The Fine Print: August 2012

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Return Of The King

By : Dennis Stein

The Thousand Islands Poker Run was another full house event this summer, coupled with the ever-popular Ribfest. Many popular boats returned for the Brockville stop, including the area favorite, My Way, the aptly named 'King Of The 1000 Islands'. Owned by Bill Tomlinson of Rockport, this large 50 foot catamaran is always a spectacle of performance watercraft as it enters the waters of Brockville Harbour. People crowd around the immense boat as it docks, its twin turbine engines roaring like some kind of spaceship, snapping pictures and looking on in awe. My Way is truly an extreme machine.

It all begins with the hull. In this fourth inception of My Way, it comes from Mystic Powerboats in the form of the C5000-R catamaran hull. The previous version used a silver Outerlimits Powerboat hull, a design which although striking, was limited. The streamlined, stepped Mystic hull however, could take Tomlinson and Throttleman Ken Kehoe beyond 220 mph if equipped with the right engines. Those came in the form of T-55 Lycoming gas-powered turbine engines, which were purchased from the Miss Geico offshore racing team. They each produce a whopping 3000 Horsepower, almost double that of similarly equipped turbine boats. All that power is then transferred to BPM drives, through a special braking system and crashbox style transmissions, and finally out to custom made Propellers. GPS assisted speedometer, and tons of high-tech gadgetry adorn the full-canopy enclosed cockpit, complete with every safety option, right down to the HANS device worn around the neck, favoured by NASCAR, and five point seat belts. There is also an escape hatch on the floor in the cockpit, in case the boat goes wrong-side-up. All of this equipment was custom rigged into the boat by Mr.Tomlinson, Mr. Kehoe, and friend Jamie Auld.

Despite a couple of near disasters this season, the team has rebounded quickly, officially tying last year's speed record at Lake Of The Ozarks of 208 mph, and thrilling crowds there with 'unofficial' runs of over 221 mph!

With her bright red paint job, sporting the same logo as each of her three predecessors, My Way is truly a bullet with butterfly wings, and even after a devastating accident in the recent 1000 Islands Poker Run, I have been assured that the return of the King is... Imminent.

Now it is time for my own shameless plug. Bill, Ken, I would love a ride in that boat someday, but forget the lifejacket, I'll bring an extra pair of shorts!

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Space Mail

The main console came to life, and LEDs began to light up everywhere in the darkened cockpit. It had been three months in cruise mode, and an audible beeping woke her from cryogenic sleep. Kara was drowsy, not with it yet. The computers came back online slowly, and the bay where she slept lit with a faint light. She was cold. Yawning and rubbing at her eyes, she sat up, sweeping blonde hair out of her face. The console was flashing with an indicator for a message waiting. Can’t even wait for me to be conscious, she thought sarcastically. There were several hours to spare before there was any need to make corrective maneuvers in her ship’s course in order to dock with the atoll, so she reached for her housecoat and told the galley computer she wanted her tea. It was ready in an instant, and she held the acrylic mug in both hands, feeling the warmth promised by her favorite morning drink. Was it morning? she mused briefly. It certainly didn’t feel like it. Reading the incoming messages, Kara shook her head. They knew she was the only one inbound to them, knew that she had their precious spares aboard. Still, the bullshit. She tapped out a quick reply, and headed to get dressed, the shower on board being little more than a tight closet. Kara spent a lot of time to make sure she was as well groomed as possible, an ingrained idea that she followed on a daily basis. It was better than nothing, and she always arrived smelling much better than her male counterparts. ‘Mailers’ were a group that were different than most others. Tough. Able to weather any storm. She hadn’t even glanced out at the stars today, she suddenly thought. Something she normally loved about these long runs between humanity when Kara first took this job. As the shower door closed and sealed, the small ship sped forward, having dropped from lightspeed, gliding effortlessly through the vacuum of space…

The atoll ‘Constellation’ was a massive vessel, well over two miles in length at this point in time, and carrying almost three thousand people. Massive solar sails stood erect off the cruiser’s surface, feeding power to all of it’s internal needs. The atoll was one of several, spread throughout the galaxy, and it’s interior had become home to humankind. The hum of the ion drives could be felt even out in the coldness of space. Pinpricks of light pierced the hull, windows out on the only solace that humans had now. The bridge of the ship stood up on a spire above the main body of the hull, like an eye on it’s surroundings. The commander sat here. It had been a long day for everyone, and he sat in the command chair, reviewing the day’s logs. Food shortage. Problems with waste disposal. Electrical relays that had begun to fail. He needed those replacements, or it would soon be a dark atoll, regardless of the output of the sails. Danek put his face in his hands, tossing the tablet aside. Too much today… All of the critical systems strung together throughout the ship were showing their age, and he wondered if it wasn’t simply the sheer size of the vessel that still made it habitable at times. Today alone the power had failed on part of the concourse level, the atmosphere generators dropped their output levels, and the waste recycler had stopped for several hours. If one of the main ion drives suffered a failure, the atoll would be adrift, helplessly tumbling through space. He stood up from the command chair, walking forward to check on the sensor banks, flat screens laid out on a desk-like console. Nothing but the service drones, flying around the hull to perform inspections. He needed those spare parts. The other atolls were just as desperate, their mining and manufacturing just as taxed as the constellation. He looked up briefly, everyone was at their post. The dozen or so people still on the bridge looked at their panels, working diligently.

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The White Room

He had not slept again. Days and nights were the same here, after all. No changes in the amount of light, and everything was devoid of colour. For his own safety, and that of others. His room was very carefully designed, round with no edges, even the locked doorway was seamless, the lighting a harsh bright white glowing from behind translucent panels in the ceiling. Color was not a good thing for him. The table he sat at was of course entirely white. The same for his chair. A bed at the other side of the room was little more than a futon, but again, white. No color anywhere. His hair had been shaved, a precaution against him pulling any of it out and seeing it's brown strands, and he was clothed in white, a simple t-shirt and pajama pants, white pull-on sneakers and gloves. Without any mirror in this cell, he could not even look upon the color of his own eyes. He sat at the table quietly, waiting. A voice over some hidden loudspeaker had told him to do so a short while before.