Summertime

Bryn and Olly have been enjoying their daily dunks in the river Lymm. I have missed not being on the boat this summer. But I remember how scorching it was last year. It hasn't rained for 6 weeks now.

An interesting historical fact

On this very day, 369 years ago..

 

 

England was declared a Republic.

Sail Ho!

back in the old days, i harboured an ambition to become a multiplayer developer and game sysop. i was pretty good at it actually. my home server was always stuffed. but you know, these things take fat wallets and a room full of people to do properly. so i kept it at the "purely for personal amusement" level.

a couple of years back, i stupidly opened my 3D modelling tools again. i was interested in the advances made in cloth physics and character modelling. then it was "it would be great to see these things bobbing about on a convincing ocean".

next thing you know, i am reading up on how to implement euler angles, archimedes (his laws of buoyancy), atmospheric scattering, changable windspeed and direction, procedural generation of island biomes and strato-cumulaic cloud densities. so... i can now calculate trajectories, vectors and velocities in 3D space. and transpose that into 2D coordinates, should the need ever arise. (stumbled with quaternion maths 12 years ago).

it's been fun learning to wear all the different hats necessary to design a naval game from start to finish, but my chances of releasing this as a commercial venture are a roundabout zero. no worries. the thing i'm the most proud of..... is that it runs fine on my cheapass chinese laptop.

Well, here we are..

2018.
I hope it goes well for everyone.

Bryn is 8.
Fit and happy.
Such a lovely chap.
He makes us laugh every day.

I spent far longer than was anticipated down in Devon. Had a great time with Sheena and the lads. A nice bit of pack bonding, with some lovely woodland walks along country lanes and bridle paths. But there is a backlog of boats waiting to be craned out and use this particular spot, so I've had to come back and get a shift on..

On the refit front, things are going well. the new engine fits in the hole, like it was made for it (which it probably was). The supports for the old engine have been cut away. Nice sparks! And bar a bit of jiggling, swearing, shimming and knuckle scraping, we are almost there.

We're also replacing the deckboards, because the old ones had become squishy, waterlogged and blown. The original plating underneath was in remarkably good condition. Quick grind with a wire brush. a splash of Vactan (the river gods brought the sun out for 2 hours.... 10 degrees... perfect!). good to go, for another few years.

Busy. Busy.