Colour Me Unproductive

[anigo]

It's cold in my office today.

It's usually always cold, but I usually have a nice little spaceheater that keeps me toasty. But no more. There's been a directive that space heaters go against a Health and Safety policy. If you're cold... "please have a sweater or jacket in your area to make you more comfortable." I currently have three sweaters in my area - one of which is wrapped around my legs. I can see that tomorrow I'm going to need to wear my thermal sailing underwear. Seriously.

It's back to being single digits again temperature wise. Right now it's 9 celcius and drizzling.

So, I don't know if it's the cold or what. But so far today I've:

Had coffee with the counsellors
Cleaned up my MSN Address Book
Surfed info about the Transat race*
Had more coffee with the counsellors
Watered my plants
Eaten my lunch
Had more coffee with the counsellors
Gone to the washroom about 50 times



*The Transat race is a solo England to Boston race. Search and Rescue crews have just picked up a Swiss sailor whose boat has capsized. The keel had broken away from the rest of the boat and it just plain tipped over. Damn, I hate when that happens.

And from another boat: Open 60s have twin rudders and for reasons of safety PRB's have a kick-up system that maintains the integrity of the rudders in the event of a collision. Riou says that he was below when he felt the rudder collide with a submerged object. The rudder kicked up as it was designed to but with no steerage, the boat bore away, gybed and was laid flat. This occurred so violently that the mast was broken. As he attempted to cut away the rig the boom was violently hammering on the deck and Riou was obliged to let this go over the side too. He is thus left with no spars with which to erect a jury rig.

Sadly, this stuff excites the hell out of me.

Comments

[gogoman.livejournal.com]

I thought all boats were designed to head upwind if the rudder swings free or breaks, just for the purpose of preventing a jibe along with the consequential bad news. I think they called it "weather helm". Maybe high performance boats aren't designed that way?

[anigo.livejournal.com]

OOOOOOOOOOHHH..... A smarty! YAY!!! I stand impressed (and of course, that's what you set out to do, yes?)

I don't think they're designed that way, I think it just happens. The force of the wind will push a boat into the wind, rounding up when overpowered. My guess is that when he rounded up he may have ended up... no, that would be a tack... Hmmm... good point. (Pulls out toy boat and sets up scenario) Yes. I'm seeing him round up, and possibly tack, but not bearing away to a gybe. Got me. And my question is how would a gybe lay him flat? Again, I would expect the boat to round up. They look like masthead rigs, so I could see a gybe (or even a tack) taking out a runner and possibly dropping a mast, but not just the gybe on its own. THen again... The gybe could have put the boom against the runner without any play and could have... but then they would have rounded up again... Ok, I'm rambling never mind.

For the boat that lost it's keel...

"I think it cannot work at high speeds. I reduced speed from 20 knots [when the keel started to vibrate], but the ship took a big surf...26-27 knots, the keel started to move...like the bulb was gone...to move like a fish. Maybe 10 seconds after that the keel broke and the ship was on her side."

So maybe you're right. Maybe high performance boats are designed differently. Though one would think if one is making a high performance boat for the North Atlantic, one would think of these things.

However, having said all that, I'm only a self proclaimed expert, which doesn't extrapolate to a whole lot in the grand scheme of thigns....

...yet.

[gogoman.livejournal.com]

I would never try to impress you, because I am clearly not in your league sailing-wise. I've owned centerboarders, and I was an insignificant crew for somebody else on Lake Michigan. I mostly got in other peoples' way though.

Please make allowances for me, for I am but a humble engineer. I have a special fondness for sailboats and airplanes, which are closely related aerodynamically. So I try to understand occurrences like the one you described.

[anigo.livejournal.com]

No. There will be no allowances asked for or given. (stamps foot) You're more than holding your own, and certainly challenging my brain. That's GOOD, that's GOOD!

Don't stop!

I suck when it comes at aerodynamics. Mostly I prattle on here about my sailing and half the time figure people gloss right over it (and justifiably so, it can be a real yawner) but it tickled me to no end to be made to think about what I typed - both for the brain stimulation and for the chance to just think about sailing.

Thank you.

[gogoman.livejournal.com]

Ah, for me that's what LJ is all about....to stimulate thinking, mine and others'.