New Member

[JMetzner]

Greg,

You guys ought to look into ice sailing. It would extend your season anyway , and to me it looks like a lot of fun.

Not much wind up here in the winter....thankfully! -37F at my place this morning. I don't think I want to compute the windchill when starting at those temps.

--John M.

Fairbanks, AK.

[overdueweekender]

My definition of 85% is......... The hull complete in looks like a boat. Fiberglassed from the rub rails down. cockpit completely built, steering assembly complete (Wheel), cabin complete, Hatches made. My next step is to finish (pretty-up) cabin. I.e. Paint. I may be a little bit more than %85 done.

[Steve Tarry]

I was making progress until I broke a bone in my left hand and suddenly couldn't grasp anything with enough force to hold it. It's better now, but I lost months of good-weather building time. Sigh... Well, spring is coming, at least here in the northwest where winter never actually arrived. Svenska Flicka will yet float!

Fintan, we're going to be in your neighborhood this summer -- what must I see as a tourist of that part of Ireland?

[Mark Gudschinsky]

Overdueweekender, tell the state of Texas that Alaska is the bigest state.

[Fintan Murphy]

Fintan' date=' we're going to be in your neighborhood this summer -- what must I see as a tourist of that part of Ireland?[/quote']

Steve,

send me a personal message, or send it to fmurphy@bge.ie. Let me know what part(s) of Ireland you plan to visit, or if you haven't decided, let me know your general plans, interests, times, how many are coming etc.

If possible, I will arrange to meet up (and hopefully not get a speeding ticket this time - isn't that right Frank :oops: ).

So far, I've met up with Frank, and Steve Downs, who both visited Ireland on seperate occasions, and dropped in on another member with I was on holidays in England, who has since dropped off the forum, and I can't remember his name.

Who knows, the boat is actually launched, so we could arrange a days sailing if possible.

[Frank Hagan]

At the risk of horrifying Fintan, I'll give you my quick take on Ireland.

Ireland is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, all the beautiful places have names I can't remember! But I'll try:

Powerscourt Gardens: We really enjoyed this, and it would appeal to people who like botanical gardens, beautiful estates, etc.

There's a great coastal city between Bray, where we stayed, and Dublin. Wonderful sights, great harbor and the place where James Joyce lived (is that right, Fintan? The author who said the Irish sea was "scrotum tightening"?) It was sunny and warm that day, and there were a lot of people out strolling.

The Road the Tyrants ("British") Built to Exterminate The Irish: Forgot what this is called, but it winds through the peat bogs and is an engineering wonder. You can see where people have come and havested some peat, which is pretty interesting. I kept trying to resolve the conflict of a beautiful place and genocide, which seems to me to better suited to the ugly places. Never did resolve that.

Miscellaneous: Dublin is nice to visit; we really enjoyed Trinity College and the tour of the library. Lots of sights there, and its the only place we did the really touristy thing of riding around on a tour bus.

Guiness is not to be missed there (the beer, I mean, we didn't go on the Guiness factory tour, although I've heard its interesting.) Eat a paninni in a local pub with a pint (do NOT order a half pint, which is what girls order).

The pubs were very smokey when I was there, but I understand the Irish have adopted a no smoking policy ... I wonder if they are following that rule or not.

You can try to find castles, but be forewarned: they are either ruins (still interesting of course), or they have been converted into Victorian style homes like the castle at Kill-Kenny (not inspired by Southpark, honest). There's another place where one of the early Irish saints lived (Stephen?), and it has the most complete ruins, including a round tower that is hundreds of years old. For someone from a country that dates antiques in decades, seeing some of this was very interesting.

The main thing you'll find is a country full of great people. Very welcoming and interesting to talk to. The only exception we found was in Dublin, which has a faster pace like all cities, so people are rushing to and fro just like here.

We did avoid telling them they had small cars (they already know that). We also avoided telling them we had Irish ancestors (nearly all Americans do, and they have heard that a thousand times).