Testing, 1, 2...

I'm back from Canada, and I am anxious to get back to my boats. I have been working on a method of tests for my models, and today I decided that I should just roll on. I'm not learning anything by thinking about the best way, so I am going ahead with what is as close to the least scientific method of test I could think of: put it in some water and see if she floats.

There is something lovely about the purity of such an idea, but it does lack the precision I am hoping to achieve. Still, we should stay true to the axiom: build as soon as you can. Make it real. In the spirit of that, I went ahead and rearranged my living room so that the ugly eighteen-foot I found in a forest preserve could stretch out. Then I put some plastic sheet in it and added water (it won't actually hold water due to the large holes in the hull).  Turns out that it works.

Here is what I learned:

It's stable with no weight and gets more stable with weight.
The water line I anticipated is probably way too low (which means she can take a lot more than what I have in her).
I will need to be more precise in the weight I add (I used batteries, some gears from Fenrir, a wrench, some spare change, and assorted bits of change).

So tomorrow I will weigh what I put in there and assume my theory of weight to be correct (the cube of the weight I added is pretty close to what I put in- though that does not account for scale and I am struggling with the actual math). Then I will find some precise weights, bring them home, and retest with what I think is the correct weight. If I am right, it will be between seven and eight pounds.

Here are the pictures...

Ghetto.... no other word for it.

Really stable, and the bow and stern are not in the water yet.

Assorted weight I had around the house.

You can make out the water line if you look closely.

All things considered, I am way ahead of where I was in June of last year. I watched the 2009 documentary of the MR340 ("The Next 340 Miles") while testing and I am in the mood for a race.

This morning I brought everything into work so I could weigh it.  Ready for this?
All that crap weighed in at 8.146 lbs. I anticipated it would need to carry 7.93 lbs (which is the cube root of 500 lbs). I am going to do a little more research, but it looks like we might be ready to build a boat.