January 18, 2010

JOD 35 Mailing List

A bunch of JOD 35 owners from different parts of the world have come together to establish a mailing list. If you own a JOD or are interested in them then please do join the group. Click here for details.

Posted by ninjod at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2010

First Sail of 2010, Last sail of the Season

New Years day saw our first sail of the year and last of the season. Jason, David, Simon and myself all boarded a snow covered NINJOD a little after 10:00 to take part in the HPYC Ice Bucket race. A cold light breeze coupled with a strong ebbing spring tide helped make a fun and interesting race.

Congratulations to Brave for their win and many thanks to Peter Cockayne for these fabulous pictures.

Posted by ninjod at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2009

Christmas Optimisation

I had never run any trial rating certificates before and thought that it would be a good idea to see if any rating optimisation was possible. Having spoken with sail makers and now established what is possible I have been busy purchasing Christmas pressies for Ninjod.

The plan for the new year is to run a shorthanded IRC certificate and a fully crewed IRC certificate. In both cases the jumpers are coming off and the mast head kite is being put into storage. The cost of these items in terms of rating could never be justified against their use.

For fully crewed racing the water ballast is being dropped and we are going back to fractional symmetric spinnakers.

For shorthanded and solo stuff Ninjod will be configured as a bowsprit only boat. A new Selden on deck retractable carbon bowsprit will be fitted sometime between January and March 2010. To make use of the sprit new sails and hardware have been purchased. A Code Zero, and larger Asym will both make use of a Facnor FX2500 furling system. My existing smaller and heavier Asym will run off a tack line from the sprit. To make all of this work properly a new 2:1 halyard will be installed .
The result of all of this is a reduction in IRC rating from 1.024 to 1.012.

Posted by ninjod at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2009

Virtual Technology Afloat

The Problem

If you read this blog or have sailed with me then you will know that NINJOD has a waterproof toughened laptop from GETAC that contains lots of CMAP charts and runs Expedition navigation software. This system connects to all of my instruments, manages my sat phone and email, raises alarms when specific things happen, looks at AIS targets and allows me to quickly ascertain if I am heading in the right direction. The system is fairly important,especially when offshore.

A challenge is faced when trying to ensure that my computer system has a suitable backup. Yes, I can carry another machine however it isn’t that straight forward.

The 1st problem is that much of the software used on these systems is either locked to a specific computer, requires a dongle or both. CMAP chart management is a good example of something that is painful to move from primary system to backup system.

Then once you have spent hours reinstalling everything and setting everything up again on your backup machine your 2nd problem is keeping the 2 systems up to date and in sync. Any waypoints or courses defined on one machine are not automatically transferred to the other. Software versions and electronic charts all change fairly frequently and keeping them up to date ensures you get all the latest bug fixes, corrections and features. Doing this on multiple machines quickly becomes depressing.

The Solution

I think I have found a good solution to these problems and one that allows me to create an instance of Ninjod's computer system whenever I require it using something called Virtualization.

Simply put virtualization allows you to run a complete computer system as a program on any normal computer. This virtual machine is to all intensive purposes a fully functional computer system; you can install software on it, plug USB devices into it as well as read and write your emails.

One of the key benefits of virtualization is that once setup your virtual machine can be run on pretty much any device. For example I use Windows XP afloat, it is required by Expedition. With virtualization I can copy my Windows XP virtual machine to my Mac running OSX and run it, accessing al the features and functions as if it were a standalone machine.

The Result

The result of all of this is that I now no longer need to worry about keeping backup machines up to date. I keep my virtual machine on a memory stick (128GB ) along with the software required to run it. I can plug the memory stick into any reasonable computer and be up and running in no time at all. Gone are the hassles of synchronization and license management as everything is all installed on the same virtual machine.

I use products from VMWARE to achieve virtualization; there are other products available.

Posted by ninjod at 06:26 PM | Comments (1)