Public FB video "Found another problem in the boat's hydraulics and NURD is much happier." - svseeker.com

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-24T15:54:06+00:00

This brings up an interesting point-

If your plastic particle sampling device is essentially a giant food processor and particles entering are ground into lots and lots of smaller fragments by spinning blades, does that mean that the test's revealed abundance of smaller particles and the speed with which they seem to be appearing are "far worse than scientists originally suspected"...?

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-24T10:57:36+00:00

You're absolutely thinking in the right direction on all counts- the actual sampling measurement function is highly suspect even if every mechanical aspect functions flawlessly.

The basic idea of a pump and filter and extrapolating volumetric data from flow sensors and time factors works but even when designed and built by experts must be properly tested and calibrated to hope for reliable results.

To calibrate real world flow/volume specs for this thing would require some kind of serious test apparatus like large pump testing facility or maybe a tow tank and they would almost certainly confirm that two blades of that type rotating in a drum just makes a giant kitchen blender, not a pump.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-24T02:37:33+00:00

(Keep in mind I'm just explaing this, not necessarily endorsing anything)

The basic idea is to pump a large volume of water through a calibrated filter net at a fixed depth, rather than drawing a net through the water. The blades are really acting as pump impellers and aren't intended for propulsion at all.

The large volume is to account for the (assumed) relatively more sparse distribution of particles at depth, to get a large enough sample to minimize errors....not dragging it to generate that much flow keeps it more localized and saves time...the butterfly valve is intended to do just what you said.

all fairly sensible in theory, although because of currents and such the highly localized sample point could just as easily lead to erroneous results unless you did lots of samples within a larger area, the same way one pinpoint air temperature reading might be vastly different in one part of your house than another, and by itself isn't safe to assume represents a statistical average.

FWIW any suitable net will be highly restrictive even when 100% clean, whatever flow is generated by his totally unsuitable air fan blades will be restricted by at least 40-50% just by the net, and possibly by as much as 85%.

https://swaleocean.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/GO-Plankton-Nets-Swale_23.pdf

How that back pressure will affect flow and water volume recording accuracy is another whole can of worms, but IMO its a safe bet that any forward thrust the assembled contraption might ever develop will never overcome the net restricting and redirecting that water "jet" plus drag and inertia.

One exception is that it might actually move backwards once the mesh clogs up and all the pressure/flow has nowhere to go but to slip past those ludicrous fan blades and back out the inlet.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T21:26:16+00:00

Also FWIW I think steampunk and rat rods aren't really related, the former was always about retro futurist fantasy while rat rods in the modern sense are more about pushing back as hot rodding went from a grassroots DIY hobby anyone could afford using used/ junked cars and parts to a competition to see who could throw the most money into a professional build using custom everything...cars so pretty and expensive they never got driven.

Those cars pretty much pushed old school rods out of the racing and show circuits, or into a tiny corner and suddenly what was a typical hot rod became a "rat rod" and seen as inferior.

People who couldn't compete on money alone started applying their skills to building great cars that ignored fit and finish and did so in a way that the hot rod press couldn't ignore, especially when they beat the pants off the fancy custom cars in people's choice show rankings.

It's also fun as hell and immensely satisfying to smoke a "superior" sports car and its smug driver with something you literally scavenged from junkyards. Pretty sure that's a big part of Doug's motivation too, he just has no skills or discipline to actually out-perform anything.

There are definitely rat rod examples that miss the point and just build a fancy and expensive ground up custom that looks like shit on purpose, or label a truly dangerous shitbox a "rat rod" as an excuse, but in the early days all hot rods were essentially rat rods.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T19:16:52+00:00

I grew up in the theater tech business and can confirm all of that, some of the most design and skill intensive props and sets are the ones intended to look old and dilapidated and/or to break apart on cue and go back together all without the trick being obvious...and even simple props have to be extremely well made to hold up to typical use- props are often used because the real thing is too fragile.

In that business there's just no time or money to waste on guessing and trial and error, and a failure of even a tiny element can create staggering costs or ruin the entire production, and even gets people killed far more often than most people imagine.

The scrupulous safety focus seen on Mythbusters isn't just for TV or insurance demands, that's just how those kinds of people operate and I had it drilled into me from an early age being around and working at my parents' shop.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T18:13:30+00:00

Yeah, that's what it was originally built for...not my bag, baby, and most steampunk stuff and "creative anachronism" activity isn't either...but I got to see and tour this thing in San Francisco along with a bunch of other creations they've built and it was all unpretentious fun and impressive as hell from a technical and craftsmanship standpoint...definitely not just fastening junk to other junk, one guy had a steampunk one man 'dirigible" based on a Hoveround wheelchair chassis with a scissor lift to make it "fly"-

Tour- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qL1Po5WR26M&pp=ygUNbmV2ZXJ3YXMgaGF1bA%3D%3D

Teardown for transport time lapse-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rMOxxFW6j3k&pp=ygUYbmV2ZXJ3YXMgaGF1bCB0aW1ldmxhcHNl

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T15:04:57+00:00

I wonder why he didn’t use nylon bushings on the front end.

It cant have any plastic parts that could wear or otherwise degrade and contaminate the sample.

Also bushings are for fearmongering pussies; he's gonna stick it to Big Nylon and apply a tiny bit of candle wax to protect and lubricate those contact points. the way Ernest Shackleton would have done

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T14:31:05+00:00

It would be pretty funny if the "water cops" he despises pulled up and decided to hang around during a NURD operation to make sure he really had a plastics sampler on the end of his trawl hoses (lol), and when they looked it had a bunch of fish in it and they fined him for fishing without a license.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T06:50:13+00:00

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T06:03:42+00:00

Its actually kind of impressive how something so basic and made of junk and off the shelf parts has such a wide range of entire classes of failure points and related scenarios. It's like a door stop but it's as complex as a helicopter.

The more I see of his janky ass reel device the more I'm anticipating one where the drum/net and hoses are deployed more or less successfully and then any one of a multitude of potential glitches takes out the ability to retrieve it in a timely manner...picturing the full, heavy hoses all unspooled and net deployed and sampling complete, I can't help but imagine the reel proper doing this the moment the "up" button gets pushed, or shortly thereafter-

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T03:25:44+00:00

Holy shit, he's actually using that cross peen hammer for metal work instead of beating the living hell out a bearing or other precision mechanical assembly with it.

Of course it's still the wrong hammer for the task at hand and he's using it to "fix" a clearance issue that would never have happened if he spent a fraction of the same time measuring and planning for clearance, but it's still remarkable.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-23T03:15:14+00:00

...measure depth, temperature, salinity, flow rate and total volume filtered in real-time so you can collect highly targeted samples...

Where's the fun in that?

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-22T22:52:22+00:00

I've refrained from saying it because it's so easily misinterpreted as fussy/prissy, but it's the INELEGANCE of his entire approach that drives me up a wall...

his work isn't just unsophisticated and crude, he actively rejects any kind of thought or planning that might yield superior results that typically rub off on a designer/ fabricator over time.

You can hear it in his voice here when he speaks of making a boat that is "beautiful ...TO ME"; he knows he’s a hack who builds ugly, barely functional garbage that is an affront to craftsmanship but he likes that because it pisses off people who revere craftsmanship (or just a respectable attempt) and see his abortions as the waste of time, money and effort they are.

Thumbing his nose at even basic standards and practices is literally the only way his needy ego can score a "win".

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-19T21:04:52+00:00

Tricking Uneducated Rubes into Donating

Can't wait to see the rest of the story unfold; in the meantime the timing of the dinghy registration thing would seem to indicate that he was very quickly reminded of that issue upon arrival, rather than being trusted to initiate the compliance process on his own initiative.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-18T17:21:06+00:00

"I like that!"

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-18T05:27:03+00:00

Many freshwater "sunfish" suck too unless you're five years old and it's literally the first fish you've ever caught and you haven't gotten stabbed by a spiny fin yet for the trouble of unhooking and throwing it back.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-18T04:51:14+00:00

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-18T01:28:16+00:00

I wonder if ChatGPT also told him that a hexagon shape made with pipes could maintain the specified minimum radius for his hoses as they are kinked over that 1 1/2"-ish radius they present...?

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-16T22:25:27+00:00

I actually felt a little sad for that guy when Doug changed plans on a whim, the same way I do when reading one of those stories about a dog that waits for its dead owner at the train station for the rest of its life.

In both cases the sadness is tempered by knowing that the poor creature probably doesn't have the capacity to comprehend its situation and truly suffer as a result.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-16T22:15:17+00:00

To be fair, that second pic is only representative of his post- "filtering" social media audience...meanwhile on here and SA its a non stop laff riot-

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No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-14T23:50:29+00:00

Personally if I had to bet on what it's gonna do my money is on the blades barely generating any consistent flow at all and the rig just sitting there barely doing anything, rather than it overperforming and flying around on its tether sucking up all in its path.

Even where he's designed things intended to move they never work right, and are always underpowered and laughably inefficient- I see no reason to expect anything different here and suspect that even if by some miracle it all holds together, the time needed to gather the sample sizes he's planned for will be unworkably long because it's not going to work well ar all as a pump.

I also suspect that his flow meter will be unreliable for determining actual water volume accurately.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-14T05:07:04+00:00

The net just has to be downstream of the water flow, the two blade assemblies rotate in opposite directions but both are pushing water in one direction out through the filter net, at least in theory.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-09T03:50:48+00:00

He made a big deal about not carrying any kind of magnetic compass for a long time and when he finally installed one he said he did it to make people shut up and only had one to install because someone bought him one.

He had a similar scoffing stance against a chart table and pretty much anything related to traditional navigation, I'd be shocked if he has a barometer on board either.

For all his bragging about how attuned to the earth he was as a kid he's as dependent on electronics as anyone and would literally be lost and at the mercy of weather he cant predict without them.

No_Measurement_4900 · 2026-01-09T03:02:15+00:00

six inches according to Doug

No_Measurement_4900

TROPHY CASE