A New Bern Day

New Bern, NC
N 35 06186 W 077 02.127

We were pleasantly surprised to see how many people we know were staying at the Sheraton Hotel Marina in New Bern. For many years it has been a favored place for cruisers who are more fond of the in-harbor life than the in-transit life. We too learned to like the in-harbor life in Marathon and in Vero Beach and many of the cruisers here are well familiar with both Marathon and Vero.

The key to the popularity here was the bargain rates for slips. Boats could rent a slip for $6.75/month per foot. That would amount to only $216/month for Tarwathie. For that very inexpensive rent, we would get an excellent quality slip, water, use of the Sheraton's facilities including free WiFi and a free newspaper in the morning.

The problem came from the money pressures caused by upscale retirement. A condo complex was built next door to the Sheraton and they sold many of the slips to them. Then, I presume Sheraton management figured out that they could earn a much higher return on investment by selling the slips outright than by renting them to boaters. Accordingly, they sent letters this month announcing shock price increases of 200% to 300%. Most of the cruisers who have been staying here for years are now seeking places elsewhere, or else deciding to cruise for a while.

Last night, we invited friends Hilde and Dave from SV Raven over for dinner. We met them last year here in New Bern. As we were finishing dinner Richard and Penny from SV Viking Rose stopped by to say hello. They came below and the six of us enjoyed some wine and swapped stories for a while.

After dinner, we played Balderdash with Dave and Hilde. They talked us in to staying here another day and invited us to a dock party on their boats tonight and to bring the Balderdash game with us. (Everyone we've tried that game on loves it.)

Yesterday morning I went for a walk in the waterside park. I went there to watch the finish of a marathon race in the park. Along the way I got mesmerized by something that only and engineer/fireman like myself could love. There was an enormous crane parked beside the park. The workers were engaged in replacing the secondary lifting cable. That cable appeared to be about 1.5 inches (4 cm) in diameter. It was huge. Not only that, but the mast of the crane was about 200 feet long. (See the picture.) To me, the interesting part was the problem of how to man handle that huge heavy cable in to place. I sat down and watched for 30 minutes.

Their solution was definetely low tech. They set up the cable spool under the lowered tip of the mast. Then they fed up the end over the block in the end. The key part was that one of the men clambered up on to the mast and pulled the cable down to the base. He had no sure footing while he was up there. He had to move from cross brace to brace. He had no safety line to prevent a fall. He must have been very strong. He pulled about 150 feet to the mid point of the mast. Then a second man climed to the tip and helped feed cable up and over the block. The first man continued until he had pulled that massive cable all the way back to the cab. I was very impressed.

The next problem was how to secure the cable to the motorized lifting drum? I was thinking about an eye splice or a swaged fitting. Nope, their solution was much simpler and more practical. They pushed the end of the cable in to a hole on the drum, then they put a wedge in to the hole beside the cable and drove the wedge home with a hammer. It was simple and practical.

Now you know what engineers do for kicks.