Chris 249 forum posts in last 60 days

mathew said..

Chris 249 said..
Leaving aside what handicap class that is and whether it's very serious by big-boat standards (most modern F-Ps are full cruisers) Is their foam core 100mmm or so thick and of soft foam, as it is in boards?

I am curious as to why you apply the 100mm (aka some large thickness) to this discussion? I am trying to understand how this applies to the discussion of pushing-tech-forwards - please elaborate.

The thickness of the foam is somewhat immaterial wrt. sandwich construction - beyond a certain thickness vs stiffness ratio. In fact the thicker the foam, the less stiff it becomes because the sheer forces ( of one skin vs the other ) are further apart so the net-stiffness is lower.

I brought up thick foam exactly because as you said it has structural issues - and yet that is what we use a lot in boards. Therefore if we want to push technology forward, why can’t we look at other sailing craft, which often ARE very weight conscious and often use thinner cores or different core material such as Nomex. Why can’t we look at the use of carbon tows or the Bighead fittings?
Why do you get so aggro when someone dares to suggest that we look at other forms of sailing craft? Why is it OK for people to sit here and pour **** on Cobra and other manufacturers, and not OK when someone dares to suggest that perhaps we open our eyes to what is happening elsewhere and consider what can be learned?

Gestalt said..

Chris 249 said..

Gestalt said..

stainless is not the best for marine environments. best is titanium, by a long shot. then brass.. i get stainless is stronger than brass but it's also heavier and it rusts.. if you do a deep dive into stainless in marine environments you will see it has a very hectic cleaning schedule or it rusts, tea stains etc. titanium unfortunately is very expensive..

Titanium was banned for some uses in big boats decades ago because in practise, it fractures easily with no warning. It's been dropped for most uses, AFAIK, because it doesn't do much that isn't better done with carbon or ss.

There's thousands of boats from the '60s and '70s out there with stainless steel bolts holding multi-ton ballast keels with no problems, normally zero cleaning, and years of living in bilge water. I had the keel bolts from one of my yachts pulled when it was 40 years old and most of them were perfectly fine and the other had other issues. I used to work in the industry and never heard of anyone even considering ti bolts for keels, and can't recall them ever being used for critical rigging areas.

I'm no boatbuilder but looking at the areas where people spend vastly much more cash on building lightweight sailing craft (ie $35,000 for the bare hull of a 17 foot singlehander, or $70,000 for a foiling Moth) it's normally a case of using thin cores of Nomex or high density foam with carbon over the top. High-load areas like the rigging attachments are made up very easily and lightly by using carbon tows (strands) epoxied to the carbon skin. I think my brother's 37 foot catamaran has its rigging loads taken by simple carbon tows, which would weigh a few grammes and take far more load than anything any windsurfer ever felt.

I'm not up on windsurfer sailcloth, but I still find it odd that a 5.7m dacron sail from the original Windsurfer is less than 2kg and therefore dramatically lighter than most modern sails. I've noted before here that I've weighed by yacht, dinghy, cat and windsurfer sails and the latter are far heavier for their area and the claims that windsurfer sails are tougher seems to be complete BS - I don't know anyone who both wavesailed and done a tough Sydney-Hobart would claim that. or anyone who would have wound the tension into an F18 cat rig and then stacked it big time in a blow. There may be very good reasons for the extra weight in windsurfer sails but I do wonder whether the board sails are more driven by marketing than boat sails. Certainly windsurfer sail makers keep on claiming that sails have ever-wider ranges but they also keep on writing catalogues that say you need the same number of sails to cover the wind range as they did decades ago, whereas the yachts that have gone to 3DI or modern laminates are showing that using different modern approaches really can increase sail range.

Not sure if you noticed but we are talking about windsurfers and not boats. How it makes sense to compare an Lt sail to modern sails I leave to you because that analogy to me makes zero sense.

anyways I'm calling bull **** on your post..
www.samaterials.com/blog/how-is-titanium-used-in-marine.html
www.sail-world.com/news/236027/The-Tech-Inside-AC75-Soft-Wings


some science
www.alekvs.com/stainless-steel-vs-titanium-a-comprehensive-comparison/

The point is that there is absolutely no reason to ignore the lessons learned at vast expense by boat builders. Why would anyone want to ignore what multi-million dollar construction jobs using specialist structural engineers do? Why discuss some new footstrap inserts and then apparently get annoyed by those who bring up the fact that there's potentially ways of fitting footstraps that could, for example, be lighter, structurally more efficient, and basically remove any chance of leakage into the core?

If you are saying you are interested in improvements, why get angry about people who show other avenues of improvement? You say you want light stuff and then reject out of hand the facts that show that minimising battens, for example, could be another avenue of improvement in some respects.

Why call bull**** when not a single thing in your links disagrees with what was said about titanium? I said it was banned from "some" uses and has been dropped for "most" uses. All that was doing was pointing out that it has certain problems and we can learn from that.

jontyh said..
Managed to get a late 80s Mistral comp light for ?20, (surprisingly light compared to my old club version) and have only the board and fin, so will need to make a centreboard, and bodge on a chinook mast base ( should be ok, as the bolts line up with the 2 mast foot holes and can bolt it on with long bolts accessed from below) . So, was thinking that as i will be sailing with a modern rig possibly a 5.5 m ks3, so making the C of E further back. I might make a thinner centreboard and bigger fin, to either fit in the existing swivel mechanism, or glass in a new fin box.
My question is, does anybody know what i'm likely to find construction wise if i rout out the old fin box? and has anyone modified such an old board successfully?

Would the CE be further back? The Superlight sail had a very long boom and that may have compensated for the pinhead shape.

Gestalt said..

stainless is not the best for marine environments. best is titanium, by a long shot. then brass.. i get stainless is stronger than brass but it's also heavier and it rusts.. if you do a deep dive into stainless in marine environments you will see it has a very hectic cleaning schedule or it rusts, tea stains etc. titanium unfortunately is very expensive..

Titanium was banned for some uses in big boats decades ago because in practise, it fractures easily with no warning. It's been dropped for most uses, AFAIK, because it doesn't do much that isn't better done with carbon or ss.

There's thousands of boats from the '60s and '70s out there with stainless steel bolts holding multi-ton ballast keels with no problems, normally zero cleaning, and years of living in bilge water. I had the keel bolts from one of my yachts pulled when it was 40 years old and most of them were perfectly fine and the other had other issues. I used to work in the industry and never heard of anyone even considering ti bolts for keels, and can't recall them ever being used for critical rigging areas.

I'm no boatbuilder but looking at the areas where people spend vastly much more cash on building lightweight sailing craft (ie $35,000 for the bare hull of a 17 foot singlehander, or $70,000 for a foiling Moth) it's normally a case of using thin cores of Nomex or high density foam with carbon over the top. High-load areas like the rigging attachments are made up very easily and lightly by using carbon tows (strands) epoxied to the carbon skin. I think my brother's 37 foot catamaran has its rigging loads taken by simple carbon tows, which would weigh a few grammes and take far more load than anything any windsurfer ever felt.

I'm not up on windsurfer sailcloth, but I still find it odd that a 5.7m dacron sail from the original Windsurfer is less than 2kg and therefore dramatically lighter than most modern sails. I've noted before here that I've weighed by yacht, dinghy, cat and windsurfer sails and the latter are far heavier for their area and the claims that windsurfer sails are tougher seems to be complete BS - I don't know anyone who both wavesailed and done a tough Sydney-Hobart would claim that. or anyone who would have wound the tension into an F18 cat rig and then stacked it big time in a blow. There may be very good reasons for the extra weight in windsurfer sails but I do wonder whether the board sails are more driven by marketing than boat sails. Certainly windsurfer sail makers keep on claiming that sails have ever-wider ranges but they also keep on writing catalogues that say you need the same number of sails to cover the wind range as they did decades ago, whereas the yachts that have gone to 3DI or modern laminates are showing that using different modern approaches really can increase sail range.

myscreenname said..
So the net gain is what we all already know?

Why do you say I'm happy about Australians being killed by foreigners?

You are making this up.

The fact that you are so against any action being taken against Australians who kill foreigners seems to indicate that you don't see it as being very wrong. If that's not being happy with mass murder of foreigners then it's practically indistinguishable from being happy with it.

If you were NOT happy with Australians killing foreigners, you would support action being taken against alleged mass murderers.

myscreenname said..
What is going to be the net gain in charging disgraced former Victoria Cross recipient BRS, even if they get a conviction?

AFP have limited resources, but for some reason they pursued BRS with vigor and for what gain? I object to that.

The time and effort should have been better spent in trying to prevent the Bondi shootings. These terrorists were on the radar, but they chose to put far more resources into getting BRS instead.

How can you continue to ignore the fact that the net gain is that ADF members are clearly shown that you don't kill unarmed civilians and prisoners, you don't break laws, you don't break rules of engagement?

How can you continue to ignore that if the case was dropped, the ADF and our society would get a clear message that it's OK to kill unarmed civilians and PoWs and break the law?

How can you ignore that the lesson would be that if you come from the establishment and are supported by billionaires, you can literally get away with (elleged) murder?

How the **** can anyone think that "for some reason" they investigated BRS when the reasons were so obvious? The allegations are that he killed multiple people,. but for some bizarre reason you are apparently perfectly OK with that. You apparently want to live in a world where getting away with mass murder is OK. That is just weird.

The AFP's time and resources go into different areas. They need different expertise. Much of the AFP investigation occurred years ag, probably well before there was anything to investigate about the Bondi shooters.

You seem to be very happy with the idea that foreigners can be killed by Aussies. There's a word for that.

Carantoc said..

Chris 249 said..
For heaven's sake, the ADF cannot investigate Herzog. The ADF doesn't have the power under Australian law.

AFP, mate AFP. And they can, under Aussie law, investigate anyone anywhere for accusations of genocide.

So just to confirm then the whole point of this, the $300 million, 10 years and the public arrest, leaked to the press for maximum publicity is to confirm our service people the media decide must follow laws and orders must follow laws and orders, unless the orders don't conform to the law then it is all too muddy to worry about.

But also that there is no need to make any effort confirming that genocide shouldn't be allowed to happen or confirm that illegal wars shouldn't be started so long as there is enough of a front page story with all the other ****e going on and anyone accused of such should be welcome to come visit.

Yep, you have persuaded me now.

Hey, MSN sorry but I no longer stand with you.



Edit : Well sorry there you fellas type quicker than me. I read MSN say AFP and C249 say ADF. I stand corrected if that wasn't the case.

MSN's first edition of his post clearly said "ADF", and I was responding to that. It seems to have been edited later, but look at the quote box to see what I was responding to.

Yes, I know the AFP can investigate war crimes, but the accepted international law is that a head of state is immune, so any AFP investigation would be a complete waste of time.

It's bull**** to say that "the media decide must follow laws and orders must follow laws and orders" since the media don't decide that - the ADF decides that, our government decides that, international law decides that, and many of BRS's fellow soldiers decided that. It's weird for you to claim that Herzog should be investigated although international law says he can't, and also for you to claim that our service people should not be investigated even when international law says they should be.

It's silly to say "unless the orders don't conform to the law then it is all too muddy to worry about". There is NOTHING muddy about not shooting unarmed prisoners and civilians when they don't pose a threat. That is illegal, just as it was illegal when the SS murdered escaped prisoners in WW2 and the Japanese raped and murdered Australian nurses in WW2.

You, apparently, see no problem with murdering unarmed people in breach of international law, but thankfully the ADF does. You also seem to think that the media should maintain silence when there are criminal and civil proceedings against rich and prominent people, but that is also pretty odd.

myscreenname said..

Chris 249 said..

myscreenname said..

Chris 249 said..

So what, then, is your disagreement with the BRS charges?

The allegation is that BRS did something that has been illegal under the laws of war for many years. That is pretty clear. Why did you bring in the Israeli president's visit? The fact that someone visited Australia recently is nothing to stop charges related to murders of people of a different country many years earlier.

ADF didn't investigate Herzog as far as I'm aware. I don't believe they are investigating any IDF soldiers living or visiting here. Seems to me they are more obsessed conducting a time consuming and very expensive witch hunt on a disgraced former SAS soldier. Why is that and what problem will this solve?

acij.org.au/media-release-legal-groups-demand-police-investigation-of-israeli-president-herzog-for-incitement-to-genocide/

For heaven's sake, the ADF cannot investigate Herzog. The ADF doesn't have the power under Australian law.

The link you referred to is a bunch of people claiming, with no citation or any other evidence, that accepted international law is wrong. For you to expect the ADF, which has no such power, to investigate a charge it can't investigate under accepted law is weird.

The Herzog thing seems to just be a smokeshield for you to claim that we should allow people to get away with murder if they did it a few years ago. So if your kids, partner or family were killed a few years ago, would you be happy if the murderer was wandering around in a well paid job today? Really?

The problem that addressing the BRS case will solve is pretty damn simple. It will confirm that our service people must follow laws and orders. It is beyond weird that you seem to object to that and therefore you seem to be happy to live in a world where people can get away with murder if it was long enough ago, and that people should see and understand that lesson.

ADF or AFP?

YOU said ADF. Read your own post.

The AFP also doesn't breach accepted international laws like the head of state immunity. You may not like it, I don't like Herzog, but that doesn't mean that we get to change international law.

And it's weirdly hypocritical for you to seem to want us to breach international law to investigate Herzog, but don't want Australians to be charged for murder.

And no, I'm not "triggered" by the fact that you seem to be happy to let people get away with multiple murders. Any sane person would be annoyed at your attitude, and this is one area I know a lot better than most people because of my former job.

myscreenname said..

Chris 249 said..

I've already said that I disagree with that invitation.

It seems that you think that once a country does something arguably wrong politically, then that country's service people should be able to murder, torture, mutilate, harm or do anything else they want, without anyone trying to stop or punish them. That is not logical.

Applying what seems to be your logic, once Germany started WW2 by invading Poland, then the SS should have been allowed to kill everyone they felt like killing and no one should have taken any action at any time. I'm glad I don't live in your world.

I must have missed that you disagreed with Israel's Presidents visit.

No, that's not my logic at all. I don't know what you are on about.

Bull**** it's illogical. You are the one who has, since your first post, conflated a recent visit to old killings as if the Israeli president's visit somehow affected the allegations that BRS murdered unarmed people - something that has been illegal under the laws of war for many years. The fact that someone visited Australia recently is nothing to stop charges related to murders of people of a different country many years earlier.

You are the one who has claimed that "something isn't right", as if there is something wrong about the fact that we are taking action once allegations of murder have surfaced.

What else do you want us to do? Ignore the allegations?

Are you saying that because a country gave someone a medal, that person cannot be charged with or be guilty of war crimes?

Yes, the investigation has taken years. That is because the earlier one tried to move faster and had issues, and because it's hard to investigate something that allegedly occurred in a tight-knit community in which other allegations are involved, in a country where we cannot access the alleged crime site to carry out the usual forensic and other allegations, where the local cop are not cooperating, etc etc etc. It is perfectly logical that the investigation has taken this long, although it's not ideal.

Have you read the judgment of the defo action? It's free for all to read, it's got lots of detail, and it's almost certainly the best publicly available source of information about the allegations, the witness statements (down to exactly where certain witnesses were positioned at the time of various alleged killings, where certain people were when certain things were allegedly said, etc).

If you reckon something is wrong then what steps have you taken to inform yourself?

Carantoc said..

hilly said..
if we allow wealth and media influence to dictate what constitutes a 'war crime', we lose the very values our soldiers are sent to defend.

Who wrote that article hilly ? the same very well funded media organisation that had the argument with him in the first place ?

But anyways, part of my point is they weren't sent to "defend our values". Quite the opposite to my recollection.

The US wanted OBL. They thought the Taliban had him. The Taliban agreed to give him to a third party country if he could be afforded a fair trial. The US said no deal, no fair trial, we are sending some bad boys to **** you up cause we don't like you anyway.

They were sent to impose our superiority, not to defend our values.


Edit : and yep, that is also much of my point from before. We think we go to war these days to 'defend our values'. Just explain to me like I am a 10 year old, headmaster - how to you win a war started with the sole aim of 'defending our values' ? Surely the very nature of any form of victory over anyone else means we fail. It is impossible to win.

The fact that one can passionately disagree with a war does not mean that one cannot say that the war should be fought according to the rules of war and of normal humanity.

If, for example, we launched a war against NZ tomorrow I assume you would be against it. Does that mean that you believe that it would be OK if our soldiers stabbed Kiwi babies and barbecued them? Of course you would not. Do you think it would have been OK if Australian soldiers in 1944 had tortured all the Japanese prisoners to death? I hope you would not. The point, to make it clear, is that the fact that a war may be carried our for the wrong reasons (or for the right reasons) does not mean that it's OK to carry out utterly inhumane acts during that war. In no recent war, for many years, has it been considered acceptable to kill prisoners who were not escaping, or civilians who were not engaged in active war and/or guilty of espionage etc.

In WW2, which was a war against evil regimes, there were still accepted rules of war. It was accepted in the western desert, for example, that one should not shoot up a tank crew who had bailed out. It was accepted in the ETO that one should not shoot up aircrew in parachutes. Similarly, in WW1 there was a lot of accepted etiquette even in the horrific trench battles - see Tony Ashworth's invaluable book. Of course, as an expert in the BRS case and all of the relevant issues you would already be across all this.

By the way, have you read the judgment in the defo action? It's probably the best publicly available information.

cammd said..

Chris 249 said..

cammd said..

myscreenname said..

hilly said..
Google "Geneva Convention" and after that "Code of silence" to understand what I was saying.

Great, we both understand the definition of what war crimes and genocide are.

Tell me.... why does Australia 'invite' and roll out the red carpet for the president of Israel on one hand and on the other choose to arrest our most decorated soldier, BRS, with the other?

I don't quite get it.

Explain that to me like I'm 10yo headmaster.

The reason you dont get a lot of stuff is because you confuse feeling with thinking.



It feels wrong to me as well to be charging a war hero with war crimes but there are lines that should not be crossed. Like raping teenage girls at a music festival before killing or taking them hostage in then name of righteous resistance for example



If BRS has a case to answer then let him answer it before a court of law so justice can be done one way or another. Its been 10 years and apparently 300M spent to get to here. Something seems wrong with that in itself. Put him before the court and get it over with.

The criminal case has taken this long to build because the allegations are so serious and the prosecution team has therefore been exceptionally cautious. It's a pity it took so long but this is not a typical murder case.

Special forces are in a special situation. Their identifies are normally kept confidential for obvious and very good reasons, which makes the giving of testimony a special case. They also normally have a very strong esprit de corp, which sadly is often built up with things like severe and heavy hazing in the guise of initiations. These can be pretty weird but to give one example, if a member of the WA clearance diver's team invited you out for "a night on the piss" you weren't going to be drinking just alcohol.. or rather, you were going to be drinking used alcohol.

It is also alleged (to be careful) that Ben Roberts-Smith has also engaged in some very heavy threats against his former colleagues. Some of them are also implicated in alleged war crimes, which makes their testimony complicated as well. These factors don't apply in most murder cases. Most murder cases also occur on Australian soil, which is not the case here.

He's presumed innocent until proven guilty,
that's a law you may like to remember.

Read my post. Given that I used terms like "alleged" and "allegations" there is no honest room for any insinuation that I did not follow that law, which I know very well.

myscreenname said..

Carantoc said..
Everybody does bad things in war. It is what war is, loads of people dong bad things to each other.

If you don't want it to happen then don't start a war. Otherwise you got to accept it.

Yes, that's the general understanding of war and what we expect of our soldiers. They are paid to do a dirty job. What happens in war should stay in the war, as the thin red line between right and wrong is a blur.

I don't think anyone benefits from rehashing possible crimes that our most decorated soldier may have done while serving our country during a war carried out over a decade ago.

What message does this send to anyone now serving in our defense forces?

The message is to follow laws, follow orders, and do not carry out acts that have been criminalised for well over a century. What is so hard to work out about that?

It seems that you want our defence personnel to NOT follow laws, to NOT follow orders, and to be able to behave like criminals without any repercussions. What message does that send to anyone now serving in our defence forces?

1728 said..
I can help, drop the idea that you know anything factual about world politics, and what a media company said was true

Roberts-Smith took the media company to court and lost, because the court found that the allegations were true.

The claims against Roberts-Smith are backed up by many witnesses from the SAS, in sworn testimony.

Grantmac said..
What does one design racing have to do with wavesailing?

It's a very good testing ground to see if weight makes a significant difference. Hand the average wave sailor a 2kg lighter board and put them in a competition against the world wave champion on a "normal" weight board, then see the difference in their performance. I'll bet that no one could see any difference - the champ will still wipe the average sailor just as the OD champ with 2k extra bolted to the board will win against the average sailor.

As a parallel, I race bicycles against the state champ in my age group. In time trial bikes the physics are easy to work out. I haven't been serious for years so these days I'm slow, and I can crunch the numbers to see that out of the 20% (IIRC) speed difference between us, only about 2% is down to the fact that he has vastly better gear, and 18% of the difference is down to him being a better cyclist. So should I worry about the spending $20,000 to get rid of the 2% I'm losing through having old gear, or should I get my arse into gear, do the hard work and try to reduce the 18% I'm losing because I'm not as fit, strong and hardened as he is? It's a no brainer from my angle, and the champion cyclists I know would all tell me it's not about the bike and that I should ride up grades, not buy upgrades, if I want to get back to being quicker.

IF someone wants to buy lightweight gear because they like the feel of it, or because they like nice stuff, or they love the technology that's fine. Good on them and I hope they have fun with it. But the thing is that the subjective enjoyment they get from that doesn't mean that it's making an objective significant difference. If someone wants to plane earlier, unless they are on the PWA they should probably spend the time they spend thinking about gear working on their fitness, weight or technique.

ptsf1111 said..
The best sailors do not only have the best skills, but they are also the best at selecting gear. In PWA slalom racing, the top guys test multiple identical boards until they have found the best board out of them and use that one for the formal races. The others are used for training only. So they might not put them on a scale, but the weight is inherently part of it. Production boards would have very similar weights, but there's still slight variations in shape that makes the one board faster than the other. That, combined with sailing skills, tuning, and tactics, makes a winner.

But Olympic gold medallists, PWA world champs and America's Cup winners do NOT always do that, and they still win. Some of them, like Laser sailors, have found to their cost that worrying about getting fast gear is a very bad thing. There's a great interview with Shirley Robertson chatting to Olympic Laser gold medallist Tom Slingsby. He was stressed about the boat he got at the Beijing Olympics and that, along with suffering psychologically from trying to lose body weight, led to him going from being unbackable favourite to finishing about 24th.

After that, Tom was coached by Michael Blackburn, Olympic bronze medallist and an extremely analytical sailor. Michael and Tom went out and bought "slow" boats - ie ones with the "wrong" mast rake or weight, etc - and learned how to get them to perform just as well as a "fast" boat. That meant that when Tom went into the next Games, he knew that all had to do was measure the supplied boat, apply the technique changes that they had worked out when training with the "slow" boats, and they could get them all going effectively as fast as each other. Tom won that Olympics going away and went on to win the America's Cup.

Similarly, two-time Olympian Krystal Weir didn't stress if a sail was blown away and crumpled because any loss of shape was half of what she would lose in a bad tack. And I know for a fact, because I was one of the crew, that (as noted above) one of the Australia II crew and a multiple world champ did NOT select the best gear when we won a nationals against multiple world champs. Back in the day I was Bjorn's training partner before the worlds, and he did NOT do what you say.

Some of the best sailors do what you say, but others simply do not.