Published by Wayne Weber*************** http://www.brokeboats.com
Volume # 312************************* November 29, 2001
Delivered the fourth week each month*************Always FREE
As always, I respect your privacy here and on my website.
Your personal and contact information will never be shared with a third party without your permission.
Remember, any time you tire of my rambling here just send me an E-mail and tell me to quit sending this information-packed newsletter
to your inbox each month........Or..........
Just hit the delete button 12 times a year
On the Hook for November
Welcome to all, it seems like I might slip this one in just under the wire, December's only a day or so away.I guess Christmas is right around the corner so I'm including a couple ideas for your gift giving, :-) and getting too.
This issue is going out as HTML. If you don't receive HTML E-mail you can view this newsletter on-line at
http://www.brokeboats.com/novembernewsletter.html
but maybe not on Friday the 30th, see below:
*****************NOTICE****************
Broke Boats.com website will be shut down for scheduled improvements on Friday, Nov.30,2001 and may last into
Saturday, Dec. 1,2001. Sorry for any inconvience.
*****************NOTICE****************
--Invasive aquatic weed threatens boating--
An invasive aquatic weed recently arrived to the U.S. could change the face of outdoor sports and have far-reaching impacts on the economy .
Click here for the complete Boating Industry article.
The above info is from a recent Boating Industry article.
While this may be a new development for much of the United States, and who knows where else; many of the lakes in the Southeast have had this problem for some time now.
Wildlife departments have posted waring signs concerning cleaning plant matter from trailers and boat hulls at all infected boat ramps around South Carolina.
I have seen this hydrilla cover the surface of Goose Creek Reservoir in the span of only a couple years, and I mean completely....
Just when I thought the problem couldn't get much worse around these parts...Up popped the following headline in my Sunday Morning edition of the local newspaper:
Scientists race to find out why Eagles are dying!
Clues lead down food chain to coots,plants,and algae
With a sudden flurry of flapping wings and feet tip-toeing along the water, the coots took flight in a tight formation across the lake.Except one, which wobbled skyward, giddy in flight, and plopped down heavily in the water.
The final time, when the coot comes up gasping for air, the eagle strikes.
"Coots are like candy to them"
Since 1994, when 29 bald eagles were found dead on DeGray Lake, Arkansas, a mysterious disease has killed hundreds of birds across the Southeast.
Last winter, 16 bald eagles turned up dead on Thurmond Lake at the South Carolina-Georgia border.
Two weeks ago, another bald eagle was found dead, the second of the year...
and biologists fear more will die before winter's end.
These are just the eagles they find. How many more may be dead
they don't know.
In South Carolina, biologists think they are closing in on the killer, which may lie deep and thick below the water.
The answer was in the lakes themselves.
So they looked for similarities in the lakes.
They were all man-made impoundments,
all had relatively good water quality,
and all had aquatic vegetation, including a non-native,
invasive species called hydrilla.
"Sometimes leads generate more leads, and sometimes leads generate a dead end. Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time."The above is just a few tid-bits
from the article:
BY ARLIE PORTER
Of The Post and Courier Staff
You can explore this mystery in depth at:
Click here for the complete article by Arlie Porter.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will sign legislation that extends a moratorium on Internet-related taxes for two years, although he preferred a longer period of tax relief.
A voice vote in the Senate on Thursday renewed the tax ban that was enacted three years ago but expired Oct. 21.
Senators rejected an amendment that could have led to future collection of state taxes on Internet sales and even Internet access. The proposal would have required a congressional vote to allow sales tax collections after 20 states agreed to collect for each other.
The state compact plan failed when senators voted 57-43 for a procedural motion to kill the measure.
Click here for complete article at Excite.com
I guess you're wondering what in the world that has to do with boating.
Well, if your local sales tax is 6%, then,
when you order a boating item or gift on-line you get an
instant 6%discount just by not having to pay any sales tax.
With most merchants offering free shipping and good discounts before Christmas I can't think of a better time to buy some gifts on-line.
At the bottom of this newsletter I'll add a few pretty neat items from some of my sponsors.
Look around their sites and maybe you'll see something you need, or that just perfect gift for someone.
You can trust shopping with these folks; so buy something, after all, their sponsorship is what helps keep Broke Boats.com on-line and trying to help Boaters everywhere!!
Those Nasty Bubbles !
Lab tests have proved that bubbles can sink floating objects.The findings add weight to suggestions that methane bubbles escaping from methane reserves in the seabed might have been to blame for vessels disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea.
The Greek mathematician Archimedes realised that for something to float, the density of the liquid has to be greater than the density of the object.
So a simple argument is that if you mix enough bubbles into a liquid to lower its average density, an object floating on its surface should sink.
It is suggested that this process is behind the mysterious demise of many ships that sank for no obvious reason.
However, Bruce Denardo at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, was sceptical.
He points out that rising bubbles often carry currents of water up with them, exerting an upwards force on the floating object.
For all but the most violent bubbles, this upward drag might be enough to keep an object afloat.
Denardo and his colleagues decided to test the theory. They filled a four-litre glass beaker with water, then fed in air at the bottom at varying speeds.
Then they dropped in steel balls filled with varying amounts of water and air to see how easily they would sink.
If, in the absence of rising bubbles, the ball only just floated on the surface, switching on the bubbles made them sink.
Denardo concludes that we can't rule out the methane theory for ships lost in the Bermuda Triangle. "If a phenomenon can be made to occur in a lab, it probably occurs somewhere in the natural universe"
click here for the complete article in New Scientist.com
OKAY, I'll buy the Bubble-Bermuda-Triangle theory for the lost ships......but please tell me where the airplanes lost in the Bermuda Triangle went to :-)
*********WANTED*********
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has asked Boating Industry International to alert the North American boating industry that an escaped murderer may be working as a boatbuilder or woodworker and should be considered "armed and dangerous."
The FBI is asking for assistance in locating the fugitive.
They said there is a strong possibility that the fugitive is probably now working somewhere on the East Coast of the United States as a boatbuilder or woodworker.
No viable leads
The FBI reported that an investigation by local and federal authorities has yielded "no viable leads as to Sadowski's whereabouts. Normally we get some kind of tip. It is unusual - we haven't really had anything."
Click here for the FBI's wanted poster to see a photograph of Sadowski and further details.
Share A Tip
Finally; thanks to my friends at forumspace.comI've found a home for an on-line forum for readers to share tips and boating ideas and news.
Click here to go to Broke Boats Share a Tip Forum.
Then click on the new membership button at top left of the page.
Then make up your own member name and password and enter your E-mail for confirmation.
After you receive your E-mail to confirm user-name and password, visit anytime and log on to start a new topic ,ask a question,or just read what others have to say.
I hope we can all enjoy using this forum, and let me know if you have any problems or questions.
Manatee Update
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted yesterday to conduct a study and consider reclassifying the West Indian manatee from endangered to threatened, according to a report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.The state's decision was prompted by a petition from the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, a fishing group that has fought protection measures.
In addition, The US Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday released criteria to downlist the manatee at the federal level.
Bravo One XR
Mercury Racing has launched the new integrated transom system (ITS) for Bravo One XR drives.It adds further durability and reliability to the drive, said the company, and offers more drive height flexibility and simplifies installation.
The ITS gives a seven-inch setback to improve boat-running attitude, a lengthened heavy-duty drive input shaft, integral hydraulic twin-ram power steering, built-in electronic trim and tilt, trim and steering rams that are multi-mounted to the gimbal ring and transfer the load back to the transom, a new drive cover to optimize drive cooling and a rear drive cap with tie bar attachment.
A lightweight plastic cover conceals the hydraulic steering and trim hoses.
New 1.26:1 and 1.35:1 gear ratio options are added to the standard 1.50:1 ratio.
A Few Gift Ideas
Click on the pictures to learn more details
Here's a gift any boater could use: The only sponge we've found that's designed for boat maintenance and bailing. It will pick up and hold an amazing 32 oz. of water without leaking!
Simply hold the Depthmate in the water and the sonar signals sent out will give you an accurate reading from 2-240 feet. Unit is waterproof to 150 feet and floats if you happen to drop it. The backlit digital display is easy to read and will read through a solid hull, inflatable bottom, or ice, as long as there is no air in-between.
Measure wind speed and temperature with the hand-held Skymate anemometer. The unit will display wind speed in MPH, KPH, Knots, meters/second, feet/minute, and Beaufort. The built in thermometer will measure the temperature and display it in degrees F or degrees C, as well as calculate windchill.
I'm not exactly sure if power tools and a bottle of Rum are normally items you should use together but this is a neat gift.
Tired of coming home with nothing but fish "stories" to tell? As all good fishermen know, varieties of fish prefer different water temperatures. Locate the temperature where your fish are most comfortable, and dinner is almost guaranteed.
SportSafe is an air-tight and waterproof container designed for the active person who needs a place to put cash, credit cards, keys, driver's license, fishing and boating licenses, whatever
The wind comes up, the waves swell and our Panama Tramp Steamer begins to rock while port and starboard sailors stand guard. Inspired by cast iron rocking toys from long ago, this sculpture is handcrafted and painted to look like an antique. Swings back and forth at the gentlest touch.
Just can't stand not boating on those freezing days? Try this one...
This palm-sized weather station is highly portable and will keep track of current and forecasted conditions. Its many features include: * Altitude measured in feet or meters, for heights up to 30,000', with a resolution of 3 feet (1 meter). * Barometric pressure displayed in inches of mercury (inHg) or HPa, with trend graph for the past 16 hours. * Temperature in degrees F or C, and wind-chill. * Wind speed from 0-89 mph. * Clock * Floating water resistant case.
