The snow birds intent on being “First” in the warm ponds are working their way south along with the cooler weather. The main mast is off to be galvanized. And it’s fun to be back inside the hull. We’re double welding the plates on top of the lead and adding frames to reinforce the keels. The lightening holes look awesome, but they will also give use tie down points for cargo or the occasional adventurous sailor. Our crew and viewers continue to be a great source of inspiration. We appreciate the love you show through ideas, supportive comments, gifts, and labor. I also love the diversity of our crew. Amateurs looking to build skills, pros looking to share skills, and retirees with the knowledge of the world. Thank You!
I’ve always loved lightening holes.
Remember the flying sub in “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”? I have always loved lightening holes in aircraft, and now they will be a visible part of Seeker.
It took the better part of two days but we got one of ten frames cut for the cargo hold. It was not one of our better weekends. Getting a hole cutter best suited for sheet rock to cut through 3/16″ aluminum took lot of skill and patience from Doug Stout. And we had more that our fair share of do-overs on patterns for the frames themselves. And the heat in the hull finally drove us out. We’re looking forward to more cool weather.
Doug making our template.
Bart and Hugh
First of 10 frames in the cargo hold.
Breaking Wire and Machining a Capstan
That second capstan has been siting in the lathe from over a month, and Doug Stout a retired machinist showed up and not only completed the bore but showed us some really nice tricks. Tomorrow is the final fit up. The rest of us spent the day stretching and breaking ROV cable. Very surprising is how crappy Cat5 is and how much better RG6 is at haft the cost of Cat5. The tick now is to find some strength members that can be added to the RG6 that will take the load before the RG6 reaches it’s limits.
Bart and Anders Maudal from Norway helping me break wire.
Cat5 in Polly showing good but not great number.
Doug the hack, and Doug the machinist.
Megan, Bart, and Anders.
Testing Cat5 Bury in Poly
Explorer Tulsa came to see the boat.
Open House 2016 – Thank You!
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! About 50 folks showed up for last week’s open house and we got a year’s worth of good vibes. Seeker is more that a boat, she is a crew and a following of people that love making things, building a better world and who love life. Thanks for sharing your love!
Special Thanks to Scott Rokeby for the aerial shots. You can get Scott to shoot your event. See: https://www.facebook.com/DaedalusImagingLLC/
Help with the ROV Tether.
Daniel and Rob
Danial and Rob, two engineers on their way to race their car in Nebraska, stopped in and we tested a length of RG6 inside some tubular webbing. Unfortunately the tubular webbing stretches about 35% with just 300 pounds of load and that was too much for the RG6. So we need your help. But please stay within the parameters. We are not a government agency and we do not want to act like one.
We are looking for: Cheaper, Stronger, Easier, and More Widely Available for 60 cents a foot.
So what is the best combination of polypropylene tubular webbing, coaxial cable and strength member, either steel of synthetic so that we have a low cost, neutrally buoyant, anti-strumming, tether that can sustain a 1000+ pounds of load when towing?
How much will coaxial cable routinely stretch?
What is the working load for common RG6 with a messenger wire?
Details and Updates are here: http://wp.me/P6ivyU-SJ
Community
Two weekends ago Betsy and I were in Florida checking out a Junk Rig. Last weekend, Bart, Jack and I were at the Tulsa Mini Maker Fair showing off Seeker, the ROV and recruiting help. And this weekend is our open house. So when do we have time to build something? We are building something. We are building a community, and it is that community that is making Seeker possible.
Drew Morgan
Patrick Forringer
Barry ‘s Creation
Zachary Scott Carpenter
Drew has the new guidance IMU component for the ROV and working on new code for it.
Patrick has gone through OpenROV’s code and started adapting if for Seeker’s ROV.
We met Barry from Navico at the Maker Fair, and he happens to be the mechanical engineer that worked on the Lowrance side scan transducer. He answered some important questions and will be a great resource moving forward.
We also met Zachary who had a great idea for using Coax instead of Cat5 for the ROV Tether because it’s smaller, cheaper, and there is a gadget that can run 10Mbps Ethernet 1.5 miles over RG6 coax. See more here.
And that the way it goes. Invention and construction are best done as a community. Nothing worth doing is going to be easy. It’s going to fail many times, it’s going to take longer that expected, it’s not going to look like what you envisioned in your head, it’s going need to be attempted again and again. Community is not just about finding the best answers, it is there for support. So come out to our open house this Saturday 10 to 2. See what we are doing and consider joining our crew.
What kind person is going to use Seeker?
“Slovak robotic sailing boat was trying to cross the Atlantic” Meet Andrej Osusky from Lanzarote, Canary Islands who is designing and building an autonomous sailboat. That’s the kind! …and yes, he has great taste in T-Shirts.
SchoonerOndine.com
Ondine
In the quest to better understand the Chinese Junk sail, Betsy and I found ourselves it the company of Pat and Jeannine, on board their schooner Ondine. We enjoyed a wealth of knowledge and a beautiful sail through Ponce Inlet from New Smyrna Beach, Florida. We highly recommend the short voyage.
Sailing on the “Schooner Ondine”, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Had a most Excellent day, sailing with Pat, Jeanine, and Lee on the junk rigged Schooner Ondine, which does day sails our of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Pat and Jeanine have been doing this for four years and also work on the tall mast ships and do sailboat deliveries. It was a pleasure to tap into Pat’s extensive experience with this rig. When Betsy and I walked up to the boat we were both taken back by the myriad of lines running down the mast and heading off in all direction, but four hours and a hundred questions later we both think it’s a piece of cake. And I am seriously underwhelmed by the structures required to rig this boat which has done it’s share of blue water voyaging. Comparatively Seeker is a beast.
Pat
7 years in 27 minutes
Photo courtesy of Arron Starnes https://kinja.com/aaronstarnes
Some ideas take root and grow faster than the weeds. SV Seeker is one of those ideas that started from a chance conversation about building a boat and getting it to the ocean via the Arkansas river. That was about 12 years ago and the though of sailing a boat I built across the oceans was something that scared me. …and it made me feel alive. And it still does. What’s the point of living if you don’t LIVE. Feel the fear and do it anyway.
If you are in or near Tulsa, we invite you to come see us at the Tulsa Mini Maker Faire, or stop by for a visit on Saturday, September 3rd from 10am to 2pm. –Doug