Recently I’ve been jumping up and down a lot about the End Of the World, since its a big problem for many race courses. The EOW is an invisible barrier, but it doesn’t act like a fixed obstruction when a boat hits it. Experienced skippers can ‘game’ the EOW and gain advantage in a race by bouncing off the EOW edge or sliding along it. No surprise, there’s a good deal of disagreement in the sailing community about how to handle the EOW, since nothing like it exists anywhere in RL sailing or racing.
If one of the goals of SLSailing is to develop a model that closely emulates RL sailboat racing, I think it’s important to find a solution that will eliminate the EOW problem. Personally, I think the best fix is the one discussed by Cory Copeland and Surfwidow Beaumont in their comments on this issue. They argue the best fix would be to construct a “breakwater” immediately in front of the EOW. Such a breakwater would produce a visible barrier that would act like any other fixed obstruction in sailing.
Unfortunately, there are problems with this approach. A breakwater uses up valuable prim, and it can block the ’scenic view’ of the ocean that fades past the EOW horizon. It’s also pretty hard to think of any nautical- looking structure that would look appropriate as a breakwater if it covered an entire side (or two sides) of a water sim.
For NYC’s Bismark Sea line, I thought the most simple fix might be to move the “20 meter EOW warning line” all the way over to the EOW edge and make it non-phantom. That would produce the required barrier. It wouldn’t look natural, but it would look better than the warning lines do now.
Well, at that point in the discussion, Glida Pilote and Svar Beckersted came to the rescue with a much better approach! They produced a land obstruction at the EOW by terraforming the edges of the race course sims in Bismark Sea and Bougainville Strait, raising a reef that abruptly rises from the sea floor and stops just beneath the water surface.
Here’s an underwater picture of the reef as it rises from the murky depths. A long, straight reef like this one is fairly common in RL.
Even more important, the new reef at the EOW is easily visible to sailing skippers, but it doesn’t block anyone’s view of the horizon.
Best of all, since it’s part of the landmass, it doesn’t add to the prim count of the sims!
Here is another picture below, standing on the reef in ankle-deep water.
This fix can be pretty easily used on other race courses that have the same problem, and with any luck this solution will finally slay the sea monsters that have haunted MarkTwain White’s fitful nights while he wrestled with this issue.
So let me give a shout out here to Glida and Svar; it’s not every day somebody stands up and saves all of SL Sailing from what appeared to be an impending catastrophic collision with the End of the World!
13 responses so far ↓
1 jane fossett // Jan 4, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Here’s a picture of your intrepid NYC Crash Test Team trying out the new reef.
In the distance you see Glida with his beach cat overturned on the rocks; in the middle, Svar sits on the reef contemplating his grounded Tako, and in the foreground, Jane’s at a 45deg angle waiting for the tide to lift her Yawl off.
Hitting the rocks is NEVER this much fun in real life!
2 Liv Leigh // Jan 4, 2008 at 2:36 pm
May I make one ‘nasty’ comment? I’m pretty sure that there are several skippers out here that are concerned with the EOW issue, since it introduces an element that doesn’t belong to RL Sailing. But I do wonder how many people really consider this an ‘issue’. In a world with cameramen, race directors and visitors flying about the course in superman-style, people teleporting in and rezzing their boats out of nowhere… The discovery of the ‘end of the world’, once so much feared by Columbus and his men seems to fit right in
3 Slanty Uriza // Jan 5, 2008 at 12:04 am
Haha couldn’t agree with you more Liv, but some people just love to make up issues…
4 SURF // Jan 5, 2008 at 5:58 am
Unfortunately, there are problems with this approach. A breakwater uses up valuable prim, and it can block the ’scenic view’ of the ocean that fades past the EOW horizon. It’s also pretty hard to think of any nautical- looking structure that would look appropriate as a breakwater if it covered an entire side (or two sides) of a water sim.
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Nah if you look out over the Beautiful city of my birth that of Plymouth Sound England (Pilgrim Fathers left from here, Sir Francis Drke defeated the Spanish Armada from here) - the Breakwater - is the most normal and nautical thing imaginable - whereas a reef is little more than terror
in fact i suggest if its good enough for one of the most famouse sailing areas in the world then its good enough for SL
in the distance with the breakwater fort
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/images/2006/02/06/warmington_sound_450×300.jpg
another one nearer the shore
http://www.aphotoflora.com/Plymouth%20Sound09-09-04.jpg
if it was textured with cobbles a simple box with some taper each side would look pretty neat i reckon
5 SURF // Jan 5, 2008 at 6:00 am
and it would be great for spectating in forthcoming competitions - its a great idea and kills to birds with one stone that of EOW marker and a spectator area
6 SURF // Jan 5, 2008 at 6:01 am
thats two*
7 jane fossett // Jan 6, 2008 at 8:14 am
Surf, those pictures of Plymouth are wonderful!
8 Jane Fossett // Jan 7, 2008 at 8:10 am
Following up on Plymouth, I’ve always liked that name for a possible new sailing sim. Seacoast towns name Plymouth are historic sailing ports on both sides of the Atlantic. The name “Plymouth” is only one word and it’s easy to spell.
Surf? You can imagine my disappointment today when I found someone else had recently opened a Plymouth Sim. The new Plymouth Sim doesn’t look like anyplace we’d like to sail, but I took some consolation in noting “Plymouth” is located adjacent to “Newport” on the map.
The “Heisenberg” Sim is also in that neighborhood, but I couldn’t calculate the exact distance.
Perhaps more dismaying, the Plymouth Sim lies immediately NorthEast of Bikini Atoll. If you’re planning a visit to Plymouth, make sure the SL wind is blowing the radiation cloud from Bikini Atoll in the other direction.
9 MarkTwain White // Jan 7, 2008 at 8:58 am
Maybe a minor adjustment to get a good plymouthy name? How about Plymouth Rock?
10 Elisha Paklena // Jan 7, 2008 at 11:05 am
“The “Heisenberg” Sim is also in that neighborhood, but I couldn’t calculate the exact distance.”
I see what you did there.
11 Liv Leigh // Jan 7, 2008 at 11:17 am
Elisha, is that reply coming from a cat?
12 Liv Leigh // Jan 7, 2008 at 11:18 am
Oh yes, it was Schrodinger’s cat.. My mistake
13 Elisha Paklena // Jan 8, 2008 at 9:23 am
A what now?
http://www.slprofiles.com/picturedetail.asp?id=128805&sid=102566
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