Re: Iteration

And this the advantage of learning by doing, improving the speed and efficacy with which things can be manufactured. Here's the 6mm laminate, and I notice that if I score just one side without an incision that spans both, the material can be folded relatively intact and filleted with adhesive along the inside joint.

In fact you could go one further and arrange for all four sides to be foldable like an origami kit, with the three sides set as here and the fourth separately so prior to the addition of the two end-caps that support the assembly between the pontoons.

From the Sublime...

... to the rigidcoolness.

We'll stick with the outline we have after all, after something of a 'long dark night of the soul' on June 21st, which was more of a long light day it having been a solstice.

What we have though in 20mm laminated foam is sufficient to support the 79 kilos I am trying to reduce in an effort to fit into a suit in time for a wedding. That's twelve and a half stone, on someone who for decades hovered around ten and a half.

Backing-board foams now come, as we saw lately, in 6mm, 10mm, 12.50mm and this one here; so let's build in the thinnest of these to see what we'll get away with.

S'kier Starmer

A politician's but a walking shadow,

A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Apologies to Shakespeare but as good a description of the state of democracy as any.

Ed. Kier Starter resigns as Prime Minister, the sixth to do so in barely more years.

Cloud Appreciation Society

High pressure sits over northwest Europe and much of the UK, resulting in ~ if any at all ~ clouds like these outside my front door this morning.

The society boasts over 60,000 members and could only have been conceived in a country like Britain, which has a society for anything you could think of... the notion of naming types of cloud at all could only really have sprung from hereabouts too.

I've read the book, but have yet to join not ever having been much of a joiner. I do know though that these are cirrocumulus, forming what's known as a mackerel sky.

Gary Robert Gress

Was at the GoFly challenge finals with us and a dozen others, and unlike us goes on to the GoAero challenge currently underway; each focused on scaling drone science to transport humans from one place or circumstance to another.

What I like about this man is that aside from being at an age when, like me, he may be forgiven for life of quiet contemplation: is instead still designing eVTOLs, artwork and tee-shirts.

Current focus appears to be on two-motored means of aerial support using motors that can be tilted in order to provide three-dimensional control throughout hovering and forward flight.

It begs the question as to what happens should one motor fail, but the problem with aviation regulation in this century is its undue reliance on failure redundancy. If you are flying to Australia I can understand you wanting to arrive in one piece, whilst in contrast the chances of one of these falling from the sky and doing you any sort of damage is on a par with your winning the Euromillions jackpot.

You're probably a billion times more likely to be mugged for your phone in Paris or London as you have being struck by an errant electrical flying machine, and nobody appears to be doing anything about that or the electrical scooter used in its pursuit.

The diminishing power of politicians and civil servants however does mean that that which is most easily regulated ~ flying machines ~ is so obsessively in the way that cancer becomes the preoccupying pathology of a mortal frame facing certain death.

Ed. Sorry that couldn't be more upbeat, Gary.

Kit Cat?

Drafted a sizeable model of this same day, and came to wish I hadn't: it's intriguing and stupid at the same time.

Wickes-epedia

Friday evening last returning from work swung by Wickes where I find the range of laminated foams growing by the month; and help myself to these quarter-inch viz. 6mm sheets. They are aimed at under-flooring heating, but provide a perfect means of modelling boats.

Long-term prisoners of the blog will recall how there was a time when we'd jump in the car and drive for an hour in search of super-thin laminated hardwood sheets to use as a waterproof backing for foam... and now it's been done for us. So all things really do come to those who wait.

We must however stick to the knitting and get back to designing and building boats, which is after all what we're here for. Been in the slough of despond ~ distinct from the Slough of Berkshire where once I worked ~ as to which direction to steer a blog in, and the conclusion I came too was that the world has too many opinions, but too few flat-pack catamarans.