Try Maran?

Renowned for building luxury yachts, the UK's manufacturers are still ploughing a furrow with monohulls whose outline has not changed in the course of a century: like oligarchs' palaces, but rounded off.

This one though is an all-European affair and collaboration between a French designer ~ who says conventional boats need to 'grow a pair' that we hope refers to pontoons (ed. no we don't) ~ Latvian builders, and a company run by a German with a woodwork background and a Dutch with an engineering.

Its designer claims the 180-foot yacht is between 40% and 50% more efficient than a monohull at speeds up to 28 knots. I have to ask myself why, as indeed you do.

I think it is down to that slender hull, which absent the outriggers would likely topple over given a broadside (of which I'm told there are many at sea).

Famous for maritime navigation long before Europeans, the peoples of the Pacific are renowned for outrigged canoes that suit the available materials and the calmer seas.

Such people arrived among islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans over five thousand years ago as often as not in rudimentary trimarans... so we may be coming full circle.

Dead Cat Bounced

Some years ago this project attracted inordinate interest in the UK, where the carbon-fibre wonder was constructed to power Pete Goss on a round-the-world race. It broke in what was described as a 'freak' Atlantic storm, freak being used to describe nature when it's not being fair: as in freak snow, freak leaves, freak flood, freak iceberg or the freak Moon you just missed.

It was abandoned when cracks started to form in the cabin that were eventually put down to computer programming errors in the design of the craft. Which goes to show that neither CAD/CAM nor carbon-fibre guarantee success either on water or in air.

Using wood along with expanded sheets or extruded sections of foam in a garage does show you ~ as it has me ~ where the principal stresses lie however. Waves being the freaks that they are, operate independently on either pontoon and especially so here where the length, width and height of the craft exceeded conventional limitations.

As you can imagine therefore, pushing the prow of one pontoon up and another down is likely to twist the centre-section... that in fact to which the cabin is attached, even prior to the eventual separation of one of those prows.

Beside BT, who have always had more money than sense, Philips also sponsored the build and what I found more interesting was the fact that the latter started out with the sals of light bulbs during the nineteenth century.

What I hadn't known was that since then, competition in the electronic consumables market from the Far East has seen them pivot into healthcare and not least electric toothbrushes.

A fate that may yet do the same to European auto-makers: 'Sheer Brushing Pleasure', as BMW might put it.

Can we consider alternative builds to the catamaran? Yes Bob, we can.

New RC Model Army

My attention was drawn yesterday to a newspaper article on how the UK is gearing up its inventory of drones in the face of multiple global threats, although that featured is in fact an uncrewed helicopter developed by Leonardo. For those wondering who they are, they represent the rump of the British helicopter industry long since flogged off along with the rest of the family silver... in this case to Agusta in Italy, where much of the £60 million provided by you and I will come to rest.

Looking at their website it appears they also offer an uncrewed surface vessel, though a badged product from an outfit in Cyprus which includes a single-page (free) website and a PO box. Cyprus is famous for its gambling, oligarchs and corporate addresses to include only a random postal address amongst its side-streets. I know, for I've worked for airlines whose head office comprised a letter-box that we gave up looking for, choosing instead lunch in a Lebanese restaurant.

As a part of Sir Keir's ongoing pursuit of value for money, I've asked how much one costs; as again you and I are likely to foot the bill. I suggested the machine-gun option was not required, although it could make for hours of fun on Norfolk's Broads.

p.s. my details are redacted in order that weirdos like you don't try to get in touch

p.p.s. Cromwell's New Model Army was formed during the English Civil War. Hilarious.

Bermuda Short

Many people ask me what applications I can envisage for the remotely-driven maritime patrol drones featured amongst these posts (Ed. They don't).

Tuning in momentarily to daytime TV however, as one can be forgiven for doing over a corned beef sandwich, I discover how both the coastguards and police force in Bermuda use expensive and environmentally damaging jet-skis to patrol their shores?

In a world where I have to drive semi-trailers around Liverpool docks it seems unfair that others get to spend time being paid for cruising tropical islands checking fishing permits are in order.

I say to them: "Get off your jet-skis and onto a monitor in a windowless room like the rest of us!".

What Bermuda's public services clearly need is Elon wielding his chain-saw.

Regular 'Ground-Up'

I belatedly renew my membership of the Vertical Flight Society, so as to keep my iron in the vertical flyer, and shall produce here a potted round-up of their own. Of most significance, the sale of Volocopter to China. Along with the financial travails of both Vertical and Lilium, the takeaway is that you won't get backing to get anything off the ground in Europe unless it's an Airbus.

Here though are two that I'd like to see literally and figuratively take off, one as yet only a CGI render from Bristol in the UK and another a WIGE on the water in the US.

There was I seem to recall an earlier attempt elsewhere in the UK to interest people in an electrical 'flying bus' but it appears to have followed the well-worn eVTOL path:

    (a)    Produce a glossy website

    (b)    Assemble glossy CVs on the promise of at least a month's salary

    (c)    Convince those most gullible in the City of London (take your pick)

    (d)    Spend a good deal of the revenue on buffets and life-like renders

    (e)    Go back to the day job.

Nonetheless I view flying buses of this kind as the natural heir to the Fairey Gyrodyne, and if asked the difference between aviation in the UK in the 1960s as against now, in the former it involved government and national airlines before buying American, while now we go direct to American without passing 'Go'.

Talking of which, I've long been a fan of wing-in-ground-effect and as with hydrofoils the problem was always how to regulate height. Processors have since (a) automated such control challenges whilst (b) providing ample electrical power. The result is a literal resurgence of such craft, of which Regent have attracted most investment and pre-orders.

I'd love one day to sit as a passenger in each.

    Top:         Regent

    Bottom:   Sora (geddit?)

Hat, Throw, Ring?

GoAero is the challenge that succeeds GoFly, to which we pitched up in California in 2020 BC (Before Covid), and the organisers have clearly learned a lot from the prior.

Its eleven Stage One winners have all recently rendered somewhat derivative craft in pictorial form and yet shared $100,000 between them. Though I'm not bitter (Ed. He is), I do consider it may be worth throwing my hat into the Second Stage ring.

For the current focus is on rescue, for which elements the above is ideally suited:

    (a)    Retrieve a drowning victim at the beach.

    (b)    Evacuate flood victims.

    (c)    Rescue someone who has fallen through the ice on a frozen lake.

The takeaway from all of the half-dozen giant drones that I produced (along with good colleagues) before, during and after the competition is that eVTOLs are a royal pain in the ass. Beside that however the principal finding is that, absent the person on board and things are altogether cheaper, easier and safer.

Which brings you back to the Industrial Revolution and the canals and railways here in Lancashire that made it all possible. For an early finding was a horse could pull a ton on land, but two on rail and no less than forty on water.

Once you're moving fast enough however, progress in the air is wholly more effective than on water, with one proviso: it takes a good deal of energy to get airborne in the first place.

Many years ago I gave up a spin in a Whirlwind helicopter for a flying lesson that did not eventuate... story of my life. It was dedicated to SAR, or Search and Rescue, and this is something the UK can no longer really afford, along with all else. The turbine engines such aircraft use have to be exercised regularly even if there is no rescuing to be done.

The modus operandi of the sketch ~ penned as ever around 04:00 a.m. ~ is to fly to a rescue by air (where else?) and to recover by water. In this way you are reducing the cost of getting the thing up there to travel to the rescue site soonest and to conduct the search. And afterward to return with the casualty by sea, which ideally they'd now be out of.

Then it's travelling light on outbound (ideal in air) and heavy inbound (ideal on water): all of which means you can deploy several hundred for the cost of a single helicopter.

Imprinted on my memory from childhood is the lion surmounted by a swarm of bees on the tins of golden syrup I'd use to sweeten my porridge. It's been removed, as you can imagine, for fear of it unsettling the snowflake generation at breakfast.

But there's a moral to the tale: paper covers rock, bees sting lion*.

* Yes, I know it was supposed to be dead already... get a life.

Re: Freeze

I realise the outline is changing more frequently than President Trump's decisions on trade tariffs, but this is finally moving in the direction (Ed. if not forwards?).

The panels that stiffen the frame of each pontoon are upped to mid-level, as much as anything because (a) it's best placed for an advertising hoarding and (b) looks better. Each is made from a length of skirting board, as per skis, and backed by sheet foam to straighten it out whilst adding a soupçon of displacement.

I've removed the extended guard-rails that protected the props beside making it look like it would go faster, and returned to the simple cross-bar that outlines the extent of each prop for safety reasons. The arrangement makes both carrying and working on the cat altogether easier, besides reducing its weight.

The centre-board is just eight inches wide, which will be reduced eventually to six as it can then be capped by the same section of uPVC skirting, albeit doubled up... while at the same time saving on those drives to the Lake District in search of exotic plies.

Regards the vital stats, the beam is 27" across the skis (or 46" as seen here) and the length 77", whilst the gross weight to date including a minimum battery-pack installation, speed controllers, props and motors is just fifteen pounds or seven kilos.

As and when the switch to carbon-fibre is made, however, we can improve on that.

Looking at it I can feel my mojo returning, for I've been in need of extra yoga recently.

"Nice chaturangas" I was told, without thinking they were showing.

Board Out My Brain

I wheel the 'buddy board' out of the hangar again, in an ongoing effort to get T-motor's ESCs communicating with their U7s: currently (geddit?) about as easy as getting Presidents Trump and Zelensky talking.

Wheeled out of the hangar at the same time, however, is electronics guru Phil... who not only lives locally, but has also done sterling work on my drones in the recent past.

Should he not succeed in getting the rotors turning, I've a valid excuse to throw in the oily towel.

Behold My Works...

... and tremble with laughter.

As thoughts turn to senescence and death, I'm constantly amazed by the enduring appeal of headstones that practically nobody visits after a year or two or at best until such time as those most closely connected pass on themselves. More enduring as of now ~ nuclear annihilation excepted ~ is our digital selves, with their lasting appeal.

There's a lesson in this because, once dead no-one is interested in your social feeds, or what Elvis has been up to recently. Our works, however, continue to live a life all of their own.

My monthly (or is it quarterly?) stats on who has been downloading my modest papers is the perfect reading over a coffee in the morning (plus pizza with poached egg).

Why for instance has this one been downloaded a two dozen times on a remote island in Scotland. The clue is likely a school project, the dour schoolmaster pinning this one up on the digital whiteboard and saying, "Drugs do this to you."

My eye was nonetheless drawn to the pair of nearby villages producing some of the best whisky in the world, and I see myself eyeing a grant for education of the young.

On the other hand, someone has downloaded the same paper in Uzbekistan... WTF?

There are two takeaways from all of this however, and one is the enduring appeal of the two papers featuring this means of human carriage, and on the other hand means of turning a quadcopter into a wing-borne airplane using a self-tilting wing: giving it more range and endurance.

The other is the constant trickle of downloads located in California, China and India, which either suggests that this is where the world is being invented; or else merely the fact there are more people there to begin with.

With the possible exception of California, which is where the TD Commons site itself is hosted.

Why am I not there, instead of eating pizza and poached egg here in Royston Vasey?

Footnote: the building is actually Rivington Pike, not ten miles from here by drone...

Box Clever?

I'll have inevitably to defer to convention and add a 'vessel' if only because batteries and electrical equipment are decidedly averse to contact with salt water.

A benefit is ~ despite it being at risk to holes beneath the waterline ~ it does marvels for the volume of displacement and thus the payload.

And allows us to stand around with tots of rum saying "She's a fine vessel, sir, and no mistake...".

Another benefit is that the pontoons need no panels for displacement or else to form a shear web, because the box itself provides for both functions.

There'll be a lid of course and ~ should it ever be crewed ~ you've a ready-made coffin for those burials at sea.

On a more serious note, expect to see as many of these things flying around on water as there are currently in the air over Europe.

A good while ago I spoke to an ex-RAF pilot who runs a company making drones that the the RAF itself has tested as a means of launching missiles.

His opinion was that WW3 had broken out already, but that most people in the UK had not yet caught up with the fact: a phoney war like that your grandparents experienced.

Have a nice day.

Hot-Air Bus

This the final slide of note from the presentation featured prior. The vessel on the left looks, and is, rather silly ~ Airbus hoping that Flettner rotors will deflect us from the fact that carbon emissions due airliners continue to rise near-exponentially. More to the point the same report points out that almost all reductions in emissions are due advances in jet engines, whilst the most ubiquitous aircraft in the form of the Boeing 737 dates from a time now nearer to that of the Wright Brothers than our own.

Altogether more worthy of worthy of our attention is the re-discovery of surface-effect craft in the form of Regent's efforts in the US. Note in particular that it relies solely on aero-propellers instead of water-screws: something I think we need to get used to if we want drones to move faster and more efficiently over water.

Conventionally what stymied these aircraft was fairly lousy sea-keeping, which meant that they would as often as not come to grief when seas got choppier; which they've a nasty habit of doing.

Drones n' Phones

I had intended to touch on elements of today's post, but UP Partners' 2025 Moving World Report does it so much better and to a much greater extent.

I had intended to point out that the single greatest advance in warfare lies with the use of drones, which account for two-thirds of the materiel losses sustained by the Russian army in and around Ukraine.

This is a consequence of the latter's purchase of over ten-thousand commercial drones per month from China, destined to carry modest munitions that have proven sufficient however to destroy tanks, jet fighters and not least soldiers.

Paying for all of this effectively has been the West, and thus it represents a significant flow of funds from west to east which can be expected to continue... in fact the UP report makes clear that in many respects China is already a replacement superpower.

But here's a few takeaways from the slide-show that features almost a hundred-fifty, working from top to bottom and left to right:

Drone deliveries exceeded a million by 2023 and at a third the cost of going by road

Outside of Ukraine, the biggest advances in the above are at the behest of Walmart

Western kids most want to be influencer, gamer or YouTuber as per astronaut (1971)

After halving since 1980 pedestrian deaths doubled again after invention of the iPhone

China is massively increasing carbon emissions, but also doing most to electrify us

Germany's pursuit at reducing the above means they use less electricity than in 1978

The remedy in the West ~ or rather Europe ~ is to accept you're in decline and that even being the world's court jester has its attractions.

As regards our own pursuit at carbon-reduction ~ much like setting fire to yourself in public in the hope someone notices ~ ignore the media and look around instead.

In and around Liverpool docks the most pervasive presence is endless trains carrying wood pellets from one side of the UK to the other. It has been shipped in from the far side of North America, likely featuring destruction of virgin forest as it has when sourced from Europe.

I don't know how much carbon that involves, but we do know that more recently the required fuel for Drax power station came from a coal-mine just twenty miles distant: but nonetheless all of this ticks the required boxes, which Europeans most enjoy.

As for pedestrian deaths I recall from demography lectures that Honda and Yamaha's production of high-power mopeds that sixteen year-olds could ride actually produced an uptick in global deaths at that age.

Jonathan Ive recently said on radio that the impact of what he so enthusiastically designed in the shape of the iPhone has begun to tell, and whilst we all knew it was killing our brains I suspect few of us realised that it was killing the rest of our bodies on the streets.

Question for me at school:          Is the pen mightier than the sword?

Question for my son at school:    Is the iPhone mightier than the AK-47?