Promising research in Dementia, an iceberg of interest, and in the "Where there's a will there's a way" department...
There are times when I devote far too much time and mental energy trying to improve things which already work just fine.
Apparently I'm not alone.
Take this self-steering design for instance...
Pretty much your basic vertical axis trim tab to rudder affair that was drawn up for a very popular Trismus design. Some might say as far as self-steering systems go this is, at best, somewhat crude, simplistic, and agricultural.
Which it is.
That said, it's also a self-steering design which has piloted hundreds of transatlantic crossings, maybe as many transpacific voyages, and at least a couple of dozen circumnavigations. In short it works just fine, costs very little to build, and, being so simple, is ,easily repairable.
For instance, if you want to see a truly brilliant, elegant, and affordable solution to the problematic issue of course setting take a look at this...
Which, for our non-Telemark skiing readers, is part of a cable ski binding and is such a great solution to what is the most difficult design step in a self-steering gear that it really is close to genius.
Of course the cables are a replaceable item so you don't have to buy the whole binding.
So, while I have been giving quite a bit of thought of late to how one might improve the Trismus self-steering gear, I keep finding that it is already so well thought out that any attempt to improve on a good thing winds up being counter-productive at best and downright foolish in most cases.
For those interested in building such a beast everything you need to know is available for free on the Trismus site.
Certainly worth checking out.
Listening to the Devil's Box String Band
So it goes...
