, and received, my latest transfer of cash back.

    In the big picture this does not make a lot of difference. I feel for the charterers who may be impacted by this. I hope CatCo can minimize the impact and/or look after them.

  • Why Dignity?

    Since soon after my wife and I were married we have been saving for a future where we hoped we would not have to work forever. Our ambition was to find a way to travel together once our family had grown and flown the nest. In the eighties I somewhat liked a band called Deacon Blue – in particular, a song called Dignity. The song spoke of a guy who was quietly saving his money for a future in which he would be “on his holidays” while everyone else was still “doing the rounds.” The song reminded me of the reason why we were holding back on enjoying the same lifestyle as some of our peers.

    At the time, we did not sail nor had any notion that would at some point live on a boat. Around 2001, the idea began to form that maybe sailing would be the way to travel. Well, to cut a long story short, here we are, about to take possession of our new boat, Dignity, which we named partially in recognition of the journey we took to this point.

    An additional reason for choosing the name Dignity is the plethora of alternate meanings which we feel are relevant to the future lifestyle we’re currently building for ourselves. Examples are “decency”, “grace”, “self-respect”, “nature”, “serenity”, “elegance”, “transendency”.