Another sub at Tradewinds

While they discuss if, when and where to have WW2-combats in the Blake Sea, we tend to see more and more warships just outside the Blake. Perhaps it is because the Blake is really too shallow for big ships. Anyway. This time I was just in for a relaxing sail at Tradewinds, when I heard this strange bubbly sound, and no... it was not a busload of champagne. I turned around and saw this.

A Japanese sub at Tradewinds

I really wanted to turn back and look at the beautiful Ernestina, but then something happened. A hatch opened and a plane emerged. I never knew they had planes on submarines!? Anyway, it's the plane that makes me think it is WW2. It really looks like a WW2 movie kinda plane. After a few minutes the plane took off, and the sub seemed to be unmanned. Here's a shot of the "hangar".

A sub with a hangar

It doesn't look much like a landing strip to me. I wonder if they just ditched the plane after it did - whatever it was supposed to do - recon or something. Dunno. It seems like a lot of effort. Bringing a plane on a sub where they could have had loads more torpedoes. It must have had some kind of  purpose.

Peace restored

I hadn't looked at it for more than half a minute before it started to dive. I was a little surprised, because the crew had taken off in the plane. I suppose there was a timer that made it disappear after launch. Whatever. I just stood there and enjoyed watching the sub disappear. Peace restored. Ernestina in the back btw, but now I felt more like going for a short sail. Get the ugly warship out of my head.

Here's more virtual warships. Brrr.

Red October at Tradewinds

We saw some good racing at Tradewinds this weekend, and I'll get back to that in a bit. This post here is about a giant submarine that surfaced - right at the starting line - minutes before the sunday heats. It was only visible for seconds before it disappeared into the depths of the virtual oceans:

Red October (?) south of Tradewinds

Before it vanished, I managed to take this one picture. Not entirely sure what it is, but the sheer size of it made me think: Red October. I googled for that, and I think it could be right. Look at the size of that thing. It is huge. The little boat in the center is a Flying Fizz. There is a shadow behind the stern, which is one of those big coastguard boats with helipads.

More shots of subs here...

Sailing Nautilus

It's Nautilus time. Woohooo. I walked down to the pier at Tradewinds, rezzed my brand new Nautilus mini sub. Then I jumped on board, started the engines and headed south. I'll show you why in a minute; Here's me taking off:

Heading south, course set for Eliades

It was a beautiful day to go sailing; I crossed the startline in Siracusa and for a minute there I really felt more like Fun Fizzin. Then I pressed the dive button. The alarm sounded, pictures from "Das Boot" flashed before my eyes, there was a bubbly sound and then silence...

Cavitation

I was undercover; Not very deep though. These waters are very shallow, so navigation is important. Regrettably the charts aren't very good. There's only rudimentary depth curves available, so navigation is about watching the seafloor and getting a visual on your waypoints.

Waypoint one

After a while I managed to find my first waypoint; The shot above is me parked at a buoy in Eliades. Next stop is waypoint two, - a small island due south, at the entrance of the Blake Sea. Then I'll set the course to a 125 degrees and speed up a bit to get to my third waypoint.

Surface at waypoint three

After a while the seafloor raised, and I must admit I was kinda excited to see if my navigation was good. I surfaced to take a peek, and yesss... there is was! I had arrived safely at Sharp Tooth Isle. I've been there before, but i never arrived submerged. Till now. 

Filling the tanks...

So far so good. Let's set the course to 150 and see what we find... I am sure the Nautilus will love a little snack this morning. We better sneak a bit... so water in, air out. More bubbly. After a couple of minutes of careful sailing navigation I got some bleebs on the radar, and it was time to take another peek at the world up there.

Nautilus looking for lunch

Yummy. Hello lunch! Did u ever hear the story about the tall ship that was transformed into a pile of chopsticks within seconds? No? Oh well, I'll be good and not tell it then, but I'll tell you this: It was pretty hard to hold the Nautilus back. 

Outside view

Anyway, here's me and my Nautilus looking at tallships in Blake Diego Harbour, and I decided to sail home via Nantucket Yacht Club. Beautiful place, but that's another story. You can't see it on the picture, but is it the lighthouse there - seen though the surface...

Passing NYC on a westerly course

Passing NYC while going west; Next stop Pslande, after which I turned 90 degrees to starboard going up the west coast looking for my good old first waypoint, and here it is...

Tradewinds due north

Tradewinds straight ahead on a northernly course, but let's go 15 degrees instead, and see what's there...  It's the little island east of Tradewinds - in Dizadare. The radar says that something's there; Since it is not on the surface, it might be on the seafloor?

Is there a treasure to be found here?

Ancient Greece? The lost city of Atlantis? Nah, it is hardly big enough for that, but it looks great, and there just might be a treasure to be found out there. Diamonds and pearls or rocks and clams? That remains to be seen; Can't seem to find my wetsuit, so let's save that for laterz...

Sun sets after a long day below surface

This is about the Nautilus anyway, and she is a fun toy. She sails, dives, cavitates, bubbles and whirls just like you'd expect from an electrical submarine. You can use it as a hideaway, - sit and talk with friends. Take a nap. Go diving. Go anywhere there's water and pop up and say booh! It is stable and low lag, and it is fast. I could probably outrun those overly fast sailboats, but since the charts are so bad, I expect I'd run aground before I could spell speeding is not allowed. So... This kinda concludes my Nautilus experiences. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I know I did.

The Nautilus

The virtual Nautilus is on display at the Tradewinds Halloween show. I haven't had a chance to ask Tasha, why it is there, but I am assuming it is due to the Nautilus being at the center of a dark and mysterious myth of an evil sea creature. I am - ofcourse - referring to Captain Nemo's fantastic boat, the Nautilus from the Jules Verne Novel: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.

The virtual Nautilus 

It is a great looking build with loads of details. True to the Disney movie from sometime in the fifties. Never saw that movie; Way before my time. However, it seems the Disney design has inspired most pictures of the Nautilus since then. The Nautilus in the book is in fact much more like a modern sub. Nemo describes it a a cigarshaped hull 70 meters long and 8 meters wide. Kinda like a Whiskey-Class, says Wikipedia.

Nautilus mini sub v3.7

The virtual Nautilus is much smaller though, On the first image, you can see me sitting inside the boat; Check  the window. On the second image it is pretty obvious the boat is not 70 meters long. It still looks great,  though perhaps not quite as impressive as a 70 meter sub. The real Nautilus was big. However, todays super subs are bigger. The Russian Typhoon, says Wikipedia, is 175 meters. Way bigger.

Inside the beast

The inside is - sadly - not quite as spacious as the real boat; Err, - I mean the real Nautilus from the book. However, the famous organ is there as can be seen on this picture. It is playing Bach or something. Continuously. Sounds like Bach. There is also a small dining table, a couch and a bookshelf, referring to the library of the real boat. Of course those fabulous mid-ship windows to the ocean are there too.

Bunks

At the rear end there's a couple of bunks. Several ancient charts decorate the inside of the hull, though I suppose they really aren't meant as decoration. Sadly there is no access to the engine room; Those fantastic batteries cannot be inspected, and the watermaker isn't visible either. There is also a ladder to the control room.

Bridge

I really would have expected to see more controls up here, but then again, noone really knows what controls the Nautilus had; The boat was built way before the computer was invented, so it is probably not a "drive by wire" vessel. Rumours has it that Nemo was in fact building a Nautilus II; Bigger, faster and more deadly. Perhaps it would have an onboard computer. Dunno. A nav system like GPS would make submerged navigation a lot easier.

The controls

Here's a complete view of the controls. They seem to work. At least the compass is showing the right bearing. To the left there is engine power. Oh, that thing there to the right, outside the window, it is not a bigger Nautilus or the Nautilus II. It is a giant squidlike sea monster; Part of Ana's Halloween installation.

Exits

Back on the outside... There is a hatch on top of the boat, so that you can get in without getting wet. My straw hat isn't exactly made for diving. Nemo was into seafloor gardening, and the mini Nautilus sports a  hatch at the bottom too. I opened it on the picture above. That way you can stay submerged and go for a walk in your favourite neopren suit. Yes, I have one; Didn't bother to change.

So what's left... Ahh, the best part of it all: The Nautilus mini sub v3.7 is free. How about that, George?  Aley, the builder, is giving it away; I've read somewhere that Aley has an entire area with a Nautilus theme. I better go there and check it out someday, but right now I can't wait to get inworld and sail my brand new Nautilus. Maybe sail down to the Blake and ram some of those full-riggers! Just kidding...

PS: More on virtual subs. I especially like the on seen here; 

Another sub on the loose

It was just another afternoon at Tradewinds. A handfull of sailors were talking about boats, when all of a sudden a series of explosions occurred. We looked but saw nothing. Very strange, - but after a while I heard a faint pinging sound, and...

Unknown sub 

This sucker was fooling around right off our coast. We contacted the skipper, who seemed a bit autistic. No response at all; We kinda gave up on the dialog after ten minutes or so. It was very one way. Kept an eye on the submarine, though.

Unknown sub with no communications

A little later we discovered what caused the explosions: Seamines. Not a nice thing to have right off the coast of a marina. So we tried to talk to the skipper again and make it stop. No luck.

Sub on the run?

Finally, he was done, and here's a picture of the sub running off. No idea where to, but hopefully it will stay away from Tradewinds YC. I wouldn't want to sail slalom between seamines, when I am out for a short evening cruise.

The first sub was a WWII model; There was also the steampunk sub.

U-Boat observed at Tradewinds

You never know what you get - sailing the SL waters. A little while ago, I was at Tradewinds to get my usual dose of sailing. All was good. Clear blue sky, rather flat water and good winds, when a strange shadow in the water caught my eye.

Uhh!

There was a gurgling sound and then a diesel started and this monster broke the surface. Gaaah, I got the creeps. Reminds me of the U-96 from Das Boot. Probably the creepiest movie I ever saw.

Not excactly a cosy view

I followed it for a bit. It sailed down south. It stayed topside. Probably because of the shallow water off the coast of Tradewinds. Not sure what it will do down south. Hopefully it won't try to sink my friends oiltanker. That's gonna make a h... ehm... a mess.

Japanese

Here's a top view. Looks Japanese. I wonder if they really had wooden decks on their WWII subs. It's probably less slippery when wet, compared to an iron deck. Below, is a clear sideview. A rather "dark side-ish" view, don't u think? The details of the ship are good though. Maybe that's what makes it creepy.

A threatening view

There are other creepy ships in here. I've seen a huge battleship. Can't remember the name, but it was the size of Iowa. I instantly decided not to cover that kinda stuff here, but... This sub turned up right under my feet, and it got to me. Giving me the shivers.

Entering the Blake Sea.

This is where I left it, - disappearing into the depth of the Blake Sea. Brrr... I am gonna stay out of there for a while. It's a good thing, we have the beautiful North Sea, though I suppose those subs are there too. Anyway, I rushed back to Tradewinds and went smooth sailing in my lovely Bolero. Such a nice way to get rid of dark and negative mindsets. Pure zen-sailing. 

PS: Just another brrrr.

Steampunk

It doesn't have to be about sailing, but steampunk?! I was unaware of the genre, till I logged into Tradewinds a few weeks back. There was a Steampunk exhibition. Steampunk, it seems, is a mix of past and future leading to a strange breed of steam powered spaceships of sorts.

A steampunk submarine

Strange, yet somehow interesting. Ships, subs, planes, spacestations whatever we know today - packed in a pre-WWII design and powered by steam. Here's me, looking - staring actually - at a fascinating creature. A bug-like submarine, which frankly gives me the creeps. The design reminds me of Captain Nemo's Nautilus, but to be fair... I think he was technologically way past steam powered engines.

A day cruiser?

This next one isn't less weird, but at least the passengers can breathe fresh air. Beautifully crafted in that almost melancholic old fashioned way. Maybe the Steampunk people are hopeless romantics? Hey, maybe I should meet one of those guys :-D

Pretty simple machines, huh!

Here's a picture of the engine in another boat. I searched a little and it seems there are places in SL, entire cities, totally devoted or is it "hopelessly devoted"  to steampunk. Go there if ur into it. I found it interesting, but I am glad that Tradewinds now has a boatbuilder exhibition. Loads of interesting boatprojects underway. Back to sailing again :-)

Next up, more Fizz Cup racing. Here is an intro.