Expectations really taint one's experience in matters like these.
As for regular yachts - drop a drogue, run before the storm with a bare minimum of sails up to maintain steering ability, try to keep the waves on your stern.
[1]: https://www.saildrone.com/news/tropical-atlantic-hurricane-m...
Shameless plug of a youtube channel I enjoy, here's a guy installing one of those in their CNC machine to make better footage [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAnOheWHEA
Why is this impressive? Either they beamed it out through satelites, which is notoriously hard from an unstable platform on big waves, or they recovered the saildrone and obtained the footage directly which is equally impressive in or around a hurricane.
All around if the dating of the footage is correct it is very impressive to me.
Also surprised at the scale of the things, the smallest model is 7 m (23 ft) long, the largest is a whopping 22 m (72 feet).
Pretty cool things!
They footage IS very cool, for that matter what do EXPERIENCED boaters do if their sailboat or motorized boat get caught in a bad storm?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospher...
Key Features:
* Robust, Light-Weight Communications for at Sea Operations
* Certus 700 Services (352 kbps Up/704 kbps Down & 256 kbps Streaming Capable)
*100% Global Satellite Coverage and Low Latency for Critical Data and Voice Communications
1. https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/wp-content/uploads/s...
2. https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/market-specific-solut...
3. https://www.thalesgroup.com/sites/default/files/database/doc...
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
5. https://seatech.systems/product/thales-vesselink-700-for-iri...
From my impressions, NOAA is a very useful agency that delivers on its mission pretty well. But I never interacted with them directly.
I notice that there are a lot of videos on Youtube of stormy weather which people use to help them sleep. So I guess this is part of that same phenomenon.
Nowadays I'd say experienced boaters never get to that point. There's reliable weather forecasting and near-instantaneous radar data. You can avoid the storms.
If you’re stuck at sea with a hurricane barreling down you can try to sail around the equatorial edge of it (in the northern hemisphere you try to sail south of it). Hurricanes tend to veer away from the equator. Moreover the wind and waves will be behind you, so you’re less likely to get knocked over by a gust or a wave. The boat is quite literally surfing.
If things get really bad you might heave-to which is a way to work the wind against itself causing the boat to mostly stall. It’s supposed to be very safe in heavy winds, but you would be pointing at the waves which is bound to be unpleasant.
Finally, a sailboat’s keel is very heavy. Check out the diagrams at [1]. The mast has to be well below water before the sailboat prefers turtling to upright.
There are also the opposite - rogue holes - the trough part of a wave. Imagine being in a boat and dropping 100ft.
I am far from an expert on this topic, but for sailboats; sea anchors and storm sails. The first is a parachute-like device that keeps the boat pointed in the right direction relative to the waves. The second is a small, tough sail used when any other sail, even while reefed, would be too big.
If you can't make it to shelter in time, it's better to weather the storm in open water than near the shore - at least that way, you won't risk hitting something and sinking.
Does it just become another member of the Great Garbage Patch?
The very best way to deal with heavy weather is to be on the shore.
Right here is a link to the web site: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Their forecasting graphics (probability distributions of tropical cyclone tracks, wind speeds, rainfall, et cetera, all overlaid on maps) are direct and easy-to-read, and do a good job of conveying the uncertainty of the behavior of these storms in a way that's legible to a lay person.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
But well, there are still ten years to go until 2031, let's hope we still won't be enticed to think about an F-6 by then...
Though when you can get those elements together, the result is gut-clenching. What does it for me is Big Wave surfing at Nazare. Camera's on land, horizon is fixed, motion is clear, and the ant on the face itself gives perspective. I almost have the opposite problem, the image registers as synthetic or manipulated, even when it isn't:
(I actually live in Chelyabinsk)
https://www.saildrone.com/news/tropical-atlantic-hurricane-m...
But the inside of the storm looks like some huge waves crashing all around. Am I missing the lightbulb moment?
Maybe a potential pivot to sell Saildrone to storm-chasing, surfer, adrenaline junkies. That'd be one helluva ride!
That must have been absolutely amazing.
Did you see the initial airburst itself? What were your thoughts / how would you describe your reaction as the event unfolded?
Thoughts, 'WOW', 'COOL', 'Did somebody film that??', and, of course, the rest of the workday was not very productive. It was nice to see that so much footage made.
One thing footage doesn't show is, however, the heat: the radiation was intense and open parts of the skin did feel hot, like , REALLLY BURNING HOT. Had it lasted longer, there would be burns on everybody.
> Researchers have since determined that rogue waves probably claimed 22 supercarriers and more than 500 lives in the second half of the 20th century alone.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-grand-unified-theory-of-r...
I found the data to be of good quality, free, and a simple interface to interact with.
One day I went to export data from their web portal and it never seemed to be ready. I shot an email off with no expectation of a response, but a little while later I got a nice response from their system administrator that they were doing an upgrade and some jobs got backed up in the queue. My limited experience with them has been all positive.
Easier to rotate the wing than a motor at the root of the big wing.
I'd think that a larger impactor or one that survived further into Earth's atmosphere (and closer to the surface) might have changed that experience markedly. You're informing my own advice-to-self as to how to respond should I see a very large airburst at some point. "Stay away from glass" was already part of that, as well as "expect the shockwave after about 90 seconds". I think I'll add "avoid direct thermal exposure if it looks to be large" to the list.
If you've not already seen the Sandia Labs modelling based on the 1908 Tunguska event, the shockwave dynamics suggest to me why and how the multiple shockwave arrivals at a given point on the ground occur:
https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/releases/2007/asteroid.html
Particularly this simulation: http://www.sandia.gov/videos2007/2007-6514Pfire.hv1.1.mpg
Hurricanes are interesting to listen to, though. The banshee wails of the winds as another band comes through. The low growling/humming sound when it is otherwise quiet between bands. The wet, snapping of death coming to a tree.
"Ocean drone captures video from inside a hurr icane"
There are some helicopter blades that have this same idea, a little moving thing to control the pitch of the rotor over a swash plate
Personally I think it is something that is brilliant, and it is actually the primary feature that enables autonomous operation as a drone. There are no halyards or sheets, no ropes anywhere. All you have to do is maintain an angle of attack relative to the wind, and you have propulsion.
BTW, the founder holds the wind propulsion land speed record, and the wing design for this is an evolution of that design. When you're moving at 4 times the wind speed, no human can possibly keep up with the continuous trimming demands of a sail. This design does it perfectly, and at an overall reduction in total complexity.
Also, at least in the US, typical boat insurance is very expensive if you want to have your boat anywhere near hurricane "areas" during hurricane season. People up here in the northern US like to take their boats down to Florida or the Caribbean during winter, but generally their insurance policy is null and void if they get there before Dec 1.
With that amount of money I'm sure the system would be able to grow to accommodate (including sending up more satellites) if only to make sure the money doesn't go to another competitor.
If I'm reading correctly, NOAA is using the smallest of the three current models.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
2. https://www.satphonestore.com/tech-browsing/satellite-intern...
The Thales VesseLink modem they used consumes 65W nominal/120W maximum. It offers a connection speed of a couple hundred kbps, so sending up a video file of a fixed size will require it to be on for quite a while - Assuming 200 kbps average, and a 360 MB video, that's 4 hours of uploading or 260 Watt-hours. Also, it's 12x9x2", and weighs 7.5 lbs; this is a boat not a hobby quadcopter. 260 Watt-hours is a lot; that's like 3 laptop batteries, but that's still smaller than the modem itself.
Starlink does consume 100W, but offers a connection speed of about 200 Mbps. The 360 MB video upload could complete in 14.4 seconds, which consumes 100 W * 14.4 seconds / 3600 seconds/hour = 0.4 Watt-hours. It is significantly larger, and it would probably have a harder time handling rough seas (not to mention saltwater intrusion), but that's a lot less power.
Whichever modem you're using, you'd want to turn it on infrequently.
Edit: The Saildrone product brief is here:
https://assets.website-files.com/5beaf972d32c0c1ce1fa1863/61...
It describes a 23' or 7m boat. The 33'/10m larger version has 300W continuous sensor power/2kW peak available from the solar panels, which appear to be of a comparable size to those on the Saildrone.
Maybe force 6 is normal, but this is easily force 10+
Even the fastnet race of 79 was LESS than what we are seeing in this video
The pilot chart for north atlantic in december is showing 20% of days are at a gale in your latitudes, but that's again, a far stretch from the video: https://www.offshoreblue.com/nav/pilot-charts.php
Here's the beaufort scale for reference: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
This thing on kman kmax https://gallery.vtol.org/images/2017/08/15/kmaxServoFlap.jpg
We can still appreciate that as a mind-blowing achievement! And it might put a damper on the enthusiasm for a delayed video of a wet drone.. :)
other sites: "For first time ever, drone sent into eye of Cat. 4 hurricane"
the article outlines footage from inside the hurricane.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9
The biggest downside is the buoy's are rather old so you don't get a lot of data. Nowadays we could design a buoy that streamed back all of its raw data. But the buoys are designed with bandwidth constrained hardware so they do the analysis on the machine and return the summary results infrequently. It really limits what you're able to do with the data. Especially holding back from machine learning capability.
It is still very costly on a dollars per MB of data transferred basis.
The main problem with it is the very high dollars per megabyte cost. If you're a billionaire or a nation state with a $30 million Gulfstream jet and an Iridium terminal on it you probably don't care. But it can be cost prohibitive for any appreciable amount of data transfer from remote scientific systems.
If someone tells you there’s jam inside a donut do you complain that the hole through the middle appears to contain no jam?
Wikipedia has this to say:
> Though the eye is by far the calmest part of the storm, with no wind at the center and typically clear skies, on the ocean it is possibly the most hazardous area. In the eyewall, wind-driven waves all travel in the same direction. In the center of the eye, however, the waves converge from all directions, creating erratic crests that can build on each other to become rogue waves. The maximum height of hurricane waves is unknown, but measurements during Hurricane Ivan when it was a Category 4 hurricane estimated that waves near the eyewall exceeded 40 m (130 ft) from peak to trough.
For a 10mt explosion at 20km height it shows a third degree burn radius of 27km. Chelyabinsk was ~0.5kt at 29km. Larger objects are expected to penetrate further into the atmosphere before exploding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_air_burst
I'm not sure how much time you'd have to evaluate size or distance, videos of Chelyabinsk show it pretty bright just a second or two after becoming visible. Length of infrared exposure determines severity of burn, so reacting early is helpful.
If a cyclone can get her name, why not the drone that went through the cyclone?!
Therefore Saildrone Explorer SD 1045 from here on is named Tippy McTipity.
Cheers to Tippy! Well done.
(Pay attention Ms. Allen. The NOAA could use a good public naming promo for any other drones that did cool stuff!)
Edit, after RTFA:
> SD1045 is battling 50 foot waves
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Saildrone/@37.7829877,-122...
(I don't think they have public tours, but I could be wrong)
Usually you can spot the drones in Seaplane Lagoon, and the water nearby.
Out of curiosity, what have you been using buoy data for?
Being impacted by the Morris Worm, and having a (text-based) copy of the Pons-Fleischman paper, both circa 1988, via the uni Unix server, was pretty cool.
But Chelyabinsk was a massively-shared instance, where a random news event in a place that was absolutely not a media centre, was still accessible in very short order with multiple coverages.
Sci-Hub / LibGen give a similar feeling, though in a different sense. Wells's World Brain and Bush's Memex, delivered. Even if the Establishment is being dragged kicking and screaming.
I am old enough to remember rotary phones and I am not that old.
Further the article has a video showing the location of the drone in the storm, pretty far from the eye.
It will be a life-changing event for maritime robotics, assuming they don't get too greedy.
"Do not gaze upon meteorite armageddon through window with remaining face."
I'm unaware of something like that in locations which suffered from large explosions around a similar timeframe.
or very shortly before that on a promotion, on the new high speed track between Cologne and Frankfurt.
Gently sloped up- and downhill, sometimes right next and parallel to the Autobahn A3.
At 331 to 333 kph. Not shaking at all, and relatively silent.
Looking out of the window, seeing Porsches, Mercedes-Benz, BMW
trying to overtake slower traffic permanently blinking left, flashing their lights.
Appearing almost stationary.
Thinking: Who needs Transrapid?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5633081_The_Halifax...
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=eye%20surgery%20halifax...
You'll need to retrain your instincts to instantly close your eyes and flinch away in response to bright light, then judge the "looks to be large (or not)" through your closed eyelids. This should work fine as I remember reading that some observers of the Trinity nuclear test blast saw the bones of their hands through their closed and covered eyes...
Alternatively, make a habit of wearing welding glasses with 100% UV protective glass that will auto-darken to Shade 14++
&yes, those Sandia Labs simulations are really amazing!
If you're close enough to a fireball that you're instantly incinerated, you might as well just enjoy the show. There's nothing you can do.
If you're within the zone of survivability, then there's cause to take action, and responses over seconds, minutes, and hours can make a difference. A 20--30 mile airburst gives 2--3 minutes before he
The prompt heat flash lasts several seconds. Ducking and sheltering quickly behind any shading barrier will provide protection. Infrared is no penatrating radiation. And bollides as blackbody emitters release mostly IR and visible light. Short-term flash-blindness, likely, permanent blindness ... probably not?
Blast effects lag blast by seconds to minutes. A 20--30 mi altitude bollide burst (32--48km) gives 2--3 minutes before the blast will hit.
Fragments might be another risk. Again, they'll lag considerably and arrive with fairly low terminal velocity for any likely impactor.
TL;DR: Killing effects cover several modalities and don't arrive instantaneously or simultaneously.
Totally agree on the survivability. While most ppl just immediately think 'it's a nuke/meteorite, you're just fried', even a quick look will show that the lower effects zone is at least 10x the area of the 'you're fried' zone.
So yes, just instantly closing your eyes & looking away, stepping away from the window, behind a tree or lamppost, etc. can do a lot in the first 5 seconds, then using the next 10sec that get behind something to be on the leeward side of the shockwave, and you'll be way ahead of the situation. Probably best measure is to avoid important cities.
[1] https://acoustics.org/what-can-we-learn-from-breaking-wave-n...
[2] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/44/10/jpo-d-...
