Current State of Things

[jon hansen]

fun facts: late november 1972, i had just turned twenty, i was a deckhand on the S.S. Edmond Fitzgerald. we were upbound on lake superior headed to silver bay to load ore. we were running the north shore for protection from the weather. alberta clipper was screaming down. -28 degrees and blowing 60. who knows what the wind chill was. the boat was rolling pretty good but not violently. come 11:00 pm, we deckhands were hanging in our room chilling. no tv, no radio. in come the 1st mate talking something about frostbite and put every piece of clothing on we had and made a joke about cutting two holes in our seabags and wearing them if needed.
i kept thinking 'who's he talking to', i ain't going out there. it was like a bad dream.
i never saw the water. the lake was steaming so bad. the old man had checked down and swung the boat into the wind using the forward cabins as our protection.
so i got dressed in my low tech gear, tied some 1" manilla rope around my waist, the bosun tied the rope to something, gave me a 16lb hammer and out on deck i went. wet ice
everything, decks, bulwarks, overheads, fence cables, ....., everything had a two foot thick coating of ice for the entire length of the 730' vessel.
it was our job to bust up the ice then hand pick it up then walk to the rail and throw it overboard. after 20 hours of completing nothing in real terms we got knocked off and went to bed. the wind abaited, we continued towards the port.

it took 48 hours ish to open the hatches to load after we tied up.

it took two weeks and a weather warmup to completely clean up that mess.

i started working as hard as i could to get upgraded and get off the deck and into the pilothouse.

 

[jssailem]

Wow CB... It is never good to have these big swings. A few days of warm weather and suddenly buds start to show, Only to have the -XXdegress arrive to kill the buds.

 

[jon hansen]

note: steamship can inject the fire hose line with steam and heat the water to as much as 180 degrees to melt the deck. it's a tool to help but makes it very slippery and wet with lots of blowback spray

 

[Will Gilmore]

alberta clipper was screaming down. -28 degrees and blowing 60. who knows what the wind chill was.

So, wind chill of about -75.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[jon hansen]

it was very very loud and yet i never saw the the storm through the steaming lake

 

[Will Gilmore]

I've felt very cold in Florida, sometimes nearly as cold as here in New Hampshire. It's just that, in Florida, I've never felt like parts will fall off.
I was on the cross country ski team in high school. Some friends and I went out to practice at the Mount Washington Resort when it was -35 degrees, one weekend. We dressed in our race unis which included light leather gloves. We were experienced and planning on working hard. No problem, the colder it gets the faster you ski. It was windy too (maybe around 15 knots), we had the trails all to ourselves. Only, my hands couldn't acclimate. Sometimes it takes a while and a freezing then thaw before my hands can take really cold days.
About 2 kilometers out, it became clear I wasn't going to get use to it and was worried about the pain in my fingers might stop for the wrong reason. I headed back to the lodge to warm my fingers up by their wood stove. I thought my fingers would be frostbite white to the third knuckles by the time I got back. I was kicking like Juha Mieto wanted to kill me. I got to the lodge and peeled off my gloves. White, they still hurt, but not yet frost bitten.
I settled on a bench by the wood stove and explained to the staff about my need too thaw out by their fire. They jumped to it. Really nice guys who decided I was suffering from hypothermia. Before I knew it, I had a couple of wool blankets around me with a cup of hot chocolate in my half frozen hands. That was all great until I wanted to throw the blankets off.
"Nope, you need to keep that on. Hypothermia is nothing to mess around with." One of them pulled it back up over my shoulders. They threw another couple of logs in the fire.
I wanted to move away but my hands were really starting to thaw now and they were killing me. The pain and the heat were making me feel faint. That was confirmation to my worried saviors that they were correct, hypothermia. Another blanket appeared.
As the pain in my hands began to receded, the faintness got worse. I argued with the helpful staff that I needed to get up and move away from the fire. I ended up standing, with my unisuit open, outside in the wind, just trying to cool down. It took minutes, half undressed in windy, subzero weather, for my temperature to come back down.
I've since learned that the best way to keep hands and feet warm is to keep arms and legs warm so the blood flowing into them is warm. However, sometimes there are just those days when I can't get that warm blood into my toes and fingers. I come in, warm them up and usually can go right back out with no problem after that.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[sailnoproblem]

OK so when the hell is this GLOBAL WARMING going to take affect? I'm waiting!!!!!!!!!

 

[shemandr]

So with 100 miles to go this thing should be over in another 3 days .....

 

[Scott T-Bird]

OK so when the hell is this GLOBAL WARMING going to take affect? I'm waiting!!!!!!!!!

I think it has been. Not that I have a global problem with it. In fact, Earth is always going to go thru a period of warming or cooling. There is no static condition. Overall, global warming is probably better for our civilization. It creates more rainfall and more productive land. The opposite, cooling, is much more difficult to deal with. How would we like to have glaciers covering almost half our nation?

But back to the current climate change … all of our winter storms seem to be increasing amounts of rain storms. We are getting flooded in rain this winter! There is more rain coming tonight, followed by snow. It's January! I'm sick of the rain! I want snow!

 

[Will Gilmore]

global warming is probably better for our civilization. It creates more rainfall and more productive land.

Any "catastrophic" change or the threat of such, will lead to opportunity and economic stimulation. Some will loose but others will capitalize. As Scott says, it will always be thus.
We don't like change, as much as we may call for it. Change means uncertainty.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[DayDreamer41]

Hey, a fellow Michigander! Its difficult to really understand how poor the roads are here unless you come here to see it for yourself. And you might think its normal, unless you drive outta state. Then you think to yourself...."huh, this must be what roads are supppsed to be like."

It is said in Michigan when they do finally fix a road for a 10 mile stretch (very rare to get that much in one shot) Michiganders load up the car and take a drive and spend at least a 100 miles (10 x10) going back and forth on that patch of new road, just to see what its like not to have your teeth chipped while driving.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Bad roads in Michigan? I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. I drove from one end to the other last September and the only thing I really noticed was how FAST you guys can drive without looking out. 75 MPH is the speed limit! I couldn't get used to setting the cruise control over 75. It was also pretty evident that everybody seems to drive pretty much between 70 to 80. So there was no lane weaving going on. Honestly, it was really relaxing driving in Michigan. Traffic didn't get congested from a-holes driving up your a$$, weaving, filling in every inch in the gaps and generally making driving miserable. We never had to slow down to 30 to gawk at accidents. You'd have to drive in the east coast states to understand how pleasant it really is to be driving in Michigan!

And talk about bad road conditions! NJ, NY, CT makes your roads feel as smooth as a baby's bottom!

 

[DayDreamer41]

@Scott T-Bird N to S or E to W once out of the city areas the roads tend to get better, but the high volume roads are absolutely torn up, they built them in swamp land, (I saw some swamp roads in NJ as well but you don't get as cold there) The St of MI allows more weight per axle that any other state, damn lobby'est for the automotive industries. When you drive either South or West at the states borders you will find very large truck depots where they either pile on or lighten the load depending which direction they are heading, mix the extra loads with roads built in swamp land you get road beds that need work every (3) years, if not sooner. I travel by land a lot for work and play (ride a touring bike) and once out of MI the roads always seem to be better, especially the secondary roads.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

We drove from Sarnia to Ironwood and back with our routes taking us through Traverse City, Escanaba, Marquette and Munising. I'd say the slowest traveling was through Escanaba to Iron Mountain. The driving was an absolute delight! Your secondary roads have more shoulder room and visibility than our parkways.

In New Jersey, I drive with the continuous noise of cold patch kicking up from my tires. When I drive over the ridges and down the steep, windy trails that pass for secondary roads, we actually have springs on the mountain sides that release water in the center of the pavement. On days like this, the surface is frozen, it's just the salt that is piled up on the surface that gives us traction. The other nuisance is the springs that come out of the hillsides and run down the edges of the road because they never made any room for ditches. I drive on roads that get narrow and wind around big trees because nobody wants to cut a large diameter tree down just because the roadway pavement just gets by. These are the main roads, the real country roads are worse.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I'll have to admit, though, we did hit one significant detour. When we went past Wakefield, 28 was closed from Wakefield to near Merriweather. We had to drive on 2 and detour along the shoreline of Lake Gogebic. That's the longest detour I've ever been on, but the drive was nice and I didn't mind!

 

[DayDreamer41]

@Scott T-Bird you drove the some of the most scenic roads in MI, now, for those of us who travel to work in back, not in the Northern Regions of the State, you have to keep your teeth clenched or you will bite off your tongue, some mornings you will see 4,5,6 cars pulled off the side of a 4 lane hwy with flat tires from pot holes jumping out in from of them. Crossing at Port Huron and going North from there is cottage country and not heavily traveled, come South where all the trucks tear up the roads and its a completely different story. I would love to know how the Canadians do it, the major highways I have been on all seem to be baby butt smooth..... but then again we don't pay $4.50 per gallon.

 

[Will Gilmore]

I've done a lot of driving, in years past, all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, from Key West to Nova Scotia. Lived and worked in Winston-Salem, NC, both coasts of Florida, Boston area, Maine and NH. Have also driven across the country up the California coast to Victoria, CA. The Southwest every Southern State and up to Canada's NE. I haven't been everywhere and I don't know MI, but the worst roads I've ever seen are in Pennsylvania.
I use to joke with my wife about it. We'd drive back to NH while living in NC and when we crossed the stateline into Pennsylvania, there was this giant banner hanging over the highway that read, "WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA, AMERICA STARTS HERE" and that is also where the first pothole started. NY roads drive like a rolling sea in a speedboat, but Pennsylvania was a crater pocked war zone.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Michael Davis]

. but then again we don't pay $4.50 per gallon.

It's nice to know all those TAXES aren't going to waste!

 

[cb32863]

Nice to see a thread on the fact that it is colder than a well diggers.... and longing for the days of summer to come has degraded in to what ever the hell this is now..... SMH. No wonder people are bailing. I regret starting it.....

 

[Sailavie1]

Since we are sharing our cold weather stories here, I thought I would tell one of mine.
It was not a sailing or boating trip but does include water (ice fishing to be exact).
Here in Alberta, March is the month when things usually start to warm up and therefore a good time to go ice fishing. It was a 3 day trip of winter camping with lots of beer and plenty of food. The large wall tent had an airtight wood stove to keep us, hardy Forestry types, warm enough till we passed out each night.
These were the days before smart phones and weather apps and no one bothered to listen to any forecasts. Unfortunately, just after we arrived at the remote lake and set up camp, the temperature dropped to -35 C. (-32F) during the next day and -45 C (-49F) at night.
Too cold to fish, no one wanting to go home, we made the best of it thawing and drinking beer (fortunately in cans) and cooking up some good vittles. At night, we had to divided up the veggies to put into our sleeping bags so they would not freeze solid. I seem to recall potatoes and carrots sharing my army surplus mummy sleeping bag.