Rally Elite-ist

So: On December 1st, 2011 I bought a Curta.
Most of you have no idea what a Curta is and really I am just learning.
But I bought one anyway. :)

SN 10342, series 1. I have not figured out it's age but I do believe it is older than my boat. :)

Sadly, I bought it at a bargain price because it is not functioning currently. Crank does not turn because the results carriage does not set properly. hopefully this will be an easy fix. hehehe

Buehler...

So those of you who follow my blog or know me in person will recall that I do, in fact, own a boat. It is an early 1960's Turbocraft. The fellow I bought it from thought it was a Buehler Turbocraft. I also thought so as well until I recently came across some interesting information.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=914

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=41803

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=68247

Huge shout out to the British Pathe website. They have some pretty awesome information available there. I do like my historical footage and they have quite the collection.

Anyhow...

I realized that my boat could, very possibly, be a Dowty Turbocraft rather than a buehler. Being a Minnesotan I am rather close to Canada, the native home to the Dowty version of the turbocraft. Another item that would have been nice is if the original engine was known as I believe that would also shed some light on the hulls origin.

My dash matches this 61 Dowty

http://www.tazlist.com/details-16-ft-1961-Dowty-TurboCraft

Currently my hull is powered by a ford 351W engine with marine/wet manifolds. I am looking to repower to something smaller, lighter, and a little more period correct. So far finding a 4 or six cylinder marine engine that is being parted is a hard find.

-G :)

DFL at Last!!

Okay, the title may be slightly facetious. :)
We just got home from the March Muddy Waters Road Rally. What a day! We started off with a cozy breakfast at home, then a quick drive up to Bloomington to meet up with Todd Johnson. Exchanged some BMW wheels for cash and talked BMW for a few moments, then off to Hastings.
Registration went off with a hitch and Clarence Westberg was on a role helping out everybody decipher his intentions. Leann and I mostly just chilled in the corner and talked with Jeff, a friend from Butternut. Then we took off! Unforunately neither of us bothered to eat much all morning, and neither of us took anything for motion sickness. Whoops!
Clarence had quite the bag of tricks for us! 11 legs of variety and no CASTS. it was VERY enjoyable for us, sans the motion sickness.
We ended up about 45 minutes behind at Muddy Waters in Prescott, WI. Our pasta was delicious, Jeff complained that his ribs were only so-so; not what he expected at a Blues themed restaurant.
When the scores were all compiled and agreed upon we ended up with a total of 64 points, mostly time errors because we could not keep up with the fast pace. Back to the intro- yes after all these rallies we finally managed to peg the coveted DFL trophy- Two bottles of Rogue Brewing's Dead Guy Ale! Yay!

Thanks a lot US news media

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/models/models1.html

The above is a link to the official predictions for WAVE impact from the earthquake in Japan. The highest I saw for US coastline was just over 2m (6-8ft)

I am sitting here watching weather channel thinking to myself "What the hell are they worried about all over the west coast? do they not know how tall normal ocean waves are? waves on Lake Superior in a small storm are higher than most of the projected heights and we go sailing in that. What a sham. Thanks a lot TV.