Travels and Images

WEEK 45 2008

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Oxnard Weather Underground

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First Post, 17 March 2002

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Saturday 8 November 2008

Saturday - up early, let the cats sample the cold back yard - they were back inside in 15 minutes, while I breakfasted and was out by 8:00am. Up at Dad's at 2:00pm, and lazed the rest of the day away.

If you don't mind I think I'll just stay here, on the nice warm carpet, and look at the cold...

Zac Sunderland made Port Mathurin at Rodrigues Island without much trouble, and is repairing his forestay. But the coming storm season means he has to hurry, no time to laze about if he wants that Guinness record...

Friday 7 November 2008

Friday - the winds turned into Santa Ana's, which is what I feared.

Tuesday it had been 48F at 6am, Wednesday it was about 55F, and Thursday 66F. So here I was, trying to inspect next to a newly plowed field. The winds picked up and I had sand in my eyes, in my ears, and in my hair. I persevered by lowering the antenna height to 6ft, then finally had to give up when the wind started moving the equipment about. This while I was in a ten foot deep channel with a Eucalyptus tree windbreak on one side. They were saying up to 35mph at the airport, but I was closer to the hills and the wind speed may have been higher.

And, to tell the truth, the creaking of the Eucalyptus creeped me out. I remember my Dad telling me about "widow makers", branches falling from tree's that killed loggers.

Anyway, four hours work and then I did some errands locally and headed up to Lancaster. Up to Martinez tomorrow.

Thursday 6 November 2008

Thursday - definitely warmer. Mid afternoon the wind changed direction, onshore to offshore. Not good.

I was talking to someone about bulk density of a mix of riprap (rock). If you have big pieces, and little pieces, and mix together a certain amount of each, what will the resulting mix weigh? Remember that there will be voids between the rocks, and that sometimes the little rocks will fit between the big rocks and sometime they won't. The Packing Problem turns out to be an old problem: Johannes Kepler worked on packing in 1611, as well as a lot of other well known people over the last few centuries. There are modern methods, such as ROCFIRE, which look pretty cool, parallel processing with MPI. Generally these methods assume spheres, for simplicity, but in the real world engineers prefer non-spherical stuff, it tends to interlock and provide a stiffer wall or foundation.

Anyway, I wasn't able to give a quick answer to the question.

It reminds me of the question about the free vibration of a square plate. This has come up several times over the years, as a "test case" for finite element problems. The thing is: there is no analytical solution. There is, oddly enough, for a round flat plate, and it's covered in a lot of basic mechanical vibrations books, and physics books. But the solutions for the square or rectangular plate are approximations. Poor Sofie Germain was assigned this problem to prove she was good enough to join the French Academy of Science in 1811 - the Wikipedia page doesn't go into detail but a failure to solve this this was one of the reasons they didn't accept her at first.

You know, if things indeed "run in three's" then we are due for another simple appearing but intractable physics/math problem in 2011. Something to look forward to...

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Wednesday - a beautiful day, clear and cool, a bit of a wind when needed. Some days it's beautiful outdoors. Ventura weather is pretty special.

We were working alongside a busy highway. It was busy and everyone was speeding crazily - somebody almost hit the guy I was with when they ran a red light. So the CHP was working the highway all day, a cruiser, a bike, and an SUV. They didn't bother to hide or conceal themselves, just sat on the side of the road and nabbed speeder after speeder after speeder, all day.

Ventura area drivers are terrible, they deserve punishment.

Sunderland has decided to head for Rodrigues Island, a detour from Mauritius proper. Port Mathurin, probably. As best I can understand it, his roller furling drum base has come unfastened from the boat. Since it won't turn, he can't furl his Genoa, which is a really big jib. I've included a couple of shots of my roller furling, which is on the bow pulpit on a NorSea 27 rather than a bow chainplate. Same idea though:

roller furling forestay and drum, overview

Overview, roller furling forestay and drum.

detail of the roller furling drum

Detail, the roller furling drum

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Tuesday - It's Obama, McCain has conceded. I suppose the country had enough of Republicans after eight years. I suspect they'll have had enough of Obama after four, but he's got those four to prove me wrong.

Zac Sunderland is "having fun in a small boat" as my family likes to describe it, namely a broken forestay in heavy weather:

...when my cell phone rang. I recognized Zac's number and realizing that it was after midnight where he was I knew that this was going to demand my full attention. There was no time for small talk as Zac informed me of his current dilemma. The forestay that goes from the top of the mast to the bow (pointed end of yacht) had come adrift from the chain plate on the bow. His conditions 8-10 ft confused swells and 20 knots of wind and building. I was thankful that we had decided to put the cutter stay in because it's presence obviously saved the rig. I told him to set both spinnaker halyards (lines that go to the top of mast that are used to pull up spinnaker) to take up the load and tie the forestay off to stop it flailing around in the conditions . Unfortunately, the phone connection was not that good and we both found ourselves having to repeat several times before actually understanding each other. Knowing he was fatigued and the task at hand was serious I told him to check his harness and be careful . From the hours of midnight to 3:00 am he wrestled with his situation. What made this all the more awkward was the fact that he was unable to furl his Genoa.

Eventually he gets things under control, but it sounds like a harried night.

Monday 3 November 2008

Monday - back to work.

Sunday 2 November 2008

Sunday - Heh. God bless the Oakland Raiders. Minus two yards at the half. Shutout 24:0. Andddddd.....another two bits in my pocket. The pain of the World Series is beginning to face.Dad, I suspect, is finally beginning to get a clue and is grumbling about picking another team. The Good Times (as the WWII German submariners called the period before Radar and the breaking of the Enigma code) may be coming to an end.

I had a bit of a frustrating day. It seemed that anything I did was only partially achievable, from getting bolts for the wedgepod - 1/4" too long, to buying a 24V transformer from RadioShack. - three trips, two DOA adapters.

But I did clean out the back of the Explorer, it had become a five by eight by two foot deep tub of detritus.

It dried out a bit, and so it's back to work tomorrow. Probably.

Picture of the Week

The Californian, in Channel Islands Harbor, 2008

Photo Notes: The Californian in Channel Islands Harbor, at sunset.

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