I'm a moonelf/alien(?). I like drawing cute things, making friends, and playing every kind of games! I can speak both English and Thai. Any pronouns is fine (´ ∀ ` *)

submitted by MoonElf to traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 34 points | 45 comments Hello I wanted to share one of my special interests with you that I rarely see talked about and that is the art of sailing. In trying to make retirement plans two key points loomed; I wanted to be mobile and I didn’t want to be dependent on fossil fuels. Who knows what all that is going to look like in the future. Liveaboard sailboats looked like a decent fit for what I wanted so I needed to see if I could handle sailing. Not having spare cash for sailing lessons I instead saved up for a year and purchased a very cheap 15’ catboat and trailer to learn to sail on. I took some free online courses and read some books and that was enough to sail many nautical miles over the last few years, solo and with passengers, and to even teach others how to sail. I have had the privilege to grow up around boats and to go on many voyages but these were either noisy power boats or self propelled craft like canoes and kayaks. Sailing is such a unique and incredible experience, the amount of power the wind holds and the feeling of catching a sliver of that power for your own purposes is tremendous. I’ll share with you some of the more interesting things I have learned! * Points of Sail (imag: https://pixabay.com/vectors/sailing-diagram-points-of-sail-26589/) The points of sail are named wedges of a pie oriented by the direction of the wind. So if the wind is coming from the east, you couldn’t sail east as you would be In Irons and sailing north or south would have you on a Beam Reach. There are no sailboats that can sail directly into the wind. Modern sail and hull technology has improved our ability to sail close hauled up to only a few degrees off the wind. * The number of masts and type of sails determines the type of boat If you drive by a marina or cross a bridge on a sunny day you will almost assuredly see scores of bermuda rigged sloops, the most popular configuration for recreational sailboats. A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast towards the center of the boat. The Bermuda Rig sail plan is when you have triangular sails fixed to the mast. Each little variation changes things up; rig two foresails in front of the mast and your sloop is now a cutter for instance. Each additional mast and where it’s located also changes the sailboat type. A second shorter mast to the stern (rear) of the boat and you’re sailing a ketch or yawl. Move that second shorter mast up front instead and you’re in a schooner! Move the main central mast to the fore (front) and you are in a catboat. These variants give you different handling characteristics in different wind and they all have their place. * Most sailboats are rigged to sail into the wind, not with the wind. The main difference in sailboat rigging comes down to square sails vs triangular/wing sails. When sailboats were first invented square sails were the rage, they catch the wind and the more of them you have the more wind they can catch. A fully rigged tall ship with 4 masts can hold so many sails! With all of them deployed you can move downwind hauling a great deal of cargo. Referencing our points of sail above a square rigged ship can sail on a broad or beam reach or running but not a close reach or close hauled. If a square rigged ship wants to move upwind it needs to wait for the wind to change or engage in difficult manual means like kedging; using the anchor to drag the ship forward a few dozen yards at a time. This is the beauty of the bermuda rigged sail. Functioning like an airplane wing this sail plan works with the boats keel to pull the boat into the wind; bermuda rigged boats sail better against the wind than with it! By tacking (sailing in a zigzag pattern) these boats can sail indirectly upwind. The wind pulling forward on the sails wing shape instead of pushing against offers greater control and more safety for the crew as the boom swings during these course changes. This was a major game changer for sailing ships and is the reason this sail plan dominates today; as long as there is wind you can get to your destination. The next generation of sailing ships like those seen in world cup racers utilizes an inflatable or fixed edge sail allowing for sailing almost directly into the wind, just a few degrees off vs the 22° or so you might get with your average sloop. The closer these ships can sail into the wind the more advantage they have on different legs of a race so every degree is hard fought for. * knots per hour boat speed is measured in knots (kn) and is fixed at 1.852 km/h. Per wikipedia “A vessel travelling at 1 knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.” Most vessels measure this via gps these days but the old school method was to drop a small piece of wood tied to a line with knots in it over the stern (rear) of the ship and count how many knots were payed out over 30 seconds. This was remarkably accurate and reliable method of measuring a ships speed! * heaving to I’m including this because it’s something many people may have heard in popular culture and might want to know what it’s about. Heaving To is a parking maneuver that works in all but the roughest seas. Sometimes you want to stop your boat; maybe a man overboard or the navigator needs a celestial fix. It’s different for each sail plan but basically you position your sails and rudder so that some of the wind pushes, some of the wind pulls and any forward movement causes the ship to turn into the wind, stopping that movement. This effectively keeps the ship in place or moving forward very slowly. * port and starboard This is one of the most delightful things I learned about sailing and knowing the why helps with remembering the which. When the portugese were first inventing modern sailing, the ships did not have a rudder or helm. Instead a person would stand off to the starboard (right) side of the stern (back) and use the steorbord, old english for Steer Board, which was just a long funny looking oar. Because the steorboard operator always stood on the right when a ship would come to port they would always approach the dock with the clear left (port) side of the ship. Over time these labels stuck so even though we no longer use a steorboard to steer our sailboat (we use a rudder) the names port and starboard have stuck. To remember you can use the mnemonic Is there any **Port** wine **Left**? * paint lines on the boat You may have noticed jaunty lines on the hulls of sailboats right about at water level. Sometimes these are decorative or used to hide hull marks but most sailboats have at least one painted line called the waterline. This line should exactly match the actual line of water when the ship is loaded and trimmed perfectly. If your waterline is underwater your ship is overloaded. If the waterline is underwater at the stern and above water at the bow you might need to shift cargo forward, etc. Some commercial ships will have additional lines for the legal weight limit and such. * no ropes only line if you go to the hardware store and buy some rope to rig something on your boat, the moment you put it on the boat it ceases being a rope and becomes a line. It’s said by old salts that the only ropes on a ship are on the ships bell and the life ring (and various other small non sailing exceptions). If you call the line a rope other sailors will give you shit it’s part of the culture. * track all boats lastly, this isn’t really limited to sailboats and is mostly in fact commercial vessels but you might be interested in www.marinetraffic.org/marine-traffic a site where you can see a lot of real time ships traffic globally. I learned about some amazing canals China had with this and it’s really interesting to track hurricanes and such by seeing where the boats go. Sometimes you see some exceptionally brave or stupid captains that sail right through the hurricanes and it always makes me wonder what’s going on. That’s all I have, i tried to limit it to only the more interesting things i learned about sailing over the past couple years. Thank you for letting me do a mega post this made me a bit nervous but it was fun. I know sailing is largely a hobby of the wealthy today but _i don’t believe it has to be_. I’m very poor and have no steady job but that didn’t stop me. My journey into sailing has actually made me a tiny amount of money as boats don’t depreciate like cars do so if you are interested in sailing don’t think that you need a lot of money! There are public docks you can launch at for free and if you lurk for sale sites long enough people give away boats that need a little love frequently. I waited half a year before the right opportunity dropped into my lap so patience is key here. Good luck and happy sailing :) The main picture painting is by Russ Kramer at russkramer.com * * * Join our public Matrix server! rentry.co/tracha#tracha-rooms * * * As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site. Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It’s for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well. Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.

submitted by MoonElf to food 61 points | 17 comments https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/8ec44c3b-9233-4673-8b04-52aff64327e7.jpeg Learning that i need to eat a lot of protein to thrive i am trying all sorts of ways to make daily tofu and other beans. These panko crusted air fried tofu squares I made let me put down 8oz of tofu and feel like i’m getting a treat! The peanut dipping sauce even has a couple extra grams of protein as well. It pays to take a few minutes when preparing this one, if i try to rush these I don’t get an even coating and browning. this is probably one of the top ways i have found to just consume tofu bricks pretty much straight.