Building A Good Program

     Building a good program around the Labrador catamaran requires two fundamental things:

1) The basic boat, equipment, structural components, testing equipment, safety gear, etc., needs to be fully operational.

2) There needs to be a program-format which provides safety and guidance, but no artificial restrictions, for student projects and research programs.

     Finishing and equipping the boat is simply a matter of hours and materials, ideally working in a reasonable workspace. There are some costs involved here, of course, which can be dispersed over a wide enough audience to keep individual participant costs low. Also, some grant writing and fundraising for the project is anticipated. Details of amounts of work, materials, equipment, and so on, will be forthcoming in some later posts.

     Setting up good teaching/research programs is also fairly straightforward, but does require a considerable level of attention to details of consistency, recording, weather conditions, and so on. The ability to calculate vessel weight and speeds is vitally important. Also, there should be consideration of chase boat availability for more radical experiments, especially hybrid wind-power concepts.

     The next post will begin to break down the material and worklist aspects of getting this program up and started.