tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-252489182008-09-03T17:11:27.019-07:00Tales of the new direction at Nomadic Research Labs... the move to a ship named <i>Nomadness</i>Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-64941398986514388892008-08-30T20:48:00.000-07:002008-09-03T17:11:27.034-07:00

Update: I have just added a live tracker to the ship in addition to the datalogger that has been recording detailed routes. You can now see our current location, updated every 90 seconds while underway. Sometimes the transmitted position reports don't make it due to heavy traffic on the APRS channel, or we may be out of range of a shore station, but during the initial tests today (Sep 3) it

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-91882063092840875952008-08-21T15:19:00.000-07:002008-08-21T23:46:01.506-07:00

I write now from a place that I perceive as an outsider after only a month on the water, reminded of this quote from Gilbert Keith Chesterton: The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. It feels like that, swinging on a buoy off the shore of Camano Island — with the eye of an explorer, I take note of the boats,

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-11116710015977211442008-08-15T15:51:00.000-07:002008-08-15T18:23:28.902-07:00

Although we have only been on the water for a month, the skewed perception of time that I first observed in my bicycling epoch has returned... and with it, a sort of virtual life extension. In retrospect, this journey feels like some indeterminate time on the order of 3 months, yet the present is so full that it appears to flit by with the days barely able to contain all the activity. There are

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-43599405833476325982008-08-12T22:44:00.000-07:002008-08-14T09:14:13.216-07:00

I am writing this while swinging at anchor in Port Hadlock, at the bottom of a quiet little bay (well, except in north winds) that extends south a few miles from the playful town of Port Townsend. On the hook, the pace is languid; an hour or two can be spent learning variations on the bowline, and it makes perfect sense to pick an arbitrary course and go circumnavigate something in the dinghy

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-42767168669546856612008-08-05T09:21:00.000-07:002008-08-06T13:59:26.864-07:00

A long-awaited transition is at last occurring... an essential one that must be in place before true nomadness can resume. It is the redefinition of "home" from a wooded place on Camano Island to a floating steel boat that could be anywhere. This is less obvious than it seems. It is not simply a matter of moving aboard, which we won't be ready to do for a while; it is a major shift in

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-83607555261442135302008-07-29T22:03:00.000-07:002008-07-31T10:58:18.089-07:00

It's interesting to watch the etymological gestation of a neologism. Twice now, Sky has referred to the folks who mysteriously appear at just the right time to catch lines as dock angels, and thrice I have performed the service for others... feeling a tonnage-proportional measure of the same gratitude I know well from my own uncertain performances. "It's just docking karma," I say in humble

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-45226563728529349142008-07-19T19:20:00.000-07:002008-07-30T21:43:33.119-07:00

It is unbelievable and almost surreal to be sitting in the salon of Nomadness, the view outside at last presenting something other than the endlessly reversing Swinomish channel and the rather unexciting marina. It's a nonstop show now. Full moon and fast clouds soaring back and forth as we swing at anchor from the black mud of Oak Harbor. Dock strollers in Everett ambling by against a

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-17400854927838983452008-07-12T21:31:00.000-07:002008-07-13T09:17:05.850-07:00

"Just a minute," I told Captain Jerry, when he popped by the boat to announce that the pile of Dungeness Crab was ready over on Baccara. "Sky is sewing chafing gear and I'm chasing cables." "Those are forever jobs," he replied with a twinkle. "The crab is ready now!" Yah, it's high season... and our friends had just hoisted a hefty trapful in a brief sailing foray out of this weird

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-26632719742396910912008-07-04T18:03:00.000-07:002008-07-06T11:22:03.804-07:00

There is something refreshing about a deadline that looms with implacable insistence. Instead of the casual plasticity of self-imposed schedules, there arises an urgency tied to the plane tickets of house sitters and the contractual inflexibility of marina move-out dates. Given all that, we have recently noticed a increase in the completion percentage of the lists (clearly defined tasks,

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-25483104286239527822008-06-28T21:32:00.000-07:002008-07-06T11:23:19.510-07:00

One of the big startup challenges in the transition to a Nomadness-centric lifestyle is amassing a useful on-board workshop. This is not at all easy, and involves a fairly extensive suite of tools as well as hundreds of little 3-mil zip bags of small parts. I quickly found that just skimming the good stuff from my lab is not the right solution; I can't really afford to break the home-base

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-6843896960826611982008-06-24T20:15:00.000-07:002008-06-27T18:10:35.153-07:00

With departure from the marina looming rapidly, certain things have been burbling to the top of the to-do list... one of which is having a legal and functional sewage system. The ship came equipped with both Type I and Type III marine sanitation devices; the former a treatment system that discharges sterilized waste, and the latter a holding tank for use in No Discharge Zones. The trouble is,

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-45513269659672460122008-06-22T01:19:00.001-07:002008-06-22T01:27:41.187-07:00

We haven't done the renaming ceremony yet, but the lettering is in progress and looking good! The starboard side is done; next warm day we'll ease her across to the next dock and do the port... We ordered the letters online at Speedy Signs, and so far it has gone well (though it takes patience and careful attention to detail). Today saw a bit more cabling (N2K to the comm bay), additional

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-65008391703274494922008-06-19T18:03:00.000-07:002008-06-19T21:58:26.499-07:00

The boat is now awash in tools, gray NMEA 2000 cables, little clusters of parts, removed panels, and the general unnameable clutter of any large project. A few days ago, I ran the backbone of the network using all Maretron hardware... centered both electrically and conceptually at the inside helm station: The yellow connector is the power tap, which introduces 12 volts to the network via a

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-76296138010375111082008-06-09T21:50:00.001-07:002008-06-10T09:23:39.285-07:00

Quick update before I plunge back into N2K goodness this week... the 10' Navigator dinghy is now securely hanging from the davits. It's a simple procedure, now that it's essentially done: attach bridles to the bulkhead fixtures in the dink, remove the starboard dinghy dog flotation collar, use the 3-part-purchase tackle assemblies to hoist the boat all the way up, make fast the lines on horn

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-50121373457229749092008-06-03T13:55:00.000-07:002008-06-19T13:37:02.884-07:00

I have mixed feelings about this, but there's really no choice. The old marine "networking" standard (NMEA 0183) was little more than glorified 4800 baud serial datacomm, with various vendors producing their own variants to jockey for competitive advantage. That's not very interoperable. NMEA 2000, the new stuff, is based on the well-established industrial CAN (Controller Area Network), and is

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-69804755075833458182008-05-25T15:37:00.000-07:002008-06-01T11:29:02.732-07:00

The trouble with moving ahead on many fronts, despite actual progress that is sometimes considerable, is that life becomes so diffuse that one's perception gets bogged down in context-switching overhead. A lot is going on, so this post is an attempt to bring it all up to date. Navigation Systems: The parts are arriving at Anacortes Marine Electronics, and I have been working on the overall

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-17357474464113296022008-05-15T13:11:00.000-07:002008-05-15T13:46:26.069-07:00

All those pithy aphorisms about boats and expenses really are true. I expect this with new nautical gizmology, of course - loading 'er up with NavNet 3D, communication, and NMEA 2000 goodies involves enough money to buy another sailboat - but even the pedestrian stuff involves one gotcha after another. Take plumbing, for example. Not the most interesting topic, but as we get closer to taking

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-25463131234202056382008-03-23T14:42:00.000-07:002008-03-27T10:50:03.739-07:00

I've been posting weekly to my "live page" with random noodlings about how to proceed with system integration, and lately it's been clear that once a course is set, I should move the narrative over here. After all, a blog is archived, RSS-able, prettier, and even generates occasional clickage. Friends remind me that we are now in the 21st century and blogs are the way to go... though I persist

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-45824140776423930042007-12-16T22:54:00.000-08:002007-12-17T00:16:55.691-08:00

Now that Nomadness is parked in a yacht club slip for the winter (with a Spring deadline to vacate since I'm on the reciprocal dock), there is a kind of clarity that is unfamiliar around here: an actual deadline. Specifically, I have about 4-5 months to do whatever I need to do that requires dockside facilities like shore power and easy access, including contractors. This means that the hard

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-63455607246819510252007-10-07T17:12:00.000-07:002007-10-09T08:32:58.423-07:00

If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most. A small sailing craft is not only beautiful, it is seductive and full of strange promise and the hint of trouble. If it happens to be an auxiliary cruising boat, it is without question the most compact and ingenious arrangement for living ever devised by the restless mind of man—a home

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-22896176465643219372007-09-15T14:11:00.000-07:002007-09-15T14:47:33.630-07:00

A lot has happened since my last posting, in which I had reluctantly concluded that the trimaran was for sale. Among other things, she has indeed been sold... and just completed an inaugural voyage with her new Canadian owner (ironically, right back to Desolation Sound via Cowichan Bay, Pender Harbour, and Nanaimo). I write now on the eve of sea trial and survey of what might be my new ship

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-29552813917350778642007-06-21T10:44:00.000-07:002007-06-21T11:04:10.704-07:00

Long-time readers of this blog know why I haven't posted in a while... it's annoying to archive months of hand-wringing and analysis over what to next (so I mostly do that over at my live page, where new updates banish old ones to the bit bucket). I've spent a few months juggling the trade-offs of a variety of facilities including a row of shipping containers, modified semi-trailers, a thorough

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-60447546980103745492007-02-07T11:08:00.000-08:002007-02-07T12:14:42.139-08:00

I was just sitting here thinking of some kind of simple logging application to help provide an objective external record of my progress toward Nomadness, when it dawned on me (duh) that it's already right here. I have historically viewed blogs as a sort of upgraded tool for publishing static content, but it will be much more interesting (and useful as a live project document) if I shake off that

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-43863525679345921332007-01-18T23:08:00.000-08:002007-01-19T09:11:11.448-08:00

It is astounding, how long one can spend in the strategic planning stages of a complex undertaking, gathering goodies, fleshing out ambitious documents, and researching... all while managing to avoid actually venturing out in the cold and clambering painfully across slippery fiberglass. I've been reporting on all this over on the live page, and have recently been nudged to make the news a bit

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25248918.post-1165651106135813042006-12-08T22:56:00.000-08:002006-12-09T00:07:52.960-08:00

A huge transition has just occurred... Nomadness is now perched on her new FE trailer in my front yard, quite dwarfing NEWT, the truck that hauled her all the way from the harbor in Blaine. The mast is the same length as my house: The next step is to find someone to do a bit of site prep in the woods next to the Microship lab, lay down some gravel, move the boat, then construct a carefully

Steve Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507685175834941450noreply@blogger.com