BalticBandit

I got spoiled by Seattle's weather resources.  I got very used to looking at Univ. of Washington's excellent Atmospheric Sciences website and forecasts.

Since I've been in France, I've basically only found one site with satellite images,  and no real meaningful forecasts (just the general public "sunny" "partly cloudy" and "hour by hour"....

Can anyone point me to better weather resources for europe?

I've been tracking this stuff for a while and CNC at home with things like dremels is pretty cool and quite affordable

http://www.lirtex.co...iy-cnc-machine/

 

And with cheap design software like Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks Pro and Nanocad ,   you can have custom designed and milled fittings for dirt cheap

So the FP article on Pip Hare taking 1st in the Mini Fastnet with a Series boat is pretty interesting.  And I believe the DSS foiled Mini is also aiming for the 2013 start.  So I'm curious if anyone has a "Form Book" on who the faves are for this new course.  Any rumours about new designs besides the DSS?  its not that far out..

OK so mixed in with the recriminations thread have been some ideas for improve rescue and safety.  I'd like to see a thread focused purely on this.  Ones that have been mentioned so far

• Customize rebreathers that have more than 10 gulps of air in them

• Crash cages for the crew

• Allowing articulation of the foils for better control

• Spoilers on the wings for reduced power in the bearaway

• Others?

 

I'd like to add another,  An auditory "epirb".  Essentially an underwater "peep" similar to the kind that skiers use in avalanche terrain.   When immersed for more than say 10 seconds - it begins to emit a unique identifying ping.  Each crew member has a unique ID code and the frequency of them is designed so that it works well for direction finding with a appropriately designed sensor.

 

This allows a rescue diver to locate anyone in the water much more quickly.  The device would have a "Press and hold for 3 seconds"  button on it allowing deactivation.  That way as you swim safely away from the wreck, you deactivate your pinger to make search easier. 

 

Others?

http://forums.sailin...howtopic=145334

Interesting thread on Carbon Fiber production.  Potentially signaling a short term increase in CF cloth prices - but in the long term a dramatic drop.  

The really interesting part to me, particularly as it pertains to dinghy production, is the work being done to push the time in the mold down to 5 minutes.   Imagine having the techniques and tooling for laying up a hull from clean mold to production shell of even 1/2hr  much less 5 minutes.

Think what that would do to the cost of carbon dinghy hulls since labor is such a large component of that cost.