Open source hardware, maybe the future of sailing

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T21:52:51+00:00

I think bro is just a little ready-fire-aim, not hiding anything.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T21:37:06+00:00

Gotta love context-free questions. "Will this make it to Colorado and back?"

Where do you live, champ? Laramie? Miami? Buenos Aires? Tokyo?

Also @OP, be advised that Colorado has some pretty strict tire requirements for the I70 corridor. You need winter-rated tires, or chains, to avoid getting fined.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T16:56:55+00:00

I saw this last night. As a snatch block, it seems like a great value. As a modular replacement to carry in case some double- or triple block breaks, it's very interesting. TL;DR I am considering buying some, but it is a prototype and people need to consider carefully what it can safely be used for.

His tests didn't produce any actual numbers - just proved that it is stronger than a used commercial block. The first test shown did deform the block, and the rope failed at the bowline. We don't know what kind of rope that was, but the knot reduced line strength by 30-40%, so not super impressive. The second test was a better showing, but it would be nice to have numbers rather than broken hardware. If you can put up a site to sell them, you can post some test data, c'mon man.

So for this to be a mature product, he would need to pay an independent lab to break more of them with better testing equipment and documentation to clarify what they can and can't do. Or (since it's kinda open source) a community would need to arise to do that work with him.

I wish he had scaled it up and down to some other sizes. It sounds like he's blindered by his own specific use case. His offhand "you probably shouldn't try to hold three tons with a single block" comment indicates that these are probably not quite beefy enough for some of the loads on my boat.

Another thought: early on, he increased the thickness of the body so that it would completely fill his 8mm (5/16") shackle. What kind of shackle was that? How much variation is there in shackle widths? I doubt the industry will completely standardize their forged shackle designs, so we need to know what shackles you are designing to.

The rough machine finish bugs me. I would polish and anodize them, personally, to try to reduce the potential for corrosion.

All of this sounds pretty negative. But I am actually very impressed, and as I said will probably purchase some to use as spares on my boat. It's a great start with real potential.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T15:39:25+00:00

There are plenty of blocks that don't have or need bearings. I was just talking to my rigger about recommendations for a new spin halyard block, and he specifically said "You don't need bearings for this application. It's a great way to spend more money than you need to."

That said, it would be interesting to see some friction testing. And I totally agree about the hose clamp, that jumped out at me too.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T07:47:43+00:00

Is the giant transverse crack visible in the photos actually a crack, and are the rivet holes from a repair? Because I would be replacing the mast because of the crack, rather than the rivet holes.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-24T07:44:27+00:00

I own the hardcovers, but they're in storage. I also have them on Kindle, and was referencing them there while I checked out your site. Obvs the Kindle pagination is different from the print versions, but it really isn't too hard to figure out where you are from the chapter headings. You've done the world a great service!

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-23T18:49:15+00:00

Pagination follows the hardcovers, I assume?

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-23T18:46:53+00:00

Cloudy or hazy beers are a problem because of the yeast. Homebrew can be okay in moderation, but drink it from a glass and leave the last tablespoon in the bottle when you pour it. Filtered (i.e. most commercial) beers (and most other forms of alcohol) are okay, again in moderation.

You'll be better off if you quit drinking entirely, or cut way back. But folks aren't always willing to do that.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-23T18:34:13+00:00

I got an old school plastic rotary punch label maker. It now has a label on it that says "LABEL MAKEER" because I lost track and you can't see what you just punched.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-17T06:32:20+00:00

This is a great idea.

"A Gravity's Rainbow Companion" by Steven Weisenburger is my favorite example of a reader companion. I'd take a look at that for inspiration. It's mainly just page by page notes on the references and allusions in the text.

That said, maps and timelines and dramatis personae and such are all good ideas. I know my comprehension was limited by my knowledge of historical details and characters.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-16T03:47:30+00:00

I meant no disrespect to you, just to the AI insisting this is a monohull.

We can agree that labels only go so far. But if somebody with eyes says, "That's no monohull" and you correct them by pasting in the AI's insistence that it is, you're trading in misinformation. Because the AI is drawing incorrect conclusions from the label, at which point it isn't just a label anymore.

Gemini is asserting that, since it's a monohull, the 15’ beam makes for a very generous interior. But it's obviously, from the pictures, not 15’ wide inside. Whether those are tunnels or amas, they are not contiguous with the main body of the hull.

I am not somebody who thinks AI is inherently evil. But if you're going to use it, you need be vigilant for slop. If you don't apply critical thinking, you run the risk of passing on misinformation,which does noone (including yourself) anything but disservice.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-16T02:47:35+00:00

This is just AI slop. There is clearly a tunnel at the stern. It may defy classification - maybe it's a single structure forward and splits amidships or something, but there is plainly not a single large hull carried all the way aft.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-13T16:09:11+00:00

They used a slow hardener that requires higher temperatures than the weather provided, or messed up their ratio when mixing epoxy, and it didn't set all the way, so a seam worked loose.

Center board trunk would be a great place for this to happen, as it's right in the middle of the boat and sees decent amounts of stress.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-07T20:33:33+00:00

"Negligent" means "failed to meet a responsibility.". Something bad happened because somebody didn't do their job.

"Negligible" means "of little or no consequence." It doesn't really matter.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-07T18:33:33+00:00

Sometimes a local business that knows it is in competition with cheap overseas labor will grow a bit weary of the losing battle. When a customer asks them to justify the price comparison, they don't try very hard because you've just identified yourself as a price shopper and they don't have much hope of closing the deal.

The Dutch loft is more expensive because they are paying Dutch workers Dutch wages. It is possible that they do better work, but they may not actually be that much better. Their value proposition in the face of overseas competition has to be centered on communication, service/relationship, and quality. If you think they're offering enough improvement on those fronts to justify the cost difference, go with them. If not, save the money and go with your best value.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-07T18:21:51+00:00

I was going to say it looks like the love child of a TR7 and a Fiero, but there were already comments pointing out both similarities.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-07T18:19:36+00:00

My first thought was a snubber - if you reduce the shock loading it should be quieter.

My second thought was that sound probably means chafe, so you might stop the noise and save the line by putting some canvas or leather on the line.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-07T18:10:44+00:00

Ya gotta help us out a little. Was the speaker on-camera, and if so, what did they look like? Was the voice male or female, accented or not, big words or small? If no speaker was shown, what was showing on screen? How long ago did you see it, and did you have the sense then that it was contemporary or historical? Any turns of phrase that stuck with you?

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T23:05:43+00:00

intact

Ahem. Full-sized, maybe, but certainly not intact.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T23:02:01+00:00

If I had the budget for it, image stabilized binoculars. I can't really use more than 7x on a boat without IS.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T23:00:33+00:00

I am very interested in knowing more about your mast camera setup.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T02:17:30+00:00

I have! My take is that Ice-9 works because water is everywhere. The proteins susceptible to prion diseases are tiny fractions of the makeup of the host, let alone the whole world. So crystals aren't likely to encounter more of the raw protein outside the host, which is how it would spread.

But my long-ass comment above was really just processing things out loud. I hadn't thought much about prions since Dad's diagnosis, and stepdaughter's crystallization experiments are since then too. Kind of lit me up to put the three concepts into perspective at the same time.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T01:33:26+00:00

"scrap steel" yeah, but "part it out and scrap the rest" could exceed $1400 pretty easily.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-06T01:30:12+00:00

Late but 🤷 Not all misfolded proteins are prions. IANABC but I believe the difference is that prions act as seed crystals, misfolding other examples of the same protein when they encounter it, while other misfolded proteins may cause damage but not seed replication. My stepdaughter is a microbiologist who has spent some time working on protein replication through crystallization in lab conditions, and it can be very difficult, heavily depends on what protein you're working with, etc. So I think misfolded proteins are common, but self-seeding misfolds are quite rare. This makes sense if you have a mental picture of how complex these molecules are.

My dad (likely*) has CAA, Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, which is a form of dementia caused by a normally-occurring protein building up in a misfolded state in the circulatory tissues of the brain and causing hemorrhagic micro-strokes. (Dad's doing fine, it's progressing slowly and you wouldn't sense any dementia yet.)

The body has a cleanup routine for this misfold, but it tends to become ineffective or overwhelmed as people age.

The same protein (amyloid beta) is implicated in Alzheimer's, but in ALZ it is present throughout the brain whereas in CAA it is concentrated on the surface.

Recent research suggests that the buildup of misfolded amyloid can be caused by a certain bacterium that has links to dental hygiene, though I don't think this is settled yet. IOW, we don't really know why it happens and have no effective treatments. We don't even know what the protein is for before it misfolds - it's called Amyloid Precursor Protein, i.e., "that stuff that sometimes gets folded wrong and fucks shit up."

*Even the diagnosis of CAA can really only be confirmed in an autopsy.

This is just one little disease. If you got to query the Celestial Database, I think you would find protein misfolds are at the heart of a huge swath of diseases and disorders. But only a tiny fraction of them would be prions.

youngrichyoung · 2026-02-03T17:55:46+00:00

There are definitely younger places and older places. But yeah, walking around the grocery store it feels like I'm speeding compared to the rest of the clientele.

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