Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Thursday Thuds #11

Today's Thuds are highly specific, and are agressive, all of them being the sound of my "Clue Bat" connecting with dense skulls. 

Thud the First redounds to the City of Portland Planning Division, which is in the process of ginning up support from the Left to take over political hegemony of the Willamette River, which bisects Portland. Note that the Willamette River is both Federally and State of Oregon protected and regulated, but no matter to the City, which demonstrates here that they want to assume control. As I spoke of in Friday Foibles recently (Foible #2), I did complete the fisk of the City's Grand Plan. you can see it here:

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So, off it goes, but I'm not done on this subject. The Yacht Clubs, who collectively (through their memberships) own hundred of millions of dollars worth of property in this burg, are supposed to have a voice, the Columbia River Yachting Association, speaking for them before Star Chambers such as the "Healthy Rivers" office of the City. In the past several years, that org lost it's two most effective members, Jim Schwitter and Richard Rydman, who used to ably represent we power boaters' interests, so now the CRYA is barely a shadow of it's former self, and I was told NOT to bring this matter to their attention by my Club's representative to the CRYA.

Fine, I won't. There are over 85,000 powerboats registered in the tri-County Portland Metro area, and if I can put together a PAC to represent them, I need no more than 10% of those boat owners, each paying a $10 annual donation to the PAC, to be in business representing the interests of power boaters. I've put together my business plan for the PAC, discussed it with a Big Name in both the local TEA Party and the AFP, and have support there. All I need now is to have a Corporate Constitution written, get my incorporation papers filed and my IRS tax status applied for, and I'm off to the (boat) races. Considering the wealth (word used in it's FULL capitalistic sense) of executive talent available amongst local boat owners to help me fight the advancing take-over of the River by the Green Movement, and the potential resources available, I smell napalm on the morning air. It smells like Victory!

Thud the Second is the sound of the "Clue Bat" connecting with the cranial shell of the local (Gresham, OR) version of the Occupy Movement. They have tried to get going in my suburbian City, but we're mostly surviving and more conservative out here, 15 miles East of Portland, so the Gresham version of the Flea Party is struggling. I gave an AAR and simultaneous warning to them via the Letters section of my local blatt.

Thud the Third is the sound of Reality connecting with European Socialism, as in the heavy bill for that political folly hitting the floor of empty vaults in almost every European Union member country's Central Bank. This article contains the news. Note that the ECB and the member Central Banks are again going to try to "monetize" (socialist-speak for printing fiat-money) their gargantuan debt. At best, that buys time, but since the only proper use of that time is to convince the European populations it is past time to dump Socialism, and that can't be done in most cases, so the European economic situation is terminal. The US stock exchanges, which breathed a HUGE collective sigh of relief at this "solution" yesterday, are having buyer's remorse today. Personal stake: my eldest daughter and her hub are touring Austria and southern Germany for the next two weeks, but hub assured me he has sources of moolah there in case the Euro collapses while they are visiting the empty shell of Western Civ.

Thud the Fourth ought to be the sound of a Federal Judge's gavel crashing own on the cult called Scientology. This report is probably more truth than fiction, given previous reports on the cult-behavior of the Scientologists, so if I'm a Federal Judge, I find Probable Cause that the cult HAS engaged in kidnapping and slavery, and I order that the cult expose all it's members to an immediate examination to see if they are living aboard that hulk of their own free wills. I order a Search Warrant based on my findings, and have a Federal Marshal's unit take over the ship (or a Navy unit if it is outisde the 3-mile limit). Based on the return of the Warrant, if evidence supports the suspicions of civil rights vioations, I order the Marshals to impound the vessel.

Thud the Fifth is the sound of a steam explosion, not exploding tofu, as the Portland Fire Dept finally "solved" the big mystery that made the national news a few days ago. It happend exactly as I said at the time.

Stay thirsty for knowledge, my friends, and you will avoid the sound of the "clue-bat" hitting YOUR cranium.

Alaska King Crab fishing

...will likely be ugly for a while.

In one of the stormiest part of the ocean's surface on the planet, this is a monster of a storm.

The energy involved for this storm to spin up so fast, and lower it's central pressure 60 millibars (1.77 inches of mercury) in 48 hours, is beyond calculation, but suffice it to say, it dwarfs anything Man could ever do in energy generation.

What this tells us is that there is HUGE atmospheric energy available in the Northern latitudes right now. When that energy gets over the North American land mass, some region is going to get hammered with a Fall blizzard of humongous proportions. BTW, there is significant Arctic air just northeast of here in British Columbia.

Tomorrow is the 36th anniversary of the tragic loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which loss is hauntingly memorialized in song by Gordon Lightfoot. That large ship was underway on Lake Superior when she navigated into a monster storm, with huge winds and seas possibly in the 50-foot range, on an inland lake, no less! News account here with storm video. Note that the video-depicted storm is nowhere near the strength of the storm that the Big Fitz experienced on it's fatal last voyage. Note also the inland wave conditions: for those big combers, the period is MUCH shorter than at sea, creating a much more rapid motion in the ship. Open-ocean swells have periods up to 17 seconds when the waves get that large, but here they are half of that.

The Great Lakes have seen few storms even approaching that magnitude since, but it might see one again soon.

Pray for the mariners if such a storm ever hits again.

It's not the first "Corvette" speedboat

Ran across this one-off speedboat written up here. Very zoomy, but not entirely original.

Back in the late 1980's, I was chartering a President 42 motoryacht out of Anacortes, WA for ten days, and we ran hard for a full day to reach Jervis Inlet, WAY up the British Columbia coast (burned over 600 gallons of diesel juice in the twin Cummins turbodiesels doing it). After running one of the world's most dangerous tidal races there, we tied up for the night in the basin at the end of the inlet, Princess Louisa. Right after us, an ordinary Bayliner Avanti 30-footer showed up, and the two gentlemen aboard gave us a tour of their engine space. Sitting down there (you could eat off the deck in their engine room) were TWO blueprinted, marinized Chevy LT-1s, each capable of turning 5,000+ rpm all day long, churning out 350 HP or so, EACH. That Bayliner had just made it up from Vancouver, BC in 3 1/2 hours, making over 50 knots in all the varying sea conditions they encountered. In our 42' heavy Taiwanese motor yacht, we had had some bumpy moments at 20 knots, and these guys were in a boat of less than half our weight.

Both of these guys were on the Engineering staff of the big Molson brewery in Vancouver, and they had lived and breathed mechanics for 30 years each (and had been together as a couple that long, but that's THEIR story).

Yessir, a REAL "corvette" boat. I was impressed.

Calling all Squids - UPDATED, with AAR

...and other Navy types who might be up to date on Security NavOpInst, or whatever passes in modern squid-dom for those vital oeprating rules of yesteryear.

I'm particularly interested in those regs dealing with in-port secuity near and alongside moored vessels.

Maybe what I need is a good sea-lawyer, but my question is this, how can NavOpInst supersede the US constitutional rights of citizens, when NOT on a military installation?

Implementing some (unstated) NavOpInst or other regulation (not stated or briefed to the public), all vessels proceeding upriver on the Willamette River with weapons of any sort, were barred from proceeding past the Broadway Bridge from last Wednesday to today at 1100 PDT. Yours truly, a retired Air Force officer and retired Deupty Sheriff of this jurisdiction, had to use up a few chips and call at the River Patrol office to turn over all the "weapons" on my yacht, to wit, one snubby revolver and one 380 mousegun and their ammo, plus a 4-oz can of OC defense spray. I then underwent a "voluntary" search of my vessel (which has dozens of places weapons can be stashed) before being allowed to wait in line for escorted navigation upriver to my destination, Riverplace Marina, where I could have gotten off, gotten a ride home, re-armed myself, and come back to my boat, had I wished. I didn't so wish, and resorted to carrying edged weapons for the duration of my trip. Between edged weapons, and hornet spray, I figured I could repel boarders well enough.

I'm not done with this situation, though. The following things bother me.

• There IS a war on (actually, 4 active areas of combat, all on foreign shores), but how does that turn an entire major River navigation system into a military area when the Fleet comes for a social call in our Port, which is at peace?
• The state's policing agencies carried out this Naval Operating Instruction, even though both the Navy and the US Coast Guard had operating security boats out on the water. Where is THAT written down as possible without some sort of declaration of civil/military emergency?
• Where does MY Civil Right to Keep and Bear Arms come in as inferior to this NavOpInst ?
• Isn't there a supreme requirement to actually PUBLISH any such restrictions before implementing them?

Inquiring minds want to know. Inquiring minds know how to hire sea-lawyers. Inquiring minds know how to blog and write letters to Editors. In short THIS inquiring mind knows how to stir the pot.

Any commenters with knowledge on any of the above points are encouraged to post that information in comments, below, or email me at perspac@yahoo.com

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AAR: After the Fleet left early yesterday, the river returned to a normal state of operations. I slipped my moorings at Riverplace, called at the River Patrol base just downriver, retrieved my weapons, and had a nice chat with the Lieutenant in charge there. He was operating under the impression that his people (and all the out-of-town Marine Deputies as well) were operating under the direct supervision and orders of the Navy and/or Coast Guard. He agreed with my hunch that this is all Navy in-port security procedure.

Fine, as far as that goes. Where is it written, what laws authorize it, and especially, how do the civilian Marine Deputies or even Federal Police (there were uniformed Federal Police there as well, from the DHS) operate under military regulations? For example, there is a free-fire zone of 150 meters around the moored Navy ships, seaward from their hulls as they sit in the river. Can the Marine Deputies fire on any boat in the Free Fire Zone? If so, I can tell you EXACTLY that such use of Deadly Force is NEVER permitted under Oregon law. I doubt that the Navy approving it would make it legal under Oregon law, as contested in an Oregon courtroom.

So many questions remain, but I at least convinced the EllTee to ask those questions at the next Port of Portland Security Committee meeting, a regular session that the Coast Guard Port Captain holds.

When I win the Lottery...

...there might be a few additions to the gun collection, but they will be minor.

Mostly, there will be a new yacht.

Actually, most folks would have trouble calling this a yacht.

This is a direct rip-off (licensed, I hope) of the Russian Ekranoplan Ground Effect Vehicle designs, which have been big enough (550 tons) to transport an entire battalion of troops, and mount a pair of 5-inch, 38 caliber naval rifles as main armament (that version no longer exists) (refer: "The Caspian Sea Monster").

What's not to like here? About as much interior room as a 25-foot express cruiser, 85-knot speed, 300 nautical-mile range, powered by a 6.5 liter Chevrolet turbodiesel truck engine....no pilot license required.

The Ninth Circus strikes again...

In just the type of ruling one has come to expect from the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court, a panel of the 29 Idiots Who Think They Are The Real Government has ruled that every boat that floats on any water of the US must be regulated the same as if it was a large, ocean-going freighter. They have ruled that the EPA must require every boater to go through the same inspection and permitting process (known as the "800 Permit" if you are familiar with such things), pay the same $1,000 fee and follow all the same rules as ocean-going vessels.

The rules that the EPA has for boats in the present are reasonable enough: they require vessels from foreign ports to NOT discharge their bilges or ballast water in US inland waterways (this is how invasive species such as the Zebra Mussel or the Mitten Crab got here). They have exempted recreational vessels, because they don't have ballast tanks, don't fill those ballast tanks which they don't have in foreign waters, and don't maintain huge tanks for oily wastewater, which freighters generate in the hundreds of tons (a junker recreational vessel with even poorly-maintained engines might discharge a couple of gallons of bilge water occasionally with maybe an ounce or two of oily waste, but very few recreational vessels are this poorly maintained).

So, our supposed friends in the boating industry rush off and have a Bill introduced in Congress to re-exempt us from the ruling of the Ninth Circus.

The only problem is, the Bill, HR 2550, is flawed, because it leaves out a number of things, not the least of which is TREATED sewage. I have a state-of-the-art sewage treatment system on my boat. It takes the toilet sewage, holds it, mixes it with just enough salt to make it conductive, then zaps it with a huge electrical charge to kill all the bacteria in it. What is discharged is just sterile solids and water. I pay/paid a lot of money to keep this system up because I AM a good steward of the environment, even though I'd gut-shoot Gaia if she appeared in front of me (copper bullet required, I have a magazine full of them). HR 2550 leaves out nice guys like me, so, because I have a sewage system, instead of a holding tank (which many people discharge, untreated into the river anyway because there aren't enough pump-out stations), I will have to go through the EPA "800-Permit" process.

If we boaters are lucky, the Ninth circus will get reversed by the SCOTUS, because their ruling is absurd, putting recreational boats all the way down to canoes in the same class with freighters.

Your (and my, unfortunately) Ninth circus at work. Aren't they geniuses?

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UPDATE: 072407 1323 PDT: I just spoke with an executive at BoatUS, the major voice for recreational boating in our nation. She was very friendly, and seemed anxious to have me on board with HR 2550. She told me that since sewage treatment effluents come under different laws than are addressed in the Ninth Circus ruling, I need not worry. I countered with the list of effluents that IS mentioned in HR 2550, wondering why there couldn't at least be a mention of the other effluents being regulated by other divisions of the code. She said that she would contact the sponsors' legal counsel and see if she could arrange that, just so as to slam the door on a "re-interpretation" of the regulation expressly forbidding MSD discharges. I then told her I would wait and see.

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River Life 2 - Living on the River

There's much more to River Life than boating or commerce. Many people make their home on the river. Such homes run from liveaboard boats to simple floating homes to swank palaces. All homes share one thing - they float, so their residents must deal with an assortment of challenges that landside homeowners never face. This house is a simple 600 to 700 square foot home, old but well-kept, with wood heat. The wood is free: all you have to do is snag it out of the river as it goes by, wrestle it onto your deck and cut and stack it alonside your house to dry out. View image

Party Dock

Two yacht clubs, a few hours of sun, the well stocked fridges and liquor lockers of about 3 dozen boats, and the party attitude. Those are the ingredients for a good time on the river. It helps to have a decent marina at your beck and call.

It didn't last. The weather that is. It's pouring rain now, just in time for the supper asembly. My contribution is ready to go, an Italian macaroni salad with cute little heart-shaped pasta. Had to fire the generator and a propane heater, it went from shorts weather to layers topped with Gore-Tex in 10 minutes. Weather radar isn't promising, either.

Oh well, we won't let the gloom get us down, and while I'm blowing verbal sunshine around, I'll send some Acidman's way. Looks like he's gonna need some. Drop him a cheery comment if you have the time.

RiverPlace Marina, Portland, OR

It's too bad I can't stream some video from this spot. It's dynamic. There are things moving on the river always. The water rolls by, pleasure and commercial boats cruise by, some stopping at the floating restaurant Newport Bay nearby, the Interstate 5 bridge, one of eleven in Portland, streams traffic on upper and lower decks, the Southern Pacific railroad is on the opposite bank, with sleek Amtrak Talgo trains and slow moving freights, and the boat moves under my feet. Always the boat moves. That's like a continual massage for the mind and body.

The photo captures part of the Marina, with a dragon-boat practice shell manned and passing in the foreground. The dragon boats are a gift from Portland's sister city, Kaoshung, China. Anyone can put together a team, practice in the shells, and when the actual dragon boats arrive in their formal Chinese splendor, there is two days of racing in June during the Rose Festival. These crews have heart: when it's their turn to practice, they have to go out dispite the weather and water conditions.

Blog Station Whitewater

Cool, rainy at times, but the camaradie makes it worthwhile. There is a really HUGE yacht club here with us, most of their boats are in the 45-70 foot class. Most of ours are in the 28-35 foot class, but both of our groups are having fun, and that's what river life is about.

Blogging courtesy of an unnamed hotel on the waterfront that has a wireless LAN. Thank you HOTEL X.