Read part one here.

It is a visceral, primal experience to be at sea, out of sight of land and days from help, pitting ones abilities against the brute force of unpredictable mother nature. When we left Philius Grigg he was limping his sailboat, S/Y Sloppy Joe, into the marina after just two weeks of the month he planned to be at sea. A vicious squall had irreversibly damaged his satellite communications system, but reawakened the inventive nature that now had Grigg on a course which would change the face of communications technology. With a grandchild on the way, Grigg’s return to solid ground was to be a tumult of emotions, adventure, and remarkable discovery pitted against the inertia of big business and protectionist technology communities.

We rejoin Philius as he bids farewell to his temporary crew, who are quite happy to get off this awful little boat. Though in seaworthy condition and very capable of ocean passage it was never designed to house 3 full-grown men for more than a week: a 40 foot tub with the most basic of cabins, no water maker and a head no bigger than a dog box. Each sailor smells terrible and they’re fed up with canned beans and tuna. Though a good man, Grigg’s late wife had always been the one cooking, cleaning and washing clothes: her death did little for his homemaking abilities.
Sailing watches on a small boat with no autopilot are tiresome at the best of times, made less enjoyable when under-fed, poorly rested and stinking of 2 week old socks. S/Y Sloppy Joe departed as a brave little craft out to conquer an ocean, ready to take on whatever the seas might throw at it. It returns a much less glorious little tub in the eyes of its ill-contented, piratical crew.

With goodbyes said and little hope that these salty dogs will return for the next voyage, Philius secured S/Y Sloppy Joe taking special care to pack his special project: the frankensteined satellite communications encoder. In the midst of fitting the last padlock on the saloon hatch, his mobile phone rang. Such was his surprise, he dropped two shopping bags, spilling his carefully packed belongings on the cockpit floor. That was quite okay, because the phone call was essential. He answered to hear crying in the background mixing with the sounds of frantic activity. Above all of the noise came the sound of his Eleanor panting, straining, doing her best to stay calm.

Birth. Philius had become a grandfather again. All of his excitement for his new idea was swiftly replaced by the emotion of knowing his little girl was a mother. Though gruff and usually quiet Philius could barely contain a moment of bittersweet grief-filled excitement, realizing that this would be far easier if his wife were at his side. In a flash of rare emotion, he found himself confronted by the grief which he had tried to ignore when his precious Jannie died. With all of this swirling around creating a strange unsettled feeling in his stomach, Grigg made for home to deposit his bits and bobs.

Two weeks later, having concluded once again that he really didn’t know how to cope with the fragile yet durable creatures they call babies, Grigg retreated to his shed. It was about time too. Though his frankensteined satellite transmitter build had been mostly complete by the time he had sailed into the marina, it had been all but forgotten in the fracas of a new grandchild arriving in the family. In the interim, he’d often been spotted musing on the tricky and important questions surrounding effective use of this new satellite-analogue-visible-carbon particulate-messaging device. Though he didn’t see the need for a better name, he’d been debating whether the binary code of the email program’s digital output would be adequate, or if some form of morse would produce a better result. He needed to test that out. He’d written the software on his trip but to test it he’d need to build a receiver.
First, a test of the transmitter.

Those who have sailed the seas will understand, of course, that to produce a flame in (or on) a wood and fibreglass tub is asking for trouble, even if it is a small one. In his last few days, though close to land, it was all Philius could do to refrain from testing his transmitter. The processing unit was fine: a satellite transmitting unit, minus antenna and power connectors, setup to run on power over ethernet, with parts of a handheld VHF soldered on here and there. This section was always going to be as safe as you could imagine of modern electronics. It was the output unit which caused crew concern: an haphazard mass including a light bulb, a corroded old fuel lock solenoid, a somewhat fragile looking mount designed to hold a handheld flare, the ignition system from the S/Y Sloppy Joe’s stove, and a pipe full of diesel. Philius would have been swimming home if he’d tried to test it: his crew would have mutinied and thrown him off the boat!

With Eleanor and the family inside the house, he wandered into his garage with its complicated automatic door, concluding that now is as good a time as any to test his beautifully ugly transmitter. Mumbling to himself, he proceeded to boot up the laptop, “don’t plug it in just yet…where’s that email program? Ah! Here!”
Turning about a little too swiftly he bumped the unit, sending a splash of diesel onto a pile of old electronics store catalogues stacked next to his tool cabinet.
“Must look out, can’t be too careful,” he mused as he set the transmitter unit as far away from his laptop as a five foot ethernet cable allows. He dribbled a little diesel into the alternative fuel tube, careful to let air bubbles out, following up by mounting his flare into its holder. “Haven’t got a transmission tube,” he realised, “never mind, should be able to prove the concept without.”
Returning to his laptop, Grigg typed a short message: “SOS” and then started the program code he’d written. “Wait, plug it in…” he realised, turning and jamming the free wire into the side of his computer. With a jolt, the stove igniter went ballistic, a small fuel solenoid clicked away like crazy, and a cordless drill next to the flare spun erratically. With the jolt of plugging it in, the whole unit began it’s work somewhat off-balance, now swaying wildly as Philius stared intently into the laptop screen, watching as the code did its work. Beside him the flare began to smoke, while fuel sort of ignited and fumed, filling the shed with a combination of white and red smoke. It wasn’t cutting in and out as he hoped it would. There was something strange going on here, but before he could work out what it was, the entire thing went south rather dramatically as the transmitter unit toppled onto the pile of catalogues. Freshly soaked in diesel, they wasted no time, bursting into lovely orange flames, adding black smoke to an already confused mix.

Though Philius Grigg was a good man, a devout man, a faithful friend, he did have a tendency to get one-tracked. This tendency got him into trouble in his work, causing others to assume he was not listening when he was, in fact, simply concentrating on the problem in front of him. It had been an issue in his early days of marriage too, until his gracious wife learned that conversations had while he was working drew were next-to-pointless. The tendency to focus strongly on the task at hand meant that his shed was very clean, but also devoid of safety precautions of any kind. Such was his confidence in his designs, the idea that this smoke-producing contraption might actually make fire, was totally absurd to him. For this reason, there was no a fire extinguisher to be found. On the property. Not one.

Inside the house, the eldest of Philius’ boys, Gordon, happened to be looking out the laundry window as his dad’s contraption toppled off the bench, passing the only window in the shed as it fell in a cloud of smoke. Noticing that red and white smoke was pouring from the whatever-it-is-dad-is-building, Gordon thought he’d best wander out for a look. As a fire officer at the volunteer brigade, Gordon could barely believe his eyes when he opened the door of the shed to see his father sputtering in a cloud of multi-coloured smoke, flames gently licking the cabinet halfway down the room.
“Eleanor, call the fire brigade!”
Gordon rushed in and grabbed his father, manhandling him out the door and pivoting back in to try to find something to beat down the flames. In no time at all, sirens could be heard as the volunteer fire company blasted through suburbia, doing their best to rush to rescue. Coming to an abrupt stop in the driveway, half a dozen burly men were amused to find an average-looking family attacking a flame-filled garage with hoses, towels, buckets, and a flamingo-shaped tea kettle. In no time the fire was doused, and half a dozen men from the fire department were jammed into the kitchen, enjoying Gordon’s hospitality: he was hoping to avoid too much ribbing, but knew that he wouldn’t hear the end of it for quite sometime. Meanwhile, Eleanor and her husband Peter had accosted Philius in the living room, insisting he explain his project and how on earth he managed to have lit his garage on fire. Not the most vocal of chaps, the family patriarch was about to win his son-in-law’s hostility.

As his son-in-law, Peter is as much a son to Philius as his own flesh and blood. He’s also the reason Philius could not keep the cost of his satellite system quiet. Peter met Eleanor as a young sales clerk while she was working as a temporary secretarial assistant. On the day in question she was starting her most interesting assignment yet, in the office of a global communications corporation. Not quite sure of herself, the charming and handsome Peter had been calming and reassuring as she tried to understand the documentation she was working on. Their love grew swiftly as did Peter’s position in the company. Now a national sales executive to large business customers, Peter’s position and knowledge of satellite communications was indispensible a few months back when Philius was equipping his little yacht for ocean voyages. We’ve mentioned that Grigg drew derision when he made the decision to install a satellite communications system on little S/Y Sloppy Joe. Though the taste of nepotism had been present in that little saga, it would not be long before the opposite was confirmed true.

Eleanor was doing most of the talking, taking after her mother, “what are you thinking, Dad? Do you realise how bad this could have been! I need you to be here, not in a hospital covered in burns.”
“I’m sorry dear,” Philius began, “maybe I should slow down a little…”
“Maybe you should. What are you doing anyway?” Peter asked.

Philius went on to explain that his costly and much loved satellite system had been damaged during the voyage, and that he had been working on an idea for a less costly system. He explained that he’d remembered a book he once read about native american smoke signals, and when he thought about naval communication techniques using lamps, he realised that there might be a combination which produced long range analogue signals. He unravelled for them a patchwork of ideas which involved generating controlled smoke bursts, emitting them, and then collecting them and deciphering the signals. He talked about how he thought he could build a system which would use normal computers to convert email, and parts from consumer marine stores to emit the resulting signals. He figured that receiving stations could collect the signals at the other end, and then forward them on using normal internet networks. He explained that the average sailor couldn’t afford the cost of satellite systems and their connections, but everyone should benefit from the ability to send simple emails using his system. It needed some testing and refining before he started setting up stations, but he felt it could work.
“And where exactly are you going to set up these stations?” Peter asked, clearly concerned.
“Well, I have a friend who may be able to help, you see a lot of the old coastal telephone switching stations have been replaced by small digital transfers, and there’s spare space on the lots.”
Peter was coming to the troubling realisation that if this idea worked, it could really undermine some of his most important sales: the pleasure market. This idea stood to lose him a huge proportion of his annual sales commissions. With a new child to take care of, a wife to look after, and a mortgage to boot on the new house, he would need to make sure his father in law did not succeed with this idea. He had a tough road ahead, Philius had never been known to have an idea he couldn’t bring to fulfillment.

Philius didn’t notice the troubled look on his son in law’s face as Gordon called him from the kitchen, asking him to come and see the firemen before they left. Gordon’s immense charisma, exceptional skills and general likeability meant that they wouldn’t be billed for this call.

In the coming weeks, not being billed for a fire call would be the least of Phlius Grigg’s concerns. Philius would refine, test and prove his system in irrefutable ways; he would face resistance from those he loved most, receive support from unlikely quarters, and become more well known than he ever imagined being.

His family would be tested in their loyalties, their values and their love, and would discover that their average family was far more extraordinary than they thought.

 

 

This is the part two of the “Of smoke and tillers” series. If you like what you’re reading, maybe buy me a coffee!