I had a great lunch yesterday with Scott MacIndoe of Fiberlay (and 5 other composites companies) yesterday. While he appears to be a regular businessman, I discovered that he really is a crazed inventor/chemist. The best kind.
His mind is seething with new inventions. Ones I could use include a new polyurethane fire proof coating and 2 part vinylester, of two equal parts. There must have been a dozen more that I have to remember.
Then there is the tunnel boring machine that also makes its own composite tunnel behind itself…
Northwest fixture Fisheries Supply is no longer carrying knitted glass fabrics at its store, nor online. http://www.fisheriessupply.com/
They tell me to go to Fiberlay, “Since that’s where we got it anyway.” www.fiberlay.com
OK I will admit it. I was apparently the only person out there who had no idea that AIS (vessel tracking) is available to everybody. And will come up on my Droid. How cool is that? http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
In St. Maarten is saw one of my charter cats that I had forgotten about, go by. It was the old Mambo Cat under a new name. I also made a new boat friend. Surprise on St. Maarten. The beachfront tourist help guy, sporting long dreads, builds epoxy/carbon radio controlled power cats. Electric powered with LI batteries. Vacuum bagged. He had video of 125 mph. New boat friend. I will get video.
I got back last night. I got a lot done during the time. The new Composite Multihull Construction Manual is done, less the Table of Contents. Pagemaker did a pretty good job of it last year on the CM Manual, but was usless for this book. I will have to do it the old fashioned way.
The CM Construction Manual is also updated and the pagination and other bits fixed, or so I think.
Getting them out is the trick. With all the color pictures and hyperlinks, they are really best as PDFs instead of print. But each book is about 180 mg at standard resolution. A lower res lite version will be about 25 mg. The best way might be for Matthew to put them up at a downloading website. Already-builders could get the new books at a low cost. Not-yet-builders would pay somewhat more, but that could be refunded from any future plans order. I’m guessing there would be a passcode of some kind.
I also have the composite bridgedeck 45 cat materials spreadsheet updated with the help of Frank Fladerer.
And the plans set for the updated Trikala 19 is done except for labels on the pages. I get a lot done when I’m not doing plans support.
The new owner sent me picture of his trimaran that I unexpectedly co-designed with legendary designer Bob Perry back in ’92. Is 62′ or 63′ long by 45′.
I came across some pictures of Bruno’s Aolani operating out of San Diego. 58′ long. I designed that some 15 or 16 years ago. It looks nice. Richard Elder was the original developer of the design. http://www.aolani.cc/
I will be out of the office between this April 6 and back on the 25th. I may or may not have email during. I will take laptop and be working on 3 designs. I will also be editing the two construction manuals.
The office seems to cost more than it brings in anyway so by being gone maybe I can stem the leaking.
The shopping cart will of course still take orders, but nothing gets shipped until I get back.
