Westsail the Grid?

It was the late 1960s – early 1970s. The era of counterculture and search for personal meaning in a world of war, Watergate break-ins and a corrupt establishment ruling class. Enter a Southern California boatbuilder with slickly produced brochures showing their 32 ft cruiser anchored in a serene bay in Tahiti, Bora Bora or somesuch tropical paradise, the attractive sea-going family of four, fit and tan, diving off the boom into the crystal clear waters. “Westsail the World!” And promises to “pioneer the oceans, to live aboard the sea, to weather the storm, to reward yourself, to live a different kind of life” were powerful prose in the time of Whole Earth Catalogs and back-to-the-land (and sea!) sensibilities. Consequently, the dream, the concept, and the boat were a hit.

About half of the Westsail 32s were sold in kit form, the idea being take delivery of hull and deck, spend the winter outfitting her, then set sail to the South Seas in the spring (in most cases, quite a few springs later!). At one point there was a two year delivery backlog. Despite all that, due to lax business practices of the Westsail Corporation (hey, it was the 70s!) the boat had a relatively short production run, about 800 produced between 1972 and 1980. The overwhelming majority of these boats are still fully seaworthy and their resale value has held up well.

The Westsail 32 was everything a deepwater cruiser should look like – the double ender design lifted from Colin Archer’s Scandinavian lifeboats, the fullest of keels, traditional cutter rig, small seaworthy cockpit, spacious belowdecks accomodations. It’s very heavy construction (displacement – 10 tons!) emphasized seaworthiness over speed (detractors gave her the nickname “Wetsnail”) but the boat delivered on the promise of taking its owners anywhere in the world, one even surviving the “Perfect Storm” intact (The boat, that is. She washed up on a Maryland beach mostly undamaged. Her skipper and crew were airlifted to safety in a harrowing USCG evacuation as documented below).

The Westsail Trudeau 32

Being wood snobs, modeling a fiberglas constructed boat like the Westsail 32 is a departure for us at Trudeau. However not entirely, we had the Westsail 32 in mind back in 2005 with our very first offering, the Trudeau 32. (Perhaps one or two of us at Trudeau had also been in thrall of those Westsail brochures :) Full keel. Check. Sloop rigged. Check. Double-ender, stern hung rudder, bowsprit. Check, check, check.

The Trudeau 32, circa 2005-6, in all her prim-eval glory

What we wrote about her in 2005 still stands as the ethos behind every one of our subsequent offerings

The Trudeau 32 is a gaff rigged, full keeled wooden sloop sailboat with graceful lines – one of a line of sailing yachts inspired by the classic designs of famed nautical designers like L. Francis Herreshoff, Colin Archer and John Hanna. The Trudeau 32 designed for a unique SL boating experience. A lazy afternoon in a peaceful cove, racing across a sun-dappled sea, slipping off the deck shoes and relaxing when the sun goes down, entertaining guests on the water or dockside, or visiting exotic ports of call on an extended cruise. It looks fantastic berthed at your lake or seaside marina and at a 27 prim displacement, can accommodate a party of up to 4 for sailing excursions.

Our original 32 had a relatively long lifespan, made it into the SL windlight era, and we’ve been told can still be occasionally found here and there on the grid.

A windlit Trudeau 32, having made it, like a Westail 32, to tropical waters

But SL time marches on and if you think the 2005 Trudeau 32 looks clunky, let me remind you of what our avatars looked like back then! On second thought, let me not :) Mesh remade the entire look of SL and and did so with our latest offering, the…

All New Trudeau 32

Trudeau 32 under full sail

Trudeau 32 moored

Full keel. Check. Sloop Cutter rigged. Check. Double-ender, stern hung rudder, bowsprit. Check, check, check. How about some features only available as pipe dreams 15 years ago? Line drawing correct shape of it’s real life inspiration. Tru-Sail luffing and billowing sails giving in-world indication of correct trim. Completely inhabitable below decks accommodations. Movable running rigging. Seating positions for skipper and 2 crewpersons – 1 heel-offsetting hike position per side for the skipper, 3 per side for each crewperson.

Additionally, the new 32 has a couple features that no proper oceangoing cruiser can be without. Last seen on our now-retired Columbia, 32 carries a tender on her deckhouse that is an actual separate 2 person rowing dinghy in her own right. Touch the deckhouse tender to rez either port or starboard-side (naturally parcel rez permissions needed, this is SL after all)

The Tender

Something else is afoot in this Trudeau offering. The HUD gives a clue:

Check out that windspeed scale – 80 meters/sec! That’s like 160 knots. WTF, Trudeau? The other clue is the Reef 2 setting on the 32:

Trudeau 32 storm sails

Yes, that’s a storm jib and a trysail main. Two more things no proper oceangoing cruiser can be without.

Throw a wind setting like this at the 32:

/1 set wind 0 40 20 2 1

That much wind on any SL boat (Trudeaus included) and you are asking for a spinning knockdown or worse. Our new Trudeau 32, like that Westsail in the perfect storm, can handle set wind speeds up to 40 m/sec (and with a 40 speed variance setting, gusts up to 80 m/sec). Make sure to reef 2 immediately!

You won’t make much headway under normal conditions in that configuration, but if you want to roleplay the entire Beaufort scale in SL, here’s your chance! It’ll be a handful in those higher winds and only the storm jib luffs to give indication of proper trim, but it can be done. (tip: dump wind often!) Maybe this will open up a new category of SL regattas – “survival!”

What else to say? Skipper, crew and passenger sit locations for the 32 and tender:

Sit targets

Are those adult couple anims in the passenger sits? We’ve heard those are popular ;) Boatyard jackstands when rezzed over the hard. 5 built-in traditional color schemes. And, naturally….

Customization!

Downloadable templates, in .psd format, to make her your own:

Hull (including name), Rudder and Gunwales (15.3MB)

Tender Hull and Oars (19.4 MB. Make sure replace the tender in T32’s contents with your custom textured model)

Sails (60.3MB. Please see the “The Sail Customization Files and Notes on Modding” section in the “Sailing the Trudeau 32” notecard regarding changing the default sail textures)

Deck, deckhouse, hatches (62.7MB)

Hardware and rigging (86.6MB)

Spars (1.3MB)

Cabin Interior (21.7MB)

Dimensions

Trudeau 32 – 37.35 ft (11.38m) length on deck, 45.9 ft (14M) length overall, 13.45ft (4.1m) beam, 5.9ft (1.8m) draft.  75 land impact moored, max 84 land impact when sailing.

Tender – 10.5 ft (3.21M) length overall, 5.75ft (1.76m) beam, .6ft (.18m) draft. 4 land impact.

Jackstands – 5 land impact.

Trudeau 32 ghosting

See the Trudeau 32 inworld at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts today. Reward yourself, live a different kind of second life, the grid’s oceans are calling!

The 12 Metre Sit Targets In Detail

We’ve have been getting reports that the 12 Metre crew locations are hard to access, that no matter where you click to sit you end up in the skipper or below decks positions. We’ve included sit target graphics in the 12 Metre Sailing Guide, in this card we’ll expand on that information along with other do’s and dont’s.

The 12M contains 7 sit targets – the skipper, 4 active crew sits, and 2 belowdecks cuddle sits. The skipper and active crew are controlled by Trudeau developed scripts that allow multiple port-starboard positioning increments to help offset the heeling force of the wind. The 2 belowdecks targets contain the ubiquitous AVSitter scripts that present the user with a menu of contained animations and gives the ability to adjust position and rotation.

Skipper

The skipper position is the entire boat (except for the other 6 targets), best accessed by “sitting” directly on the boat’s steering wheel.

Skipper sit position

If you successfully targeted that sit, you’ll receive the “Welcome aboard, skipper…” message.

Active Crew

These crew members use the <left> and <right> keyboard arrow keys in adjusting their position to help counteract the boat’s heeling force. The 4 active crew positions are the cockpit coamings, deck house, skylight and base of the mast.

For the deck house, skylight and base of mast positions the sit scripts and animations are contained in an invisible prim that envelops the visual part and enlarges the sit target (for the cockpit coaming, the script is contained in the mesh prim itself).  The graphics below show the outlines of the actual sit target prims:

Crew Position 1 – Cockpit

Position 2 – Deckhouse

Position 3 – Skylight

Position 4 – Base of Mast

Make sure you and your crew are as precise as can be when targeting your sit clicks.  For the cockpit, the compass housing might be an easier target “hit”.

There are a couple of caveats for these sit target prims.  The out of the box transparency setting for them is 99% – Do NOT set them fully 100% transparent – that seems to make them no longer targets for sit clicks. The second is do NOT change the value in the prim’s Description field (-1). The AVSitter system used belowdecks seems to want to take control of the entire primset, any prim you sit on will be controlled by it’s sit target code.  The -1 value in a prim’s description tells AVSitter to exclude that prim from it’s control.

If you find yourself “floating” above the deck in the various crew locations, realize the animations were developed for a specific AV size and in SL one size does not fit all.  Each sit prim contains a card – “sit config” that allows you to adjust the default distance of the animation from the prim:

offset=<-1.35,0.0,-0.2>  ‘Fore/Aft, Port/Star, Up/Down

We recommend that you not adjust the Port/Star setting as that will throw off the hiking increment visuals.

Relaxed Crew

Finally, the belowdecks AVSitter system.  This is the selection of sits and couples cuddles animations that do not effect the boat’s trim and are accessed by sitting on the port and starboard cabin settees:

Settee Sit Targets

These scripts take a while to completely load all of the contained animation’s offset and rotation settings. Make sure the “Loading x%” hovertext is completed before trying to access these animations:

Wait until the message goes away before using these animations

Null Key Animation Script Errors

For the “Could not find animation ‘00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000′” script errors, this is originally covered in this blog’s FAQ .  If a viewer restart doesn’t clear that up, a viewer cache clear will.

Very Fine Art

Resident Yany O’Real (yany.oh) does fantastic SL themed artwork.  He got hold of some Trudeau boats and here’s what he came up with.  I think they are amazing, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer don’t have a thing on Yany. :)

If you see Yany inworld, give him a shout out.

Patch Patched

 

(Newest Note: Patchogue II release will be Sunday July 7, 7AM SLT)

New Note: the Second SOL Regatta has been extended past June 23, so the Patchogue II release date has been pushed back as well. Please check back here for the updated release date.  Very soon now…..

Note: The Trudeau Patchogue II was chosen as the class boat for the 2013 Second Sol Regatta (A Sail4Life Fundraising Race Event).  The Patchogue II will available to the general public at the conclusion of the regatta, June 23)

Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts is transitioning to new building materials.  Don’t worry traditionalists, it’s not and never will be fiberglass, carbon fiber, molded polystyrene, polyethylene or any other yucky petroleum based product.  Mesh has taken over the SL grid and we have succumbed as well (yeah about time, Trudeau!).

But boy are we glad we did in our all new Patchogue II, our “mostly mesh” rework of our popular original Patchogue catboat from 2009.  Everything we said about the origins of that boat applies here, and doubly so.  We took the body plan from Gil Smith’s masterpiece Lucille and molded our mesh hull to it’s stations and profile.

The result was a RL lines-accurate SL boat hull, something not possible in prims or sculpts. Yay for mesh!

Bail!

Now Patch II, this lines-accurate model of the iconic Gilbert Smith design (and much more accurate than our previous Patchogue), has a very low profile. In fact, much of her cockpit is below the waterline.  Since SL prims don’t (and likely never will) have water displacing properties, we used the old “masking” texture to keep most of the water from the cockpit when sailing relatively level. It works fairly well, but there are two drawbacks with this method.

First, the masking texture also masks avatar parts (remember the invisiprims that came with your old prim shoes?)  So any part of your AV, such as your legs, that dangle below the cockpit water mask will be cut off (yo ho, me hearties, get your peglegs!).  We took this into account when developing all of the boat’s animations.

Second, setting your viewer’s “Advanced Lighting Model” option for enabling shadows negates the effect of the masking texture.  So if you have shadows on, your Patch II will look like this:

Sigh. One step forwards (mesh), one step backwards (shadows). Why can’t we have it all?

Meshed Up!

There are a bunch of features we’d found neither possible or practical on previous non-mesh boats such as the highly detailed rigging, sail furls on the boom when reefed and a working (woo-hoo!) mainsheet.  Not for nothing is she a 50-some prim equivalent.

All Aboard!

Patchogue II  can carry up to 4 people including her skipper.  The skipper position is “sitting” on the tiller prim (or either cockpit bench), the other crew/passenger sit locations are the top of the centerboard trunk and the fore and aft decks.  See the sit positions graphic:

Of course it wouldn’t be a Trudeau boat if all aboard didn’t help offset heeling by hiking out in several positions, so they do! Other now-standard Trudeau features include:

• Our should-have-been patented in-world luffing Tru-Sails
• Half a dozen built-in traditional color schemes.
• 2 sail reef points.
• Rezzing mooring buoy.
• Rezzing boatyard cradle.

Customization!

As with all Trudeau boats, Patch II is modify permission-ed allowing you to make her your own. These are the links to the Photoshop PSD templates for the:

Hull Parts (including backbone, decks, rudder/tiller, cockpit and boat name 13.1MB)

Bright (wood planking) Hull Parts (including backbone, decks, rudder/tiller, cockpit and boat name 16.6MB)

Spars (mast, boom, gaff and mast hoops 9.52MB)

Sail (including mainsail, reefed and moored furls 11.25MB)

Dimensions:

Trudeau Patchogue II – 55 prim equivalent , 26.5 ft (8.1m) LOD, 9.2ft (2.8m) beam, 3.9ft (1.2m) draft (board down)

The Francois Jacques Release Fundraiser

A HUGE HUGE THANK YOU to all the Second Life Sailors who turned out at the Nantucket Yacht Clubhouse on Saturday, Nov 17 for the Trudeau “Francois Jacques” release fundraising event benefiting the American Red Cross.

Due to your many boat purchases, amazing auction bids (wow, wow, wow BennyThe Boozehound!) and other very generous donations we were able to raise nearly L$300,000 for this cause in just over three hours! A US$1200.00 donation was made in Francois Jacques’ name.

Special thanks go out to BennyThe Boozehound for DJing and providing his wonderful musical selections, Gemma Vuckovic for providing the NYC clubhouse and Nomad Zamani, the NYC Estate owner.

As a resident in the area hardest hit by Sandy, I can attest to the immense damage that storm did to peoples lives. Please consider making additional donations:

You can help people affected by disasters like Superstorm Sandy by making a donation to support American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

SL Sailing in the General Press

Our various SL Sailing-specific blogs do a fantastic job of keeping us informed of the issues and activities of our community. Lately, SL Sailing, Blake Sea, The United Sailing Sims, and (*ahem*) yours truly, Jacqueline Trudeau have also garnered attention from the SL general press. We here at TCSY are not surprised – is there any activity in SL that’s better to do, more fun,  more relaxing, more rewarding than setting sail and exploring the waterways of our grid? No, there isn’t.  That other popular SL activity doesn’t even come close ;)

Recently Retropolitan Magazine took notice of the “classic” aspect of the TCS Yachts. And the just released issue of Prim Perfect is entirely dedicated to SL Sailing.  Check them out!  (and personal thanks to the respective editors for preventing me from sounding too much like a self absorbed twit!)

We The Cats Shall Hep You

Hep?

Get with it, daddios. Hep is hipper than hip. It’s in the pocket. It’s straight from the fridge. It’s copacetic. It’s the new Trudeau HepCat, our Son of a Beach(cat). Reap this righteous riff, this is one crazy SOB.

Instructions:

1.  Raise sails.
2. Hang the hell on to something!

Dig:

• Flat ain’t where it’s at. HepCat’s sails, more curves than a Jayne Mansfield film fest. Bunnie Mills, Trudeau sail boss, is one wrascally wrabbit!
• The tramp is no lady. Nor is it a bindle-stiff. It’s a stage for skipper and crew to make sweet music upon, so blow, Roy, blow.  Or play it solo. 4 positions per side. Hiking straps.  Keep cool though, too much bouncing around on this tramp will upset HepCat’s balance with clinkers and put the kibosh on your speed.
• No kick from champagne. But plenty of kick from these rudders – HepCat turns on a dime. And a kick up… handy for sailing up on the beach, over ramps and other screwy exhibitions. Down… they can be a real drag, man. Up… not so much. Not much help in steering either. But don’t sweat it, you’ll be the wiser in no time.
• Circus act. We don’t dig jive clowns. But a high wire? Solid. HepCat has trapezes for all you daring young men (and women). If they asked if you were moving, tell them you were flyin’!
•  Wig out. Or as the L7s call it, capsize. Hot dog it too much and you’ll get the bum’s rush into the drink. Don’t have a kitten though, moor HepCat and you’ll be sittin’ pretty again in no time.
  
• HepCat is lousy with sail choices. And for you egghead longhairs, all of them historically correct.

Glad rags to deck your cat out in:

Sails(2.5MB)
Hull (360K)
Trampoline (7.8MB)
Misc Parts (1.6MB)

Beach Cat Beach has gone Hep. Make the scene and dig the righteous Cats (cut a demo too!).

That’s the rap. Don’t be a chump, get Hep.

Go, Cab, Go!

The Third Time. A Charm?

We at Trudeau are huge fans of the boats of the Herreshoff family. If it seems like every other boat that comes from our yard is in some way a tribute to either Captain Nat or his son L. Francis’ work, it’s probably because it is. Of course, the one design that is most approachable, perhaps the most endearing and enduring is Nathanael’s 12 1/2 daysailer. We are in love with that boat and have tried to model it from the earliest days of TCSY (read our rhapsodic praise and historical tidbits about the real life H12 here). The Trudeau Sea Sharp (circa 2007, shown below) was our first attempt at building a 12 1/2 – like boat.

Of course, working with the SL sphere and cylinder primitives at our disposal didn’t quite lend themselves to the compound curved beauty of the 12 1/2’s lines.

It’s no surprise (to us, at least) that as soon as we had mastered a sculpty form beyond that of a hollowed out log, we would take another stab at the H12. That was the Trudeau Twenty (below left), our first sculpty boat.

Closer perhaps, but still no cigar. There are RL H12 owners in Second Life who directed comments our way on Twenty’s shortcomings as a Herreshoff H12 tribute. The masthead all wrong… the coamings are supposed to sweep all the way to the transom… the jib is supposed to self-tend on a club… and take those battens out of the main! Hey, when you are the owner of an important piece of yachting history and a bona-fide masterpiece, that entitles you to be picky!

So now, over 4 years after Sea Sharp hit the seas, nearly 2 1/2 years after Twenty’s launch – those comments taken to heart, other lessons learned, new building skills acquired, additional Linden scripting functions to abuse, led us to take 3 of our infatuation with the H12. Since it is more or less 12 feet on the SL waterline, we decided to call this one a twelve as well.

Presenting our T12

We think we nailed it this time! Though that makes it somewhat smaller than Twenty, the T12 can still haul you and 3 of your friends on sailing excursions throughout SL’s waterways. All four of those seated positions help counteract Twelve’s heeling – by shifting from side to side. There are tons – tons – of other new features.

• Redesigned hull and other new parts – coamings, rigging, rudder, cockpit benches, tiller, mast, mast hoops, boom, jib club…
• Beautiful sculpted gaff mainsail and jib with just the right billow and twist to bring a tear to an old salt’s eye (thanks to the very talented Bunnie Mills – give it up for her… again!).
• Our exclusive Tru-Sail feature as first introduced on the Trudeau One. The sails flap, luff and fill to give inworld visual indication of correct sail set. No HUD angle sail by numbers… no color codes… no big inworld dials… just realistic true to life sail behavior.

Alright already … this is getting to sound a lot like our write up for the Leetle Cat II. We suggest you read about the features of the “new” Trudeau boats, including T12, there. As you might have noticed about Trudeau boats, some boats have some features, other boats have other features. We try to give each of our boats a flavor of the RL ones they are modeled on.

Here are some features unique to the T12. While she doesn’t have the spinnaker (not exactly standard equipment on the H12 when first introduced in 1914), she has a very effective wing and wing setting for running downwind.

T12 is the replacement for the Twenty in our lineup, as such we have kept and updated popular features from that boat. For the cruising set is the motor and the boom tent and sleeping accommodations.

Customization templates? For you hot modders and rockers, follow these links for .PSD graphics:

Hull (2.33MB) including rudder templates

Transom naming (388KB)

Sails (9.44MB) – main, jib, furled sail and boom/reefed sail templates

(see this page for step-by-step naming instructions – T12 follows the Sea Sharp procedure – Sea Sharp lives on in T12 after all!)

Dimensions

32 prims (sit locations for skipper and a crew of three)
18ft (5.5m) LOA, 6.5ft (2m) beam, 2.6ft (.79m) draft.
Cradle – 21 prims
Tent/Lantern/Mattress – 28 prims
Mooring buoy and line – 11 prims

Come see the new Trudeau 12 at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts.

Charmed? We’re sure!

The Romance of the Sea

Discontinued

Rozinante was the name of Don Quixote’s steed. She was a long, thin animal but every time the Don mounted her he had remarkable adventures. Perhaps seven-eights of the romance of these adventures took place in Quixote’s mind, for he was a great reader of romance who rather looked down on the times in which he lived. Like Don Quixote, every time I venture out in this Rozinante I meet with great adventure and romance. Perhaps, also, seven-eighths of it takes place in my mind but each point that I round opens up new vistas with all sorts of possibilities.

L. Francis Herreshoff
The Compleat Cruiser: The Art, Practice and Enjoyment of Boating

L. Francis, son of famed American yacht designer Nathanael “Captain Nat” Herreshoff was famed and accomplished in his own right. Probably his most admired and beloved design was that of Rozinante, a 28 ft canoe yawl, introduced in a chatty “how-to-build” series of articles in the late sailing magazine, The Rudder.   Rozinante was the epitome of LFH’s philosophy of simplicity, elegance and romance (and if you thought you’d seen the last Herreshoff designed boat from Trudeau, think again!).

When a thing is out of the usual and pleasing to contemplate it is romantic. When an object is nicely proportioned and has retained some well-proven ancient quality, it is romantic looking. To a sailor a romantic vessel is one that looks like a good sea boat, one which has a good sheer and nicely proportioned ends: in short, a vessel he falls in love with at first sight, as we all did when we saw Rozinante.

Ibid

LFH was fierce advocate of boats that looked the way boats should, goddammit! Boats that weren’t designed to “meet some ridiculous ratings rule” that “penalize the speed-giving qualities of a sailboat”. Rozinante’s style would be in fashion “long after the abortions of the present are forgotten, dangerous and expensive rule-cheating wind-bags.” He dismissed the thought of spoiling Rozinante’s profile by adding a headroom gaining doghouse as “most of the sailormen I have known sat down when they ate and preferred to lie down when they slept”. His advice? “If you want to make changes, then by all means get a modern boat for your changes cannot make her any worse!”

Quite a character! A throwback in an ever-changing world, it’s no wonder he identified with Don Quixote. But with the passion his 60 year old design arouses in many in comparison to say, your average fiberglass (“frozen-snot” in LFH-speak) McBoat, he was definitely on to something.

When is a Yawl not a Yawl?

Though termed a canoe yawl, sharped eyed viewers will note Rozinante is in fact ketch rigged (the mizzen mast forward of the tillerpost). LFH explains:

In the 1890’s was a very popular type in England for cruising in some of their delightful waters… The name “canoe-yawl” simply means a boat with a sharp stern that is larger than the usual sailing canoe… The term, in it’s day, had nothing to do with the rigs these pretty vessels used, for among them were sloops, ketches, yawls, luggers, and cat yawls…. Of course, many yawl boats had no rig at all.

L. Francis Herreshoff
Sensible Cruising Designs

Okay, so that clears things up, right? :)

The Trudeau Rozinante

We are taking the concept of romance in a slightly different direction from what LFH, lifelong bachelor that he was, probably had in mind. We’ve conceived the Trudeau Rozinante as a couple’s cruising boat. Leave casual friends and family ashore – Rozinante’s 30 prims limits those aboard to captain and his/her/it’s first mate.  You will find no less than 5 couples cuddle animation sets built-in (this graphic shows where to sit). Other single sit passenger locations are the berth and the mizzen mast.

If you and your mate want to take an extended cruise, say to seek out that mythical passage north of Nautilus, Rozinante will keep you snug once you find your overnight anchorage. Her simple yet spacious cabin – fully equipped with double berth, settee and galley – is unprecedented in a boat that doesn’t need to be worn.  Did you say galley??? True – avatars don’t need to eat, but is not SL the perfect setting for all kinds of LFH-style adventures, seven-eights of which take place in the mind?

And for the times when you want to feel juices of a more competitive nature flowing, have your partner “sit” on the floorboards (trust us, this is for competition!). That’s the position where the crewperson becomes “moveable ballast”, shifting their weight from side to side (using the L-R arrow keys), keeping Rozinante as upright as possible, coaxing out the last bit of performance from her.

The Stuff

We won’t list all the features. If you are reading this, you likely know and love (or hate) them well by now. We will say Rozinante follows our Columbia concept of riding on the complete boat (30 prims) and then optionally filling in the rest of the details by wearing the rigging attachment  (42 prims).

Customization? Yes! the hull (1.9MB), name (277KB) and sail (386KB) templates are all here (the name template is little tricky as the portside text has to be flipped and reversed, but you’ll figure it out!).

Rez Rozinante over the hard and she comes down on her boatyard cradle. And just because this is SL don’t think you are off the hook. After all, Rozinante is a wooden boat. So “sit” on the cradle, wear the offered paintbrush and that can of Interlux and get to work!

Dimensions  – a little bigger (but then isn’t everything in SL?) than the RL Rozinante:

30 prims (carries skipper and first mate), 49ft LOA, 9.8ft beam, 6ft draft
details – 42 prims
cradle – 44 prims

Come take a look at her at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts and kindle a new romance of your own and, in LFH words, “remember that a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

The Gem Of The Ocean

Discontinued

Defender, our boat inspired by the 1895 America’s Cup racer, has been a Trudeau staple since our earliest days. Our original Defender was voted “Best Overall” at the 2006 SLSA Boat Show. “Defender Liveaboard” was our first boat with a (somewhat) usable cabin, Defender II our first high-prim high-detail two piece vehicle/attachment boat. Historically, Defender is our all-time most popular boat.

Long live Defender!

That’s why we are killing her off ;) The first life Defender, with her bronze plating below the waterline and weight-saving aluminum above, lasted scarcely longer than the Trudeau version before galvanic corrosion sent her to the scrapheap. Designer NG Herreshoff was unfazed, remarking that she was a success in the task she was built for. And she was – the America’s Cup winner in 1895 and trial horse for the contender 4 years later.

The Defender After “Defender”

We shift our attention that contender, the successor to Defender – the yacht Columbia. Commissioned by a syndicate of Gilded Age moneybags from the New York Yacht Club and launched in 1899, Columbia, also from the Herreshoff board and yard (he would design and build an unprecedented 6 consecutive America’s Cup champions), was considered an evolutionary improvement to Defender – built to the same design rules but with deeper keel, more ballast, more sail area. Not to mention more electrolytically compatible structural materials. Columbia beat the British challenger, Shamrock, in all three America’s Cup races in 1899 and and again against Shamrock II in 1901, making her the first two time cup defender. And a 6-0 undefeated one at that.

If you think the first life 1930s J-Class was a big boat, it wouldn’t hold a candle to the earlier generation “90 footers” – Defender, Columbia, and Columbia’s succesor Reliance. Built to the waterline length and sail area rules of the day, these boats were enormous! 90ft LWL, 135ft LOA, 20ft draft, 12-16,000 sq ft sail area. Imagine gybing a mainsail on a 115ft boom. This is the inspiration for our latest.

The Trudeau Columbia

Our Columbia, our biggest boat yet – twice as big as our Defender, even bigger than J-Class – let’s face it, you can’t model a 135ft first life boat to the size of racing dinghy. Her base component, weighing in at a lightweight 28 prims, is a complete sailer for skipper and 3 ballast shifting crewmembers. Her sculpty hull has that distinctive Herreshoff outline with fin keel, cutaway forefoot and long overhangs, a shape that could only be approximated in our earlier Defender models. Mainsail with 2 reef settings (the first reef douses the topsail), jib, staysail, jib topsail and spinnaker/drifter – all from the fantastic Bunnie Mills’ sail loft – replicate the sail suite of the first life Columbia. All the usual Trudeau sailing features are there – well… you know them by now ;)

Actually… there is a new feature worth a mention. On all known previous Trudeau boats, sail changes, reefing, spinnaker hoisting and dousing all happen – Bang! – instantaneously. Not so with Columbia, you will find there is a period of driving power reduction during your reefing and spinnaker changes. How long a period? It can be anywhere from 5 to more than 20 seconds. It’s based on several factors – boat speed, wind speed, number of crewmembers aboard (the more the merrier), the number of times you’ve already done a sail change operation during your sailing session (practice makes almost perfect!). Oh, and once you think you’ve solved the riddle in getting your time down, there may, just may, be a random event that will prolong your next change. The idea is to give the skipper another thing to think about. In a close battle, will that topsail or mainsail reef give you the edge? Or will you lose out during the time it takes to set it? Shouldn’t you really carry a crew to help out with spinnaker operations?

The Trudeau Defender was a high detail boat with a cabin, you say. And so is our new Columbia! If you want to fill out the details there is an attachment with standing rigging, bobstays, spreaders, etc you can wear while sailing (or rezzed while moored).

The Cabin?

Yes! The fully outfitted cabin primset, with period appropriate detailing, can be rezzed while moored. Included are 8 animations for your belowdecks activities, from determining your location by studying the charts to reading a Herman Melville classic to snuggling with your honey.

*A bit of disclaimer about the cabin. Even in first life sailboat cabins involve compromises, and our Columbia is no different. Columbia is a more accurate model of the first life racer than Defender was, so there is no deckhouse. It is sitting, not standing, headroom below. Plus, to keep the primcount down on the base sailer, there is no real opening in the deck – the “hatch” area is actually a transparency in the decking texture. Therefore you don’t enter the cabin by walking down the companionway, but rather by sitting on the hideable poseballs located abovedeck. It takes some bit of SL(tm) skill in maneuvering the camera down in the tight quarters between decking and sole but believe us, it can be done! Standing up might find you trapped between prims (though you might just fit under the skylight) so it is best to exit by sitting on an abovedeck prim.

Love My Tender

The tender NG Herreshoff designed for Columbia was a classic in her own right, still revered and built today.

Our Columbia carries her tender on deck, just as the original did. Plus, touch it and the dinghy is rezzed in the water – a fully functioning rowing and sailing boat in it’s own right! Columbia’s HUD works with her tender’s sailing and rowing operations.

Customization

Get ready for a whole slew of customization templates for Columbia. These are the links to the Photoshop PSD templates for the hull (950K), naming (3.5MB) and graphics for the 6 sails and variations (2.25MB). The tender has it’s own templates for hull (2.8MB), sail (284KB) and name (290KB).

Dimensions:

Trudeau Columbia

28 prims (carries skipper and up to three additional passengers/crew), 117ft LOA, 13ft beam, 13.2ft draft
details – 59 prims
cabin – 36 prims
cradle – 35 prims

Come take a look at her at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts and see if you don’t agree that the spirit of Nathanael Herreshoff lives in Second Life!