Blewtooth

Atlantic - Caribbean Sea - Gulf of Mexico
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Eastern Pacific (out to 140°W)
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Luddite!

What an awful sounding name for someone who doesn't like engines!

Luddite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And now "Neo Luddiism"!
Luddism

But they keep saying "hatred of NEW technology" in their description. Well what then describes me? I don't hate new technology; I embrace it. I love the new solar, wind and electric motor technology. It's the old crap that I hate. Gas and deisel engines and especially those without polution controls which the boat builders along with Home Depot and Wallmart (lawn care equipment) are selling with wild abandon.

What brought all of this on this morning was my glancing at the BBC news headlines and finding the below article:

BBC NEWS | Health | Diesel pollution 'clogs arteries'


Planet Ark : Diesel fuel exhaust likely to cause cancer - US EPA

And so getting back to the subject of sailing, how many of us love the idea of sailing along our coast; wheather it be east, west, south or north; trying to get from port A to port B when the wind is contrary and we have to turn on the engine and start our motor sailing routine? Usually no deisel or gas fumes to worry about with the wind off any points on our bow but every time we tack or what have you we will be getting a little wiff here and there of that good old deisel smell. That smell usually brings a feeling of adventure in me. I guess just associating it with "going somewhere" and the general excitment of traveling. But when we drop the sails and motor our way through the inlet and are calling the marina on the radio we all start to smell it. Then we breath those fumes as they waft around us from our transoms and we don't even notice it. It's mixed with all of that fresh air from the sea. Then the rest of the times motoring up the ICW or rivers, canals and byways; waiting for the bridge to open and so on; motoring into the marinas.

Just how much of it are we picking up?

And of course for those of us with outboards and A4s:

Gasoline fumes have 1000 times the concentration recommended by NIOSH. ... It causes liver cancer, with a latency period is 15 to 40 years. ...
consumerlawpage.com/article/cancer.shtml - 21k -
The Cancer War Needs An Informed Public: Known Carcinogens To Be Avoided

None of our engines have any type of pollution control that I know of. I guess we all just think "Hey it's a sailboat for crying out loud!" but it's really not. It is an "Auxillary" sailboat that 99% of us are on. Neither does our lawn equipment, generators etc.


Lawn mowers, Weed Eaters, Leaf Blowers
"Another source claims that operating a gas mower for one hour will produce the same pollution as driving a car 1300 miles. (Note 4)"
Lawn Mower Pollution


I don't know how else to describe my views though. I am just really getting tired of people's attitudes (especially young people's) about technology. I know that it is completely impractical to hope that we will all stop wanting the most powerfull car, motorcycle or boat. But jeez! When is everyone going to realize that we could solve so much of our pollution problems just by cutting back a little bit. We could become so much more powerful in bargaining for energy from all of the oil producing countries if we weren't such energy addicts.

Most Powerful Diesel Passenger Car

The pollution from internal combustion engines is choking us to death. I hate the fact that the grass on every consumer's lawn needs to be cut constantly in the summer with one of the worlds most effiecient pollution machines; the lawn mower which has no catalitic converter, nor does the weed eater or leaf blower which also throws up as much dust as possible into our air and of course it is the dust that is full of the latest fertilizers and pesticides that have been scattered on the ground. So that along with all of the pollen finds it's way into our lungs as we dart from our air conditioned cars to our air conditioned homes that all are becoming hermitically sealed against the "outside" air with new weather stripping and heavy insullation and such.

UMU.Asthma.7.21.02.PDF (application/pdf Object)


Then we can't understand why our kids are all comming down with asthma. Just sad to know how non carring the western consumer is. Now wait a minute...I'm not trying to compare the western consumer to anyone else in the world. God knows what anyone else in Africa or some small village in the hinterlands of India thinks or cares about it. It's just that we are supposed to be the enlightened ones and instead we are acting like someone who is completely non caring....sacrificing the future of our children for our immediate creature comfort needs.

Well, ......................................I'll shut up and quit whinning......

And on a lighter note here is some more evidence of my aimless clicking on sailing stuff and a travel blog sent to me by a friend:

Boat Shows Coast To Coast : Boat Show Calendar and Directory

I always liked the looks of a San Juan
San Juan Sailboat Photo Gallery

A Sailing Cruise to Florida's Panhandle

Couple says the were not lost at sea
Latitude 38 - Northern California's Premier Sailing and Marine Magazine

Travel blog page
Emerald Bay

Good Sailing and Traveling
Rocko