[Ed. Note: We are pleased to announce yet another outstanding columnist for SLSailing.Com.  Joining the crew is Delinda Dyrssen, accomplished writer and musical maven. Delinda’s specialty is interviewing, thus the title of her column. But her pen will probably scribble notes and thoughts beyond sharing the sea stories she hears on a regular basis as barkeep at the Admiral’s Daughter Pub. Now lads and lassies, the Admiral’s Daughter Pub lives on these days only in fiction, but if you know where it used to be, you can indeed call yourself an Old Salt in SL sailing. Delinda lives up in the Sailor’s Cove sims and for her first inteview she didn’t have to wander far from home. — MarkTwain White]

It’s a crisp January morning in Hay Harbor. I pull out my Zinnemann 40 hop on board and and head over to Zinnemann sim and where I sail in thru the the narrow passage into the small marina and Zinneman boat sales area. I dock my boat where I find Hans Zinnemann waiting to meet me. We decide to go up to the roof and have a seat on the inviting chase lounges Hans has setup there. The following is our conversation.

Delinda Dyrssen: Hi Hans.. lets start with the last name you choose for Second Life.. why Zinnemann?
Hans Zinnemann: A few reasons… one is that my wife is German and I like all things German. The other is that as a very small boy I developed a fictitious nation called Zimmerstein. So I thought it would be funky to continue the theme.

DD: Great! Always interesting to see how people choose their SL name.  In Real Life you are involved with marine activity.. can you tell me a little about that?
HZ: Yes certainly. I work for Yacht Charter Guide ( www.yachtcharterguide.com) which is the leading directory of yacht charter companies. I develop the site, find people the best yacht charter deals, go on lots of charter trips and visit lots of boat shows.

DD: Ah, so its been a natural transition to sailing in SL for you then.. which brings me to my next question. The Zinnemann 40 Catamaran. Why did you decide to build this wonderful boat and what was your inspiration to do so?
HZ: Well I do a lot of racing in RL and quickly started racing the Tako in SL. I immediately loved it and thought it would be great if people could race nice big fast cats like the Volvo Extreme 40’s (VX40) so I developed the Zinnemann 40 and am really glad that other people wanted to race them too.

DD: yes its getting to be very popular. Can you tell me a little about the challenges you had in designing it to be a competitive boat in the first place?
HZ: My background is as a programmer so I could come up to speed with learning LSL (Linden Scripting Language) quite easily but it still took a few months to get used to some of the finer points which I did not see documented when I started out developing the boat (such as maximum script sizes and maximum number of prims for a vehicle including the avatars). My work as a programmer has not involved as much geometry as the Zinnemann 40 project does so I also had to get up to speed with rotation too. Now that I have a good framework for the Zinnemann 40 it is going to be relatively easy to roll that out to other boats including power boats such as the Zinnemann Power 1500 and the Zinnski.

DD: Tell me a little more about these new Zinn boats. What are they going to be like?
HZ: They will be very different from the Zinnemann 40 because they will be simpler to drive (just press the throttle and go). The Zinnemann Power 1500 will have room for a lot of friends and is there so people can hang out and cruise around their favourite nautical sims. The Zinnski is a little two person jet ski that is very agile. So agile that I am developing a football system for it. The idea is that there are two teams of them (red and blue) and a big ball that floats in the water and push around to get into the opposition goal. I would like to set it up in this sim and allow people to use them for free.

DD: Sounds like that could be fun! Sort of like water polo on jet skis. Can you tell me what your thoughts are on the EOW (edge of World) issues that effect boaters on SL?
HZ: My thoughts on applying rules to sailing in SL have mellowed a bit. My current view is that the most important rule should be that we sail in a gentlemanly (or gentle womanly) manner. The EOW issue is perhaps the greatest example of this. Personally I try to do all I can when coming up to the EOW to make sure I am not putting other people in an impossible situation. This tends to pay off for skippers in fleet races because if you steer clear of trouble you do better. In match races it can be more of an issue and I would not like to see anyone deliberately forcing someone into the EOW zone. Thankfully int he Big Cat Cup we don’t have match racing at the moment so it is perhaps less of a problem.

DD: And your thoughts on the Havok 4 physics engine? Have you been doing any testing?
HZ: No. As a developer who has worked for clients including Microsoft I have been involved with software beta products for over a decade and know what a pain they can be on anything but the most common of platforms. For this reason I tend to steer clear of beta versions of leisure software unless there is a very compelling reason to try them out. In the case of Havok 4 that compelling reason might be the fact that there is less traffic and so the hot laps mentioned in the forum do have a certain appeal.

DD: What led you to decide to put Zinnemann boats here in Sailors Cove sailing sims?
HZ: The first land I bought in Sailors Cove was in a different estate but the waters were more fickle there. I bought a small patch of land in Fishers Island because the Sailors Cove management promised that they would have very generous prim allocations available for sailing (800 prims available in all sims I think it is). I had that plot for a good few months and was very happy with Sailors Cove because of the open waters, the helpful management and the friendly people (almost all of who are into sailing). It was a bit of a no-brainer for me to decide to take a void here when my business expanded and I have been happy based in it since.

DD: Well as a resident of Sailors Cove myself its been a pleasure having you here.  On to the Big Cat Cup. Has this race been a benefit to your bottom line and do you suggest other boat builders setup a race in their class of boats too?
HZ: We are actually in the third season now which is great. I am very happy that so many people want to take part, and that people from outside Europe are clamoring for Asian and American race times. Because the Zinnemann 40 is a racing yacht it makes sense to have races and I am sure it helps sales. It is a big time commitment to run the races though so builders have to weigh up if it is better to spend that time running races or developing new products. I enjoy running the races and know people enjoy taking part so that is probably the main reason I do it.

DD: And my final question for you today. Before the Zinnemann 40 of course, what was your favorite boat to sail on SL and why?
HZ: Oh without doubt the Flying Tako. I thought it was so good that there was no point in trying to design a new small mono-hull class. It is a joy to sail and because it has the largest base of racers it is the most competitive. I am very interested by the Flying Fizz but for the moment the Flying Tako is my favorite.

DD: Thank you Hans its been a pleasure speaking with you today.
HZ: Thank you Delinda, the pleasure has been all mine.

You can find Hans Zinnemann Boat sales here.  There are more sales locations and additional information listed on his website at http://www.zinnemann.com/.  Until next time, I’m off to sail my Zinn!