2 A float - Weir Wood Sailing Club

G Sailing
A new life for old
boats.
Christopher Moir
Chris Moir,WWSC Boat Park Marshall
and of WMG University of Warwick,
explains how WWSC “dead” boats are
pushing forward the boundaries of
perception.
Boats come to the end of their lives
in Weir Wood boat parks. Or at least
some do. Abandoned and lost, with
long out of date boat park stickers,
they await their fate at the mercy
of the chainsaw if wooden; angle
grinder if GRP or foam sandwich.
Some other boats’ dispatch to tip or
skip is delayed. Covered in brambles
inspection of a transom boat park
sticker is discouraged. And then when
the brambles have been cleared away,
often there appears an almost upto
date boat park sticker. The club is full
of members, including the author,
whose intentions to take their boat
out far exceed the number of times
their boats hull cuts through the water.
At the last minute other things take
priority. Very occasionally abandoned
boats are sold or take on a new lease
of life as a pirate ship in a children’s
playground.
So far so typical of practice in many
UK sailing clubs. However so far as I
am aware, no parts of an abandoned
boat at any sailing club can be said
to have assumed the star role of
promoting new applications of applied
physics and novel technologies. This
was the job assigned to an old fireball
hull, mast and boom sections from a
kestrel, a rudder stock and tiller from
an abandoned Skipper. Last March
relics from Weir Wood central boat
park took pride of place at Science and
Technology exhibition at Olympia.
Funded by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council
“Pioneers 09” was to bring advanced
novel ideas in science and technology
to the notice of the press, industry and
commerce. Among numerous high
tech university exhibits like energy
wave converters, advanced medical
G
The cocoon
imaging and measuring carbon
emissions in homes, Warwick and
York Universities turned up with a
pretend wooden sailing boat on stand
and a device to be worn on the head
that looked like a glorified cycle crash
helmet made out of plastic. Neither
could be described as embracing
new technologies. Building a boat
by laying planks on wooden frame I
think is a 3,500 years old technology.
1950s technology produced masts
and booms made out of extruded
aluminium. Plastic injection modelling
is of a similar vintage
So what was going on? The answer is
these were all props used to convey
an idea of creating a virtual real
world based on placing a person in
an immersive environment through
stimulating physical science based
cues, of 5 human senses. These are
sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
These are not the only senses we use
to interact with the real world, but
they are the main ones. The novelty
is stimulating all five senses to the
point of perceptual reality. That is a
person in one place believes they are
actually present somewhere else. Even
the most advanced applications of 3D
computer games relay on replicating
only two senses. (Sight and sound).
The Warwick/York exhibit was a
sailing simulator with some marked
differences. It was intended to promote
a project to develop a “virtual Cocoon”
through which people can interact
naturally with a world that is physically
remote from them. In more technical
language the virtual cocoon is the
production of a highly realistic multisensory
virtual environment but which
complements but does not replace
reality. The Daily Mails response to this
idea of a “virtual Cocoon” is captured
in the illustration below.
Can the brain be fooled into believing
it was somewhere else? Generally the
answer is no. The subconscious minds
of helicopter pilots, for example, using
a training simulator to learn how to
land in a snow or sand storm know
what they are experiencing is not real.
The emotional stress is not there. In
a few minutes they can go for lunch.
The brain can detect small blemishes
in a commuter graphic image of a
women’s face. The brain knows the
image is not real. One sense can
however trick another one. A classic
example is exploited by a ventriloquist.
The viewer is fooled into thinking
that sounds are coming from the
dummies mouth because of the way
the dummies lips are moving. Visual
cues dominate sound. In many other
circumstances smell dominates taste.
Could the exploitation of these cross
modal effects mean that visitors to the
Warwick/ York stand are persuaded
that they were sailing a boat? The
answer is yes but. Details have to
come later. First some technical stuff
about the boat on stand and then how
senses were stimulated. The boat was
Afloat Autumn/Winter 2009
23