the Best Tool I Ever Owned

For flat surfaces, this Porter Cable-7346 dual action grinder is the best tool that I have ever worked with.  It’s kind of half way between a big angle head grinder and an orbital.  The angle head grinder can get huge amounts of work done,  but a moments inattention can do a lot of damage.  An orbital takes forever to get anything done.  This unit can remove a lot of material but is easy to control.  And being electric, you don’t have to wait for the compressor to catch up.

http://www.amazon.com/PORTER-CABLE-7346-6-Inch-Random-Sander/dp/B002EQ96NK

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Light On My Multihulls

One of the things that I have learned doing the lunar lander dwelling project is how much I like to use “magical” light.  By not charging the rock star design fees, I only do the standard scope of work, not the frosting, being like most boat designers. My lighting design has been workmanlike. 

Light can make any multi a magical place. The ill fated Estonian powercat project had some tricky lighting in the renderings. Greg Lynn used acrylic’s light piping very effectively on his tri design.
On the lunar lander I have used;  recessed lighting, glow powder in epoxy, light piping with acrylic, and the temperature indicating shower head light shown.  No electricity involved for the temperature indicating lights on the showerhead.  Did I ever mention that I love this stuff?

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Sarabi Update

I finally found out some things about the Sarabi mast issue. Some things.  Offshore Spars got the new mast job.   http://www.offshorespars.com/news/hughes-56-sarabi/

I guess Ted van Dusen didn’t get the job.  I see that it was the first unstayed aerorig for them.  Ted has designed and built dozens or maybe hundreds of unstayed masts.  http://www.composite-eng.com/  And the SoCal insurance company picked local M & M to design the replacement mast.

And http://sarabisailing.com/the-vessel/

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50 Power Tri

This was a low budget study of expanding the 35′ model and making it capable of 50 knots. It was to have the same look and feel as the 35, but as a planing model.  I have not yet done the Savitski study on power/speed.

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