sailingpj

YEAH!!!!! GO SEA SCOUTS!!!!!!!! !!

The one patch that I have that really means something to my is my old ship patch. I had the unfortunate honor of being the last person to wear that patch. It now sits on my desk as a reminder of all the good times I had with that ship.

I just looked at the weather report for Fort AP Hill, it doesn't sound too horrible. It could be worse.

Rest Of Today...Partly sunny. A chance of thunderstorms with a slight chance of showers late this morning...then a chance of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. Highs in the mid 90s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent. Heat index values up to 101 this afternoon.

Tonight...Partly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms early in the evening...then partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms late in the evening. Mostly clear after midnight. Lows in the mid 70s. West winds around 5 mph. Chance of rain 30 percent.

Thursday...Mostly sunny. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Hot with highs in the upper 90s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.

Thursday Night...Partly cloudy. Lows in the lower 70s. Southwest winds around 5 mph in the evening...becoming light and variable.

Friday...Partly sunny. Hot with highs around 100. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Heat index values up to 104 in the afternoon.

Friday Night And Saturday...Mostly clear. Hot. Lows in the mid 70s. Highs around 100.

Saturday Night...Partly cloudy. Lows in the mid 70s.

Sunday And Sunday Night...Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows in the lower 70s. Chance of rain 30 percent.

Monday Through Tuesday...Mostly clear. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows around 70.

Alright, I'll do a little research and ask the dive shop. Thanks

I looked on the PADI website and could not find anything mentioning any sort of scholarship program. They did talk a bit about the SCUBA merit badge, but they said to check with your local dive center or resort for pricing.

As far as I know, the merit badge thing wouldn't really work seeing as we are Sea Scouts, not a troop.

I know, but I am already driving 40 minutes to get to our weekly meetings. My mom doesn't have the time to drive me farther than that on a regular basis. I also know that at least two other people in the ship are interested in SCUBA.

I just got my PADI open water license with my family last week, and I think that SCUBA is something that my ship could get into. I was wondering if anybody has had any experience with starting something like his.

I know I will need to first find out if people are actually interested, I will also need to research the costs and any BSA rules that may apply. The dive shop that I got my certification from has a person who is supposed to work with scouts, so I will be finding out who this person is and asking them a few questions.

What else should I be thinking about? I would like to go into our next quarterdeck with a plan of action if people are interested. I have plenty of time, no school and we don't start meeting again until September.

Well, I hope everything goes well for you packsaddle. It sounds like you will have a great time.

This is interesting, I have tried searching myself several ways. I can't find anything with just my name, or my name and city/state. When I search under my old Member ID I find only the online training I did in that council. When I search under my current Member ID I find everything, but when I add the city and state to the search it only shows what I did here in my current council.

Now, I have done everything online so that may account for everything being there and correct, but it seems that something is wrong with their search function. According to the name search I don't exist, but when I search with the member ID my name pops up correctly.

The BSA facebook page is doing a lot of advertising for this, so I though I might post it here.

"On Saturday, July 31, 2010, at 8 p.m. EST, the Scouting family past, present and future will be able to take part, in a special nationwide broadcast. A Shining Light Across America will bring the Centennial Celebration Show from the 100th Anniversary National Scout Jamboree in Fort AP Hill, Va. to communities across the country via Webcast and satellite transmission."

Just thought yall might be interested.

You make a good point Lisabob, I don't twitter myself, and I don't know anybody below the age of 25 who twitters either. Everybody uses facebook.

Has anybody else seen the email about the twitter contest at the jamboree yet? I don't think that rewarding a council for having the most tweets from it's contingent during a certain period of time is that great of an idea. It is cool to see how into technology the Jamboree is going to be, but this going a little too far.

What do you all think?

"Here here! And there is the fundamental issue with most people, especially anyone with not enough years under their belt... "

What is fundamentally wrong with knowing and understanding your limitations, then using your judgment so that you do not put yourself in a situation that exceeds them?

"Most commercial sports drinks can be diluted 50% for the ideal electrolytes and carbohydrate balance."

They can also be diluted that much to combat excessive sweetness.

Ok, I have read the entire thread now and have a couple more things to say. Again, sorry for the long windedness, but this is a bit of a sore spot for me.

I do not agree with the people who say that you should never swim without a buddy. I think that that is fine if that is what you are comfortable with, but that rule should not be pushed on everyone else.

LIBob, sorry to call you out again, but I really disagree with a lot of what you are saying.

"I respectfuly submit that if you EVER swim without a buddy then yoiu are violating one of the basic tenets of scouting."

First off, sometimes you do not intend to go swimming. There have been a couple times where I have been walking along and very suddenly and unexpectedly found myself submerged in cold water. Both times no one was around so I swam to the nearest ladder and climbed back onto the dock.

I will gladly swim with a buddy at scouting events, it is just more fun, but when I am on my own time and I want to go over to the pool to swim laps for a while to relax I don't want to have to find a buddy to swim with. Usually I avoid swimming in our local pool when there are other people in it anyway because they get in the way.

Ok, now just two other things. These two quotes contradict each other, and I would like to know which one you really believe please.

"Damn straight we should.

Specifically we should teach that under any circumstances besides

- fishing in the local 5-foot deep pond

- a commercial grade fishing boat etc.

every boat should have a buddy boat. "

and

"You may tend your lobster pots however you wish. I am going to continue to tach my son and every scout in the troop NEVER to swim without a buddy, and NEVER to operate a small boat without a buddy boat."

In the first quote you say that a commercial fishing boat needs to have a buddy boat. In the second quote you only specify small boats.

I am just wondering because 90% of the time I would agree with you on the small boat needing a buddy thing. However, if you want to require that all fishing boats from small 10 foot skiffs to big 150 foot commercial fishing vessels need to have a buddy, well that is both excessively impractical, and it is very expensive. Some of those boats are better built and have better (newer, more expensive, better tech) gear than on some of the Coast Guard boats.

Yes, I am sure of that. My dad was in the Coast Guard, I have been on the bridges of a couple different cutters, and I have driven some of their other smaller boats (they are pretty cool). I have also worked as a deckhand on several sports fishing boats. I know one captain who buys new electronics for his boat every two years. Plus he has been a captain for longer that a lot of people in the coast guard have been alive.

I am getting a little side tracked here, the point is that for most boats over 20 feet they do not really need a buddy boat. I am thinking Cal 20, or J 22 type boats here, not large dinghies, and I am not knowledgeable enough in small power boats to comment on them.

LIBob, I am just saying all of this, not to insult your or anything, just for general educational purposes. What I am seeing when I read what you say and how other people respond to you is that you are trying to make rules and generalizations without a solid grasp on the subject. It sounds like you are making decisions out of fear of the unknown rather than from experience. That is what I think a lot of the other posters are saying. They aren't trying to put you down or anything, they are just trying to explain why certain practices that you see as required for all activities are overly strict normal application.

Small boat racing in particular is one of the times when the buddy system does not work. It is just like the swimming thing, the point is to get as far in front of the rest of the boats as possible. You can be as nice and friendly as you want when not racing, but from the moment the the first signal in the starting sequence is sent to the moment you cross the finish line everyone else sailing on the coarse is your mortal enemy (unless of course they are the race committee, then you be as nice to them as possible).

Edited to add:

My basic point is that hard and fast rules for this kind of thing don't really work. It would be more effective and safer if people were taught to use their brain to assess a situation before deciding on a course of action.

Example:

There are plenty of times that I have sailed my laser (a type of catboat) with no other boats around, and nobody else on the boat with me. I was safe because I know the conditions, I knew my limitations, and I used my brain to decide whether or not to go out. Now, how I discovered my limitations is a matter for another discussion all together.(This message has been edited by sailingpj)

First off I want to apologize if something like this has already been said. I bookmarked this topic a few weeks ago and just now got back to my computer, so I haven't read very far yet. I just want to respond to something that LIBob posted.

"Still, Eagle Scout David Hanson knew BSA safe boating procedures and neglected to follow them. The result was his death. Despite the limits of media articles, that much is clear"

Now, the consensus for this case study, from what I have read so far, is that David violated one, possibly two points of Safety Afloat. Having a buddy boat for sure, and he and the other person might not have had the proper skill proficiency. Beavah brought up that having a buddy boat is nonstandard practice in the non-scouting world. I strongly agree with him on that. The only time I have seen anything that even approximates a buddy boat in the non-scouting is when two families or a large group of friends decide to take their boats to the same place, or with jet skis, and often kayaks or other small boats.

It is just really impractical and expensive to have a buddy boat most of the time. Take my most recent sailing adventure, I was one of three crew on a 47' sailboat. I helped take it from Miami to Newport, RI. Did we have a buddy boat? No. Did we need one? No. Would one have made us any safer? Possibly, however they would only have been able to help us if they got there before people ended up in the water. Once someone falls in the water even during the day, it is very difficult to find them. The ocean is huge, and even a small amount of chop obscures a man overboard very quickly. There is a saying (sort of) in the sailing community.

If you fall overboard at night don't expect to be found, the best that the other people on your boat will be able to do for you is go inside, pull out the rum and toast your memory.

As that applies to this case I don't think that a buddy boat would have helped. According to the second article they put out a distress call which the coast guard received. Now, if whatever happened to their boat happened suddenly enough that the coast guard was not able to get even an approximate position and heading from the boat then they would have been in the water before a buddy boat would be able to help them. It only takes one blink of the eye to lose sight of a person in the water during the day. At night, even with a strobe light, it is usually very difficult to see someone in the water.

Now LIBob, I do agree with you that David knew BSA safe boating procedures, I do agree that he chose not to follow them. I do not agree that the result was his death. I believe that even if he had followed BSA's safe boating rules he would probably still be dead. It is sad, but accidents happen. Boating is a high risk activity, but it is safer than a lot of other things, like crossing the street in a busy city. I haven't looked up the numbers recently, but I think I can safely say that more people die on our freeways every year than die on our waterways.

Out on the water there are rocks that aren't marked on charts, mechanical equipment fails, that is all part of boating. That stuff can hurt you just as easily during the day as it can at night. I personally believe that it is safer to be on the water at night than during the day. Most of the time the people who are out on the water at night know something about what they are doing. It is during the day that you get the yahoo drunken idiots that crash their boat because they don't know what they are doing. Going out on a 15 foot recreational boat at night is not Russian roulette. Yes, it has its dangers, but they are no different than the dangers during the day. You can still run over things and punch a hole in the boat during the day, the hose clamps on your water valves can fail during the day just as they can at night.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I just hate it when people make boating sound more dangerous than it is. My point is that yes, he made his decisions, but I don't see anything wrong with them. Now, maybe there is some special circumstance that I am not aware of that applies to this situation, if so I will stand corrected, but in my opinion he did not make the wrong choices. This kind of accident happens every so often. There is usually not much you can do to prevent them. Looking back and trying to second guess people's choices is usually the wrong approach. If something breaks then engineers and mechanics should look and see if they can fix it so that it doesn't break again. If they hit an uncharted rock, then that show that the charts need to be updated (they really do need to get updated now). If they hit a submerged log or something else, well often times you can't see thing like that at all.

Again, in a situation like this it does no good to second guess someones choices, especially with the little information that we have. We really don't know what happened, and we probably never will. It is just disrespectful to the memory of this Eagle scout to try to place the blame for his death on his choices, especially when they were not bad choices.

If I can make it I'll be wherever it is decided that we meet up.

I have exactly the same problem. I think that anyone who is actually watching can tell when floating becomes swimming. For me I consider it when I transition from resting to moving. When floating I have to just keep up a continual little kick with my feet in a downward direction. Once in a while I also have to give a little woosh with my hands to help stay in place.

I think you will be alright if you just use your common sense and your eyes. Treading water happens in an upright position, swimming causes you to move through the water on purpose. If they are on their backs and not moving forward then I would say that they are floating.

I have a facebook account, and anyone who looks at my pictures, friends, or groups will know that I am a Sea Scout and proud of it. Of course I am just weird like that (I actually wore my uniform to school one day). I never actually friended my mom or dad, I use facebook to keep in contact with friends I left when I moved, and I don't think that they need to know what I am telling my friends. I do know that they can see what I am doing easily enough so I make sure that I am always within the bounds of what I consider scoutlike. I did friend my grandma though, so that is another incentive to watch what I post. There are a few friend that I do not actually know in real life, I met them through facebook games and other than in the game we have no contact, but most of my friends on facebook I have actually met and like.

A couple of you guys have mentioned stuff coming across facebook that you don't like. You always have the option of deleting that post from your wall, or removing that friend, or 'unliking' that page or group. You can also block posts from certain people so that their activities don't come across on your page. It really isn't difficult to do this, you just have to look in the right place.

"Don'tcha just hate it when you sew the patch on correctly and then sometime in the middle of the night it crawls over to the wrong sleeve!"

Try this one:

I see the terrorists snuck aboard and switched your American flag upside down last night.

"If you want to argue that you didn't give any direction or coaching, then why do they need you there?"

He was the starter battery. The machinery provided it's own energy to keep going, but still needs a kick start to get going. He found the person who was most likely to succeed in keeping the machine going once he stepped back and gave that person the option of taking over.

He provided the initial kick start then let the machine go where it needed to go.

Scouts-a-lot,

I have the opposite problem from your son. I am right on the edge of being underweight based on the height weight chart. I am like 5'11", and 134 pounds. I will be drinking a bunch of water and eating heavy food before I go to get my physical done.

Well emb, you are the first person that I met online before I met them in person. I suppose that Jambo is public enough of a place.

I'll be at the Sea Scout booth. Can't wait!!!

"Goodness gracious - can't have the Boy Scouts getting dirty, can we?"

It isn't the dirt that is bothersome, it is the fact that the marks that tires tend to make are difficult to get off.