The FORD Lounge

[FuzzFace2]

Gary Lewis wrote

I have a gas gauge, but it is at my left elbow and not readable when mowing.

I looked at basically the same mower as yours about 10 years ago.  Would have been nice with power steering, power lift, locking rear diff, etc.  But with a 60" deck it wouldn't go through my gate.  Sure would have been nice on the trailers though.

Mine does have a 60" deck but I have seen think 54"decks and maybe a 48" I just don't know the widest part of the tractor with out the deck.
If it takes 3+ hours with a 60" deck I am not going smaller!
Dave ----

[FuzzFace2]

grumpin wrote

“What made you get a tractor over a zero turn?”  Mainly cost. And I really can’t justify one. My yard is pretty easy. I can’t get this through the gate or a ZTR where I would need it. Push mower that, but it’s small enough.

I used a ZTR where I used to work. Mechanics did the yard work after most were laid off.

This thing is a Cadillac compared to the riding mower I used to have. And it’s the entry level mower!

I guess if you have to get thru a small opening then big is not the way to go.
The smallest opening I have to go thru is the small roll up garage door to the shed I keep all the yard equipment in. No yard equipment is kept in MY garage!

Dave ----

[grumpin]

I “need” a shed like that Dave!

[Danny G]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Might be easier said than done.

A) How much Bluewater sailing experience do you have?
B) You're likely a tiny part of a diaspora that has the same plans.
C) You have to get yourself, your boat and your family there, first.
D) I thought pirates were a problem in the keys in 1980, it's going to be a drop in the bucket.
E) There is VERY little hiding where there's NO cover. Satellites, drones and synthetic aperture radar not to mention hydrophones and magnetic detection are constantly scanning the oceans looking for smugglers, pirates and sanction skirters.

Read a few articles where people sailing full time are having a really bad time making port for supplies and not getting turned away. The ones on boats are having a really hard time right now.

[Ray Cecil]

Meh....im watching a few sailing channels on youtube. They are doing fine catching fish, lobster, crab and taking their dinghy into port for supplies.

Im not saying its a good idea to survive SHTF out at sea....but the people per square mile ratio is favorable. Anyone with a 50-60' Catamaran can have enough supplies on board to last a year at sea. 6 months is all you need for SHTF. Most people inland will already have starved to death or killed one another.

Floating around in the bahamas wouldnt be the best place, but the ocean is huge. You can find a nice place to escape.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I DID mention provisioning for your next landfall.

Ray, of course being in a place like the Keys, Bahamas or Antilles is not going to be safe.

But Bluewater is nothing like onshore.
You're not going to find surface fish in abundance
What you will find is the big sharks following you constantly looking for garbage, poop or anything else that goes over the side.

60' is nothing when you have 40' waves.
Hell, Battleships and Cruise Liners get tossed about.
Add a huge amount of stores (a years worth....) and you've got NO freeboard.

Ive been well out of sight of land and mostly out of reach of helicopter rescue for over a month when at sea.
When the gaz and fresh water run out its no fun.
Solar has gotten a lot better, as have de-sal units, but rationing and personal space WILL get to you.
I promise!

There's nothing to romanticize about being alone in the middle of the ocean.
At the mercy of her, the sun and storms, etc.
Your absolute insignificance WILL be made abundantly clear every waking moment of your watch.
Yeah that's right, a 24/7/365 schedule where you have to be constantly vigilant is like choosing PTSD.

Not that I wouldn't ever go on a sailing adventure again.
But I would NEVER choose the open ocean as an endless refuge from society.

[Danny G]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

I DID mention provisioning for your next landfall.

Ray, of course being in a place like the Keys, Bahamas or Antilles is not going to be safe.

But Bluewater is nothing like onshore.
You're not going to find surface fish in abundance
What you will find is the big sharks following you constantly looking for garbage, poop or anything else that goes over the side.

60' is nothing when you have 40' waves.
Hell, Battleships and Cruise Liners get tossed about.
Add a huge amount of stores (a years worth....) and you've got NO freeboard.

Ive been well out of sight of land and mostly out of reach of helicopter rescue for over a month when at sea.
When the gaz and fresh water run out its no fun.
Solar has gotten a lot better, as have de-sal units, but rationing and personal space WILL get to you.
I promise!

There's nothing to romanticize about being alone in the middle of the ocean.
At the mercy of her, the sun and storms, etc.
Your absolute insignificance WILL be made abundantly clear every waking moment of your watch.
Yeah that's right, a 24/7/365 schedule where you have to be constantly vigilant is like choosing PTSD.

Not that I wouldn't ever go on a sailing adventure again.
But I would NEVER choose the open ocean as an endless refuge from society.

You forgot the unrelenting heat and humidity. Stay at sea is actually what my father in law wants to due in retirement.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/small-boats-stuck-at-sea-covid-19/index.html


“We had to leave Puerto Rico because they closed down all marina services and we had some problems with our boat,” he said. “If a technician got caught coming out to your boat, they got fined $5,000.”

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

60' is nothing when you have 40' waves.
Hell, Battleships and Cruise Liners get tossed about.

I have to go offshore with my work every now and then, and I've seen 40' waves, and bigger in the North Atlantic. I was once on an FPSO about 200 miles from shore, and that vessel at almost 1000' long, sure was rockin' and rollin'. They were measuring the waves near the rig with a wave rider, and they were hitting 16m (trough to crest). The week prior to my arrival they were hitting 21m, and even the hardened regulars were nervous and strapping everything down...lol. I've also been out there when the seas were pretty calm and peaceful.

The spookiest thing for me was watching the supply boat in that particular storm. At 275' long, that thing was bobbing around like an empty beer can...lol. Those guys are pretty tough. They do 30 days at a time, and in the winter the north Atlantic can be rough for days or weeks on end.

Here's a video from the same FPSO that I was on.



I've spent my whole life next to the ocean, and I honestly have very little interest in spending any amount of time on it other than when my employment requires me to...lol.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Wow, what a great video Cory!
Those guys are fearless and insane in equal parts.
I don't want to know what a 65-70' wave is like!

Yeah, it's not just the North Atlantic.
South Atlantic hurricane season is end of June through November.
The Caribbean doesn't get spared, and waves are worse as they move to shallow water because they start breaking.
Look at the cyclone that just ripped through Kolkata and Bangladesh.
The Capes of Horn and Hope are all that plus a rip tide bigger than you can imagine.

It's been calculated that hurricanes have the kinetic energy of millions of atomic bombs.
That one could fill mankinds energy needs for a year,
I've been 400+ miles offshore surfing an Ocean 70 down the fronts of waves.
No idea how high they were. No radio, before satellite communications and beyond the reach of helicopters.

"Batten down the hatches!"
Mother nature is no joke.

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Wow, what a great video Cory!
Those guys are fearless and insane in equal parts.

Funny story: That offshore trip when the waves were 16m, I flew out there for a couple days worth of work, and ended up staying for 8 days...lol. Once the weather turns bad, they cancel the choppers, and then as the flights get delayed/backed up, contractors like me fall to the bottom of the priority list. Crew always take priority, so they'll let a guy like me sit around for days waiting for an opening. It's not a big deal and I can laugh about it in hindsight, but being stuck out there in the winter is not my idea of fun at all...lol. When I went last year, I went out and back on a supply vessel. The fog was too thick for the choppers.

I have a lot of respect for the men that work at sea, and I know a lot of them. Waves aside, working in oil and gas would be a luxury compared to some. The fishing vessels ride those same waves up here, working 12 hr days for a month straight. The big clam trawlers are large enough when they come in after a month they have 400 ton of cargo, packaged, boxed, and already frozen. Being on the vessels when they're tied up is enough for me...lol.

I was actually scheduled to renew my offshore safety training next week but just cancelled it yesterday. Part of the training they strap you in the "dunker" chopper simulator, drop it in the water and roll it upside down. You have to do it 5 times in a row from different seating positions, and with and without breathing apparatus. This place is just a couple miles from my work.

[ArdWrknTrk]

TheScatch wrote

You forgot the unrelenting heat and humidity. Stay at sea is actually what my father in law wants to do

I thought this: "There's nothing to romanticize about being alone in the middle of the ocean.
At the mercy of her, the sun and storms, etc"  covered it, but perhaps it's too subtle...

Sun poisoning when you have to be on deck...
Never-ending salt burning and chafing your already blistered skin and any tiny cut or scratch.

Humidity hasn't really been too much of an issue to me, but I've not spent time near the equator in doldrums.
Cold and wet will kill you fast though.

When your fresh/cold stores run out, you haven't had a piece of meat, fruit or vegetable for weeks...
When you have to work, pumping through a reverse osmosis filter for every glass of water.

At least we have ascorbic acid so our teeth don't fall out from scurvy.
But something like a tooth infection is excruciating, and can mean your end without IV antibiotics and surgery.
That's not happening on a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean!

[ArdWrknTrk]

That looks like fun Cory!
Kinda a giant county fair dunk tank!

NOT!

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

That looks like fun Cory!
Kinda a giant county fair dunk tank!

NOT!

Ha! I've grown to dislike it more and more over the years, but I actually don't mind the upside down part, or the egress part. What I really REALLY hate is in order to pass the course, you have to at least once put the breathing apparatus in while you're strapped in upside down under water, expel the water in it, and take two full breaths before egress. Man to I hate that. I don't mind holding my breath under water and doing it that way, but putting that thing in your mouth and getting the water out of it, and taking a breath is unnerving. Be easy stuff for a diver, but the average Joe like me not so much...lol.

[Gary Lewis]

I've been on lakes in storms with what I thought were big waves, and maybe they were in relationship to the size of the boat.  But those waves are CRAZY!  Count me out!

While I worked in oil an gas and my staff routinely went out on the rigs, I never did.  Not that I didn't want to, but it just didn't happen.  But I sure wouldn't want to in a storm.

And I want no part of being in the middle of the ocean, any ocean, and having to always be on the lookout for that rogue wave that will destroy you - especially in an unballasted boat.  No way, Jose!

[Ray Cecil]

Im certainly no sailing expert.

What I have learned is that it takes so long to circumnavigate because each major passage has better seasons to sail.

Listening to, and watching a lot of these sailing channels, Ive learned that a good sailor knows when and where to sail. You dont just shove off whenever you want and pray for the best. Most of these folks are making very nice passages from point A to B because they sail at the right time of the year for that particular area. The rest of the time is spent at port, docked or moored off in a nice peaceful little bay.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Right, but like i said the waves get to breaking when they're pushed into the shallows.

One of my favorite safe harbors in the Caribbean (North Sound, Virgin Gorda) was absolutely decimated by Irma a couple of years ago.
There were boats way the hell up in the hills and the bungalows up there were wiped right off.

https://youtu.be/eFuqFv24JrI

With a bigger vessel it's often safer at sea than in a harbor or cove.
When the winds get hurricane force (75+mph) you're not going to do anything but drag anchor up onto the beach, or flip right over in a non ballasted boat... before you're pushed into a pile on land.


You want an adventure, and it will be, but you have a very cavalier attitude towards something you know nothing about.

[ArdWrknTrk]

BTW, I'm not trying to be discouraging, at all.

But if you haven't been out there, with all that comes with it, you need to take stock and consider the implications.

[Nothing Special]

A guy I used to work with had been in the Navy on a carrier.  He had a story about riding out a hurricane running into the wind when the ship got a message that a freighter had gone down near-by.  They turned the carrier around MOSTLY between waves (he said the turn itself was bad enough, but taking one or two of those waves sideways was an amazing experience he didn't ever want to re-live!) and went to search for survivors.  They did fish one man out.  Bill was an aircraft mechanic on the ship so his only direct involvement with the entire operation was going through the line in the mess hall where this Norwegian sailor was standing, shaking the hand of everyone on the carrier, saying possibly the only English words he knew:  "thank you"

[85lebaront2]

I have several yard and garden tractors. I was told a number of years ago that the difference between a yard tractor and a garden tractor, is, the garden tractor can handle ground engaging implements.

The interesting thing, all of mine are two cylinder engines, except the Sears Custom 10XL for 16 to around 24 hp, the proper garden tractor is a 1983 Craftsman GTV-16, 16 hp Briggs driving through an AYP 3 speed transaxle with a variable speed input system. Custom 10XL has a Tecumseh HH100 (heavy hunk of cast iron).

Supposedly my Ford YT16H is not designed for ground engaging implements, I think because the Eaton 850 hydrostatic transaxle blocks any place to mount a 3 point or sleeve hitch. I have towed cars with it so it has the power to handle it.

All of mine I can get parts and service manuals for, on the parts for the Ford and New Holland it was simply a matter of breaking the code, PNs are xxxDxxxx and if I look for the manufacturer's numbers (Lawn Boy for the Ford and Toro for the New Holland) the D gets replaced by a -. On the ones from Sears, they are all source code 917, which is currently Electrolux Home Products the present owner of American Yard Products.

They had a reputation for extremely rugged equipment, many garden tractor pullers like their 3 speed with a hi-lo transaxle.

[ArdWrknTrk]

And that's a freighter! (no small ship in itself)
How many others were sent to Davey Jones's locker?

If I were that guy I'd be kissing them.

Just trying to walk on land after a month at sea is quite a challenge!