Prepper Boat Thread

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Terrapin

A faraday cage for an EMP is great idea. I have all my family photos stored on my iPhone and wouldn't want to lose them. However I don't see that having a handheld GPS safely in your faraday cage is going to be helpful at all of the EMP takes out all the orbiting satellites . . . . Just saying'.

Hi. The shock wave created by an atmospheric explosion is mostly downward facing. This is part of the devices design so as to maximize energy effect on the earth targets. Also I wouldn't expect all areas of the earth to be affected. Nor would, if the shock waves went upwards, would they knock out all GPS satellite's. So even if upward shockwaves took out a few satellite's over say North America they won't take out others over the Atlantic and Pacific.

An EMP attack is very geographically situated. Mind you two exploded atmospheric devices could take out all electronic devices including the power grid on the East and West Coasts of the USA.

My conclusion having spent time in the satellite industry in days gone by, is that the majority of geostationary satellites and others will not be effected by say a simultaneous China - USA EMP attacks.

Concerning Faraday cages on board. The most basic is your unplugged Microwave. It is theoretically possible to also build a Faraday cage in your battery bank area. You could also have a special cage in one of your storage areas to place spare electronics. How many spares is an individual decision mainly based on your abilities to navigate unassisted or not. In any case have back up units such as a spare autohelm is not such a bad idea if one is preparing to be offshore for a long time.

One thing I didn't add to my list I posted some time back is a Geiger Counter. I would have an atmospheric measuring device as well as counter for measuring sea water. This raises something that has been of a concern to me for a few years. The Fukoshima ongoing dump of extreme radioactive water into the Pacific is showing up in fish populations even on the West Coast of the USA. We are talking about dangerous levels of radioactivity. I for one would not be sailing in the upper Pacific regions. That is anywhere north of the equator. For at least the next 30 to 40 years. But then again everyone needs to make their own decisions on what is acceptable risk and if they want to have a long life.

All the best,
GWA

[Adelie]

The risk to the GPS constellation is not EMP or blast damage but ASat weapons which both Russia and China have or coronal Mass Ejections from the sun.

[RickG]

GWA, thanks for the microwave hint. That gives us something to do with it in addition to storing bread. I need to do an EMP vulnerability assessment on the unprotected equipment.

Cheers, RickG

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

Hi. The shock wave created by an atmospheric explosion is mostly downward facing. This is part of the devices design so as to maximize energy effect on the earth targets. Also I wouldn't expect all areas of the earth to be affected. Nor would, if the shock waves went upwards, would they knock out all GPS satellite's. So even if upward shockwaves took out a few satellite's over say North America they won't take out others over the Atlantic and Pacific.

Shockwaves don't go far in vacuum anyway...

One thing I didn't add to my list I posted some time back is a Geiger Counter. I would have an atmospheric measuring device as well as counter for measuring sea water. This raises something that has been of a concern to me for a few years. The Fukoshima ongoing dump of extreme radioactive water into the Pacific is showing up in fish populations even on the West Coast of the USA. We are talking about dangerous levels of radioactivity. I for one would not be sailing in the upper Pacific regions. That is anywhere north of the equator. For at least the next 30 to 40 years. But then again everyone needs to make their own decisions on what is acceptable risk and if they want to have a long life.

That is nonsense. There is indeed a lot of radioactive stuff that was dumped (and to a certain extent still is being dumped), but the ocean is big, and there is no danger to public health or to the environment except in the immediate vicinity of Fukushima. So there is nothing to worry about elsewhere. Yes, the isotopes do show up, but it is the nature of radioactivity that it can be accurately measured even in minute quantities, and studying the propagation of isotopes through the Pacific allows us to learn a lot about ocean current and nutrition cycles.
As a student I once spend a day on a boat that dumped small amounts of radioactive isotopes on the North Sea floor, so that we could study the movement of sand over time.
So yes, as everybody expected the isotopes released in Fukushima are showing up everywhere, but as everyone with some knowledge of radioactivity knows, the quantities are way below levels that would be worrying.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Shockwaves don't go far in vacuum anyway...

What, you don't watch Star Trek

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

What, you don't watch Star Trek

Sure. But that's a different universe. Two different universes in fact, since the last reboot...

[newhaul]

The real worry we need to watch is the haarp project. It is up and running again.http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facil...-new-ownership

[senormechanico]

Another excellent read:

"Patriots" by James Wesley Rawles.

I did a search for "North Pacific Ocean Radioactivity Levels" and got everything from,
"The West coast is being absolutely fried by radioactivity"
to, " Radiation levels in the Pacific Ocean are almost back to pre Fukushima levels.

Holy Mackerel Andy ! Who are you gonna believe?

[RPZ]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

Holy Mackerel Andy ! Who are you gonna believe?

Exactly.

Folks that are sceptical that the levels in the northern pacific are dangerously high ought to consider this. Official sources are few and far between, and much if their narrative is full if noncommittal injections such as, "we have not see" - which can mean "well, we haven't looked". Or " we do not believe ...." - which is not a yes or a no.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by RPZ

Exactly.

Folks that are sceptical that the levels in the northern pacific are dangerously high ought to consider this. Official sources are few and far between, and much if their narrative is full if noncommittal injections such as, "we have not see" - which can mean "well, we haven't looked". Or " we do not believe ...." - which is not a yes or a no.

Actually when a scientist says "we have not seen X" that actually _does_ mean he has looked for X, and not seen it.
And when a scientist says "I do not believe X" he is saying "I have looked but not found evidence supporting X".

Scientific language is a bit funny. For example, "theory" means something completely different to scientist than it does to the general public, leading to some people dismissing for example evolution as "just a theory"...

Radioactivity is trivially easy to measure, and next to impossible to hide. Which is why even North Korea, with its 100% control of its population would not be able to hide a nuclear disaster. Tchernobyl was "discovered" by Finland, and then the Soviet Union had to admit to it...

If you want a credible source who will unequivocally tell you that the levels of radioactivity in the Northern Pacific are not dangerous I can give you several:

True facts about Ocean Radiation and the Fukushima Disaster | Deep Sea News

It is actually rather easy to quickly establish whether a source you found on the internet is credible or not. So "who should you believe" has an answer.

[RPZ]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Actually when a scientist says "we have not seen X" that actually _does_ mean he has looked for X, and not seen it.
And when a scientist says "I do not believe X" he is saying "I have looked but not found evidence supporting X".

.... Etc

This assumes all these " sources" are honest and not subject to any political or economic influences. Not everyone is so naive.

On face value the information provided is very superficial.

The so-called NOAA wave map is highly suspect; the streaming flow patterns are not consistent with wave patterns from the epicenter of an ocean floor seismic event. And the epicenter is portrayed as emanating from Fukushima, when in fact the epicenter was offshore.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by RPZ

This assumes all these " sources" are honest and not subject to any political or economic influences. Not everyone is so naive.

I do not assume all sources are honest. I would not be able to, as quite a few contradict each other.
If one site is saying that the "North West Pacific is being fried with radioactivity" and another is saying that radioactivity is mostly back to normal they can't both be true.

So who do you trust? Well, there are ways to ascertain the trustworthiness of a source. Being able to distinguish information from ******** is a very useful skill I encourage everyone to acquire.

On face value the information provided is very superficial.

You can already tell a lot at "face value". Does a site quote sources in a way that you can verify the quotes for example. Does the site make claims you know are false?

Does it lie to you?

Does it use scientific language in a correct way?

The so-called NOAA wave map is highly suspect; the streaming flow patterns are not consistent with wave patterns from the epicenter of an ocean floor seismic event. And the epicenter is portrayed as emanating from Fukushima, when in fact the epicenter was offshore.

The map is not suspect. You can look at a higher resolution image here:
http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/honshu2011...0110311_ok.jpg

The colors are wave highs, not wave propagation. That are the thin contour lines you sea in the above map. The earthquake's epicenter was only 70 km from the coast, so on that scale it would indeed look as coming from a point near the coast...

All that only took me a minute to find out and corroborate...

The interesting thing about that NOAA map is however that there are tons of website thatr show it, and claim it represents the levels of radioactivity in the ocean. So that is one way you can already know that a site is either made by someone extremely ignorant, or dishonest...

This is a nice example:

Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean (And It's Going To Get Worse) | Zero Hedge

It's one reason I do not consider zerohedge a reliable source of information...

Google has a very handy "image search" that you can give a link to an image, and it will show you where else it is used on the internet. That allows you to find out where it originally comes from. And what it really means... Another way to test how honest your sources are.

Other ways you can check facts is by just doing some back of the enveloppe calculation. An often repeated claim is that "300 tons" of radioactive water is being released in to the Ocean every day.

Now the ocean is very big. The Pacific contains 714 million cubic km of water. That is 714e15 tons.

If Fukushima kept releasing 300 tons a day for the next, say, 1000 years, that would be about 100e6. So after a 1000 years still less than a millionth of a percent of the water in the ocean would be Fukushima water. So that water would have to be extremely radioactive to begin with for it to matter. Now where are the reports that everyone in Japan is dead?

Another figure often bandied around is that Fukushima release 40 Trillion Becquerel of radioactivity in the ocean. And that is indeed a scary number.

40e12 Bq

But put that a bit in perspective. The natural radioactivity of seawater is 14Bq/l. That is 14e3 Bq per ton.
A lot of that is Uranium btw, enough that the Japanese even once had plans to extract Uranium from seawater to power their plants with. There is enough Uranium in seawater to provide all of humanity with energy for several millions of years...

So 14e3 Bq per ton, that makes 14x715e18 Bq for the whole ocean. Make it about 10e21 Bq.
So you can see that the natural amount of radioactivity allready in the Pacific Ocean is 9 orders of magnitude larger than what Fukushima dumped in it.
So Fukushima just made the ocean 0.0000001% more radioactive.

Still worried?

[GoingWalkabout]

Your wekcome ��

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Adelie

The risk to the GPS constellation is not EMP or blast damage but ASat weapons which both Russia and China have or coronal Mass Ejections from the sun.

Adelie, you are absolutely correct.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

I do not assume all sources are honest. I would not be able to, as quite a few contradict each other.
If one site is saying that the "North West Pacific is being fried with radioactivity" and another is saying that radioactivity is mostly back to normal they can't both be true.

So who do you trust? Well, there are ways to ascertain the trustworthiness of a source. Being able to distinguish information from ******** is a very useful skill I encourage everyone to acquire.

You can already tell a lot at "face value". Does a site quote sources in a way that you can verify the quotes for example. Does the site make claims you know are false?

Does it lie to you?

Does it use scientific language in a correct way?

The map is not suspect. You can look at a higher resolution image here:
http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/honshu2011...0110311_ok.jpg

The colors are wave highs, not wave propagation. That are the thin contour lines you sea in the above map. The earthquake's epicenter was only 70 km from the coast, so on that scale it would indeed look as coming from a point near the coast...

All that only took me a minute to find out and corroborate...

The interesting thing about that NOAA map is however that there are tons of website thatr show it, and claim it represents the levels of radioactivity in the ocean. So that is one way you can already know that a site is either made by someone extremely ignorant, or dishonest...

This is a nice example:

Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean (And It's Going To Get Worse) | Zero Hedge

It's one reason I do not consider zerohedge a reliable source of information...

Google has a very handy "image search" that you can give a link to an image, and it will show you where else it is used on the internet. That allows you to find out where it originally comes from. And what it really means... Another way to test how honest your sources are.

Other ways you can check facts is by just doing some back of the enveloppe calculation. An often repeated claim is that "300 tons" of radioactive water is being released in to the Ocean every day.

Now the ocean is very big. The Pacific contains 714 million cubic km of water. That is 714e15 tons.

If Fukushima kept releasing 300 tons a day for the next, say, 1000 years, that would be about 100e6. So after a 1000 years still less than a millionth of a percent of the water in the ocean would be Fukushima water. So that water would have to be extremely radioactive to begin with for it to matter. Now where are the reports that everyone in Japan is dead?

Another figure often bandied around is that Fukushima release 40 Trillion Becquerel of radioactivity in the ocean. And that is indeed a scary number.

40e12 Bq

But put that a bit in perspective. The natural radioactivity of seawater is 14Bq/l. That is 14e3 Bq per ton.
A lot of that is Uranium btw, enough that the Japanese even once had plans to extract Uranium from seawater to power their plants with. There is enough Uranium in seawater to provide all of humanity with energy for several millions of years...

So 14e3 Bq per ton, that makes 14x715e18 Bq for the whole ocean. Make it about 10e21 Bq.
So you can see that the natural amount of radioactivity allready in the Pacific Ocean is 9 orders of magnitude larger than what Fukushima dumped in it.
So Fukushima just made the ocean 0.0000001% more radioactive.

Still worried?

Lets see what a scientist has to say about the subject. Dr. Ken Buesseler who is a marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and director of the WHOI Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity stated the following in NPR radio on the Fukoshima affect on the North Pacific Ocean.

Dr. Buessler said that NOAA or EPA are not collecting the data in a systematic and statistically relevant manner. The EPA has extensive atmospheric monitoring tools in place but, and this is a bug but, they don't have an equivalent monitering of the iceans for such things as radiation readings.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/...pacific-ocean/

Here is a direct quote from Dr. Buessler. "the EPA runs RadNet, which monitors radioactivity in the air we breathe, we need an OceanNet to do the same for our nation’s waters. We also need to do a better job of educating the public about radioactivity to lessen the impact of both inflammatory and dismissive rhetoric."

I agree with the Dr. What is needed is better monitoring and data collection. I would add such monitoring and data collection must be free from industry and political preasure and tampering as has been the sad case in "global warming" falsified data.

Graphic from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.