I finally put up Alvin Touchet's pictures of his 2002 M-15 "Alacrity" that he sent me in MAY. I'm sorry Alvin, I don't get around to things as quickly in the spring and summer. Nice shots of her under sail, though. What's in that can that's up to your mouth? TMAHBFMCE (Traditional Malt-And-Hops-Based Fermented Montgomery Christening Elixir), no doubt. Check them out at http://msog.org/boatos/tod_shots1/tod_shots.cfm (the web site re-org is almost done, and page names will make more sense in a few days. Or not.) Also, Bones has sent MSOG some pictures of his M-23. It's a really pretty boat, done in aqua, and well worth seeing. They, too, are at http://msog.org/boatos/tod_shots1/tod_shots.cfm. Couple of other things coming up. Stay tuned. Bones, how soon we forget! Why rely on tried and true past technology when we can put our trust in modern solutions? Why, just in October 2001 yours truly told of some safety gear that would work well for the purposes you suggest, to wit: "I was looking for some kind of cheap night signal flares or something at my local army surplus store and the guy there convinced me to buy something called a "50 caliber MG" or something like that. I think it's made by Browning. Anyway, I mounted it on the bow and it's real handy because there's something he called a "belt" that throws out a bunch of little pieces of metal that make a big noise (for fog, I guess) and a bright flash at the end of it (probably to give boat location), but what's really neat is that every once in a while there are things called "tracers" in it that people can really see well at night from a long way off if you get into trouble. It works really well, cause almost instantly the Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force all show up. I found it useful in ways I hadn't figured, like 1) I've had NO right-of-way problems since I got it; 2) other boats in anchorage courteously move to let me anchor wherever I want; and 3) fishing topwater is real easy now." Let me add two other uses I've since discovered: 4) Using the recoil, it's easy to maneuver into a slip while firing in the opposite direction, but for some reason seems to be an unpopular method late at night; 5) PWC's and stinkpots aren't a problem anymore. In fact, the waters are all mine for miles around (except in Miami, where they apparently already know about these devices, since many cigarette boats have them). These are the only uses I've found so far, I bet there are more. Drawbacks: - Those "belt" thingies are expensive; - I've shredded six headsails and parted 9 forestays since adding it. Doug At 05:20 PM 7/12/02 -0400, you wrote:
There was an article in the Hartford newspaper about a Connecticut man who builds cannons. He started making regatta starter cannons, but now has branched out into replicas of old naval cannons of almost any size you might need or want.
Which leads me to think............ a small cannon mounted on the foredeck of the M15 for use against PWCs. It might be a nice Sunday sailor's sport, but is probably illegal, and certainly not PC!
But what would you use, grape shot? or chain shot? or bird shot?
Connie
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------------------------------------------ Doug King M-17 #404 "Vixen" Montgomery Sailboats Owners Group Web site: http://msog.org Email: mailto:msog@msog.org