rolandblais

I forgot all about the LRM. Heh, thanks for the laugh - now I have to go annoy my kids with it all over again... I wonder if anyone remembers the LRM *screensaver* I made way back in the day? ;-) Peace, Roland

Yeah, I had a similar curve in mine, and here's my crappy pic of that: I held the hatch cover in place with pieces of ply. It works ok: Peace, Roland

Howdy. There's a couple of builders in CO: http://stevproj.com/Co.html and in CA: http://stevproj.com/Ca.html And if you're ever in the Northern Nevada area, feel free to drop by. Peace, Roland

Hello. I don't post much anymore, but I do recall your project from its incept. All I can say is keep on keeping on, and ignore the detractors. Your boat is definitely unique, and I know I'm not alone in being intrigued with its progess. Boise is less than 400 miles from my home port, and I've been known to drive similar distances to sail with other enthusiasts. ;-) Please keep us posted with your updates, and I look forward to your launch. Peace, Roland

Hola. FWIW I have a minnkota endura 50# (or was it 55?) running on 12 volts and am very happy with it. I've sailed on a couple of smaller lakes in dead calm and quite gusty, and it performed just fine. Peace, Roland

Hola. FWIW I found the Lowe's bench... It was kind of a pain to finally get where I needed to... but here it is: And here's the link Good luck with whatever you decide! Peace, R

Apologies if this has been posted. I did a cursory search, and didn't find anything, so I thought you might get a kick out of it... No plain sailing for would-be mariner and his car A man tried to sail an improvised boat, made out of a Citroen car mounted on wooden barrels for floats, into the Mediterranean Sea Saturday night, but was found and taken to shore by the police unharmed. Peace, Roland

Hello. I use putfiles.com for videos < 10MB, and archive.org for > 10MB. Putfiles is instant, and requires no registration. Archive.org may take a day or two, and requires a (free) account, but you get cool thumbnails automatically created for you, like this: Peace, Roland PS: hmmm... archive.org seemed a bit slow just now... dunno if it's my network or their issue. fair warning.

First video (I think) on that page. Cojones of steel..... Peace, Roland

This was posted to a yahoo group for Welsford designs. Pretty cool stuff. <http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g%2Do/nmlbs/video.html> Still photos here: <http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g%2Do/nmlbs/photo.html> Peace, Roland

Phil Gowan's boat, Aloha, has a cleat mounted on the rudderbox that can "give way" when too much pressure on the rudder. It's used in place of the regular open cleat as spec'd in the plans. I looked on Phil's site but couldn't find it. I think, though, it looks like this: found here. Peace, Roland

Don't have 'em. Maybe for a winter project this year... Peace, Roland

Sure. Use http://media.putfile.com/Lake_Lahontan_09_09_05_small43 (3mb version) and http://ia300141.us.archive.org/3/items/Lake_Lahontan_09_09_05 (20mb) Peace, and thanks Roland

Well, yes, I do. ;-) What I did is use my own website to store small and large versions of my "movie", and distribute those links. At the same time, I submitted the small one to putfile.com (free public video hosting, with a 10mb limit - upload is immeadiate), and the large one to archive.org, no limit, but it must be "reviewed". And, I think large videos are automajically offered in smaller versions as well. Another cool thing is the automajic animated gif that gets created from scenes from the video. Once the video was "officially" on archive.org, a went back and changed the links to move them away from my server ( so bandwidth doesn't get charged against me). Still waiting for Affleck to send a check, without it I (and my cameras) won't be there... Peace, Roland PS: one thing that's been very helpful, is to have a topping lift to support the boom when the sail isn't up, or when dropping sail when you've had enough of the gusts and want to motor home. I just ran a line from from an eyebolt on the aft end of my boom up to a block at the top of the mast, then down to a cleat at the base of the mast, which I'll be relocating further back this winter.

Yes, CVS the drugstore. Normally, after you've taken your 25 min of video, you give it back and then they put your movies on DVD. A clever bunch of fellows figured out how to retrieve the video from the camera, and enable it's reuse. I soldered a usb A receptacle onto the camera's interface, rewired a usb cable, and installed some software and drivers. There you have it. I haven't quite finished my page detailing what I've done, but there's plenty of info on the net. some links: CameraHacking.Com Make Magazine Great magazine, btw. HackaDay.Com Peace, Roland

Hello. For the curious, I made a short video of my sail on Lake Lahontan yesterday. I used a CVS disposable video camera so the quality isn't the best, and since I was boat captain and camera operator, and the wind was a bit more than I'm used to, I didn't shoot very much. It's about 1 ,min 30 sec's. The 3MB version is here and the 20MB version is here. Enjoy. Peace, Roland

Skype works from Skype client <-> Skype client for "internet calls". Software must be running on both ends. It works like instant messaging, but for voice... For calling a regular phone, you only need Skype running on the originating PC - if you're calling a regular phone, there's no need (and no way, anyway) for a client to be running on the recieving end. Then it's like .10-.16 cents /minute. As I said before I haven't really used it too much (just some pc<->pc stuff) but I listen to many podcasts, and most use skype as a way to conduct interviews (saves on LD charges), and the quality seems reasonable. Peace, Roland

There's a free program called skype that uses your internet connection to other skype users for free, and regular phones are 10 cent a minute(?) I haven't used it myself, but I guess it's pretty competitive... There's other Voice over IP programs out there, too. Peace, Roland

According to this thread There was some personal and server issues with the Stevenson's and the website, but according to Mike Stevenson all should be better now. You could also try phoning them: (831) 626-6088 (831) 626-6089 fax Or maybe even a PM to Mike through The Other forum or This forum. Peace, Roland

Rudder-->Starboard block-->2 wraps 'round steering shaft, then through steering shaft, then tied, then 2 more wraps-->Port block-->Rudder. Seems to work just fine, but I've only had her in moderate winds so far. Peace, Roland

Nice, very nice! Peace, Roland

Stole 'em from my kayak.

Ok, my sailing buddy finally emailed me some pictures. Here's the proof it floats... (images are clickable) I wonder what happens if I pull that string??? She's ready, I'm ready,lets see if she floats! Pulling away from the dock. Now, a couple of notes: I know I'm sitting on the leeward side. It was my first time with the trolling motor & my right hand doesn't work so well. I know the fenders were in the water. With time comes finesse. :wink: The mast is going to be raised about 8 inches and the boom lowered about 6. That should take care of the baggyness at the foot. "See, I told you it'd float!" Peace, Roland

Well, after lessons learned and bugs found from sail #1, I spent the nights after work trying to fix the steering. Some really good suggestions were posted by members here and on the other board, and what I finnal ended up doing is doing 3 turns before the though-hole, tying the rope to itself after going through the shaft, and putting 3 more turns after the through hole. Tightened it all up, and it works well. With the steering fixed and trolling motor ok (thank goodness for that), we set out on Lake Lahontan again this afternoon. This time it was myself and my two daughters. Things that went right: Everything! We spend about an hour and a half sailing around. The winds were very light, but we did reach 2 mph (1.73 nautical mph). I remembered my gps this time. Things that went wrong: Nothing, really. We all had a great time, but again, I forgot the camera. This nice jet skier used his girlfriend's camera to take a pic of us at the doc. Hopefully he'll email them to me sooner than the guy who helped me last week :wink: (still haven't gotten them yet) I did learn to make sure and pull up to the windward side of the dock (I didn't do that this time :shock: ) and the stern swung way out as I was trying to manuever her onto the trailer (yeah, I still had the sails up, but they were loose), but the jet ski guy jumped into the water and helped me load her up. All in all a great day. Peace, Roland