Some screen grabs from the Ch7 News last night.
Rainbow Beach, Cutting boat, support boat & contractor's boat.
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| Calf entangled in Shark net, mum & friend |
The cavalry
Going in for a cut, your humble correspondent standing around looking busy, but not actually doing much.
Except looking like a finalist in a "Who can dress up most like a lego man" competition.
Helmet cam of cutting net
Last cut & he / she is free.
If you'll forgive a minor geek-gasm, compare the Ch7 footage to the Ch10 shots.
The Ch7 chopper has a double plus sweet U-beaut gyro-stabilised camera.
The Ch10 guy was hanging out the door with a camera on his shoulder. Sux to be him.
Bravo. *standing ovulation*
ReplyDeleteI am seething with envy. Swap you Tex for the calf?
ReplyDeleteDon't listen to him, Nbob, what he really wants is the knife.
ReplyDeleteNice going, BTW, Lego Team.
Now I know who to call when the Irish fall over and get trapped in my anti-bird netting.
You guys are trained how to deal with backpackers too, right?
ReplyDeleteSadly I can't watch the video because I am out of the area :(
ReplyDeleteThread hijack...
ReplyDeleteI always thought of a strip-plank (ie, plastic really but with a timber “core”) version of something like the Nereia myself, possibly scaled up a bit to cater to the Uffa Fox quip about a man needing a foot of boat length (LWL of course) for each year of his age. I think I still fit into the 12 metre class if you relax the rules a bit. But anyway…
Bob, I do see the attraction. I really do. But I also see the need to fill big, multiple-1000s of litre tanks to get anywhere, and that’s a big mental block for me.
I see specs for a fast 13m cat (http://www.nautilus.hr/lagoon_power_44_speed.htm) that can cruise at 18 knots at 42l/h with a 1500l tank that would *just* make Sydney. Sure, that would make the passage in 14 hours or so. But… you could buy an old car and drive it that distance for less money than you’d spend on diesel.
A more realistic cruiser, say the Nordhavn 40 (http://www.nordhavn.com/models/40/) takes 6l/h (1.6 gallons) at 6 knots (about the same speed as a sailing catamaran of a similar size) – so a trip to Sydney would take a bit short of 70 hours and about 400l of diesel (out of the boat’s 3500l or 900 gallon tank). Which is more reasonable, but…
The RACQ website has the best price for diesel as 142.7 cents a litre at the moment. That would make the fast trip worth $2140.50 and the slow trip $570.80. That’s one way, of course (and doesn’t allow for the cost of a rescue if you tried to hero the Lagoon 44 through in one passage and ran out of fuel somewhere off Gosford).
Having said that, I agree everything you said, especially the cost of fanceh materials and sailmaking and lack of comfort below decks. There are arguments both ways, I don’t deny a powerboat’s likely more comfortable for a given size, with the one exception that roll is less with sails holding you steady (doesn’t do anything about pitch of course).
And I admit the techno-geek in me loves the idea of electric motors that turn into dynamos under sail, tech that’s mature now. And I like the old designs like LFH’s Nereia a lot, even while granting an equivalent catamaran is faster, more upright, more comfortable and very probably drier. To say nothing of a power boat :P