Why the aren't boat design comunity like open source programing? or is...?

The last "good thing" that I got for free, took two paid doctor visits to get rid of.

 

I have to agree, a large percentage of the kit boats or free designs are butt ugly. I'm not sure why, but likely to please as large an audience as possible, which never seems to work out well. Boats are a complicated set of compromises as it is. Burdening it down with more of this line of thinking, to fit the "masses" or more typically more headroom and berths, seems self defeating. I don't make these types of compromises anymore. I did when I was younger, but not anymore. I'm older and getting stubborn, so I can just play the cantankerous card. Some things, particularly aesthetic considerations (assuming safety and structure have been addressed) I will not budge on. Some folks seem to think it's their design when they pay to have a yacht drawn up. It's not, they're the client and their wishes are as true as I'm willing to make them, but if they want the reversed and raised sheer line, they can ask someone else to do it, because I will not. I have my ideas of style and that's my deal, the engineering is a given. This is why an Herreshoff yacht is always identifiable as are most of the greats, some things shouldn't be compromised, even if it has nothing to do with structure.

 

If the target of the design is first time boat builders, you had better think about designing it around Home Depot's inventory. If you want it to get built.

 

Please take a break and have a look at 'newboat' in the boat design gallery.

 

hey folks..maybe i have writen the main question in the wrong way. I was thinking about community there sailing boats will be faster, more seavorthy etc. money wasn't the main aspect. Why open source? because designing in this way is cheap. Everybody knows how much boat plans costs. And I know that there are plans which are worth it. But are they perfect? Thinking that design companies create perfect boats is noncense. everybody makes mistakes. Companies cant work forever they have time scedules, budget limitations etc. design comunities would be more independent. I have repaired boats with were total crap, I did it because I had an idea, that then I finish the work I could set sailing. Then I thought about this kind of community I thought about idea. About sailing spirit. I was thinking about fast, easy to handle, seavorthy sailboat, that would be peoples sailors sailboat.

 

Hmmmm

The Ark was built by an amateur, The titanic by experts!

Ex/pert...definition:-

Ex - past use by date

Spurt - A drip under pressure

The defence rests, your honor!

Cheers!

 

A good leader is not the one who does what he wants, but the one who is able to realize and bring to reality what the others want.

 

I might point out at this point that the reason the open source movement is successful is because most people who are involved write some code in an evening. That's not really something you can do with boat design. There are designers who are holding down a day job, but they are not the ones designing super-fast racing yachts.

Design, by it's very nature demands absolute concentration for long periods, if you tried to to do it collaboratively in the evenings you'd find (in general with big projects ie. yachts over 20ft long) that the general design standard would drop noticably, and actually take much longer. This is because not everyone has the same basic skills.

Also, there is a question of who you would work with. There are not only language and skills barriers, but understanding barriers. Read a few of the posts on this forum, especially in the last 6 months or so, and you'll realise that the difference in understanding of the subject is quite considerable.

As an example, I just re-designed a keel for an International 14 after the origenal broke. It was nothing special, just a bit of structural design, but I didn't submit the design until a freind of mine (a composite stress engineer) had checked it. I am now sure that the keel is ok. I wonder if with "open-source boat design" you'd get the same sort of assurance.

There are people on this forum who have devoted their lives to boat design, we are lucky to have them on this forum.

Tim B.

 

Wasn't aware that the I14 was a keelboat, Tim...

 

Getting irritated by reading this thread. Why?
1 Computer programs don´t creates them selfs. It takes a lot of "unglorious work" and you need a lot of "hard earned knowlege"!
2 Once again! Open Source is NOT equal to free drawing for home made plywood boats!
3 Open Source does not stipulate the organisation of work. Company, single developer, group or community.
4 Open Source does not equal lack of guarantees and support. The guarantees and support is unrelated and depend on usual seller-buyer contracts.
5 Open Source is NOT equal to Freeware. Big companies like IBM, Sun, and Novell are developing Open Source software, so it´s not always made at home for fun without profit interest.

Then what is Open Source then. It´s simply that the sourcecode (The human readable form of a computer program) is open for inspection. The code can then under different licences be open for modifying, inclusion and reselling. There are a number of different licenses regulating this.
Open Source is therefore related to the basic philosophy of Science. Open sharing of information. Something that historicaly has proven very efficient for rapid development.

Next time you use a formula from a technical book or read a scientifical article think a bit about open source and the benefits of information sharing.

Now back to the original interesting question by "tamkvaitis". What are the benefits and problem (excluding missunderstanding of the concep) with open source style development and what does it mean in boat design?

Anders M

 

Anders, then I think many boat designs are open source
The spec or the "wish-list" of features is normally open, the standards used are normally open and so on.

What "Tamkvaitis" suggests is maybe something like the collobarate designs done here sometimes? I think there was an Open 650 project?

 

I'm sorry

But this threads making me cranky too.

I, I suspect, like everyone else, appreciates the presence of dedicated professionals who share their hard won experience and study / knowledge with the membership for no reward.

That however - shouldn't "belittle" the contributions of anyone else.

I suspect we are ALL here to help others and learn ourselves in the process - & not least - to enjoy each others company / different opinions / backgrounds / experience.

Frankly - the presumption by some here, that no one other than a NA should have anything to say about any issue related to boats - gets under my skin.

I believe - thru my experience, that even practicing NA's would do well, to LISTEN occasionally, to what others have to say - based on their experience.

Someone recently here posted that they had 2 degrees and would back them against my knowlege any day of the week.

What that says to me - is that the poster probably spent all his life in the cloistered world of academia (not the real world) and likely has NO real world experience. Least thats how I read it.

Now, to make my point - a Naval Architect of some repute - frequently gets me to fish his prototype boats when he first builds them.

Why?

Because he freely admits he spends so much time designing boats he doesn't have the time to fish them and as a result - doesn't have a great deal of idea about what level of fittings / fixtures a hard core fisho might want as available options or where they might best be located on that particular boat.

Thats where I come in.

I live / work in my boat, it's my job - it's what I do.

I tell him - where I think things should go for convenience or loading or whatever - and he's smart enough to listen oftentimes.

Hopefully - this improves his product.

I think a few NA's here could do with taking a good look at themselves and what they post - and try and decide if they really believe what they are saying.....

Theres room in this world for everyones ideas and opinions.

You don't like me - then fine.

Don't expect anyone else to give your opinions / statements or posts any more than a passing cursory glance then.

Thats how I read it.

The original post was a good question - it deserved better answers IMHO.
Answers like - "because it's how I make my living" etc or words to that effect, don't cut it with me - if that was the case, the poster simply shouldn't be here IMHO!

Don't let the door hit you in the back on the way out!

Cheers!

 

Apologies, SailDesign, you're quite right, I meant centreboard, not keel. Can't help thinking that a few pounds of lead on the bottom wouldn't hurt though!

An interesting reply trouty, for staters, your chap with 2 degrees probably does have more knowledge of the dynamics of a boat than you do. Whether that translates into experience in sailing on said boat is another matter. From a design point of view, the problem is in understanding the question before you start. Once you understand what's going on, then you can correlate real-life experience with theory. Sometimes theory is wrong. Reseaerch is all about updating the theory to explain reality.

If you look around this forum, you'll probably see that I've posted the odd lines-plan, profile, a couple of sketches etc. Often enough to take a design and build it with a bit of work to finish it off. Now this may not necessarily be "Open-Source", but it is a degree of openness that I'm prepared to take, on non-critical designs, unashamedly to show what I'm doing so people can employ me for it.

At the end of the day, it comes down to makng money. Discussion of concepts, even free, collaborative design is great, there are a number of examples on this forum of designs that have progressed quite a long way. I'd love to know if any have been built. And, if so, how they performed relative to the "commercial" competition.

Also, trouty, I think NA's do listen, if you are willing to have a sensible discussion with them and let them work out a way of incorporating your ideas into the design. What will instantly irritate any NA is saying "I have 30 years of experience and I know what I'm doing so I want it done like this" In which case, I can't blame any NA for telling you exacly what to do with said design and somewhere unpleasant.

The whole sailing world relies on varied skills and communication. I don't disagree with good ideas on this forum, nor in the "real world". I just wouldn't trust a boat that had been designed by a group of amateurs, at least until I'd (or a NA) had thouroughly check it over. That in itself would probably take a few weeks, paid. To be able to put a NA's signature on the bottom to say that it is designed to the best current practice is expensive, it's not free, and if you trry to do it for free, you run the risk of getting yourself into a lot of trouble.

Tim B.

 

I deal with commercial fishing boats most of my working time. Something like 80+ fishing boats designs a year, and their correspondent construction supervision. I love fishing myself and sailing my good old motorsailer MARIE. And I deal with many fishermen and boatyards owners, some of them friends of mine. All of them express their ideas about the boats they want to build or own, and greatly influence designs. They are great people, knowing a lot about their work and I have the obligation to listen respectfully to them, specially about fishing equipment, manoeuvres and the like. But their undoubtedly knowledge doesn't make them NAs, as fishing doesn't make me a fisherman.

Unluckily there are still many fishermen (And others!) who think they know much more than NAs or the Supervising Authorities about everything in their boats, even about stability. Unluckily sometimes they die. We have had several fatal accidents in Spain these last years among coastal fishing boats, with many lives lost. And all of them caused by a crews' false sense of safety and undue cargo/fishing/sailing conditions, not faulty designs.

Yesterday, a fisherman from "La Costa de la Muerte" (The Death Coast) in Galicia, tried to convince me that the designed depth for his boat was too high to make his new boat comfortable to work in the rough seas of Cape Finisterre (!). He argued really hard. But the depth he wanted was merely enough to have the deck at sea level...(I know why he was arguing so vehemently: Laws in the CE tell a fisherman cannot built a boat using more GTs than those of his previous boat, and he wanted a "bigger" (L x B) new boat, so...). I felt obliged to tell him to look for other designer, but luckily we finally agreed to my suggested depth (Not without discontent of the man!)

The moral is that we have always to listen to each other, customers and NA's. And always cleverly collaborate to get the best designs, without underestimating the other part's field of knowledge.

 

I don't see anny problem about having a open source boat development program. The requirement for ducumentation would make shure NA's would newer get out off work.
I don't think that someone will have huge income loss because people start to download drawings for there private projects.
Ok so it's your living, but how many off you have a copied CD or DVD?
How manny off you use free software or wikipedia.com?

Programers, musicans, actors and publishing firms are not making a living?

burning CD's and DVD's is a crime and stealing your drawings is not the idea from what I can read in the thread.

I sugest that annyone wanting to join sutch a project just giwe eatch other there msn or yahoo handle and they can comunicate and share files there and publish there work on a webpage once in a while.