The track ran across the property on a steep-sided, 20-foot-tall embankment. I could see the rails shining in the bright starlight. They stretched off into…
Category: Marvels
The Old Ways
Posted in Marvels
A friend of mine is a shipwright and carpenter, so he is frequently involved with old construction as well as new, afloat and ashore.…
Mark in the Army
Posted in Marvels
He was not after a career in the army. He enlisted instead of being drafted, as did most of the soldiers in that war.…
My friends Melissa and Guy Stevens were somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in their sloop Pneuma, when they discovered that they couldn’t…
The Commodore and the Vigilant
Posted in Marvels
December 23, 1931. Ten miles off Cape Flattery, the 4-masted schooner Commodore furls its sails and picks up a towline from the tug Goliath, out…
Parachutes, part 2: The Landing
Posted in Marvels
This post will be easier to understand if you read last week’s, but to sum up, two soldiers are tangled up in their parachute rigging,…
Parachutes, part 1: The Jump
Posted in Marvels
The U.S. Army is very, very good at launching large numbers of parachutists from airplanes. Dozens, scores, hundreds of soldiers at a time, every…
The Delivery, part 2
Posted in Marvels, and Uncategorized
Last week we saw how to inflict thousands of dollars of damage to a pristine Hinckley yawl, using nothing but a bit of chain. For…
The Delivery, part 1
Posted in Marvels
For about forty years now, I’ve been rigging. But in all that time I’ve only had one job, and that for just two days.…
Return, part 3
Posted in Marvels
This is the third of three parts. It won’t make a lot of sense unless you have read the other two. You can find them…