Posts Tagged ‘Sailing’
Anyone Have a Spare $10 Million Racing Yacht Mast Lying Around? [Sailing]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 8th, 2009
A quick glimpse into the life of a software billionaire: When Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing yacht snapped its $10 million mast this week, the ship's helmsman (not Ellison) described the event as a "minor setback."
That's $10 million for a mast. Granted, it's part of a massive structure that's twice the size of a 747's wing, but that's still $10 million for a mast. The Ellison-owned team has two more in reserve, so it's understandable how the helmsman can call the harrowing event "minor" when speaking to we plebeians.
The cause of the mishap is unknown. Weather and stray surfing gadget blog editors have been ruled out, and the team hopes to figure out the real cause and get back to training so they can meet and defeat Alinghi of Switzerland on Feb. 8. [NBC Bay Area]
Matte Black Earthrace Power Boat Hunts Those Who Hunt Whales [Boats]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 8th, 2009
Last we heard from Earthrace, the super sleek 78-ft. power boat that runs on its captain's fat, it was circumnavigating the globe. Today, the ship has a new Batman paint job and a new mission: Hunting whalers.
Specifically Japanese whalers. The same Japanese whalers who were made famous by the camera-happy efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. You know, the group whose anti-whaling, conservationist exploits on the high seas can be seen on a reality TV show near you, right now?
Now, the paint job and wild design aren't just for aesthetics. Nay, they also turn this sleek trimaran into a radar-deflecting stealth boat. Presumably, this will allow the Earthrace to sidle up to unsuspecting whaling ships, where it will then "protest" peaceably.
The boat leaves Perth on December 7 on a three-month journey alongside the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Steve Irwin to protest Japan's industrial whaling program. Good luck, and be careful. Stealth or not, last I checked matte black wasn't harpoon-proof. [LIFE via Boing Boing]
Butterfingered Sea Captains Need These Floating, Loudly Colored Boat Tools [Tools]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on August 16th, 2009
Yar! Where be my pliers and braided cable cutters? Avast! There they be, bobbin' in the surf, next to me floatin' massage chair!
And scene.
Anyway, these brightly-colored tools float and accomplish several boat-related tasks—perfect for Summermodo adventures you might have planned!
Knock them overboard and they're easily seen and retrieved. Pretty straightforward. The handles help the tools float because they're made of comforting foam. Bonus: The rust-resistant metal is tungsten-carbide, perfect for fighting off the corrosive effects of that salty sea air. Yar. [Amazon via Boing Boing]
The Deep Flight Super Falcon Sub is Actually a Private Airplane for the Sea [Summermodo]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 15th, 2009
I'd never been envious of Tom Perkins' giant sailboat, the Maltese Falcon, until it received a deployable submarine in its belly. The sub, called the Deep Flight Super Falcon, is a 21-foot electric vehicle, bringing aerodynamic principles to the sea.
John Markoff got a ride recently, and reported the craft as being interesting, even in the plankton fog of Monterey Bay, CA.
Each time the 21-foot long electric-powered submarine plunged, my loosely buckled five-point harness left me sliding out of my seat. Each time we started to ascend, I was pushed back into the seat by the acceleration...Unlike a conventional submarine, which uses ballast to plunge into the ocean depths, the Super Falcon "flies" through water. It is slightly buoyant, and it is the speed of its propeller that pushes it downward in the mirror image of the aerodynamic lift of a conventional winged aircraft.It can operate at depths up to 400 feet, has a top speed of six knots and can fly for five hours on a single battery charge.
Deep Flight is helmed by Graham Hawkes, a pioneer in deep sea exploration vehicles. Among other craft, Hawkes built the Deep Rover sub which was used to film Aliens of the Deep by James Cameron in 3D IMAX, the Mantis, which was filmed in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only and the Deep Flight Challenger, a winged sub built capable of reaching 37,000 feet of depth meant for Steve Fossett to break the deep diving record in.
If you're interested, John Markoff's article has a video embedded in it of the dive and a tale of the first ocean dive in the Falcon with Perkins, where they chased Hammerheads. Below, I've included a video of the Maltese Falcon coming under the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as a video of him testing his prototype Super Falcon.
[Deep Flight, NYTimes, photo by Leslie Terzian Markoff and Yachtpals]
Pegasus Open 50 Raceboat Log: The Finish and a New Record [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 13th, 2009
The Finish: The Pegasus Open 50 sailboat just set the Transpac record of 7 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 35 seconds for a double handed monohull ship. Previous Record: 10 days, 4 hours and 4 minutes.
Over the Last Night:
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
Pegasus Open 50 Raceboat Log: Day 6, Power is Back [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 13th, 2009
July 12, 5:15 AM PST Sailing along fast. Found faulty regulator and alternator. Good start.
July 12, 6:17 AM PST
Update: We expect/hope to be fully recovered by Noon. Then we'll jibe for a lay-line to the tip of Molokai and have our final jibe there. Trying to minimize jibes. Big relief.
July 12, 7:15 AM PST
Engine fix and Katayama-San' lucky sextant returns
July 12, 8:00 AM PST,
MotionX-GPS guiding Pegasus from L.A. to Honolulu
July 12, 8:45 AM PST
Sunrise and Breakfast Burritos
July 12, 10:30 AM PST
Good Morning, Crusty Takes Over for the Day
July 12, 1:00 PM PST
ETA: From what we can tell, with our electrical back, around 9 am PST ( 6 am HST) is a good guess for our finish, just inside 8 days, something like 7 day, 20 hours and something. Sunrise in the Molokai channel.
There is still a lot of sailing to be done. That's a reasonable guess.
July 12, 5:30 PM PST
Sunshades and generator back running, calling the layline to Kalapapa.
July 12, 7:00 PM PST
Molokai channel
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
Pegasus Open 50 Log: Rainbows…and We’ve Lost Power [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 12th, 2009
July 11, 9:20 PM PST Lost all ways to recharge batteries, down to emergency battery. Just like an airplane.
July 11, 9:42 PM PST
July 11, 10:15 PM PST
Just enough power to send emails. We have not regained anything yet. Lost some more. Dark and squalls with no electrical - Bad. Safe but bad.
July 11, 10:28 PM PST
All down - Down to flashlighs, mechanical compass and add-on batteries for iPhone GPS [They've got MotionX GPS apps] and hand held iridium. Trying to fix.
[So they're looking at finishing the race and getting through the nights with no gps and no autopilot. Just celestial navigation using the sextant (which the navy no longer even teaches sailors in annapolis). Philippe is a bit of a math genius, so using a flashlight and the sextant and some paper, he can get it done. And they've got spare charge packs for the iPhone (and its GPS) and the flashlights. But that's about it.-BL]
From earlier in the day, at 5pm PST, a post about navigating with and without electronics:
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
Pegasus Open 50 Log: Day 6/7, The Wind is Picking Up [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 11th, 2009
The wind is picking up, and at the same time, the boat has to Jibe to port to adjust its path towards Hawaii.
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
Pegasus Open 50 Raceboat Log: Day 5/6 and the Moon [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 10th, 2009
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.July 9, 5:30 PM PST Today we are living within the realm of Squalls. Squalls in the the Northeast sub-tropical Pacific are different. They are small, concentrated and powerful. The rain lasts ~20 minutes under them if you're stationary. We're not.
I love squalls in Honolulu: refreshing, cleansing and replenishing for island precious water.
On Pegasus 50, we move fast at more than half of the squall's speed. My personal interpretation of North East Pacific Squalls is that they are caused by evaporation with subsequent cooling of the rising air and travel with the tradewinds. During their build-up phase, they mostly "suck" air into them as they are highly active building convective systems. The upper limit comes when the ultra moist air reaches adiabatic balance. Therefore, if you are in front of such a building squall, you loose a lot of wind velocity and get a nasty right shift, but if you have one behind you, she "sucks air" that heads you if you are on starboard jibe with a great boost in velocity. The longer you ride that squall the better. Mark caught a short video of one that he was riding to a max speed of 28 knots of wind and 22 knots of boat speed this afternoon . Check it out, passing right behind Pegasus 50. Mark is steering and filming.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
Course 270° T, Speed 14 Knots, Lat 25° 54' N, Lon 139° 36' W
July 9, 7:00 PM PST
Tradewind sailing with building squalls, pointing right to Diamond Head
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
Course 270° T, Speed 14 Knots, Lat 25° 52' N, Lon 139° 40' W
July 10, 2:30 AM PST
Insomniac sailor with a Transpac purpose!
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
Pegasus Open 50 Log: Finally, Through the Fog, a Sunset [Sun Powered Fun]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on July 9th, 2009
July 8, 9:00 PM PST This is what a sunset looks like in the middle of the ocean, from a sailboat racing from California to Hawaii.
Course 265° T, Speed 13.5 Knots, Lat 26° 03' N, Lon 135° 00' W
July 9, 2:15 AM PST
Windy tonight. On edge and don't trust the pilot on 20+ and big waves. No horizon. Been steering for 3 hours. Crusty is sound asleep. I can't believe that he trusts me!
July 9, 7:00 AM PST
Trade Winds Sailing at its Best!
Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He's also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He'll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]
