Syzygy Sailing

just to let you know what we’re up to . . . Jonny and I are taking the boat apart, starting too many huge projects all at once, and getting way in over our heads. Good times! We are simultaneously rebuilding the fridge, moving the propane locker to build a lazarette hatch, and rebuilding the entire radar arch/bimini/solar panel setup. A few pics:

When I was growing up on the farm my dad would weld out in the shop all the time. And so I placed that activity in the same realm as everything else shop-related: loud, dirty, greasy, uncomfortable, involving flying hot shards of metal, and as a result I wanted nothing to do with it.

The boomerang of rebellious devil-may-care youth may fly far, but oh how often it eventually ends up right back where it started . . .

Since buying a boat I have become more and more fascinated with welding. I decided we needed a new radar arch to accommodate our future wind generator, solar panels, and radar antenna, and that I needed to learn how to weld so I could make it myself (of course, right? how else? everything always all by ourselves). Like Jon with his sailmaking–like everything else we’ve done–I went big all at once. I got a membership to the Tech Shop for $70/month, paid $50 for the introductory TIG welding class, and bought $250 worth of 20′ long sections of 2″ diameter 304 stainless steel pipe that were a real hassle to cart around on top of the xterra down the highway.

Maybe I used my learning to weld as an excuse to make a radar arch, or maybe I used the radar arch as an excuse to learn how to weld; either way at this point I’m in ‘ass deep to an elephant’, as jonny likes to say.

Turns out welding is absolutely amazing. Totally space-age modern-marvel out of this world activity. Welding is proof of how far science and technology has taken us. The welding machine that I use at the Tech Shop is a box approximately 1′ x 1.5′ x 2′ in size–much smaller than a suitcase. It plugs into the wall, and it hooks up to a gas tank. Then you grab a stylus-shaped “torch”, bring it close to a piece of metal, and press your foot on a pedal on the floor–and then would you believe that little machine ignites a 1/4″ cone of light hotter than the surface of the sun. That’s right: instant 10,000 degrees in the palm of your hand, a little mini sun that melts metal. (Crazy!) You have to wear a face mask too dark to see through in full daylight; without it the 10,000 degree arc will blind you in seconds. (Scary!) You have to wear gloves and cover all exposed skin, because it creates so much UV that it will give you a sunburn in a minute. (Hot!) When you hold that torch, your hand is 6″ away from a tiny 10,000 degree cone of orange and green plasma that dances on the metal. Now why didn’t they tell me THAT when I was younger? Who wouldn’t want to hold the sun and fire it up and melt some metal with 10,000 degrees of blinding light?

The type of welding I’m learning how to do is commonly referred to as TIG welding, which stands for “tungsten inert gas”. It’s more accurately called GTAW welding: “gas tungsten arc welding”. It is the most precise and most versatile, yet also slowest, most difficult, and least used form of welding. In TIG welding (as in other forms of welding), the metal is melted by heat created by an electric arc, EXACTLY like the static electric spark that jumps from your hand to the doorknob after you walk across a carpet with rubber soles. Welding is a sustained form of that static electric spark–if you could keep that spark going and then make it 100,000 times more powerful, you could be welding. In TIG welding, you connect the electricity to a thin, sharpened stake of tungsten (called the “electrode”) and then you bring the electrode really close to (but not touching!) the metal. Really close–like an 1/8″. Then you press the pedal to give it juice. And you have to hold it that exact distance while you move the torch along a path which you can hardly see because you have some dark-as-hell facemask on. And you have to move kind of fast but not too fast. And I haven’t even mentioned yet that with your left hand (the torch is in your right hand) you have to precisely jab (dab) a rod of “filler” metal into the melted pool of metal, to add metal to make the weld.

Get this: if the electrode touches the metal accidentally, or if you jab the filler rod into the electrode accidentally–both of which I do far too often–the event is punctuated by an even brighter spark and pop immediately followed by an accusatory green flame, which indicates that you have contaminated (i.e. fucked up) your weld with some of the metal from your electrode. At which point you have to CEASE AND DESIST, gingerly dismantle the torch (gingerly because it is still bloody hot, remember), and take your tungsten electrode over to the grinder to grind a fresh new uncontaminated tip onto it.

The whole thing is really hard. It’s really, really damn hard. It’s not hard to make any old arc, it’s not hard to melt any old metal. But it’s hard to get a result that doesn’t look like cyclops went wild on your metal with his phaser eye–I’m talking all black and gobby and bubbly and smoking crappy. And in welding (like in climbing), if it looks bad, it probably is bad: weak and worthless. Why is it so hard? There are tons of different settings, and it’s hard to tell which setting is having what effect. That little suitcase of a welding box is a freaking computer with a gazillion different options and blinking lights and whatnot. And then you have to have super fine motor skills to be able to hold both the torch and the filler rod so steady, and move them so quickly yet precisely, so close to the metal, all while you play this foot pedal to control how many thousands of degrees of heat you’re pumping into a tiny spot on the metal. And all metal is different, and different thicknesses need different settings, and each different joint requires a different technique . . .

All of which makes this radar-arch project daunting. I don’t want to add some ugly weak heavy janky piece of shit to the back of our boat now, do I? I agonized for months over what diameter and thickess and type of pipe to use, and how to join them, and where the support struts should go, and the moment of truth is coming in a day or so and I hope that it isn’t all shitty and stupid looking. I’ve spent a fair bit of time at the tech shop welding practice sections of tubing, and even at my best they are still black and ugly and melty. (You might well guess that at this point “ass deep to an elephant” may be too deep for me.) But I’m not getting much better and I don’t know what else to change and it’s time to move forward with this project and I think that my welds might be good enough. So tomorrow jonny and I go to the tech shop to make the first real welds on the actual radar arch. I KNOW they are going to be ugly. I’m hoping that they will at least be acceptably strong. I’ll post some pictures, regardless of how dissatisfied I am (especially now that I’ve laid the groundwork about how impossibly difficult it is :-). But damn! no matter what welding is a totally amazing thing that now I can (kind of) do!

*addition note: Pictures are complements of Jonny; I still have to add some shots of the resulting welds

“I just want my mom to approve!” I huffed to my dad as we chatted one evening on the phone, a year ago, about my plans for sailing around the world.

There.  I said it.  After 31 years of doing my damndest to assert my independence from my parents, I realized I wanted desperately for my mom to approve of my future plans.

Her reception, three years ago, of this cockamamy idea to go sailing around the world with my two best friends could be termed luke-warm at best.  She was officially Strongly Against the Idea, for the obvious reasons. “You’re abandoning a career,” she’d said.  “You should stop being so reckless.  Why don’t you settle down with one of those nice girls with whom you keep finding a way to go separate ways. Why do something so dangerous?”

Her disapproval grew as our plan slowly manifested.  Shortly before we bought our boat, if I wanted to even talk about the sailing venture when i called home, I had to make sure only dad was on the line, otherwise I would face grim silence.  It only took a few times of sensing the steely look through the phone, and am pretty sure I sometimes heard teeth grinding together, before I realized to not bring up the topic.

I vented sometimes to my sister, admitting to her how important it was for me to have my mom say something to the effect of ‘go have a great time son!’

But why was it so important?  I suppose it’s obvious, she’s my mum.  I wanted them to be proud of my life, to think they had done a good job raising me, because I sure thought they had.  I wanted validation that my life is worth something, and if my mom didn’t approve, then it filled me with self-doubt.

My sister’s advice was always the same: Talk to her about it.  Let her know how you feel.

I couldn’t take it upon myself to face that conversation with my mom though.  So, cowardly, I avoided confrontation and discussion about it.

But I sensed an olive branch at an unlikely location. My mom, dad, sister, and I were in a large children’s furniture store, surrounded by baby-cribs and pint-sized dressers, over a dozen example baby rooms perfectly laid-out with every required baby accessory, shopping for furniture for the niece on the way.  My mom pointed at a large map of the world and quietly asked where we might be going.  Where was our route?  I sketched out an idea for her, mentioned a couple of places that I was really excited about like Thailand and India.  Then I gave her a hug.  I hope that hug said what I didn’t:  Thanks for asking mom.” And, “I love you.” And,  “Thanks for playing the role of parent and making the first step towards reconciliation.”

I felt better, but still uneasy.  And so a few months later I took the next step, and asked her if she and dad would come visit me in San Francisco over Thanksgiving, the winter holiday I usually spend with the fam.  She had adamantly declined previous invitations the summer prior, but this time she agreed they would come out.

Three months later, my mom stepped aboard Syzygy.  I showed her around the boat, pointing out work we had done, highlighting our safety improvements as well as some of the things I had learned along the way.

“See these wires, Mom? They’re called stays and we put in brand new over-sized ones all around the boat so our boat would be super-strong.  The deck is a little slick right now, but we are going to put down a new rough surface so that it’s safer to walk around on.  See these?  They’re called fairleads and I helped install them.  Hey Mom, check out the engine room!  This is what I love learning about.  Let me show you.”  I watched her furtively but intently, assessing her eyes, her noises, her tone.  ‘What was going through her head?’ I wondered.

I’m quiet by nature and often hold emotions inside; a trait I inherited from my mother.  So she was hard to read as she walked around the boat listening to me blather on anxiously.   But I think seeing the boat drove home that this concept I had been talking about for three years was real.  After seeing the boat, seeing the work and effort put into the boat, and hearing about the learning derived the experience, I think it came through that this wasn’t just a larger version of the carefree adventures we had taken so frequently in the past that, in the end, are individually trivial and superficial.  Jonny, Matt and I had worked hard at creating the opportunity for a life-changing experience involving enormous sacrifice and choices, and that we would emerge afterwards with an experience that would profoundly affect us; this will be a time of such greater import than the week-long climbing getaway. I think the enormity of our collective effort was made real when she saw the boat.  Or realized that I define those superficial carefree trips, but this trip, this trip will end up being part of what defines me, and by extension, a reflection of the values she raised me in me.  Values of which I am extremely proud.

The next  day, Matt and I treated my parents to a Thanksgiving dinner.  I’d never been in charge of a Thanksgiving meal before, though in the past I had taken on such important T-day duties as setting the table, making ice-tea, and heating up bread. Despite repeatedly being ordered to stay out of the kitchen under threat of being cut off from the wine, most of my pictures from Thanksgiving have somebody posing for a picture, and my mom in the background, in the tiny kitchen quietly trying to help.  In the end, Matt came through with a stellar turkey, my side dishes were generally a winner, and the meal was a success.

The next day was another big day.  We were going sailing.  Matt played an excellent role of knowledgeable captain, correctly intuiting such a role would help put minds at ease.  Not that he was acting; he was just being clear in his captain-worthiness.  This was the first time that any of us had taken the parents sailing, and the wind was perfect for it.  Enough wind that we were able to move along at 5-6 knots, but not too strong.  We rarely heeled over much, allowing everyone onboard to walk around without having to hold on for fear of falling over.

As we sailed out through the bay, I talked to my mom about the wind, the sails, work to be done and plans that we had.  We relaxed.  We drank some wine.  We laughed.  And finally came the moment that happens whenever we have someone new on the sailboat.

“Would you like to take the helm for a while mom?  I’ll be right next to you.  It’s a great feeling.”

She demurred initially, but with some more prodding from my dad and I, eventually wrapped her little hands around the wheel.  I could tell she enjoyed it.  Enjoyed the wind in her hair.  Enjoyed feeling the pressure on the wheel from water sliding over the rudder.  And at that moment, I felt like everything became O.K..  She was silently saying, “Go have a great time son.”

Happy Mother’s Day mom.  I love you.

In the midst of boat work we frequently acknowledge the “right tool for the job”; tonight it was all about the “right person at the right time”.

I had a frustrating day trying–and failing–to drill a few holes in a piece of stainless steel. Drilling a few holes was my ONLY goal for the day–it has to be done before I can move forward with my current project–but after driving a hundred miles, stopping at various specialized establishments, spending an emotionally debilitating amount of money, and carrying multiple heavy metal objects back and forth multiple times, this task went unfulfilled. Along the way I did some other errands fine but Damn! I really just wanted to get those holes drilled!

One would think that drilling holes is not that difficult. But sometimes Oh hell yes it is. In the past month I have learned how to TIG weld, use a mill and a lathe, how to adjust and replace blades on a serious band saw, how to properly cope a piece of tubing to mate to another piece of tubing, and designed and insulated an icebox. I assure you! drilling large holes in thick stainless steel remains the MOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK of everything we have done on the boat so far. Seriously, harder than everything else. Why? This amateur can offer only justifications (since I haven’t found the answer). Stainless is much harder than “mild” steel. If your drill bit doesn’t cut into it, dig into it properly, than all of the energy of spinning that bit goes into friction–thus heat–and when you heat stainless steel it only gets HARDER than it already is. I tell you truly: a quarter-inch thick slab of stainless steel is where drill bits go to die. You can drill all you want, you can press as hard as you can–with a drill press–you can pour cutting fluid on it, you can use exactly the right speed, you can buy expensive cobalt bits, but at the end of the day you’ll end up with a pile of dull drill bits and a piece of metal with a partial hole in it. And all of your efforts will have served only to harden the metal via that excess heat. It’s a downward spiral leading to frustration and despair and wasted money and broken drill bits, and yes I will shamefully admit that my failure to drill holes in stainless steel ruined my day today, has ruined many of our days in the past, and will probably ruin plenty more. What a silly thing to ruin a day! It’s only metal and a hole! But when there’s no one who can do it for you, and you can’t get it done, and you absolutely need to . . .

After returning home with an attitude of failure inadequacy and disgust, I chose to pursue a proper drink at the Trappist in Oakland (best source of real beer–i.e. Belgian–in the entire east bay) with Karen. At the Trappist, we happened to sit next to a guy who happened to be wearing his California Blacksmithing Society t-shirt and happened to have work-blackened hands which I happened to notice and on which I chose to comment. His name is Brad Faris, and had I tried I could not have found a more ideal individual to answer all my metalworking questions and ease the specific frustrations of my day. Brad’s father was a pinball machine artist, and Brad was originally a pinball machine designer, who became a blacksmith after moving to germany to build pinball machines, and is now a custom smith with a studio in Oakland. Hell of a story, hell of a nice guy. Brad is a stellar individual with a wealth of knowledge, and it was a pleasure to talk to him.

Brad and Karen and I talked technical stuff, like the reason why brass goes pink when it goes bad (the zinc in the alloy is oxidized, leaving on the copper, and porously weak) and what naval bronze does when welded (spitting zinc and producing salt-like deposits) versus silicon bronze (beautiful puttied welds), but we also talked about pinball machines and neat hot forges and old school metal suppliers in petaluma, which is to say that we weren’t dorking out at all–it was interesting and accessible and it was a conversation in a bar while buzzed that was filled with content and value and excitement to me and Karen both. He gave me the important names of the metal and tool supply places that I needed to know immediately, like KBC tools where tomorrow morning I’m going to get some new sharp drill bits and “TAP magic” cutting fluid for tomorrow’s second attack on the stainless. And US Metals which is a more standard supplier than ALCO metals which is like a metal flea market by analogy, and Metal Supermarket which is good for small pieces because they have smaller stock on hand and are more willing to cut and sell it in small quantities, and Van-Bebber in Petaluma which–even though it’s in a silly location for a place that gets all its raw materials from shipping yards in the bay–is apparently the type of customer-service rich operation that draws people from all over to make the inconvenient drive for a great product. Brad knows his shit! So incredibly fortuitous that we just happened to run into him at a bar on the day that I most needed his particular expertise.

There is an oft repeated saying on the boat, about having the “right tool for the job”. For the water tanks, it was the cutoff blade (yeah the cutoff blade is frequently that “right tool”) on a 4″ grinder, for the icebox insulation it was Japanese pull saw, for rebedding it’s 4200 UV fast cure, the list goes on and on. Tonight I have to say that Brad Faris was the right person at the right time. His expertise is exactly what I needed to know to turn today’s frustrations into an optimism for a different tomorrow. I’m excited about tomorrow because I have new ideas about how to properly succeed with that piece of stainless–tomorrow I’m going to do everything right and at the end of the day I’m going to finally be able to give a detailed technical dissertation on how to kick 304 stainless ass. Hell of a frustrating day, hell of a rewarding night.

I’ll give you two really good reasons why I shouldn’t sew a sail: 1) I know nothing about sewing.  2) I know nothing about sails.

All I know is that two months ago, while chatting about money and our sailboat, Matt said to me, “We definitely need a new sail.  Why don’t you sew it for us?  It will save us a lot of money and you could do it in Denver. It’s a boat project that doesn’t require a boat.”

It seemed so logical, so rational. Even Sailrite, the company that sells sail-making kits, said it was easy. Zip, zip, zip — and voila — done. Check out the video and see.

Still, intuition suggested that the task would be daunting. When I told my friends, “I’m thinking about sewing a sail,” I couldn’t even keep a straight face. Like so many other boat projects, sailmaking was unfamiliar and overwhelming.

Now, ankle deep as I am in this sailmaking endeavor, I wonder if Matt asked the question in jest.  A completed sail is wider and almost as long as my condo (ehem..currently for rent). How the heck am I supposed to do this?

I do know, however, the difference between a code zero, gennaker, asymetric spinaker, drifter, crusing spinaker, and genoa. I know how to thread a bobbin. I know what tension can be applied to different sail luff configurations and how that affects the ability of a sail to go to windward.   I also know what tension can be applied to a piece of thread and how that affects looping above and below the fabric.  I understand roach. I understand how to walk the dog.

I know this because I did hours of personal research, had several discussions with Matt, read a book, and talked for 30 minutes on the phone with Jeff, the head sailmaster at Sailrite, hitting him with questions I barely have enough knowledge to even be asking, let alone understand the answers.  He was extremely helpful, though I’m pretty sure he realized I was a complete greenhorn.  We need a sail though, so I pressed on, e-mailed him even more questions the next day, and then called again a few days later.

I know we want something that would work in light air.  You see, the breezes in the trade-winds (which blow from 20 degrees north to 20 degrees south of the equator minus about 5 degrees of doldrums right on the equator) are actually fairly wispy most of the time, only 5-15 knots.  All of our current sails are made of Dacron, the most common synthetic sail fabric, but which would be too heavy for those light trade winds.  Our new sail, called a drifter, will be made of super lightweight nylon, much like tent fabric.  We’ll mostly be flying it in what’s called a double-head sail set-up:  the jib and the drifter are attached at the forestay, one going to port and the other to starboard, each at about a 90 degree angle to the boat.  They create a big parachute the wind pushes against, moving the boat.  To use this set-up the wind needs to be coming from generally directly behind you, give or take 20 degrees.  Coincidentally, that’s what the wind will usually be like in the trades.

I also know this because I borrowed my sister’s sewing machine, and had my newfound mentor, Lauren, gave me a brief tutorial on using it.  Like a good mentor, she stepped back and let me have fun. To start, I ripped off a 4’x4′ section from my 20 foot square blue ground tarp, hoping that it would mimic nylon, because I wasn’t willing to cut up my tent.  I then impatiently cut  the 4’x4′ square into 6 different pieces to sew back together.  Once in a while, when something stopped working and I couldn’t fathom why, I’d ask for help.  Otherwise, I showed her my stitching, asked for feedback, and generally felt proud of what I had done.
The process reminded me of the internship programs that my students go through. Every week, they see new things, learn new skills, and push themselves beyond their normal boundaries — under the guidance of amazing mentors. Such opportunities — in school!— are awesome, and I smiled just thinking about it.

Three significant lessons emerged from the reassembly of the first tarp:

1) It would help if I cut up the tarp in straight lines.
2) It would help if I mimicked the way the sail panels would be pre-attached with double-sided tape.
3) It would help if I had more thread.

So we drove over to Fancy Tiger, a local boutique thread-shop.  They have a surprising lack of thread, needles, and fabric, but an ungodly amount of yarn, and they also have sewing classes! You get to bring in your own projects and get help!  It’s like getting 10 mentors at once, for free! As far as I can tell, there’s no other shop like it for 500 miles.

Back home, I cut out a second piece of tarp. This time with straight lines.  I tacked the pieces together with double-sided tape.  I used my new, bright yellow (Lauren raised her eyes at my choice, but I wanted bold) thread.  The second go was a significant improvement, and my confidence rose ten-fold.

So, now, thanks to so much help, this project seems more manageable. I’ve got Lauren, and my sister, and Jeff, and the entire staff of the local thread-shop as support.  With all that scaffolding, it should be easy.  Right?

I’ve never been much of a prankster. The furthest I ever took an April Fools joke involved telling someone I didn’t like his shirt. Yes: lame. I know.

As the day crept up this year my friend Amy regaled me with stories of epic April Fools jokes in her family. They sounded like so much fun. I felt so left out. To hear Amy tell it, April 1st was the only holiday worth celebrating.

So I got to thinking about a prank. I started by searching for a victim. An obvious target was Amy, since she so enjoyed such shenanigans. She’s a professional April-Fooler, though, and I figured she’d see right through my meager attempts. What I needed was unsuspecting victims. Someone who trusted me totally. Someone who’s known me for years, and as such, never heard me pull an April Fools caper. Oh, Matt and Jonny: I would pity you if it wasn’t me doing the pranking.

The three of us lately have been pushing our fingers into our temples, frowning in thought, throwing fake smiles every once in a while as our minds wandered toward the financial challenge before us. We have little money, a lot more boat parts yet to purchase, and (most importantly) a two year trip to save up for. We’ve tried prioritizing projects, but that only made the monstruous task before us more evident. What we needed was some levity.

So I sent them this e-mail:

—–

From: Jon Haradon
Subject: umm….news
Date: April 1, 2009 5:52 PM
To: Matt Holmes, Jonny Walman

So the Superintendent of my district swung by our school today. Apparently she didn’t get the message about me leaving. She said the district was starting a STEM (science technology, engineering and mathematics) charter school in the district and she asked if I would be interested in running it. She basically implied that if I wanted the job it was mine. It would pay a bundle, and as director of the school, I would get to decide exactly how it looks. Couldn’t be be more perfect with where I want to go with my career. I have to admit, I’m strongly thinking about sticking around and taking the job…. I’ll give ya’ll a call to talk about it tonight.

—–

I let them sweat on it for four hours while I busied myself. I actually forgot about it. Matt and Jonny didn’t. I’m not sure what happened, and they seem unable to recall the events during the time in question, so traumatized were they. I heard hints, though, of emergency meetings, soul-searching conversations, and maybe — OK, definitely — some searing words for me.

At 9PM, I called Matt.

“Hey what’s up?”

I feigned ignorance. After some pleasantries, Matt, slowly started, “So… uh… that was some bomb you dropped on us.”

I couldn’t hold the facade any longer — I told you I’m no prankster — and offered “April Fools?” I felt like a little kid lighting a fire-cracker the size of a torpedo, and sprinting away while the fuse quickly burned down.

Silence can reveal many emotions. In this long silence, I could hear disbelief and dumb-foundedness, and then relief mixed with incredulity.

“You’re shittin’ me….”

About all Matt could say after that was that I had better call Jonny. In the background, I heard Karen yell at me. She later flamed me on Facebook. I suppose I deserved it.

I called Jonny. He asked if I had talked to Matt. I confirmed, which was about all I was able to do before spilling my beans.

“Well I don’t know what he said, but I think I’m going to be a bit more harsh.”

I cut him off. Yet again, I lit the fire-cracker and sprinted in the other direction. “April Fools,” I timidly let out.

There was less silence this time. Jonny told me I ought to know how much he simultaneously hated me and was glad that we are the kind of people who are pranksters. He also said he’d need a week to get over the shock.

I hadn’t thought about what the hoax might prompt as an aftermath; I was just hoping to fool them, and definitely succeeded. It’s strange, but swindling my friends made me feel really good. Not because I lied, but because my friends were truly moved and devastated by the possibility that I might not join them. Yes, love reveals itself in strange ways.

In the next few days, Matt and Jonny mentioned that my firecracker actually prompted interesting thinking on their parts, something about soul-searching and opportunities in life and trusting your instincts and taking chances and friendship. For us to have conceived this adventure, have made it through over three years of planning, and be on the verge of leaving, there had to be some intense bonds of trust, respect, and compassion. Some serious man-love. And so while I might have severely severed that bond of trust, (and I currently don’t trust anything they say, because I know they are scheming up some way to way to exact revenge) I think I’ve nudged us all to think about what this journey means to us, together. We’ll need those bonds when confined for a months in a tiny, floating, 40-foot boat with no escape.

Unless they prank me by throwing me overboard.

A while back we came across these superb videos made by Chris Humann (edited thanks to comment below) during his single-handed TRANSPAC race, in which he suspends a video camera from a kite and flies it from his boat while sailing. As soon as I saw the video I had to do it too. It’s so difficult to get good footage while sailing, since you’re usually limited to the deck of the boat–but Chris’s perspective and the footage he captures is just incredible.

Extensive online research revealed that there is a whole hobby out there dedicated to “KAP” or “kite aerial photography”. My immediate question was: why doesn’t anyone talk about kite aerial video? Surely video is better than stills? Turns out that getting steady video is wicked hard!

Most people make their own rigs and build it piece by piece a bit at a time, playing with different kites, etc, until they feel competent enough in their gear to hang an expensive camera off of it. This is probably smart, but I was in the mood for immediate gratification, so I put intelligence aside to make room for recklessness and in an impulsive moment I ordered a kite and a picavet suspension rig from Brooks Leffler’s web site, brooxes.com.

Brooks is the man–he made it super easy to get started. He handled everything personally, and I had my gear in a day and a half. I highly recommend his excellent little company; he is a good guy with great products and great service, and he deserves our business.

Everyone suggests first practicing with just the kite, getting to know how it functions in different conditions, etc, but I was just too impatient for that sort of thing. So the day after my new toys arrived we went out to the grass next to the marina on a pretty windy day and just did it. Put it all together, started the kite flying, then hung my $400 video camera from the picavet suspension and just let out the entire 500ft of line. It was funny to watch my little video camera become a little speck way up there, hanging directly over the sailboats in the marina.

Here’s the basic setup: you launch the kite and let out a hundred feet of string, then you attach the picavet suspension rig to the string. The picavet is an elegant arrangement of lines that serve to keep the camera mounting bracket perfectly horizontal no matter what angle the kite is at. You mount your camera on the bracket at whatever angle you want it to be, and then it stays at that angle the whole time.

About the video camera: I love my sanyo xacti videocamera, because 1) it’s WATERPROOF and 2) no tapes–it holds over an hour of top quality footage on a little 8gb memory card. Plug it into the computer and download all the footage in a minute. We have used this trusty little camera to film underwater in the bay–just put it under the faucet afterwards to rinse it off the saltwater. If only sanyo would make an waterproof version of their HD videocamera!

That first trial run in the marina created very, very shaky footage. Check it out:

Pretty much unusable stuff. I get the feeling that this is pretty common with kite aerial video, which in hindsight explains why the online traffic is all about kite aerial photography. I think you need the wind to be extremely steady without any gusts to get decent footage. Conditions the day we first tried were less than ideal:

The most annoying aspect of the trial run was how long it took to wind up the line to bring the whole rig back in, so I built a new winder to which I could chuck our portable drill–this sped up the whole take-down process drastically.

Emboldened by our trial run, the next weekend we took it sailing. It was a bit more challenging to deal with the setup from the deck of a boat, but all in all totally doable. We sent it out when the wind was about 10-15 knots, I let out the kite and all 500ft of line, and then the wind picked up to 20 and then 25 and I thought the line was going to break and I was going to lose the whole thing, so I hooked up the drill and wound that sucker back in. The footage was super shaky again, which is a bummer but I guess to be expected in those conditions. Also, the angle of the camera (easily adjustable, from the ground!) wasn’t quite high enough, so the top of our mast is never quite in the shot. This is unfortunate, but no so bad for our first try. I’m very happy with all the gear and the setup–thanks to Brooks for a simple and excellent product. Now we just need to send it up in better conditions, and hopefully sometime soon we can get great aerial footage of Syzygy in action.

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