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Sailing Music

Philpott

Philpott

Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
My son (Captain Max Dickey, USAF) got me a wonderful little waterproof bluetooth speaker for my boat. It has a skidproof rubber bottom and I set it on either the cabin top or the cockpit bench, depending on the day.

Floating around on the bay during the winter I've listened to lots of Joni Mitchell and Neil, Badly Drawn Boy and Rufus Wainwright. Offshore it is Electric Light Orchestra which seems appropriately sublime out there.

Bobby the J has told me that he saves the Bee Gees for rounding Farallones. Surely he has listened to the Bee Gees alot over the years.

Would anyone else care to share their preferences, and explanations? Of course it is possible that psychoanalysis may follow. This crowd's thought process can go from a boat hook to a pelvis in a heartbeat.
 
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Nice present, Jackie. Your son really knows how to keep his mom happy - buy things for the boat. He was raised well.

Personally, I'm a podcast person: Planet Money, This American Life, RadioLab, Serial, KQED Science, NPR News, Snap Judgement, Invisibilia, etc. It's hard to find time to listen to them all!! As to music, this is going to sound sacrilegious, but I get the worse ear worms when listening to something I've already heard before and know all the words before they say/sing it (maybe this is the reason why I remain single, too....).
 
And if you don't believe me, Jackie was playing Lonely is the Night when she sailed past us. It's still playing in my head. Two days later.

Billy Squier sang it. I just looked it up.
 
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Gamayun said:
And if you don't believe me, Jackie was playing Lonely is the Night when she sailed past us. It's still playing in my head. Two days later.

Billy Squier sang it. I just looked it up.
Click to expand...

Tender is the Night. Jackson Browne. And you haven't offered any revealing preferences.
 
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Music? On a boat? You people sail in luxury.

How much does a song weigh?

F=MA all day long. I can't afford the weight. Drives are large these days so let's use a 4TB drive to help keep the weight per song down and assume a weight of about 1.4 lbs. for the drive. So, stored on our sample drive each amortized bit weighs something like 1.345 x 10-12 (that's 10 to the negative 12th, can't seem to superscript things on here) pounds. Assuming an average song length of 3 minutes and average file size at 32 kbps sample rate of 240 kb per minute for an mp3 file let's use 720 KB per song. Now, there are 8 bits per byte, so each song has 5,760,000 bits that each weigh the aforementioned 1.345 x 10-12. Our sample song weighs .000000576 pounds. Our same song would be a bit lighter stored on solid state media. But still, you have to ask yourself: how many songs are on your iPod?

And none of the above even considers the weight of the music playing apparatus itself.

Next we should examine the affect the sound waves have on laminar flow across the sails as you wallow in luxury listening to your onerously heavy music while gleefully sailing along. That's gotta be disruptive...
 
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(How's that coffee John?)

Not a problem. On Rags the music only plays on the high side and I'm careful to tack the sound waves along with the jib. I do have one problem though: the magnets in the speakers. (You need serious bass response for a pipe organ's pedal notes - those suckers are heavy.) The speaker magnets don't play well with the A/P's fluxgate.
 
I suspect that the effects of the mass of music broadcasting apparatus on sailing performance are far out-weighed by the acoustic effects on laminar flow both on the sails and the hull. Unfortunately scholarly experimental studies indicate a negative effect, though it is not impossible that specific music (certainly not the Valkyries) may have a positive effect. A thorough Navier-Stokes model, along with an extended empirical study, may be required to adequately address this question.

Reference:

"A two-dimensional laminar flow airfoil (NLF-0414) was subjected to high-intensity sound (pure tones and white noise) over a frequency range of 2 to 5 kHz, while immersed in a flow of 240 ft/sec (Rn of 3 million) in a quiet flow facility. Using a wake-rake, wake dynamic pressures were determined and the deficit in momentum was used to calculate a two dimensional drag coefficient. Significant increases in drag were observed when the airfoil was subjected to the high intensity sound at critical sound frequencies. However, the increased drag was not accompanied by movement of the transition location.

Acoustic effects on profile drag of a laminar flow airfoil (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/public...cts_on_profile_drag_of_a_laminar_flow_airfoil [accessed Feb 17, 2016]. see same at http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19870020722"
 
I have a CD player on board, but I never remember to bring CDs along for sailing. Once in a while on a maintenance day I bring one or two. I still haven't figured out MP3s, and the image of blue teeth is thoroughly offputting.

During the SHTP I thought many times that it would be a good idea to keep a log of the songs running through my head, which would change every hour or so. (I find the term "ear worm" just as unpleasant as blue teeth.) But I didn't.

Of course, once in a while I sing aloud. Another benefit of singlehanding.
 
See how much simpler things are when you leave the music ashore? Does moving the speaker around constitute stacking? Is this allowed? Hmm...


Coffee? Maybe that's the problem. I haven't touched caffeine in years.
 
That's great DD/NM! Somewhere I have VHS-C's of my qualifier in 2005. On my way past SE Farallon the Bee Gees are blasting "Stayin' Alive!" It seemed to fit and I've wanted disco at the Farallones ever since.

Hmm, from sailing music to sailing videos . . . there's a thought. I have all 36 minutes of Sunday's race on the GoPro if anyone wants to see it.

(Yeah, I didn't think so.)
 
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