sailing the farm - join our seagypsy tribe of tomorrow!

[NJNative]

I think a wooden boat would be the most sustainably built vessel. Still interested though, I'll send you my info!

[Pakanohida]

we dont have any solution for beeing selfsufficient on juice for the welding machine. they are way too powerful to run on anything except dieselgenerators.

ze

Couldn't we dream up a algae tank which doesn't use much inputs to spin off some biodiesel for your generator? Or perhaps a methane digester?

[NJNative]

What about wood gasification, wind, geothermal, or any of the other plethora of clean energies out there?

[zeyang]

Newsletter October 2012.

Our big accomplishment this month was getting the winter bathroom
constructed, insulated and piped - just in time for the first big
freeze to hit the pipes in the summer bathroom. (Just in time to wash
some dirty sea gypsies.) At the beginning of September, it was just a
dark, drafty hole in the corner of the barn, and now it's a warm and
bright room with heating, double-glazed windows, a fancy new
shower... oh, and two couches, a worktable, a bookshelf and our sewing
machine. We decided it was too big to just be a bathroom, so we made
the other half into a winter living room. (If showering in the living
room and hanging out in the bathroom sounds like a weird combination,
just think of it as practice for living on the boat.)

In boat news, the deck is on, the deckhouse is constructed and
suspended precariously from the boatshed ceiling, and we've started on
the sub-deck and the insulation inside the hull. There's a lot of
infrastructure to go under the sub-deck - tanks for diesel and fresh
water, a greywater holding tank under the shower, and 5.5 tons of lead
ballast. Last week we cast another 600 kilograms of ballast in our
evil-looking smoky wood-fired crucible - only 1.5 tons left to go!

We've been doing a lot of farm work the last couple months - fall is
always a busy season. We harvested those crops we planted back in May
- onions, carrots, and 300 kilograms of potatoes! - plus lingonberries
from the nearby forest which we made into jam. And getting ready for
winter is a big job - cleaning up heaps of scrap wood, burning trash,
raking hay, organizing the bee stuff, putting snow chains on the farm
equipment, ghostriding the old tractor into the barn, and getting
things stowed under roofs before they get lost under the snow until
spring. We had our first big snowfall last night - about 15cm, and it
looks like it's going to stick around. The official end of summer
time on Saturday means the sun goes down around 4:30pm these days, but
that just gives us more night hours to watch for northern lights.
Tomorrow is Halloween, and we're going to celebrate by dressing up
like boatbuilding farmworkers and stealing candy from passing
children. Happy winter!



Some pictures and movie from last month.


This is our house band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuzEK...layer_embedded


a: Beware of moose on deck!
b: Harvesting the carrot crop.
c: Making jam from local lingonberries.
d: Fishing in the local lake.
e: Fall bonfire with guitar.
f: Making Swedish pea soup for lunch.


http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626439
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626445
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626453
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626460
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626467
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1351626523


Love from
Sailing the farm - a sea gypsy tribe of tomorrow.

[ollie.t.taylor]

Hi Seagypsies, lovely to meet you

Do you have an email I can write to to talk about how you started this, and things in general? This is one of my potential dreams one day, I would absolutely love to be able to find out more, and maybe visit one day? I'm pretty good at making rocket stoves/bread ovens out of scrap, along with bicycle generators

Ollie

[zeyang]

Newsletter December 2012.

Dear All,

First of all, Mucho Gracias for all contribution this year - This
doesent goes just for those of you who have been flying, driving,
peddaling, walking and swimming up here to lend a hand on the farm and
the shipbuilding - but it goes also to you who have send support
mails, commented on forums, asked to help sponsoring the project and
mailed us. Without your support, we would never have come this far.

We are now going into the last year of building the Seagypsy Boat #1
and hopefully start sailing. Yes, i know some of you think she will
sail only backwards, or even upside down, but sail she will.. .. :-)

Together we have come a long way taking into consideration that most
of volunteers coming up here have never done any metalwork or even
farmwork before, but they all share the same dream...

To sum up for 2012. We have used more than 2 metric tonns of aluminium
this year, welded hundreds and hundreds of meters of welding, consumed
a few hundred kg of Argon gas, melted 5 tonns lead. Not to mention
breathing way too much welding fumes and aluminium dust...

On the farm, we have had lots and lots of volunteers who has been in
charge of growing potatoes, sugar pees, carrots, berries and lots of
other stuff. They have got new friends and met old ones from prior
years.

They have shared and learned, maybe eating too much porridge and
waffles, laughed, cried, made love (tough I really worked hard here to
keep those sneaky wwoffers in separate girls/guys barracks!!) :-) Some
have even taken step to marry! So in sum I think 2012 has been quite a
good year.

As we are nearing the end of this year (and not end of the world i
hope!) I wish you all a peaceful 2013 with much joy and happiness for
the coming year and we up on the farm really look forward to meet new
and old volunteers both here and out on the seven seas.

Fair winds and smooth sailing from

Sailing the farm - A Sea gypsy tribe of tomorrow.
Ze


picture: Boatshed in winter night.

http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1356891300

[Jalex]

Dear Sea Gypsy, how do I join your team?

[zeyang]

Newsletter March 2013. .

Dear Sea Gypsies,

Spring is slowly coming our way, Its been maybe the coldest winter for
as long as people can remember up here. Minus -30 for weeks out and
weeks for january and february and even in march we have -20 degrees
for many days. But we dont complain (at least loudly!) the shed was
filled to the brink with firewood and during evening and weekends time
have been spent reading about small pacific islands where the sun
always shine... Guess where to boat is sailing!

Last two months have been spent doing foundry work (melting
aluminium). We are now making our own portholes and all small bits and
pieces out of the all the scrap alloy we have floating around. Next
would be to make a few dolphins for decoration :-)

Anyway, enjoy the early spring folks! .. and if you want to join our
tribe please contact us!

Pictures.

a. making a sand-cast for a small porthole.
b. Out enjoy the skiing in cold winter weather.
c. a cake? Nope. Its called cores and used for foundry work! Its a
miks of sand and linseed oil. Taste awful, but works good.
d. welding small boxes and stuff together.
e. Porthole production.

http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1363531570
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1363531577
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1363531582
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1363531588
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_y-Gh6_YI

[zeyang]

Newsletter April 2013.

Dear Sea Gypsies,

The potatoes are planted just a few days ago. Thats even earlier than
last year. It a little risky since its still frostnights up here but
they are protected under a bed of soil so hopefully they wont freeze.

Summer is coming very slowly. Still no leafs on the trees, but the
small yellow flowers - coltsfoot (tussilago farfara) are starting to
show up along the roads. They are important pollen plants for the bees
this early in season (together with salix)

Sailing the farm have 3 nice girls now (irish,zchech,french). 2 guys
(swedish/english) who have been here the first part of april.

We have mostly been working on casting portholes for the boat which is
pretty timeconsuming. It means making molds, melting aluminium and
then shape the half-finished product in the lathe. The result looks
really good i must say.

Even if not even close to being foundrymen/girls or machinists we
manage to get quite a professional result after some weeks of trial
and error.

Thats enough for now, If you fancy joining the seagypsy tribe - just
drop us a line.

Love from
Sailing the farm


Pictures.

a. irish girl making sand-castles (sort of)
b. inspecting the casting results.
c. swedish sand-crab.
d. unfinished and finished result. (with the help of a lathe)
e. turning soil.


a: http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1367131663
b: http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1367131670
c: http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1367131675
d: http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1367131679
e: http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php...1&d=1367131684