On behalf of Sail 4 Life (and with a considerable degree of excitement) Jane Fossett, Kentrock Messmer, Hannelore Ballinger, Armano Xaris, Dale Irata, and Taku Raymaker wish to announce the
New York 30 Solstice Challenge
June 23-24, 2012
Sailing teams will compete aboard New York 30‘s in a series of fleet races over the weekend of June 23-24. Since this is a regatta fundraiser, each race team will make an entry donation to compete, and each team will also receive a free race boat courtesy of Trudeau Yachts. Several generous individuals have additionally pledged thousands of $L in matching donations for each team that signs up for the race! 🙂
The Solstice Challenge qualifying rounds will be held on Saturday, hosted by several yacht clubs and sailing estates. These initial fleet races will be grouped in timeslots that are convenient for the competitors as well as global SL spectator yacht-enthusiasts.
The winners of Saturday’s races will advance to a Finals sail-off competition on Sunday that will decide the ultimate Regatta Team Champions.
The regatta is a fundraiser for SL Sailing’s main charity, SAIL 4 LIFE, and the race committee will be raising donations from the community in many fun ways as the event develops.
So if this sounds good to you, here’s more information about the Solstice Challenge, and details on how you can sign up:
1. Sailors will compete in teams of 1-5, racing the new Trudeau New York 30 sailboat. 2. Each race team will pay a $L5,000 entry donation to a Relay For Life kiosk. 3. In return, the team will receive one free, brand-new NY30 sailboat generously donated by J Trudeau and a canvas duffle bag full of celebrity sailing bling. 🙂 4. Sailors who want to race should start by filling out the online entry form here. The boat will then be delivered to you in-world.
As race-day approaches, the competing sailors will receive all the details about race location, rules and groupings. This is a fun, charity event, so the organizers will try hard to accommodate team race preferences for start time, venue, etc. Updates, details, and forum discussion will post to the NY-30 Solstice Challenge Thread.
We’ll also make every effort to champion the super sailors willing race to help support the great Sail4Life cause.
Over a century ago, on October 6, 1904 the New York Yacht Club passed a resolution to develop a new one design class for club races. They wanted “…a wholesome, seaworthy craft free from freak features.” 🙂
The charge was given to Nathaniel Herreshoff, who in short order came up with a design that met NYYC’s specifications for a 30ft LOW keel sloop. An original set of 18 “Thirties” was delivered a few months later, and the boats were an instant hit.
There were 51 recorded races for the NY30 fleet in that first season!
The boats proved very well-balanced, and gained a reputation for “no-reefing” even in high wind conditions. Affection for the class continued to grow, and even 30 years after its introduction, Gerhardi Davis gushed that the NY30 was:
“…without question the most successful, as well as the most famous one design class of yachts ever created.”
Now the NY30 class is more than a century old, but the respect still remains, and the passion of those that sail her burns bright.
How passionate? Well, in 2007 Amorita (NY30 #9) suffered catastrophic damage in a race collision and sank dead away in the ocean under her crew. Amorita’s sailors refused to give her up though, and the story of the accident, recovery, and restoration is recounted in a documentary that will premiere in Newport on June 26.
However, if you can’t make it to Newport this summer, or if your club-racing dancecard is already filled up, no worries. This weekend Second Life’s Trudeau Yachts launched the New York 30 for grid sailors, and to quote Jacqueline Trudeau, it’s “A Helluva Boat!” 🙂 Let me give you some details below.
Body by Trudeau
OK, if you sail in SL, you already know that Trudeau boats are renowned for their real-world accuracy, detail and innovation. The New York 30 continues that long-standing tradition.
Like prior Trudeau builds, this one is not intended to precisely re-create the physical dimensions of the real-life boat. Instead, the goal was to convey the perception of a New York 30, whether you’re sitting on a mooring or under sail in high wind.
click to enlarge
In SL, the boat is good-sized, measuring 47ft (14.3m) LWL. In addition to the skipper, it can carry four crew, and three of those crewmembers can help balance the boat by hiking. As usual, all crew can help trim the sails through shared HUDs, and the owner can share the boat with an unlimited number of friends by listing them on the Settings note card.
Although it only weighs 32 prim, the build is remarkably detailed and full-featured. For example, just take a look at simple fixtures, such as the turnbuckles, stays, and even the mast boot. This vessel was built by someone who knows and loves old boats!
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But don’t stop there; make sure you also check out the jaw on the gaff. It’s a great reproduction of the original NY30 design, as shown in the inset below.
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The NY30 has another, trademark Herreshoff feature: a cabin-top hatch with raised and angled glass panes that catch the light. As you can see in the comparison below, Trudeau got this feature dead-on right as well. Old Nate would be proud!
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NY30 Cabin
For such a low-prim, high performance boat, the large cabin is a real surprise. It contains multiple berths plus ample bench-space.
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The non-sailing animations are all quite nicely done, too. This is a boat you can live aboard! In fact, compared to the last Trudeau with a non-attachment cabin (the venerable Knockabout), the New York 30 seems rather luxurious. 🙂
click to enlarge
Bump Tests
Okok, let’s get back to the boat-build and kick the tires a bit. 🙂
Since there’s often a mismatch in SL between the visible boat you can see and the underlying shape of the sculpted prims that make it up, I usually do ‘bump tests’ to check the collision boundary for a boat. This usually just entails banging the boat into things, and I admit I’m pretty good at that. 🙂
As you can see above, the bow hits a prim wall when the hull contacts it. The bowsprint is phantom and goes through.
A phantom bowsprint is a feature on a number of other sailboats in SL, and it’s a reasonable compromise.
The NY30 has a huge boom, so you’ll be happy to know it’s also phantom while sailing. In the image to the right, the boom quietly passed straight through the Linden buoy to port.
The bump story gets a bit more complicated when you consider the undersurface of the hull, however. As shown below, the boat hits objects 1-2 meters deep at a point noticeably in front of the visible boat.
The explanation for this is simple. The sculptie hull is based on an underlying spheroid prim, as shown below, and the boat’s collision cage corresponds to that spheroid shape. This should not present any problem when racing or cruising.
Modifications
The build and textures for New York 30 and other Trudeau boats are fully modifiable. It’s particularly nice for sailors who want to live aboard the boat or personalize its appearance.
The boat comes with two sails, a large gaff-rigged main and a standard-size jib. Each sail can be independently controlled by the skipper or crewmembers using chat commands or the Trudeau HUD.
True to the RL NY30, the boat lacks a spinnaker. However, when sailing a downwind run the jib can be ‘winged’ to add a substantial power boost.
Here’s a chart showing NY30’s boat speed with a 10 m/s breeze at various real wind angles. The results are for a solo sailor sitting on the windward side with both sails trimmed to 1/2 the wind angle. The Red and Black data points are from Jane Fossett, and the Green results are from Bunnie Mills, who independently ran the same tests. The two curves almost perfectly overlap!
The chart shows that NY30’s fastest point of sail is a beam reach with a boat speed that’s 65-70% of real wind speed. Performance falls off as the boats’ heading moves progressively downwind however; at RWA 140° the boat only does 40% of RWS.
Winging the jib (shifting it to the side opposite the main) is a particularly effective way to boost performance on a downwind run (RWA 160° to 180°), increasing boat speed by 25- 50%.
Heel
The above boat speed predictions are just guidelines, and are likely only valid for specific wind and crew conditions. There are many other factors that affect boat performance. Probably the biggest of these is boat heel.
As wind intensity picks up, a sailboat tends to go faster. At the same time, the force of the wind against the sail torques the boat leeward, and the sails become less efficient. As the wind increases further, the combination of hydrodynamic and heeling effects prevents the boat from going any faster, and extreme gusts can even stop the boat cold by swamping or capsizing it.
A similar thing happens in NY30 with increasing wind speed. The blue line in the chart below shows boat speed as a function of increasing wind speed while sailing a fixed RWA. Between RWS= 1.0 m/s to 8.0 m/s there’s a near linear correlation. However, with a skipper sailing solo, beyond that point a stronger wind will just cause increased boat heel but no acceleration. If you add even more wind, the boat will heel so far it essentially “swamps.” Even though the sails are optimally adjusted, the boat stops dead in the water at an extreme angle.
In most new Trudeau boats including NY30 a skipper can counteract this effect to some extent by shifting weight Windward and trying to bring the boat back into neutral balance, as shown in the blue line below. The red line in that chart shows what happens when the skipper sits on the wrong side, the leeward side. Because the heel is more excessive, it reaches a maximum speed sooner and swamps earlier. 🙂
NY30 sails fastest when heel= 0°. With increasing wind however, a solo skipper can’t keep the boat balanced, and in my hands the boat starts to swamp at an angle of 19° to 26°. It should take a real wind speed of 11-14 m/s to see that effect, depending on the relative wind angle.
The graphic on the right shows my point: with RWS= 12 and the skipper sitting lee, NYC30 heels 25° and the boat stalls in the water!! (BS=0.5 m/s).
In prior Trudeau boats you could adjust for excess heel by shortening sail (Reefing). However, in real life the New York 30 is rather notorious for its ability to handle strong weather without a reef, so J. Trudeau removed that option in the SL version of the boat too. 🙂
Trim Tactics
So how do you handle strong winds in NY30?
You luff and spill wind!
The boat stalls when a strong gust causes it to heel sharply, so the best tactic is to keep an eye on the heel angle, and luff your sails to spill wind whenever the heel is excessive. If you spill wind, the boat will upright and you’ll get going again!
Here’s an example below with a strong 14 m/s wind. In the left image the sails are correctly trimmed, but the boat is heeling badly and stalled in the water (BS 0.2 m/s). In the right image, I’ve let out the sheet 20° and the sails are luffing. Despite that, the boat is righting itself and starting to accelerate back on course!
What’s the optimum balance between Luff and Trim? Well, you’ll have to figure that out yourself based on conditions, but I’m guessing the key thing is to watch that heel angle.
Hiking
Talking about heel is a great segue for the final topic here about hiking the NY30. As any sailor knows, hiking is the cure for a bad heel. 🙂
The skipper at the helm has limited hike options; they can sit on the Leeward or Windward side of the cockpit. Nonetheless, Skipper position has a big influence. In the example below,when sailing a beam reach with RWS 10, the best boat speed (5.3 m/s) occurs when the skipper sits windward and counterbalances the heel. When the skipper sits leeward the heel exacerbates and boat speed drops by more than a third.
The next graphic below shows the magnitude of the impact a skipper has on heel angle. With both sails down and no wind effect, a solo skipper can shift the boat angle by 2.6° in either direction. Since you can’t sail without a skipper :-), sitting on the correct side adds up to a 5.2° heel difference.
I guess 5.2° is important, but a solo skipper can only have a limited impact on boat heel when truly strong winds begin to blow.
Thankfully, the New York 30 is built for active crew that can help sail the boat. In addition to the skipper there three crew stations where each sailor can jump across six unique hiking positions to balance the boat. The graphic below shows a skipper and one crew going through all the positions; you can see the changes in the boat angle for each move.
P-0: Skipper port, no crew P-P3: Skipper port, crew at Port 3 P-P2: Skipper port, crew at Port 2 P-P1: Skipper port, crew at Port 1 P-S1: Skipper port, crew at Starb 1 P-S2: Skipper port, crew at Starb 2 P-S3: Skipper port, crew at Starb 3 S-S3: Skipper Starb, crew at Starb 3
The chart below shows the net heel affect of the skipper and one crew at each of the above positions. It turns out that the skipper affect is roughly twice as great as a crew member sitting in the cockpit, but the crew’s influence gets more substantial as they hike further out. Sitting on the rail (P3 or S3), a crew member influences heel as much as the skipper.
Given the fact this boat has three active hiking positions, a full crew could easily work together to keep NY30 balanced and on course, even under virtual Force Ten conditions.
Summary
In summary, I think Jacqueline Trudeau’s done it once again. She’s created a sailboat that brings to life the fun, excitement, and sheer beauty of Herreshoff’s 1905 New York 30.
A century ago New York Yacht Club commissioned the initial Thirty fleet as club boats, boats that friends could cruise together on, or sail off to battle for a few hours on a summer evening at a local race line…
For me the Trudeau NY30 embodies that same sense of tradition and friendly community. The cabin is large enough to accommodate a regatta party, with enough space and animations to let your friends sleep over when they miss the last launch ashore.
Under sail, the boat has ‘team’ in mind. It’s a great sailboat, with many wonderful Trudeau features, but the boat truly springs to life when you fill those three crew spots with friends, hand them sail gloves, and together cast off into a stiff breeze and choppy seas for a few hours of fun.
A few days ago I wrote about griefing attacks, and the damage they do to SL growth. I cited a few recent attacks, including one at Mowry Bay, by something called “VR6 KABOUL .”
Well last night Sansara was hit again. Chaos Mandelbrot discovered the attack while sailing a test-drive of the Tuesday Leeward Cruise route. As he landed on the Second Wind dock in Fudo, a snowstorm of colored circles, posters, and ‘zombies’ flooded over him, as shown in the pic above. Second Wind’s Francois Jacques immediately came to Chaos’ assistance, and Ranger Upshaw from the Second Life Coast Guard followed right behind.
Francois shut off scripts and object entry into the Fudo Sailing Center, but that didn’t solve the problem. The griefing flood came from outside the sim, and attack objects all stopped at the sim border. The picture above shows an impressive mountain of zombies piling up on the seafloor boundary just outside Fudo.
Ranger Upshaw then helped identify the location of the emitter source for the attack, and Francois recruited assistance from the Linden concierge to deal with it.
Within an hour the skies cleared again and the zombies (as well as all else) disappeared.
Hopefully Lindens can get to the root of this problem and prevent it, particularly since the poster logo for last night’s attack looked very similar to the Mowry Bay grief episode I discussed before.
Kudos to Uber Race Director Kentrock Messmer and Fisher Island/ Sailors Cove co-owners Parick Leavitt and Fanci Beebe for hosting the May 20 Poker Run event for Sail 4 Life. It was a super success!
Leeward Cruisers Join In
While I’m at it, let me also give a big shout-out to Kittensusie Lander; she coordinated the Leeward Club cruise that day, bringing a flotilla of friends all fit for fundraising!
Kitten arranged an ambitious itinerary that got everyone excited for the event to follow. Here’s the chart LCC sailed:
As you can see from the above map, the Leeward gang set out from from Crows Nest next to Fastnet Light in the middle of Blake Sea. Well over two dozen sailors showed up at the rez point by launch time. You can see them all tacking Northwest in the map image just after raising sail. (below)
Click to enlarge
The cruise fleet then ran a remarkably ambitious route that included an upwind-downwind sprint through the narrow channel in Nautilus City followed by a tour of the northern USS sims. That LCC Poseidon-pack then turned South into Sailors Cove where they cruised around a bit, finally making landfall at the FIYC clubhouse. They were just in time to begin the S4L Poker Run!
Poker Run
So what’s a Poker Run? Good question! I didn’t know either, although I admit Kentrock’s tried to explain it to me since way back in 2008. 🙂
Sunday’s Poker Run was adapted from a real-life club sailing game, where skippers sail to five different waypoints. At each stop they collect one playing card, until they finally have a poker hand. The sailor with the best hand wins! It sounds a bit complicated, but Kentrock had Quirky Torok and Chad Sawson along to help explain it all and keep the juices flowing. 🙂
You might also think this event would end when somebody came back with the best five-card hand… but you’d be wrong. After all, sailors are a pretty competitive lot, and S4L was just warming up. Under Sunday’s poker rules, if you didn’t like the first five cards you received, you could turn some in and buy up to three replacement cards.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the S4L cash register going “ga-ching!” as every single sailor jockeyed to upgrade their cards and buy a better chance to win. It reminded me of Mitt Romney trying to buy the US Presidency, but wow, S4L is a much better investment. 🙂
There were even more rules-twists to Sunday’s Poker. 🙂 There were an additional two wild-card Jokers you could buy to supplement your hand, and those Joker auctions proved pretty exciting! SL-sailors revealed their competitive spirit and showed how incredibly generous — and even rather wonderful — they all could be.
Well, at this point enter Amanda Bananza from Stage Left (I guess I mean from the Port Side 🙂 ).
Amanda Bananza bid fast and furious, winning the first Joker at auction for a high bid of $5,050. Woots! At one point the crowd enthusiasm was so intense that Amanda and Chad got confused, and Amanda ended up bidding against herself!
After the clamor died down, Master of Ceremonies Chad Sawson wisely called a thirty-minute break, so the rest of us sailors could go home and ask mommy for a loan so we could bid too… 🙂
As the clock ticked down for the second Joker auction, one way or another everyone came back. Here’s the transcript for the second-round wildcard bidding:
[2012/05/20 16:31] Chad Sawson: shouts: Ok, here we go! Minimum bid for last Joker is $1000L [2012/05/20 16:31] Chaos (chaos.mandelbrot): shouts: 1000 [2012/05/20 16:31] Chad Sawson: shouts: we have a bid! [2012/05/20 16:31] Rowan Aurbierre: 2000 [2012/05/20 16:31] Jane Fossett: no you can’t pick the facecards… I’m bidding on them! [2012/05/20 16:31] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 3000 [2012/05/20 16:31] Chad Sawson: shouts: Rowna 2 2000 [2012/05/20 16:31] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mathias @ 3k [2012/05/20 16:31] Aislin Keynes: shouts: 3500 [2012/05/20 16:31] Chad Sawson: shouts: Ais @ 3500 [2012/05/20 16:32] Rowan Aurbierre: 4000 [2012/05/20 16:32] Rowan Aurbierre: shouts: 4000 [2012/05/20 16:32] Jane Fossett: $4129 [2012/05/20 16:32] Chad Sawson: shouts: Rowan @ 4k [2012/05/20 16:32] Kentrock Messmer: shouts: The bid is 4000 [2012/05/20 16:32] Chad Sawson: shouts: jane @ 4129 [2012/05/20 16:32] Kentrock Messmer: shouts: now 4129 [2012/05/20 16:32] Chad Sawson: shouts: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:33] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mathias? [2012/05/20 16:33] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 4500 [2012/05/20 16:33] Chad Sawson: shouts: Bid is now 4129 to Jane [2012/05/20 16:33] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mat @ 4500 [2012/05/20 16:33] Jane Fossett: <–glares at Mathias [2012/05/20 16:33] Jane Fossett: 🙂 [2012/05/20 16:33] Chad Sawson: shouts: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:33] Aislin Keynes: haha [2012/05/20 16:33] Kentrock Messmer: LOL [2012/05/20 16:34] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mat @ 4500 three mins to go [2012/05/20 16:34] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 4600 [2012/05/20 16:34] Chad Sawson: shouts: Amanda @ 4600 [2012/05/20 16:34] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 5000 [2012/05/20 16:34] Chad Sawson: shouts: 2 minutes to go [2012/05/20 16:35] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mathias @ 5000 [2012/05/20 16:35] Chad Sawson: shouts: 5000 going once [2012/05/20 16:35] Chad Sawson: shouts: 5000 going twice [2012/05/20 16:35] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 5050 [2012/05/20 16:35] Jane Fossett: WOOOOOT!!!! [2012/05/20 16:35] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shout 5100 [2012/05/20 16:35] Chad Sawson: shouts: Amanda @ 5050 [2012/05/20 16:35] Jane Fossett: haha [2012/05/20 16:36] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mat @ 5100 [2012/05/20 16:36] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 5150 [2012/05/20 16:36] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 5500 [2012/05/20 16:36] Chad Sawson: shouts: 5150 to Amanda [2012/05/20 16:36] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mat at 5500 [2012/05/20 16:36] Chaos (chaos.mandelbrot): humms playing with the queen of hearts [2012/05/20 16:36] Jane Fossett: hahaha [2012/05/20 16:36] Chad Sawson: shouts: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:36] Chad Sawson: shouts: 5500 Going once [2012/05/20 16:37] Chad Sawson: shouts: 5500 Going twice [2012/05/20 16:37] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 6150 [2012/05/20 16:37] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6150 to Amanda [2012/05/20 16:37] Kentrock Messmer: Yeee Haww [2012/05/20 16:37] Jane Fossett: gasp [2012/05/20 16:37] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 6500 [2012/05/20 16:37] Chaos (chaos.mandelbrot): omg she has 2 aces [2012/05/20 16:37] Chaos (chaos.mandelbrot): 2 jokers I mean [2012/05/20 16:37] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mat @ 6500 [2012/05/20 16:37] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6500 going once [2012/05/20 16:38] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6500 going twice [2012/05/20 16:38] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 6600 [2012/05/20 16:38] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 6800 [2012/05/20 16:38] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6600 to Amanda! Dang! Im sweatin over here [2012/05/20 16:38] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): rofl [2012/05/20 16:38] Chad Sawson: shouts: Mathias @ 6600 [2012/05/20 16:38] kittensusie Landar: we’re all freakin sweating 😀 [2012/05/20 16:38] Chad Sawson: shouts: all to a good cause [2012/05/20 16:38] Jane Fossett: sweat costs more! [2012/05/20 16:38] Chad Sawson: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:39] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6600 going once [2012/05/20 16:39] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6600 going twice [2012/05/20 16:39] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 6650 [2012/05/20 16:39] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 6800 [2012/05/20 16:39] kittensusie Landar: 6800 surely? [2012/05/20 16:39] Chaos (chaos.mandelbrot): was that a bid kitten? [2012/05/20 16:39] Chad Sawson: shouts: Now 6800 to Mat [2012/05/20 16:39] kittensusie Landar: shouts: NOOOOO [2012/05/20 16:39] Jane Fossett: don’t call her Shirley [2012/05/20 16:39] Chad Sawson: shouts: y’all are makin me type too much [2012/05/20 16:39] kittensusie Landar: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:39] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): haha… kitten is my financier [2012/05/20 16:39] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): lol [2012/05/20 16:39] Rowan Aurbierre: lol [2012/05/20 16:40] Aislin Keynes: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6800 going 1 [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6800 going 2 [2012/05/20 16:40] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): kitten is my gardian angel [2012/05/20 16:40] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 6810 [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: SOLD! [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6810 to amanda [2012/05/20 16:40] Jane Fossett: WOOOOOT!!!! [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: unsold [2012/05/20 16:40] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): man… cheap shot… [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: she got it in [2012/05/20 16:40] Jane Fossett: cough cough [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: hahahaha [2012/05/20 16:40] -Q- (quirky.torok): jeeeze i got to get to bed soon [2012/05/20 16:40] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6810 once [2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6810 twice [2012/05/20 16:41] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): shouts: 6900 [2012/05/20 16:41] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): i meant to hit it earlier but my glasses fell off
[2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: dang! this is fun! [2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: 6900 to mat [2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: once [2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: twice [2012/05/20 16:41] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): 8000 [2012/05/20 16:41] Chad Sawson: shouts: OMG! [2012/05/20 16:41] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): better… lol [2012/05/20 16:41] Mathias (mattaio.rossini): all hers [2012/05/20 16:41] Jane Fossett: inflation! [2012/05/20 16:41] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): goddess [2012/05/20 16:41] Kentrock Messmer: Holy Cows [2012/05/20 16:41] -Q- (quirky.torok): i think she wants this BAD [2012/05/20 16:42] Chad Sawson: shouts: Sold to Amanda @ 8000 L$ [2012/05/20 16:42] Chad Sawson: wonderful! [2012/05/20 16:42] Aislin Keynes: I think so too Q [2012/05/20 16:42] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): XC [2012/05/20 16:42] kittensusie Landar: WHOOOOOTTT!!! [2012/05/20 16:42] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): ~*~ OMG ~*~ [2012/05/20 16:42] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): ~*~ FAINTS ~*~ [2012/05/20 16:42] Chad Sawson: shouts: Thanks Amanda and mathias! [2012/05/20 16:42] Jane Fossett: haha [2012/05/20 16:42] Kentrock Messmer: shouts: YAY [2012/05/20 16:42] Rowan Aurbierre: so much for the tier this month huh Amanda? [2012/05/20 16:42] Aislin Keynes: LOL [2012/05/20 16:42] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): again [2012/05/20 16:42] Chad Sawson: shouts: thjis was great and helps a great cause! [2012/05/20 16:42] Amanda Bananza (amandabananza): umm wait til I tell Gordon, rofl [2012/05/20 16:42] Rowan Aurbierre: AMANDA will meet you at the kiosk [2012/05/20 16:42] Chad Sawson: shouts: Amanda get the Chad Joker #2 [2012/05/20 16:42] kittensusie Landar: Amanda, about that loan you asked for, i’ve got bad news……..
*********
OMG, Amanda held her course and bought both wildcards, ensuring she’d win the whole poker event! Wow! And mega-kudos also go to Mattaio Rossini, who went bid-for-bid with Amanda over both auctions, building the total for the final donation. Nice work you two!
Although I don’t have any fundraising totals (you’ll have to ask Kentrock or Fanci for that), I’m quite sure the Poker Run went way over expectations, and that Amanda’s generosity was reflected and shared by the spirit of the entire sailing community.
Bottom line, Sunday’s LCC cruise and Poker Run were a colossal hit. They were great fun,bringing sailors and residents together in a common cause. Did I mention it raised a boatload of $Lindens for cancer research? 🙂
Not a bad day on the water in Second Life, I think. 🙂
Two months ago the Mowry Bay region was hit by a griefer attack. It was not alone; several other popular spots were also inundated by a flood of flying posters that announced:
“BAD LAB OPEN CARTEL VR6 KABOUL”
On behalf of SL Sailors, let me offer Kudos to the SL Coast Guard for their response. They stayed on top of the griefing problem everywhere it impacted open waterways. That wasn’t so easy: the attack lasted several hours, and it took considerable Linden support to suppress the multicentric mayhem that ensued.
VR6 KABOUL seems to be the source of this terrorist sim-spam shutdown. I don’t know who VR6 is, but its notable that Emilly Orr posted similar pics of a griefer attack in the Neko-Zone. Her logos were somewhat different, but they were all labeled VR6 KABOUL. The spammed textures in Mowry kept changing design in a similar fashion to Emilly’s griefer, too.
I’m guessing VR6 is the latest in a series of grid-wide terrorist groups, whatever that means.
Sixty Second Global-Griefer History
Griefing has a long, multifaceted history in Second Life.
Way back in December 2006, CNET sponsored a conference honoring Anshe Chung, SL’s first inworld-enterprise millionaire. It was a pretty significant milestone; it revealed SL had a future and showed SL was more than a fun web platform. SL was actually a capitalist tool (I use that phrase with all kindness); it deserved our respect and admiration. 🙂
The CNET 2006 extravaganza celebrated SL’s “Coming of Age.” People could live and work in SL, and some could do quite nicely at it!
However, the story didn’t stop there. SL was still a diverse, creative, and unruly community, and so I guess its no surprise SL users were unready to accept a uniform code of creativity and marketing progress. Many were still stretching their wings… many still finding the limits of possibility in such a novel, virtual environment.
key: FP=Flying Penis
Anyway, that’s sort of my understanding, and it explains what happened next. The stage for the CNET event was deluged by a Flood of Flying Penises. (Cough)
I guess it’s no surprise that happened, given the enthusiasm and creativity of SL residents. Lindens were certainly at blame also, since the communication between individuals and community groups had fallen to serious, dysfunctional levels.
What might have seemed silly turned somewhat- semi- super- serious several months later, when Chessmaster Vladimir Karpov held an important press conference to advocate for political rights in the nascent Russian democracy. His real-life event was — incredulously — grief-attacked by a platoon of penises in flying formation. (OK, I apologize. That comment was inappropriate; I mixed military metaphors.)
Anyone online at the time was left gasping in wonderment. After all, what was real, what was Web?
Which was Worth keeping?
I admit that some of the comments attributed to the SL Room 101 griefers at the time of the CNET attack were among the funniest, most intelligent commentary on SL from that era. I won’t give you the links because I’m not sure which ones are truly legit, but I’m sure you can easily find them posted and reposted from back then.
I’m writing this short article because I now think things are different. SL has moved on, and griefing is neither humorous nor productive. It’s simply no joke, and it halts the trust need to allow solid, creative users to invest in Second Life.
I think many old icons of Second Life would probably agree with my sentiment here. Griefing was once a common part of a growing-up process in SL… but now it’s time to genuinely grow, and make sure griefing stops. Permanently.
But that’s just my view.
In May 2008, Blue Linden gave the word, and a shiny-new community called Bay City arose from the primordial Pink Slime on the West Coast of Sansara. Actually, I think the Moles had a lot to do with it… 🙂
With the exuberance and innocence of true pioneers, the residents of that new land took up the task and constructed one of the most enduring and creative community partnerships in all Second Life.
This Sunday is their birthday, and everyone’s invited to come celebrate–
Bay City’s Fourth Anniversary!
Marianne McCann sent me the details:
Join us in a parade on Sunday, 20th May, starting from the bandshell in Bay City – Harwich and travelling down Route 66 and Park Place to the Bay City Fairgrounds at North Channel!
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When: Sunday, May 20th at 12:00 p.m. (Noon) SLT Where: Meet at the bandshell in Bay City – Harwich, with additional room in Bay City – Dennis, Bay City – Tisbury, and Bay City – Edgartown. The parade will begin promptly at 12:30 pm. SLT. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bay%20City%20-%20Harwich/11/11/22
Parade end: The Parade concludes in North Channel — but hang around for fun and festivities at the Bay City Fairgrounds!
Live music will be starting at 1:30 p.m. SLT for the Fourth Anniversary Music Extravaganza!
Performing will be Bay City’s own GOSPEED RACER of KONA STREAM from 12:30-1:30 p.m. SLT, followed by Local kid CHRISTOV KOHNKE from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., BLUEMONK RAU from 2:30-3:30 p.m. SLT, and finally ROSEDROP RUST from 3:30-4:30 p.m. SLT.
5 Card Stud
Enter the game at FIYC Club House
(Your largest affordable donation)
Collect 5 cards at the stops in any order.
Get back to the Club to draw up to 3 more cards
(Donation per card)
The Joker auction at the party
The joker card is whatever card you would like it to be.
(Every deck has a couple of jokers; bring your check book…hehehe)
Stops
Please use the lowest prim craft you can to reduce lag
Collect your cards at the stops in any order.
Many reading this (well okay, the two or three people reading this) probably already know Motor Loon. He’s an SL designer/builder with a reputation for building wonderful custom motorcycles and cars. All his vehicles show a signature attention to detail, historical legacy, and style.
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If you’re tired walking on SL roads and you miss that old carbon monoxide fix, you should stop by an MLCC show room and test drive one of Motor’s gas-guzzling works of art!
This blog is supposed to be about sailing of course, and I mention these rubber-wheeled wonders only to emphasize that Motor Loon is a graybeard SL designer; he knows his way around a prim or two.
That’s what I took a second look this week at a popular new boat that just hit the water and is generating a lot of smiles in the cruising crowd. it’s theOceanic Mk 1, and it’s the first production sailboat designed and marketed by Motor Loon.
The Boat
Oceanic is a sizable (74ft), cruiser that sports a modern design and a sloop rig powered by a BWind 2.x engine. Although there are few similarities, please don’t confuse this boat with the Oceanis schooners. Just to mention one major difference between the boats, the Loon Oceanic somehow fits into a 32 prim sailing package, while the Oceanis fully rezzed takes up over 500 prim!
Despite it’s very small prim-footprint, the Oceanic is well adorned with nautical details that should make any salty SL skipper smile.
Of course it has an expansive cockpit that can hold all your crew. Beyond that however, the skipper’s station is a delight, with a single large wheel that controls the helm and a central binnacle that supports multiple display screens. The skipper animation stands vigilant behind that helm, turning the wheel in synchrony with the user’s key clicks.
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But before we talk about Skipper controls, let’s get back to Oceanic’s layout and appearance. As I said, it’s only 32 prim, and the boat is no-mod; that will limit your ability to personalize the vessel.
To mitigate that issue, Loon’s included a handful of alternate hull style textures. That way a user can change the boat’s appearance to their fancy with a single click. 🙂
Did I mention Oceanic was built with a host of remarkable details any cruiser will recognize? Well, it is! There’s a full engine compartment below the helm station for example, but that’s not all…
This boat comes with a large, fully-equipped cabin too. It has ample headroom, and the options should meet any cruiser’s expectations on a long, grid-wide passage.
There are a few things rather novel and remarkable about the living space aboard this boat. First on the list is the fact the cabin is an integral part of the sailing vessel; it’s not an add-on, and it doesn’t rez only when you’re moored. In fact, the picture above is tilted because the boat was under full sail while I was taking a break down below!
That brings up my second point: Although the boat was sailing, there is no water in the cabin. You can truly have people below deck while underway without drowning. In my experience that is rather uncommon in SL. 🙂
One more issue on this topic: The Oceanic allows a skipper to actively jump to any of a large variety of different pose positions. for example, when I took the above picture, I was actually still managing the boat’s helm and sheeting the sails.
The same is true for the picture on the right.
Have you ever been in a long race in SL and needed to go to the bathroom? 🙂 If you’ve ever been in that precarious situation, you’ll appreciate this boat. It includes a menu that lets you switch positions without losing control. It’s a simple idea, but a pretty great one!
Bump tests
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There’s often a mismatch in SL between the visible boat you can see and the underlying shape of the sculpted prims that make it up. This can result in inadvertent collisions, groundings, and accidental race line errors.
I did a set of standard “bump tests” on the Oceanic to check this out, mostly by ramming it into various objects. 🙂 The Oceanic came out pretty well. The boat hits the dock as it should, colliding with the very tip of the bow. The sides of the hull also line up well with the ‘collision zone,’ evidence of some rather nifty workmanship.
There are only two unusual ‘bump’ results worth commenting on, though neither one is a ‘problem.’ First: The boat’s huge spinnaker is phantom. That’s actually a benefit, since it means you needn’t worry about collisions when you have the parachute up. (That might sound like a joke, but the alpha isn’t adjustable on Oceanic’s sails, so on a dead run with the wrong camera angle you can end up flying blind!)
The second observation is keel depth. Although the under surface of this boat is very nicely detailed and even includes a collapsing propeller, it turns out that most of it is phantom while underway. I tried hitting a series of submerged barriers while sailing Oceanic, and it looks like the boat only draws 1 meter. Although it’s a big boat, that means with some guts an intrepid crew can sail this boat through some very shallow passages. 🙂
Click me
Build Details
Oceanic is full of small details that show the skill and devotion boatwright Loon put into this project. For example, there are three different winch sounds that engage when you start cranking to adjust sail angle. And when you drop anchor, you hear the windlass go off and the chain run out. Wow, there’s even a Danforth at the end of that chain! 🙂
I tried to trick the boat by dropping anchor and then raising sail to get underway, seeing if it would drag the anchor. Well, Oceanic was too smart for that. It first paused for a moment to raise the anchor, then it cranked halyards to get the sails up!
I think this boat is very nicely constructed, given the narrow limits for a sail vessel in SL. However, I think its also fair to comment that many fine details fall short of the nautical finesse seen on boats by other legendary yacht builders like Jacqueline Trudeau, Balduin Aabaye, and RJ Kikuchiyo (Did I mention Nate Herreshoff?) Go compare the stanchions, cleats, stays and section joints; you’ll see my point.
This is a minor complaint, however. Remember, this is Loon’s first sailcraft project, and it’s a pretty grand effort. The other trio I just mentioned have been building boats since the Pleistocene era, so they know their stuff… but Motor Loon’s Oceanic is catching up fast. 🙂
(Oh; did I mention Oceanic comes with deployable bumpers, moving doors to the cabin and engine compartment, and even that collapsible prop?)
Performance
The wind engine is ultimately the soul and brains of any boat. In that regard, Loon made a wise choice by installing a BWind 2.x at the heart of Oceanic. The BWind engine is simple and rock-stable; it’s also highly intuitive and very easy for a new skipper to learn.
Let me add a Racer Alert here, though. Oceanic does not include an option to use the standard SL race windsetter. You will be able to ID your boat, but if you want to compete you’ll need to bring your own wind using the boat’s BWind. 🙂
With that caveat, let me add that Oceanic uses a simple version of the BWind head’s-up display to give the crew feedback about real wind direction and intensity as well as boat speed.
When the sails are too lax, they visibly luff and give an audible sail flap. It’s pretty easy for a skipper to then tune the sails with the use of up and down arrow keys. As the sails adjust, there’s an audible winch-grinding noise and a final ‘pop’ when the sheet angle is optimal. The display turns green when you get that angle right, so there’s plenty of feedback to help a new sailor take confident control of the boat.
Skipper and crew
A single skipper is in charge of all Oceanic’s sailing functions, but the boat has lots of space and pose positions so friends can always come along for the ride. Motor Loon’s also included a rather unique sharing system. Once the owner is aboard the boat, the owner can hand over skipper responsibilities to another member of the crew. In fact, that person can keep sailing even when the owner falls overboard!
This is a pretty nice option that makes sailing Oceanic a more cooperative experience than other BWind boats.
Sailplan
For upwind sailing, the Oceanic has a fractional rig with a mainsail and a single, standard jib. both sails are controlled together by keyboard or chat commands. There’s an option to change the communication channel to something more personal as well.
If you look at the forestay, you’ll see there’s a second furler installed for a genoa jib. It’s not yet active in the Mk 1 version of Oceanic, but it shows that Motor Loon’s thinking ahead!
Speaking of more sails, the Oceanic also comes with a rather huge spinnaker that can be optionally deployed to add an extra boost when sailing downwind. It works on all points of sail from a beam reach to a dead run, and generates rather explosive acceleration (see the chart below).
A spinnaker can be a pain to tend to when RL sailing, but it’s a real breeze using it on Oceanic! Once you’ve got that parachute out, it automatically adjusts to your wind heading without any bother. And when you turn upwind again, the spinnaker discreetly douses itself and disappears… until you call it back in service again.
The numbers
Here’s a simple chart that displays speed over ground (boat speed) as a function of real wind angle using the boat’s default wind speed of 15 kt.
The boat ends up in irons when it tries to head closer than 30° windward. As it falls off the wind however, the boat comes to life and hits the maximum boat speed at a RWA of approximately 50°. The performance curve then goes essentially flat for all angles out to around 150°. There’s then a slight loss of power as the boat lies on a dead run with the wind at its back.
With just the jib and main up, a skipper can expect this boat to do roughly 53% of Real Wind Speed at nearly all points of sail. If that skipper then pops up the spinnaker, there’s a truly impressive downwind boost that should guarantee a boat speed around 72% of RWS.
The Oceanic performance curve is very forgiving, and might be a little boring for true, salt-stained SL racers out there. However, that’s really not the target audience for this initial Loon release. Oceanic Mk 1 is designed as a high-end cruiser, and it fits that bill quite nicely. Oceanic will accommodate all your friends and keep you all safely afloat as you explore the winding waterways of Second Life.
Bottom Line
I think the Bottom Line is: Don’t listen to Jane. Go find out yourself!
I’m writing this article because Motor Loon has a fully working, FREE DEMO of the boat available on SL Marketplace. That Demo doesn’t expire, and it has no limit to features. So, go give it a test drive, or maybe bring it along with you to the next Leeward Cruise in SL!
Then you can go write your own review of this vessel, and ask Motor Loon how much it will cost to get that word “Demo” taken off your Oceanic. 🙂
It was a pretty significant milestone; it revealed SL had a future and showed SL was more than a fun web platform. SL was actually a capitalist tool (I use that phrase with all kindness); it deserved our respect and admiration. 🙂
Metaverse Sailing 