aardvarkash10

Apropos the discussion about hoving to, drogues and chutes etc, I picked up a cheap sea anchor for a play. I very much doubt that we will ever need it since we are mostly in the gulf. But it's an interesting exercise. The sea anchor in question is a cheap PVC item probably intended for drift fishing. It's a 90cm diameter cone with a 15cm outlet. Now the math. This thread gives me a formula to work out the drag of the anchor. It looks reasonable and I couldn't find a different formula. This page gives several formulas for calculating the force from wind on a ship's h

4-year anniversary of taking ownership today. No regrets. VID_20230206_171257.mp4

Confused in lieu of a sad face... Good thing the yard is reasonably empty at the moment.

Yes, forming a defensible legal opinion to support the conviction (or not) of a person involved (or not) in the wrongful (or not) death of 5 individuals should be a rushed thing. Speed is of the essence. There shouldn't be any need to refer to precedence or consider the wider circumstances as set out in the Sentencing Act. No need to wade back through the volumes of evidence, cross referencing and untangling the various lines of the submissions from prosecution and defence. Really that stuff is just so much toilet paper. As for the endless writing and rewriting of the findings - th

Wind rising through the day to 45 gusting 55 to 60kt this evening (Auckland)

Back to the future

Serious question; how does this happen in a time of precision GPS and boat/course management systems?

Taken a couple of years ago. The Boatshed, Pardey's jetty, Kawau.

Today I replaced the manky mooring lines. Went mental and used 16mm. Thimbles one end, eye splice the other. Very chi-chi. Now I smell like duck sh*t and I have cramp in my fingers.

Like a tanker off the Aussie coast?

The admiral at the helm. Her nickname is Araldite. Motutapu in the background as we head to Matiatia last week.

Obligatory sunset shot through Governor's Pass / Man of War Passage, Gt Barrier

Survey response dataset has been updated, 43 respondants so far.

That last one. Can't recall the last time I watched linear tv.

Race fever

Interesting how the technology of the search part of SAR has moved on with PLBs, EPIRB not to mention far better comms and forecasting.

Clevedon will be under water by the time it's a problem

Beyond reasonable doubt. Which is why the issue of relative culpability will be important.

The jets in those carbs are tiny ( ours is worse, it's the 2.5hp version) so even invisibly small crap can block them. Fresh fuel less than 3 months old helps. TBH, if it hasn't been serviced in a while just drop the whole thing in to Ray Bryant and let them sort it. Then you are good for another year.

Legally there are levels of culpability. Let's put it in an everyday setting. I stop at a stop sign, check for cross traffic, don't see any, and so I pull out into the main road. A motorcycle hits me on the right side as I pull out. I have deliberately acted, pulling out from the stop sign and prima facie causing an accident (failure to make sure the way is clear, failure to give way to the right). Was I careless? Only if it can be shown that I should reasonably have seen and so given way to the motorcycle. If, for instance, it turns out that motorcycle was travelling at

Hi K. You have repeatedly stated that there was 17 helicopters.... Your continued statements gave me the impression that you understood 17 different helicopters were or should have been available to be directed to the search. If that was not your intended sense, please let me know what you were meaning to say. The reality is set out very clearly in the report. There are almost no dedicated, marine capable, SAR helicopter units nationally. Those units that are available are primarily medical services and aggregated they operate 95% of the time in that configuration. T

I think we should always debrief incidents to understand what happened and why, and to identify opportunities for improvement. Part of that should be identifying what resources exist and why they were chosen or not chosen for deployment. To me, one of the issues is that ALL rescue and response bodies are not fully govt funded. They are therefore independent and make their own decisions on how and when they deploy. The coastguard, Westpac rescue, nest, st John's, surf lifesaving, even FENZ, are all in the same situation. They all rely on volunteers and donations to perform thei

Expect it to get worse, not better. By definition, the planning roles you describe are not front line. To keep with our apolitical approach, I'll allow you to join the dots.

They can co-ordinate all they like, if the operator doesn't have the capacity to respond, no response will happen. It's the operator who makes all the logistics arrangements. MNZ basically asks if they can do it. If the operator deem they can't, that's it. It may well be that they have run the scenarios. It could well be that within the funding and operational limits that are ultimately set by budgets, they decided that an Encounter-type event was not a high probability. In short yes it is a fact that people die in New Zealand because we decide we cannot afford the cost to as