Things are about to get a lot more active in this blog… for the past year, I’ve been chipping away at the project, but have only rarely posted here. I’m happy to report that I’ve just decided to take a different approach to publishing this sprawling narrative of gonzo engineering, and there is suddenly a…

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It is nice to be able to report that the first Nomadness pilothouse helm control surface has been completed, fabricated with King Starboard material and carrying a basic suite of instruments: network displays, AIS transponder, autopilot, and weather monitor… flanked by VHF, clock, and spotlight remote control. The operating position shown here is becoming the home…

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Updated July 3, 2022: The system is no longer available. For a while it was on the Port of Friday Harbor office building, with the antenna at the peak of the roof (after 3 years aboard my boat). This was a 50-watt station with high-gain collinear antenna about 60 feet above mean sea level in…

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Time for an update! But first, a word from Isabelle, who has delicate sensibilities and prefers not to walk on the cabin sole when it needs to be vacuumed (although, like nature, she abhors a vacuum). SSB Radio Installation Now that we’ve dealt with feline matters, let’s talk tech. This first section is adapted from…

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The Nomadic Research Labs Geek’s Vacation Program is back in full swing, bringing back excellent memories of the Olden Days in the BEHEMOTH and Microship labs. Brilliant techies would arrive from far-away places to dive into a project with me, contributing not only their own formidable expertise but giving mine a much-needed shot in the…

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I’ve been quiet in this blog lately, not wanting to write a series of posts about the numbingly boring topic of moving, but now it is essentially done but for one final trailer load to bring the Microship from Camano Island. I am no longer based in La Conner, where a long shoaling channel with…

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This is a major step forward; I finally have a lab desktop aboard Nomadness. For about a year, my work surface has been but a crude plywood visualization model in place of the original cramped dinette… saggy, rough, and not dimensionally accurate enough to use as a basis for any subsequent design. But thanks to…

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The Nomadness Emulation & Telepresence System April 1, 2012 I want to tell you about the skunkworks project that is underway here at Nomadic Research Labs, shepherded by a hand-picked team of engineers. We ran an extrapolation of my progress on nautical technomadic projects, including Microship. In 20 years, a staggering amount of human time…

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Microship Wordplay docked on Bainbridge Island

Updated January 12, 2018:  I am leaving this post here just so I don’t break deep links from Out There, but this offer is no longer available. When I wrote this post, I was planning to pull together a group of boats to circumnavigate Vancouver Island, and would have loved to have the Microship come along…

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In an early issue of the Nomadness Report, I found myself discussing the mental model necessary to take on something so insanely complex as a homebrew starship of sorts. Companies handle this sort of thing by creating a hierarchy of departments and design groups, but I’m working more or less alone on this tour de force…

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