Monthly Archives: May 2008

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots

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Getting Our Measurement Dots

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Gene Hinkle drove up from St. Petersburg, FL this week to deliver boats in Rochester for Canadian customers and today he stopped by the Canandaigua Yacht Club to place measurement marks on the hulls of our 2.4mR sailboats.

Gene is the official measurer for several international sailboat classes including Sonars and 2.4 Meters. He had to make due with a tape measure today since his new templates are over in Qingdao waiting for him to return before the 2008 Paralympic Games begin later this year.

Thanks a million Gene!

(P.S. – I’m glad you connected with Dave Troyer about “Krugerrand” too. That was cool!)

Still… “one of the prettiest boats on the Potomac”

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Sabrina

Tracy and Bill sailing Sabrina in 2003

I’m happy to report that “Sabrina”, our former 1966 Alberg 30 #158 is still actively sailing and racing under the helmsmanship of her new owner Dana Shafie and he is blogging about their sailing adventures. They hail out of the Washington Sailing Marina in Washington D.C.. Dana’s blog reports that Sabrina is still “one of the prettiest boats on the Potomac“.

I can’t argue with that!

CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training

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CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training

CYC Race Committee Volunteer Training, (Photo by Bill Blevins).

Tracy and I attended a race committee volunteer training course this morning at the Canandaigua Yacht Club. It was pretty much like all of the other RCs we’ve worked with in the past except for a cool computerized horn system that automates the audible signals with the timing sequences. It has a nickname which is slipping my mind at the moment.

“Ollie”?

Maybe. I think it was “Ollie”.

Velocitek SC-1 and Mac OS X Leopard

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I managed to get the Velocitek SC-1 working on my MacBook Pro running OS X version 10.5.2 after a whole lot of effort!

Parallels 3.0 running Windows XP wouldn’t work. I tried for several hours.

I did get the Windows OS to see the units via the USB ports using Parallels and the Velocitek Control Panel software did see each of them too but the firmware update only ran to about 85% before throwing an error. Many attempts either didn’t start because of an error or it only made it to 5% before quitting. Most didn’t even attempt to start without the error message popping up.

Here’s what worked.

Today I installed VMWare Fusion for OS X and reinstalled Windows XP.

Everything went smoothly until I got to the point of doing the firmware updates. The control panel software started throwing errors and that was if it could even get started (again)!

I tried and tried everything I could think of and here is what worked:

  • Turn off the Velocitek Control Panel software
  • Unplug the SC-1 from the computer
  • Remove the batteries
  • Put the batteries back in
  • Plug the SC-1 back up to the computer
  • Start the control panel software
  • Run the firmware update

I did this twice with two units. Only in this specific order would the firmware upgrade work but I finally got it.

I was determined to make VMWare play nice with the SC-1′s and now I’m wondering if I just didn’t give Parallels enough trial and error effort.

Anyway… tonight, I used it to map my trip home from work (max speed was 32 knots).

Again though, when plugging in the unit, I had to remove the batteries, then put them back in before plugging in to the computer and starting the control panel software to download the track.

I’ll post again after the first use on the boat, possibly Saturday afternoon. I can’t wait!