Category «Reflections»

refugee boat design?

Here’s an image from a guardian post showing boats used by refugees to cross the channel from france to england: Most boats are inflatable mono hulls. AFAIK, the safest* boat design is actually a multi-hull, like the handful of catamarans in the picture. Hard to fail thinking that perhaps making safe DIY boats could be …

Mono-hull european ancestors

I have been checking things to do with Mono and Multi hull boat structures for a while. The initial curiosity came from noticing somewhere on the web that Multihull boats, like catamaran, are actually less likely to capsize as mono-hull boats. This information came curious because I noticed that many refugee boats are actually, one …

a little red button

I am learning. so when possible, i go in the sea. To go in and out of the marina, using an engine is mandatory – unless the engine breaks. Theoretically, if the wind blows in the right direction and speed, in case the engine breaks, I should be able to not just sail into the …

human rights in chinese with Xi’s human rights book

As an aside to the post about navigation language. A post riddled with personal feeling based speculations. Perhaps have a look at the following video about how china’s current president Xi attempts to take the language of human rights and make it both his own version of china* and universal. A universality that comes from …

marine language and the european oriented universality

I keep finding that boating life and it’s language, exposes certain european oriented mentalities that can come as examples of european traditionalism rather than modernity that questions accepted ways and can offer a hopeful future that can be for all humans. Perhaps for a hopeful future we also require a hopeless present that’s fueled by …

boat frustrations

I suspect “boat frustrations” could become a bit of a feature here.. Let’s begin from an arbitrary start. I got this particular boat for a few reasons, one was that it seemed to require much less work than other options. It’s hard to tell how the other options would have turned out.. However, some things …

Sailing and steering technology

It turns out that in terms of steering technologies, advanced electric oriented technologies – ones used for marine Autopilots – are actually inferior to mechanical oriented navigation technologies. I am told that using Windvane for steering the boat without me having to bother about it, is generally more reliable than autopilot. Here are a few …

cybernetics and navigation

This project has been a bit of a learning for me. One of the things to learn is how to sail the boat. I know how to windsurf, sail a dingy, but sailing a 10 meter boat isn’t the same. Driving a car doesn’t mean driving a truck will come easy. Also, to make things …