It is that time of year again. There is chaos in the parking lots, everybody seems to be fighting a cold, several major airports are snarled, and we are looking forward to seeing the family…..
and then getting Cochise back afloat and going cruising.
But first another download speed test. By internet standards these files are quite large, so the same question as before… how is the download speed? We are particularly interested in how this all works when you don’t have a really fast connection.
Speaking of fast connections, we should mention that FPB 97-1 Iceberg just went trans-Atlantic in nine days and four hours, for the 2786 nm voyage an average speed of 12.66 knots.
Meanwhile FPB 78-3 Iron Lady II, is back at the marina in Whangarei finishing up her punch list, with Pete Rossin due aboard right after the first of the year. Current cruising plans are not yet finalized. Is it Tasmania in the west, or Tierra del Fuego to the east?
We have been hard at work in our “retirement”. It turns out there are a whole bunch of things we have put aside over the last eight years, all of which require immediate attention. But hey, if we’ve waited this long a little bit longer won’t be that big a deal. We figure by the time we are back afloat, towards the end of March, we will be pretty well caught up. That leaves us with more time to talk boats with our owners and friends, and maybe shoot a photo or two.
Listening to tall tales of daring-do on the ocean are one of our favorite pastimes.
So if you see us at anchor row over and say hello. And don’t forget to give us a note on how these larger files are downloading.
We will see you out there.
Posted by Steve Dashew (December 19, 2017)
December 19th, 2017 at 9:25 am
Hi folks, I have a slow connection just tested at ~7 Mbps download. Your beautiful photos loaded very, very quickly. Much better than in the past. Thx. Scott
December 19th, 2017 at 10:13 am
I am in the Bahamas with sketchy WiFi. Yours is now the fastest loading site of any I visit, by far. Almost instantaneous. Thanks.
P.S. Since I retired, I’ve been so busy (mostly having fun) that I have no idea where I ever found time to work.
December 19th, 2017 at 10:22 am
Outstandingly fast, well done, great improvement
December 19th, 2017 at 2:30 pm
Steve,
In the vein of your “That leaves us with more time to talk boats…” comment I thought back to an interesting that you made a comment about that “modern” sailboat designs with long overhangs were “just dumb” (or something along those lines) which sparked a line of thinking on my part. While I immediately understood the context of the comment, it lead me to consider how design (in general and in particular…boat) are influenced by government/organizational rules, laws or regulations in ways that are not (always) immediately apparent. The “gaming” of the the America’s Cub rules resulted in the some of the most elegant sailing vessels ever created yet…with our current understanding “efficiency” many of these classic designs are “dumb” in todays understanding of efficiency (my words not yours :0).
As you have stated, the final design of the FB97 and the FB78 sterns were strongly influenced by regulatory thresholds at 80 and 100 feet. While the efficiency gains of the final decisions f the FB97 and the FB78 are obvious (the inverse of the overhang) I thought about what a collection of boat enthusiasts sometime in the future might think of your designs. Perhaps in a vacuum, would they think she choices strange? I certainly was in the camp that was taken aback by the design changes when they was first presented (and I was not alone in this) yet I certainly have warmed up to them quite a bit now. As a leader of a design team that has designed boats for what is (essentially) a lifetime how do you feel about your choices balancing aesthetics and efficiency with the added burden of (non-safety related) regulatory nonsense. Herreshoff exploited sailing club rules to produce designs that dominated the world while looking magnificent. You produced designs (with the FPB) that produced unprecedented levels of safety, independence and efficiency while achieve a beauty all its own. Would your designs have been better (more efficient more beautiful) without the concern for regulatory thresholds (on length)? Or do you think consider such constraints impossible to separate from the design process itself? If you wanted to make a statement for enthusiasts in the future to best understand and appreciate you designs…what would that statement be?
December 25th, 2017 at 9:34 am
Hi Matt:
Perhaps I have not been clear in the past about design length and government rules. We do not let any of the length categories impact the design ratios, except insofar as length overall goes. For example, the FPB 64 is just under the 20 meter length, for which you pay some motion and performance penalties compared to a longer hull. But the FPB 64 was optimized for the sub 20m length. The bolt on addition adds efficiency. But if we started out from scratch to design a 69 footer rather than 64 foot LOA, the shape would be almost identical in the aft end.
The FPB 78 is actually 85′ long, but measures just under 78′ or 23.95 meters. She was designed to the longer length from the beginning, with an eye on the measurement rules. The measurement formula by which we end up at an official 23.95m do not have an impact on the underwater hull shape. They do, however, affect the design of the swim step and how the topsides intersect with the swim step area.
December 19th, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Great photos, opened instantly!
December 19th, 2017 at 8:58 pm
The only ‘slow’ picture was the autumn leaves. My connection speed today is around 450 – 600k.
December 20th, 2017 at 12:03 am
Impressive speed. Hot spot my laptop with slow Venezuela 3G and the page with pics loads immediately. Faster than any other page
December 20th, 2017 at 4:28 am
Hi Steve. Your gorgeous pics downloaded instantly – Wifi to my fiberoptic connected router.
December 20th, 2017 at 11:27 am
Iceberg is my dream yacht. Maybe one day I will have the funds and opportunity to own her. Just beautiful lines!
December 20th, 2017 at 2:33 pm
Download speed is fast on 4G. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
December 20th, 2017 at 6:03 pm
Wow – highres humpback shot incredible.
December 20th, 2017 at 6:30 pm
Photos are coming in quickly on a low-speed HSPA connection, at anchor off Chacala, Nayarit, (Pacific Coast) Mexico. Bravo!
December 21st, 2017 at 7:38 am
Download speed is fine here in Belize
December 21st, 2017 at 10:00 am
Download speed is fine. Almost instantaneous and I’m in Australia and using a three year old computer and ADSL 2+. Great photos. Particularly like the one of the trees in fall.
December 21st, 2017 at 12:13 pm
According to Speedtest.net my connection is 69ms ping, 40.95Mbps down, and 18.46Mbps up.
I said that to say your page and it’s pictures loaded instantly.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful images and bon voyage!
PS – Iceberg’s trans-Atlantic speed is truly remarkable!
December 21st, 2017 at 4:56 pm
instant load.
No lag using a non-optimized corporate connection.
oh. And nice photos, too.
December 22nd, 2017 at 6:14 am
Hi Steve,
Using a dongle, with a max speed of around 360 kbs and a cleared cache, about 4 miles of the coast of Southern England, it took around 12 seconds to download the complete page.
Paige
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:16 pm
Pictures are perfect. Loading time 0 seconds on our old mac. Great work Tonto.
December 23rd, 2017 at 3:19 pm
They all downloaded instantly! And they are beautiful as always.
December 26th, 2017 at 3:04 pm
Steve,
Thank you for the great answer and Merry Christmas!
December 27th, 2017 at 3:25 am
They loaded instantly on my I phone X in Encino, Ca.
December 27th, 2017 at 8:50 pm
Steve–
The page loads instantly. So fast in fact that you might consider posting larger pictures. If load times for people with very slow connections is a concern you could always make the pictures clickable for a larger image.
I think most people have at least 24″ displays these days and it is almost frustrating, (at least for me) to have such amazing pictures…that are so tiny. Especially as pretty much every picture you post–wildlife and construction alike–are fantastic.
More / bigger please =)