BYYB Forums

I love ballast! {*hic*}

I just landed a new building commission for 2 new 17' boats. I'm in the finial arrangement stage and the plans are in route, so I'll be absorbing some ballast later this afternoon.

Congratulations Paul,
Thats a tall order.

Paul, I know what you were trying to say in your post, but I feel like responding to your comments about the title of "engineer",

I don't know what Mr. Stevenson actually does outside of the homebuilder projects business, but if he is an aerospace engineer, of course it's possible that he is a real engineer in every sense of the word. Of course designing aircraft requires every scrap of "engineering" acumen that designing boats does. As a matter of fact I'm certain that there is a fair amount of overlap. I myself am a professional seaplane pilot, and you can roll your eyes at that if you like, but of course I operate the end result of a great deal of "engineering", both aero-and hydro-dynamic.

In Canada the mechanics who repair aircraft are referred to as "engineers". As with many things in aviation, I beleive this dates back to the nautical tradition of referring to the officer in charge of the black gang as an engineer. In the early days of aviation, many aircraft, even the small single engine ones that opened Canada's Northern frontier, carried an "Air Engineer" as an essential part of the aircrew. A bush pilot would not dream of leaving his base without his Air Engineer. These guys, as with their traditional counterparts on board a ship, could not only repair any peice of equipment on board, but could fabricate almost any component on the fly (as it were) with only the most basic tools. Most Canadians know about the engineer who fabricated a new airscrew for his machine using sled runners at a remote outpost. The part of the story where he boiled moose hooves to make glue is incorrect, but the rest of the story is true, and the propeller he made is on display in the Yellowknife Museum.

Finally, we live in an age where a man can read a book about something and write a multiple-choice test and then get a peice of paper with a high-faluting "title" on it. I think in days gone by people were required to learn a lot of things that are deemed "non-essential" by the people who determine professional standards today.

Where I'm going with this is, I had the opportunity to see one of the textbooks used by a railway "engineer" from the early twentieth century. My dad is a train nut and somehow got his mitts on this old book. The thing is practically a university course in fluid dynamics, full of equations and graphs and whatnot. I imagine a steam engineer from a ship would have had to learn this stuff as well. I beleive those guys where fully deserving of the title of engineer, even without the pinky ring. Nowadays tradition dictates that we still refer to the people who hold these positions as "engineers".

I know how pedantic this must sound, but I encounter this attitude all the time. There is even a discussion taking place as we speak on a professional aviatiors' forum I sometimes look at, by Aircraft mechanics debating amongst themselves whether or not they deserve to be called "engineers" anymore. I am not an engineer of any kind and I don't know whether this tradition will fall by the wayside eventually, but I for one will continue to think of them as "engineers".

Also, experimental or traditional or not, the boat works. I have never sailed a big boat, but I did take sailing lessons and have sailed laser 2s, Albacores, and a wayfarer-like boat whose name I forget now. The first time I sailed my little weekender, I found it instantly familiar. It does not require any goofy special sailing techniques. It can quickly be upgraded to be easier to sail singlehanded and it is simple, pretty, and friendly. I enjoy sleeping in it, sailing in it, and working on it. Whatever the math says about the keel, everybody at the cruising club likes it. Sometimes I think expecting any more than this from a little boat is a bit too much to ask.

By the way, I am not attacking you. I like to read your posts and find many of them helpful. I wish I could sail with you. But if we ever do sail together, you should come out with me in my boat. You would like it. Then we could go out in that design you most recently posted with the "monster" sail plan. I like that one.

Keith

My knowledge about engineers is mostly personal. I am married to one. After living with her for 14 years and spending time with some of her engineer cronies I can tell you they are a combination of knowledge (learned through education and experience) and a detailed, orderly way of looking at the world. They are not street taught or self learned. The amount of education and continued learning they engage in is not something that can be left out of the equation.

They are also a pain in the arse to live with. I built a corral for some horses we had. Each hole took 45 minutes with a 90 Jackhammer. The corral is 160' by 60'. The posts are 8 foot on center. Thats a lot of posts and a lot of jackhammer time. After the holes were drilled and the Jackhammer was returned to the rental center I had my wife help me set the posts in concrete. We set the 4 corner posts then strung a rope between 2 corner posts and lined up the ones in between. Her job was to hold the posts while I mixed and poured the cement. She was very concerned that some of the posts were 1/2" off center and about 1" shallower then the others. She thought I should chisel out the holes so the posts would be on center and make the holes an inch deeper. This would have had to be done with a single jack since the hammer was returned. When we broke for lunch I found other things to do until she returned to work the next day and I could finish the fence in peace. That is an engineer.

Well, in the victorian era it was declared that physics was over and the only people who would study it in the future would be engineers. I think in the old days those who operated machinery were required to thoroughly understand the principles involved in their operation, wheras these days people are quickly instructed in how and when to press the right button, and then released into the environment. I know I was required to know a damn sight more during my training than pilots are currently required to. My point was, the term "Engineer" has traditional origins that date back to a time when everyone who had that particular designation really was an engineer. Most of the early mechanical innovations were made by the guys who had to use them, for instance the automatic lubricator used on steam engines on the railway, in stationary plants and in ships was invented by a railway fireman named McCoy who was tired of poking a tallow coated stick into the moving running gear on steam engines. Some people think this is the origin of the term "real McCoy".

Anyway, your wife may behave like that because she is an engineer, but I can tell you my wife does the same thing and she's not. It may be a wife thing.

Terry, you hit the nail on the head (or likely she hit you in the head).

We're generally a weird lot. Continuous education, just to keep up with the ever changing materials and methods, not to mention entirely new industries.

Engineers are usually precise and difficult to live with. Just ask my other half, who will quickly inform you of how anal I can get about things. Now, I wouldn't get pissy over some fence posts that were out of alignment (though I would likely mentioned it), now, if I did those fence posts, their being out of alignment would drive me nuts. Eventually I'd tear out the offending post(s) and set them straight.

It's sort of like a musician, who hears someone playing a piano and the peice being played is a few seconds from being completed when they just stop playing. The musician would just have to go over to the piano and play the last few licks or they'd die a horrable death (seemingly).

Wow, I feel partially responsible for this “engineer” debate.

Perhaps another analogy might help.

How about thinking about the Stevensons following more in the footsteps of Michelangelo, and Paul following more in the tradition of Leonardo. When Michelangelo chiseled his statue of David, he was finishing a project conceived by someone else on a block of marble already cut into by another hand. Perfection by iteration. Nobody argues that the statue is not beautiful. Nobody argues that only Michelangelo could have chiseled such beauty. But we do not get to see what had come before, or how he arrived at such perfection. Compare that to Lenoardo’s drawing of Vitruvian Man, another famous work from a decade earlier in the Renaissance. Leonardo annotated the drawing with footnotes and explanations about why the proportions that form the human ideal are in fact ideal. He offers explanations and measurements on how it might be repeated. He even offers a CG in the form of the human navel from which the circle circumscribing the maximum reach of the finger and toes can be drawn, and describes it as such. (The first navel architect? :wink If you had a copy of Vitruvian Man, you have a shot at making David. Michelangelo offers us beauty in the form of perfection. Leonardo offers us beauty with a measured explanation of why it beautiful and a possible path for improvements. Both men were engineers and architects. It’s all a matter of perspective. And yet, I too prefer Leonardo’s annotated and explained methods. I guess Michelangelo was just too busy to bother with it. But Leonardo was doing it a decade earlier, so there’s no excuse …

That the Weekender and Vacationers are works of beauty is self evident. You thought so or you would not have built one. And where ever you take it, people stare and ask questions and say “nice boat”. The mark of Michelangelo. And yet the boat has its quirks, as reported here on the BYYB. It would have been nice if some more formal engineering information had been included in the plans from which we could proceed forward to an even better result. The mark of Leonardo.

Cheers
Tom

That was truly wonderful Tom, thank you.

Interestingly enough, I'm a direct descendant of Michelangelo. No kidding. Back in the 1970's, when "Roots" hit the air waves, everyone and their brother was looking up their family trees. Our family did a ancestral search too. We found that there was a castle built in our name (only a corner stone remains in northern Italy), that we had a real coat of arms (a damned ugly one at that too) and that Michelangelo's mother's maiden name was Riccelli (actually the earlier spelling of the same name). Not really believing this, I did a search about a decade later and the same information was provided.

Well, that's pretty interesting. I can honestly say I've never looked into my ancestry. My wife has some opinions on that subject, but I keep telling her Homer Simpson isn't a real person.

I feel bad for hijacking this thread and creating a debate. I wasn't calling you out, Paul, I just like to challenge people's points of view sometimes. Some people call me obnoxious.

My boat always has a "good side" with respect to the wind, but it's a different side on different days. I've always thought it was because when I tighten the stays after setting up the mast, I don't get the mast perfectly plumb.