Mojo31

Well, makes sense since the Tesla can drive itself.

Mojo31

Get the pliers, and once you have it seated use the pliers to spread the link until there is a good "click." "Hand tight" is not really tight enough.

bampilot06

right. I don’t want to fall down my drive way again, shop can do it.

big john

Noooo! This guy needs to stop driving!
Another Tesla story: The husband of Mrs John's friend bought a Tesla because his neighbor has one. Went all-in for the top dollar model but was afraid to drive it for months. Instead, he drove his wife's car and she had to use the Tesla, she didn't want to, until she figured it out enough to gradually teach him how to use it. I think he uses it unassisted now. He's about 74, I think.

MoAlpha

Did you ever encounter "Audrey" on SA? Great sailor and wonderful guy with the perfect combination of competitiveness and calm. Tim Ford (also currently on SA) and I crewed on his 4KSB in a bunch of Screwpile regattas and then he started a rigging and boat mgmt company <https://harneyyachtrigging.com>. He still works as a project manager somewhere for the health insurance.

Tim (foredeck) and I (mast) once ran his boat right onto someone's back yard, when I forgot about the mast cleat and we couldn't get the kite down. He just sat at the helm and calmly said, "Guys, would you please get it down...please...," never raising his voice, until we hit the mud. My kind of pro!

MoAlpha

We'll keep that in mind.

Mojo31

I kind of expect that when I reach bumper cars age, I'll get something cheap to bang around. If they have self-drivers by then, I will likely sign up for one. I expect though that I'll still be a capable driver in my 70s and hopefully in my 80s.

I get the nerves about driving an expensive car. I was really nervous driving the Taycan for a while since it's the first car that I've paid over $100k for. Probably my last as well.

Bah Humbug

It takes a bit of getting the hang of. Whether you enjoy it enough to get there with is up to you of course.

Mojo31

Don't know about him, but I haven't been on SA in a decade or more. Sounds like the kind of guy you want.

Hard to drop a sail when the halyard is cleated. That much I know!

By the way, aren't you supposed to release the mast cleat once the halyard clutch on deck is closed?

MoAlpha

It involved one of these.



He and the owner had consumed some number of gin and tonics and two bottles of wine at dinner. This was in Maine, where the water was probably in the 50s, the guy is in his 70s, and lucky it wasn't worse.

Velo Vol 

Ah that witty MoAlpha .

Mojo31

Might be a good sea anchor.

genejockey 

Not there yet. The previous owner of our house had them in the tiny shower stall in the master bedroom. The stall is small enough that I was forever hitting my elbow on the damn things. Eventually, we decided that the 1 1/2 gallons of water we wasted waiting for the hot water to make its way from the water heater was not drought conscious. That, and the shower stall in the front bathroom is way bigger.

MoAlpha

That certainly makes sense, but halyards can find their way back into them inadvertently, which may have been what happened. On the J/105s, I think it was was a class or fleet rule that the main halyard cleat had to be removed or taped over. They other rule I try to follow is "halyard in your hand: look up where you stand." It avoids a lot of trouble.

Mojo31

When I had a boat with a spin halyard cleat on the mast, I mounted it off set from the line of the halyard by about 4 inches. When the clutch was closed, the bowman popped it out of the mast cleat. Since it was offset, there was very little risk of it re-engaging. Worked well except when you forgot to release the damn thing.

Velo Vol 

DougRNS

genejockey 

Dad drove up till he was 95 or 96, I believe. He'd had one knee replaced at 91, and they did the other one at 96 (That took some convincing my sister, but the argument was with his advancing dementia, he'd forget his knee didn't work, put weight on it and fall, maybe breaking a hip) and that was the end of his driving, much to the relief of all of us.

The 5 years before that, after Mom died, he'd gotten increasingly dotty. Some things were worn into his mind like those old wagon wheel tracks on the Oregon trail, like how to get to the dry cleaners in Gettysburg, where he took his shirts to be laundered. But anything newer than about his mid 80s got less and less accessible and more easily lost. He could always find the place he went for his PT, but coming out of the parking lot there, his brain would tell him, from long experience, that if he took a left, he could cut across the Battlefield roads to get to the road that headed to our town, rather than turning right to go through G-burg, where he'd definitely remember the way. If he went left, sometimes he'd forget to turn onto the battlefield road, and then he might forget where he was headed. Same thing for his dentist, after they moved out of the little town they'd been in for years to a spot farther out. He might forget he was headed there, or he might forget which way to turn to get home.

So, he'd keep driving, hoping to find something familiar to jog his memory, but headed farther and farther from home. And eventually he'd stop and ask for help. Once he got almost two hours from home before stopping. That time, one of the people Dad asked for help called my sister and then drove his car so Dad could follow to get him home. People can be really good.

genejockey 

Pittsburgh is one of the places we're thinking about. My family's from there originally, it's not a bad place, we have at least one friend there, etc. And I figure with the way they eat there, we won't have to make our money stretch for as many years!

genejockey 

And if it is, it's probably time for a new link.

genejockey 

Funny that they call it a "driving rain" when driving in it is so awful.

genejockey 

And, apparently, stop itself for no reason. Or drive under a semi trailer.

BillyD

I cramp at night after bedtime, apparently to tell me I'm getting too much sleep.

Actually it tells me I've been slacking in my water intake, a bad habit of mine.

The worse part is trying to not sound like a b**** and wake the LSS up.

BillyD

Bah Humbug

The latter is a derivative of the former, of course.

BillyD

There was no NBA game last night.