Laying back on the couch, letting myself be hypnotized by the roiling billowing clouds of smoke at Drew's sugar house.
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Being There
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” Henry David Thoreau
This is what it is all about: going there and being. Someone tipped me off to this blog by a young family cruising the Bahamas in a boat much like Haiku.
http://blog.mailasail.com/seafever
Our lives become so busy, filled with so many essential and critical deadlines, that sometimes it is hard to image how to live life doing something as basic as waking up, eating, playing, sleeping. How can a simple life be fulfilling?
I have learned that when I am able to put aside the societal expectations to live in contact with my environment, that I become engrossed in something deeply satisfying: living. I become aware that although I am just a very small part, I am indeed a part of all that I have met.
Stay tuned: soon I hope to post pictures of my footprints in the sand.
This is what it is all about: going there and being. Someone tipped me off to this blog by a young family cruising the Bahamas in a boat much like Haiku.
http://blog.mailasail.com/seafever
Our lives become so busy, filled with so many essential and critical deadlines, that sometimes it is hard to image how to live life doing something as basic as waking up, eating, playing, sleeping. How can a simple life be fulfilling?
I have learned that when I am able to put aside the societal expectations to live in contact with my environment, that I become engrossed in something deeply satisfying: living. I become aware that although I am just a very small part, I am indeed a part of all that I have met.
Stay tuned: soon I hope to post pictures of my footprints in the sand.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
There’s lots of maths in a boat.
Specs for the Haiku by Iain Oughtred:
LOA: 9.15 m - 30' 0" Beam: 2.36 m - 7' 8" Draft: 0.40 m - 1' 3" Sail Area: 31.32 sq m - 337.00 sqf Weight: 1590.90 kg - 3500 lbs Displacement: 772.73 kg - 1700 lbs
People build boats by eye and experience all the time. One day, I might. But right now I follow the plans. That means I take a series of measurements and turn them into 3-D shapes. This is when I wish I was metric. But I do love how my brain feels after struggling with turning numbers into a spatial reality. And there are some interesting things to learn. For example, the numbers above mean the boat will only go 7.34 knots (or more than 8 miles an hour!)
The formula:
v = 1.34 x √LWL
where:
"LWL" is the length of the waterline in feet, and"v" is the speed of the vessel in knots (1kn=1.15mph)
I don’t understand the formula well enough to explain it, but I think it says a boat creates a hole in the water that it cannot climb out of. But it can push it forward at a speed that is defined by the length of the boat, or the distance between between the bow wave and the stern wave.
Other interestingly named numbers that affect speed are prismatic coefficient (explains how sharp-ended a boat is, knife versus brick going through the water) and wetted surface (how much of the hull’s surface comes in contact with the water creating drag.)
When I try to wrap my head around this stuff, I can’t think of anything else. And that is a good thing, at times.
LOA: 9.15 m - 30' 0" Beam: 2.36 m - 7' 8" Draft: 0.40 m - 1' 3" Sail Area: 31.32 sq m - 337.00 sqf Weight: 1590.90 kg - 3500 lbs Displacement: 772.73 kg - 1700 lbs
People build boats by eye and experience all the time. One day, I might. But right now I follow the plans. That means I take a series of measurements and turn them into 3-D shapes. This is when I wish I was metric. But I do love how my brain feels after struggling with turning numbers into a spatial reality. And there are some interesting things to learn. For example, the numbers above mean the boat will only go 7.34 knots (or more than 8 miles an hour!)
The formula:
v = 1.34 x √LWL
where:
"LWL" is the length of the waterline in feet, and"v" is the speed of the vessel in knots (1kn=1.15mph)
I don’t understand the formula well enough to explain it, but I think it says a boat creates a hole in the water that it cannot climb out of. But it can push it forward at a speed that is defined by the length of the boat, or the distance between between the bow wave and the stern wave.
Other interestingly named numbers that affect speed are prismatic coefficient (explains how sharp-ended a boat is, knife versus brick going through the water) and wetted surface (how much of the hull’s surface comes in contact with the water creating drag.)
When I try to wrap my head around this stuff, I can’t think of anything else. And that is a good thing, at times.
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