Heading through to Glasgow for the MASTS Annual Science Meeting [1] today to tell a mathematical story about salmon, featuring some lovely illustrations by @rek. It is about a detail that comes up when trying to understand the effect of salmon farms on the wider ecosystem and involves a neat (I think) mathematical trick [2].

[1] https://masts.ac.uk/annual-science-meeting/
[2] https://codeberg.org/rbem/copepod-master/

French research sailboat Tara, taking samples in the Firth of Forth #underway

Removing construction stretch from the forestay… If I’ve done my sums right, that should be a 24:1 purchase so I think I’ve put over a ton on it… #theBoatyard

Cap shrouds done apart from wanting chafe protection at least for where they pass the spreaders. Also made the checkstays yesterday. Still the lower shrouds, backstays, and a the outer one of the twin forestays to make but waiting on some fittings for those. It seems to take a couple of hours to measure out and splice each pair of stays.

Hands a bit blistered, this HMWPE rope is tough stuff before it breaks in.

Taking a break today to start on some docs...

#theBoatyard

Progress… Worked out the electrical layer of the CAN port. Those are definitely bits… #theBoatyard

Flying through the air… #theBoatyard

A major milestone. It took some persuasion with a hammer and a file to get the gudgeons back on. Hopefully that’ll do for another 45 years. #theBoatyard