Nautilus Coastal Waterways Upgrade

Carl Metropolitan's Interactive Map

Michael Linden is the Senior Content Lead for the Linden Department of Public Works; he runs the DPW Office Hour on Fridays at 3:00PM SLT in Shamon.

The Friday meetings are well attended, always fun, and pretty congenial — at least  when compared to other ‘Linden anger-management‘ hours many readers may have attended. 🙂  Michael’s DPW meetings address a variety of user content issues, suggestions, and problems, and he frequently reviews outstanding ‘ticket’ requests or ongoing major project issues.

If you have a gripe or suggestion, don’t ‘Go Postal;’ 🙂 stop by one of the Office Hours meetings instead. DPW is responsible for much of the sim content and user concerns over a spectrum of Linden sim priorities. They can’t help you with ‘server issues’ or sim-crossings; those are other departments. However, for many general issues that impact sim features, appearance and user function, the DPW Office Hour is a good place to learn what’s up and get simple, authoritative answers to your questions.

Blondin Linden also holds biweekly sailing-specific Office Hour meetings at 8:00 AM SLT in ANWR, and all sailors are more than welcome. The topics at Blondin and Michael’s Linden OH meetings rarely overlap, so interested sailors might benefit from attending either or both sessions; you can choose what fits, based on your time zone and work schedule. (Note: Michael and Blondin coodinate efforts, so you’ll get the same answer at either session. 🙂 )

COASTAL WATERWAYS

Over the past few years many sailors have advocated for interconnected waterways that would allow vessels to travel long distances. In a September office hour, Michael Linden addressed this issue and listed several possible locations under consideration for new coastal water sims that might serve this need.

He strongly emphasized these ideas were still vague topics under consideration, and he clearly indicated that none of the projects might ever get realized. Nonetheless, most in the audience felt his willingness to share such ideas was both gracious and reassuring.

The topic came up as part of a short discussion on options to connect Bay City to the major Sansara sailing regions lying East. Here’s the transcript (with my edits and redactions):

[15:45]  Michael Linden: Gulf of Lauren NE around the coast,  to ANWR would be good.
[15:45]  Yevad Doobie: crosses toes
[15:45]  Marianne McCann: Would love that, Michael.
[15:45]  Yevad Doobie: some parts of Corsica would be useful
[15:45]  Everest Piek: its an unbearable bottleneck there
[15:45]  Marianne McCann: Though if you asked between that and the southern waterway, I’d opt for the latter
[15:45]  Michael Linden: I’ve got half-a-dozen areas that could use more coastal water listed.
[15:46]  Jane Fossett: Yes, no good connection from ANWR to Fables.
[15:46]  Yevad Doobie: or around the Corsica/Nautilus join…..give the Coast Guard more work lol
[15:46]  Everest Piek: lol YAYYYY!
[15:46]  Jane Fossett: 🙂
[15:47]  Michael Linden: These are all just vague proposals: NOT promises:

• Luna Palisades to Abbotts: 14
  (9 if we move the sandboxes 1 row south)
• around Terric: 4 … allows more sailing near Blake Sea
• Mbokomu: 4 or 5 … allows sailing along coast
• Lifstaen: 7 or 8 … allows sailing around coast
• Leximus: 3, 5, or 8 … good sea area, allows sailing n coast
• Gerache: 5 to 8 … connect continents with sailing route
• Sanchon: 6 or 7 … allows sailing around big island
• North of Old Continent: 17 or so, connects Bay City to ANWR

[2010/09/10 15:47]  Everest Piek: yea
[2010/09/10 15:47]  Jane Fossett: Any of those would be wondrous.
[2010/09/10 15:48]  Michael Linden: Someday, when Homesteads are free …
[2010/09/10 15:48]  Yevad Doobie: nice list

Vague Proposals Turn Real in Nautilus

Michael commented that “These are all just vague proposals: NOT promises…” so back in September I decided not to write about the possibilities he raised. I assumed the Linden staff cuts might limit deployment of even the best DPW ideas. Well, i was wrong. 🙂

This week ‘Pie in the Sky became Reality,’ as DPW rolled out over twenty new sims to enhance the Nautilus-region coastal waterways! Here’s a list of the new sim names and locations:

1. Between Elhaddad and Psychwar: Arezzo, Pieve, Cortona
2. Between Gerache and Rannet: Foligno, Gubbio, Lucca, Norcia, Orvieto
3. Near Leoming: Soncino, Montefalco, Urbino, Viterbo, Volterra, Valenza, Triora, Cividale
4. Near Leximus: Spoleo, Spello, San Gimignano, Pienza, Perugia, Galgano, Pulciano

Here’s a chart showing the location of the new sims (Click on it for a for a larger view):

Yellow= New Nautilus sims; Green= proposed Satori sims.

The additional sims include a new link that joins Nautilus and Corsica (WOOT!), and a sequence of coastal sims that wrap around the land builds and obstructions in Northeast Nautilus.

The new Nautilus sims make it possible to sail remarkable distances. For example, a skipper could voyage all the way from Spoondrift in USS’ Sailor’s Cove over to Triumphal in West Bingo Strait, then chose to venture North either past Danshire YC in Knaptrackicon or  by Tradewinds in Dex, sailing through Dire Strait or along the new Elhaddad route. That sailor could wrap around Northeast Nautilus using the new ‘Lifstaen’ coastal waterway, and then choose one of two Northern passages into the continent of Corsica: either the traditional far West passage near Kinrara (wave to SLCG there!) or the brand new ‘Gerache’ waterway shown above.

Of course, once you make it to Corsica you then get a whole new plateful of options :-). You can go visit ElMegro Magic or Aquarius Paravane or dozens of other sailors with marinas waiting to welcome you… or you can just push on and circumnavigate Gaeta. If you are that ambitious, be sure to check in with Beejee Boucher and Lyle Lane along the Gaeta coast!

Frankly I can’t add up all the sims that kind of cruise plan would encompass… but wow, it’s a lot… and its now possible. 🙂

Is that important to sailors? 🙂 Well, it took Kittensusie Landar and Mowry Bay Cruising Club about five minutes to announce a fleet event using the new sims!

I think there’s no question that this small passageway will make a truly huge difference in the traffic and economy of both linked regions. Thank you Linden Lab and DPW!

The ‘Nautilus Chart’ above also shows in Green two small, coastal ‘sim patches’ in Satori, the continent South of Nautilus.

TERRIC sim lies along the Northeast coast of Satori, just south of Bingo Strait and near Blake Sea. Well over a year ago I wrote posts saying that Terric was the Southeast block to coastal cruising; there was no way around that sim. Many other sailors tried, but sadly agreed: TERRIC was the southern end of the sailing world for cruisers (at least if you came from Blake or Nautilus).

In September DPW suggested a four-sim bypass passage around Terric. That could open sailing waters along the East Coast of the entire Satori continent. Not a bad idea… 🙂

But what about Satori’s West Coast? Well, apparently DPW’s thought about that too. If you look at the chart above, a few coastal water sims North and West of MBOKOMU could provide a waterway link to expand options for Southern exploration along the Northwest aspect of Satori, while opening up sailing throughout the Western limits of Bingo Strait. I love it!

A MBOKOMU coastal simset seems a very small effort, but one that might yield a large payback in traffic, user interest and increased property value in the adjacent regions.

SANSARA BAYWATCH

A few weeks ago I discussed here the DPW changes currently underway in Sansara. I focused on the traditional raceline and sailing regions, and only briefly mentioned Bay City.

Bay City is a community located on the far West shore of Sansara, and it holds an important place in the primordial geopolitical and cultural history of Second Life.

New Port Yacht Club

Bay City was DPW’s first project, and it served as a ‘template’ and test ground for LL’s concepts of urban planning. New Port Yacht Club is there, with access to roughly a dozen sims of sailable water.

Bay City has many great people, and the community is pretty successful. 🙂  On several occasions I’ve tried to attend Bay City events, only to find the sims so overcrowded  I couldn’t get in! 🙂 I guess that’s a good sign!

DPW  listened to Bay City’s request to connect their water and Yacht Club with the other Sansara sailing regions lying East. Michael Linden’s  ‘vague list‘ of possible new coastal sims includes two options for multi-sim corridors that might do the trick. I’ve indicated them in red below:

Click (or double-click) for the full size map

If you click on the above chart, you’ll see the possible “Northern Option” is a seventeen-sim route that connects Bay City’s Gulf of Lauren to the ANWR connector that links Sansara to Heterocera Atoll. That string of seventeen water sims might also provide coastal waterway access to multiple sims in the COLORS region along the Northwest Sansara shore.

However, the biggest problem with the “Northern Option” in my opinion turns out to be ANWR’s separation from the major Sansara waterways; ANWR does not easily link to Mare Secundus, MBYC, Sea of Fables, or the East River Community.

In other words, even after the addition of seventeen new water sims, Bay City could not connect with any of the major Sansara waters – or sailing groups – that lie South and East. Bay City would stay isolated from many sailing events. (That’s not good 🙂 )

A much shorter, more  practical, and better way to connect Bay City to the other Sansara sailors and sailing regions might be Michael Linden’s proposed “Southern Passage,” a nine sim connection from Luna Palisades to Abbotts that’s shown in the chart above. Marianne McCann discusses that option on her blog and argues persuasively for it.

Sanchon!

The final proposal on Michael Linden’s Office Hours Coastal Sim Wish List was “Sanchon: 6 or 7 (sims)… allows sailing around big island.”

If you are new to SLSailing, you may not know Sanchon, and probably have not sailed much in Jeogeot.

Well, Sanchon was home to Vagabonds Yacht Club, and was a harbor of refuge for many unruly pirates in the early years of SL Sailing.

My first connection to SL Sailing was in October 2006 at the Sanchon Boat Show. I met people and I saw boats that expressed the same humor, knowledge, and excitement I knew from RL sailing. I decided to stay around.

Vagabonds is now gone, but woots! DPW remembers, and one of the proposals is to expand the coastal waters near Sanchon… so sailors can again sail around the big island there. I always thought of that island as, well… Tortola, the pirate lair of legend. 🙂

Please remember, the sim additions above were just ideas, and not in any way guaranteed. However, I think they indicate DPW listens to sailors, and in this instance at least LL is making a sincere effort to incorporate sailor’s needs in their planning.

Now can we talk about those awful sim crossings again? 🙂

_________________

Fruit Islands Expands Sail Race Training

by Elbag Gable
(edit: Jane Fossett)

Muskmelon Race Training Centre

Fruit Islands Estate and Mango Yacht Club are pleased to announce the opening of a new Centre for Sailing, Racing, and Match Training in Muskmelon Sim.

The expanded teaching area and resources will hopefully cater to the increasing requests from sailors looking for ways to gain advanced sailing skills.

The Muskmelon Centre builds on our Sail Training School located in Strawberry.

Strawberry will focus on basic sailing instruction and as well as a set of select, more advanced topics.

We are all very excited at the prospect of a new centre that can help build sailing knowledge and skill in SL, and we hope it might play an important role building future standards for SL racing. However, our most important goal is really to  get sailors on  the water, having fun.

Both the Strawberry and Muskmelon locations have a relaxed style and approach, and we encourage sailors at any level to come visit when they have a free moment. Visitors will find a large number of self-study slideshows on different topics, covering multiple boats. The centres will also hold regular group classes and topic-specific meetings to review and practice tactics, logistics and race rules.

LdeWell Hawker had a central role developing the new facility, the racelines, and the teaching program, building on the huge effort started by Isis Rexie. Hawk will run classroom-based training courses and in-water instruction on Fruit Islands’ designated 8 sim L-shaped Race Training area. There are FOUR separate racelines installed in that area, and each sim has a WWC windsetter installed. There will always be default wind available in case you lose your puff!

We hope that many experienced SL sailors will take a look and test out the new waters, and we’d love their assistance and input as we develop courses, teaching, and plan events. You can contact any of us listed below.

We will be catering to all classes of boats and we’re already allocating time and resources to the T-One ONE WORLD event this January (Fruit Islands will host “ROUND TWO” again. Last year, Mango’s Commodore Isis Rexie finished a FULL THREE MINUTES ahead of the second-place boat… in a field of Fifteen crack race teams). (Editorial note: Liv and Momomos helped a bit 🙂 )

This year Mango believes T-ONE is a boat made for Fruit Island waters… Come  give it a try, and see if you agree 🙂 !

Although we always have a big smile in Fruit’s tropical island setting, we admit we’re pretty serious about teaching. You want to learn racing tactics? Hawk ‘s set up a great program that uses Qyv Inshan’s Quest Match boats, fueled by Becca’s BWind engine. No matter what boat you eventually plan to race, we think a few hours playing at Mango with Hawk’s recommendations can put you into overdrive on the race circuit.

Come visit and rez a boat anywhere in Fruit Island’s 100+ sims of water, and please let us know if we missed anything or can do something that will promote sailing and get you laughing on Second Life’s waters.

Elbag Gable
Brenda Hoisin
LDeWell Hawker
Qyv Inshan
Isis Rexie
Equinox Pinion
Dennis Lagan

Tradewinds Launches Bolero Thursday at Noon

Last evening Liv Leigh announced that Tradewinds Yacht Club will host a launch party for Balduin Aabye’s latest boat, the Bolero!

The Bolero was inspired by a real-life knockabout rebuild of one of the first Shields hulls. From what I can see, Balduin’s creation comes very close to the original!

Come to Tradewinds today and see for yourself!

ONE WORLD

Announcing 2011 ONE WORLD

ONE WORLD is a multi-week, crewed racing event that will hit the water in early January 2011. Teams of sailors will compete in Trudeau ONE boats in a fun regatta that celebrates all the SL Sailing Community.

The race format will be similar to last year’s J-CLASSIC, with the Rules and organizational details worked out on SLSailing.net over the next eight weeks.

ONE

Before I tell you the race details (and ask your help designing the event), I wanted to briefly comment on the Name, Logo, and inspiration for the sailing series.

“ONE” pretty obviously refers to the real-life International One Design (IOD) race boat commissioned by Corny Shields 75 years ago; in SL it also signifies Jacqueline Trudeau’s benchmark emulation of that IOD classic: the T- ONE sloop. A T-ONE Regatta is particularly timely, since this past summer Fishers Island Yacht Club won IOD WORLDS in real life. 🙂 We should give Sailors’ Cove a chance to repeat that winning sail in Second Life!

In choosing a logo, an attitude, and a context for the upcoming ONE WORLD event, I thought we might all agree that “ONE” in this context also stands for the bond that joins the sailing community in RL and SL. We are indeed “ONE.”

I therefore thought this regatta might reflect the goals of the International ONE Campaign.

We are not asking for your money.
We are asking for your VOICE.
–ONE.org

What’s ONE.ORG ?

A few years ago, Bono, Bill Gates, Bob Geldorf, the Buffett Foundation, Intel Corp... along with many other concerned individuals and international aid groups combined efforts on a number of critical, worldwide projects. They recognized that together we share the resources needed to solve serious global problems, including hunger, extreme poverty, mass communicable disease, and fundamental education needs. Of course no group can do everything, and some important goals will remain beyond our collective grasp for decades to come. But hey… c’mon,
Let’s all fix what we can, and let’s do it NOW.

Please Note

ONE does not want your money. You can’t donate to ONE on their website; That’s not their issue. They want something more important. They want your vote and your voice in support of ONE goals.

Politics often becomes a serious barrier to the delivery of aid and prioritization of effort. Having the knowledge and resources to fix a problem frequently is not enough; It’s also important to engage the political will.

ONE.org wants and needs your voice. ONE needs the weight of global support, the combined affirmative voice of millions on this frail planet who are willing to endorse common goals… ONE goals… to relieve suffering, address fundamental needs, and advance basic, human dignity.

Actually, don’t listen to me. There’s an old, retired guy who explains it better than I can. I hear he spends most of his time playing bridge these days.
Thank god he has a smart wife… 🙂

If you have the time, please check out the 70 minute full discussion of ONE’s goals from October 18 2010.

The ONE WORLD Regatta in Second Life is not directly linked to the ONE Campaign. I actually declined several offers of outside support for ONE WORLD this year. That way the event will stay unfettered and independent, and part of SLSailing. If it goes as well as last year, we can all decide what forms of external, ‘corporate’ sponsorship and fundraising links for such future events make sense.

Having said that, I admit readers here also know me, and where I stand. SL is not a game, and SL Sailors are the real thing. I often rant here that, on a planet 70% covered by water, critical human advances will always fall to a small group of determined sailors, those willing to focus unflinching on a far horizon… and shout RAISE! in one, loud voice, together.

So… I know most of you are very busy, and can’t afford to donate lots of time or money at the moment. But…
GRIN. If you’re reading this, you’re already a sailor. Please consider joining a ONE WORLD sailing team and be part of the multi-week, crewed regatta whenever it suits your schedule. Oh, and go look at ONE.ORG, see what you think, and consider adding your name to their roster if you like what they do.

With that single, simple gesture you could…
well…
Save the World.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. 🙂

Thumbs Up

_____________

Trudeau ONE Upgrades to Fourteen!

Trudeau ONE 1.14 launched last Friday. It came quickly on the heels of Trudeau ONE v1.13b, an upgrade that fixed  a relatively minor tiller propulsion issue I wrote about two weeks ago. Back then, several sailors noted waggling the ONE tiller could inappropriately accelerate the boat under a small number of specific wind and heading conditions.

Although T-ONE v1.13b fixed that Tiller Trouble, the script changes induced a few new problems. Often ‘Perfection is the enemy of the good,’ and most sailors I spoke with were happy with the upgrade and willing to deal with a couple new glitches.

Jacqueline Trudeau wasn’t satisfied though, and the result is a quick new version: Trudeau ONE v1.14. The v1.14 boat got a pretty enthusiastic response from the beta testers I spoke to. They all noted that the new upgrade distributed last Friday was way more than a bug fix. It handles differently from prior ONE releases.  

NEW ITEMS

I’m still looking at the boat’s performance, but let me highlight a few items:

1. Stiff is Better than Limp.
Most importantly, the boat now has a better match between visible luffing and sail propulsion upwind. Under some conditions in v1.13b, skilled sailors noted that making the sails luff (flap in the breeze) could paradoxically increase boat speed. That problem is now Fixed. In ONE v1.14, ‘What you see is what you get.” A stiff sail at an attractive angle with a hard camber foil will give you the power thrust any racer longs for. And as any sailor knows, a droopy rig with limp, flappy sails when you blow on them is just no fun at all. You certainly won’t win any medals that way! 🙂

2. More Compatible, Less Tender ONE
Most skippers I’ve spoken with think the new ONE upgrade is easier to sail, and report it’s compatible with more diverse race conditions. J Trudeau confirms that impression, commenting that:

“[ONE v1.14] will still lose speed from excessive heeling, but correct sail trim is given a higher emphasis in determining performance. It is less tender than 1.13b, and can stand up to 10 m/sec winds better while singlehanded.”

3. Tiller Comes With Options
There’s a new ‘Settings‘ feature for the tiller as well. In SL nearly all boats change direction by tapping the keyboard L-R arrow keys; if you press the Left arrow key, you turn Left. It’s actually more like driving a car than using a boat tiller.  In RL sailing it’s different, of course; you need to move the tiller opposite the direction of your turn.

In ONE v1.14, there’s a Settings Card option that lets you chose the way the tiller responds (the default is still the standard vehicle mode).

4. Better Deviant Diagnosis
Correcting a bug pointed out by JoyofRLC Acker, ONE v1.14 now displays the wind variation rate value correctly! In retrospect, I think Liv Leigh and I confirmed Joy’s bug in J-Class boats last year too… I admit I totally forgot about it after that Regatta 🙂 . Kudos to JoyofRLC for bringing it up again, and Woots, its fixed!

5. Phantom Boom (this item’s not new)
Although its not a new feature in this upgrade, I thought I should mention that T-ONE has a phantom boom; this is notable since very few other Trudeau sailcraft have phantom rigs.

If you look at the image to the right, you’ll see what I mean. The boom in the image  just passed through the green buoy at the edge of the Queequeg raceline (indicated by red arrow).

A phantom boom gives you more options, and lets you adroitly snuggle up to marks and obstructions as you try to scrape off extra seconds in a race. 🙂

Polars.

The improved responsiveness and compatibility of v1.14 is noticeable to most skippers on their first, serious sail with the new boat. However, documenting it will take more testing under a variety of conditions of wind, hiking, and heel settings.

So far I’ve tried the boat out using standard test conditions, and appropriately there seem to be only subtle differences between  the prior 1.12 and new 1.14 versions of this boat. The significant changes should show up with higher wind speeds and tests that push the boat’s performance.

Here’s a graph of ‘Speed Over Ground’ for v1.14 using a  baseline 5.0 m/s true wind speed. I use 5.0 m/s to get a baseline standard that isn’t complicated by heel effects or crew hiking.

The solid line above represents Apparent Wind (AWA) conditions and the Dotted Line represents the same data plotted for the Real Wind Angle (RWA). Boat speed is plotted on the y-axis in m/s.

As you can see, with this low wind speed the boat’s velocity peaks around 60° AWA (80-100 RWA). This max boat speed is over 60% True Wind, and with increasing AWA it’s followed by a rather linear decline in performance as the apparent wind angle grows larger. That’s pretty typical of prior Trudeau performance plots, and closely matches the charts I’ve posted for early versions of T-ONE. Go take a look!

Heel effects and hiking are still strong in ONE v1.14, as shown below.

With ONE v1.14 sailing upwind in an 8.0m/s true breeze, the boat heels significantly. Sailing singlehanded, a skipper under heel can greatly increase boat speed by shifting to windward position and balancing the boat. With a 50-60° heading AWA, a solo skipper can boost boat speed by roughly 30%. of course this will vary based on true wind speed and crew size, but its a huge racing tool.

I’ll get you the other data sets as soon as the sims cooperate and I have time to collect the data!