Happy New Year
Here's hoping 2013 brings you great times out on the water.
Lessons from Jan
At the end of the year some thoughts on sailing and life written by Ron Sherry on the passing of WEST SYSTEM founder and sailor, Jan Gougeon. Lifted from Sailing Anarchy. I could write a book titled “What I Learned From Jan Gougeon” but it would take volumes. So I am going to tell you a few stories about building, racing, and dealing with people that we all need to remember and try to live by. Jan Gougeon in 2012 by Hugh Horton Jan always was looking towards the next project. He was not what you would call [...]
HMS BOUNTY: How Sound Was She?
Posted by Charles J. Doane on SAILfeed AS I NOTED in my last post on the loss of HMS Bounty during Hurricane Sandy, one of the big unanswered questions is: why was the ship taking on so much water? That she was leaking enough to sink is especially puzzling in that just 11 days earlier she'd been relaunched at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in Maine (see photo up top) after spending a month in drydock for repairs. It may or may not be relevant, but my eyebrows did rise up a bit when I learned this week that the very same [...]
VESTAS Sailrocket 2. “The magic mile” world record*…
Thanks to Dan Newland for passing along this video. SAILROCKET 2 also smashed the outright speed record with a peak of 67.74 knots and 65.37 knots average! That’s 121km/hr and 125.45 km/hr peak. Is foiling the future for recreational boating as well? Two days after finally smashing the Outright world speed sailing record, the Vestas Sailrocket 2 team decide to tackle the ‘Nautical Mile’ world record which was held by the mighty ‘Hydroptere’. It was always going to be an interesting challenge for the VSR2 team as the speed course that they sail on in Walvis Bay, Namibia [...]
Darkest Before the Dawn
It's been very, very dark around here lately but Cliff Mass delivers the good news that there are longer days ahead. It's been very dark around here lately. In fact, the measurements of solar radiation on top of the atmospheric sciences building showed that today was the 6th darkest day since the beginning of the year, with Sunday being the fourth darkest (thanks to Mark Albright for supplying these numbers). Here is the total daily radiation in megajoules per day per square meter (megajoules is an amount of energy) for the darkest days of the year: 19 Nov [...]
Memories of Summer
Click for bigger image. Northwest Maritime Center Photo by Kim Carver
Wave-Powered Robot Completes 9,000 Mile Ocean Trek, Sets Record
From Treehugger , a post by Jaymi Heimbuch on a new technology that is being used to explore the oceans. Last November, Liquid Robotics let loose four Wave Gliders in the Pacific ocean. The autonomous robots — outfitted with sensors that measure and collect information on a variety of substances, from oil spills to salinity levels to weather information — are wave-powered, using the rolling motion of the water to propel forward. It’s a slow, slow journey traveling at about 1.5 knots, but one Wave Glider, named “Papa Mau”, has completed the 9,000 nautical mile trip across the Pacific, leaving a world record for [...]