Webstatistics of 2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report for this Blog.

and these are the results for www.fram.nl

Social Media, Fram on Twitter

Social media is here to stay and is becoming an increasingly important part of daily life. I like the internet very much and in fact the Fram project has been totally developed with Internet sources.

With my first steps on the Internet everything was still very small and orderly and with a little knowledge of HTML and my 28K modem I was able to put up the website www.fram.nl

Now there are  Blogs, MSN, FlickR, Facebook, Hyves, YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter and  much more. (I’m feeling old writing this ..)

While being in safe harbour at fram.nl I thought these new media was nothing for me.

However, last year I started this Blog at WordPress, to make the updating of fram.nl clearer. And I made an exception for YouTube, that in no-time became a popular account.

I have a sleeping FlickR account and an almost unused Facebook account, once made because I had to make an account to see some pictures about someone else his boating adventures. However, through this media I got contact with family I didn’t know of ….

To satisfy my curiosity about someones experiences I opened a Linkedin account and in just a few weeks I see this account grow with 90 “friends”  …

I still managed to stay away of Hyves and Twitter …  Untill today ….

No idea what it will bring,
but from today you can follow Sy_Fram on Twitter

Understanding Vacuum

 In the year 2000 when I started to study the possibilities for a DIY boat building project, I was a total composite greenhorn (still too much honor, I knew nothing) and there was almost no information about vacuum infusion except that it was some kind of black magic, operated behind closed doors by some very professional boat building plants.

However, vacuum resin infusion seemed to me the ultimate way of laminating a boat hull and in fact it made my single handed boatbuilding project possible without having any previous composite experience. Vacuum infusion is a defined process that not depends of my initially lack on knowledge and experience and skills for laminating big boat hulls. Now that has been said, think about the following. Vacuum bagging is much more tolerant and can operate even with a not leak proof vacuum bag and at lower vacuum rates, so must be much easier to do. However, being not a defined process, requires experience and skills in the eyes of the novice composite worker because it has to start with a hand-lay-up laminate with all the accompanying tits and bits.  Here is a link to the pro’s and con’s.

For the experienced composite worker it is a piece of cake and is the text above just BS. For the beginner in composites with a high tech composite yacht in mind, the choice for vacuum infusion is a logical one. Just acquire the knowledge and go for it ……

In the composite practice it is necessary to know a little more about the vacuum pump, the use of measuring units and to handle some pitfalls in the field of vacuum. At the start of my composite adventure I had wished there was some more composite related vacuum information available and in such a way I could understand. With vacuum resin infusion the devil is in the details and it is these details that make the difference.

So, also as a refresher for my own knowledge of the matter, I made a dedicated webpage about vacuum as being seen through my composite glasses (and including two ads as the tower must be kept smoking

The following questions will be answered:

• What is a vacuum ?
• Which metric or imperial units are in use ?
• What is the difference between gauge vacuum and absolute pressure ?
• How about the vacuum pump, which type or size to use ?
• Large central vacuum systems or multiple small pumps in the professional plant ?
• Is a vacuum switch useful ?
• How out-gassing can spoil the fun ?
• Why test for leaks ? (includes an ad for the Resin Infusion Starters Kit)
• Going Hi-Tech with absolute pressure ?
• Which vacuum pump is best for the vacuum needs in composites ? (includes an ad for vacmobiles vacuum systems)

This is the link to the webpage.  Have fun in studying the information and I hope you liked it. As always I’m happy with your comments, critics and your own experiences.

Web statistics of 2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 22 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 101 posts. There were 38 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was October 21st with 308 views. The most popular post that day was Enlarging Fram’s berth..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were fram.nl, cruisersforum.com, clcboats.com, multihulls4us.com, and scrumbleproject.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for fram blog, vertical foam stripping, framblog, resin infusion, and corecell foam.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Enlarging Fram’s berth. April 2010

2

About August 2001
4 comments

3

A milestone, Starboard meets Port. August 2010
4 comments

4

Preparing for vacuum infusion. May 2010
6 comments

5

Happy New Year ! December 2009
2 comments

Fram

 

These are the results of the Blog, which is not too bad for the first year of her existence (older entries are imported). It started by the end of December 2009 as a replacement for the logbook at the Home Page of www.fram.nl.  However, Fram’s Blog has still a long way to go to approximate the results of the statistics of the main website www.fram.nl  Although not as sexy as the above presentation by the WordPress provider, here are the results for www.fram.nl :

Month Unique visitors Visitors Pages Hits Bytes Jan 2010 5187 6816 40278 370157 4.20 GB Feb 2010 4903 6374 36145 329269 3.88 GB Mrt 2010 5524 7358 51146 396788 4.35 GB Apr 2010 4738 6175 34397 312234 3.16 GB Mei 2010 5474 7105 43385 374425 3.90 GB Jun 2010 4921 6477 31104 301599 3.01 GB Jul 2010 4778 6393 35308 317606 3.28 GB Aug 2010 5426 7140 55845 411621 4.47 GB Sep 2010 5208 6813 41878 336869 3.61 GB Okt 2010 4686 5863 36666 291575 3.22 GB Nov 2010 4854 6530 56392 343406 3.70 GB Dec 2010 4436 5935 36187 291648 2.90 GB Total 60135 78979 498731 4077197 43.67 GB

2009 59086 78772 550645 4545368 47.77 GB 2008 64270 90457 645672 5068054 49.92 GB 2007 63800 100256 683222 5761606 50.06 GB 2006 60499 87682 620468 5485370 46.37 GB 2005 52841 71472 455587 4722490 41.56 GB 2004 41735 53980 164704 3131632 32.24 GB 2003 37138   ?   ?   ?   ? < 2003 49810   ?   ?   ?   ?

The Case for the Cruising Trimaran

Fram’s website has a tracker. Except that it counts visitors it can also see where the visitors come from, especially through which external link. This is often my starting point when surfing the Internet and brings me to unexpected but very interesting places. There are thousands of forums on the Internet, but if they are talking about me and incorperate a link it is usually visible through the tracker and I can secretly read along where the discussions go, at least when I can understand the language (which is sometimes impossible with the Asian, Russian or East European languages).  I can assure you this is a very nice time passing.

Some time ago in one of these forum discussions there was a reference to an old book called “The Case for the Cruising Trimaran” by Jim Brown. This classic book is now back in print. Since this book was first published in 1979 I thought it would be much too old fashioned, nothing for me. However, when reading the author’s preface to this third edition I thought it is maybe worth to have a look at it and the price for the paperback is very reasonable so I ordered a copy at Amazone.

How wrong one can be!  This is a must read for every multihull aficionado and certainly the one with serious off shore ambitions. Jim Brown blends personal stories with technical information about these fast vessels, and shows why multihull pioneers in the 20th century were sometimes referred to as the “Hells Angels of the Sea” and their boats called “Anti-yachts”.  Much of the book is dedicated to the subject of “capsizing,” and offers timeless wisdom on how it can be prevented. There is even a chapter about “self-rescue,” and a technique for how a capsized vessel can be righted. Multihullers in general (and trimaran lovers in particular) will discover Jim Brown’s sailing philosophy and walk away with a thorough understanding of the features and benefits offered in well-designed and properly handled cruising trimarans.

Highly recommended !! I’ve read this book in one breath, despite the fact that there are some new insights nowadays. With the timeframe in mind that can’t be a problem and makes the author even more charming.

Webcam update

I’ve added the latest activities (foam planking main hull) to the webcam movie.  Enjoy!

Happy New Year !

A new year, a new home, a new workshop, a new website ………..
a new start.

By signing the contract of sale on last Monday December 28 we became the owners of our new home in Lelystad. The building project has been moved to the new workshop in Huizen and now we are in the middle of moving all our stuff from the old house to the new one. So, it is a very busy time for us with not much time left for the boatbuilding. Next update will take a while I’m afraid.

Fram’s website remains alive but I thought it became high time for a refreshment of the update approach by means of a blog. This instead of the logbook in the homepage of http://www.fram.nl

I still get a lot of email with questions and advice about my boatbuilding activities and it is a pity this information was not shared with other interested website followers. This blog gives the oppertunity to make comments on posts and that is a much better way to share valuable information instead of keeping this for myself or the questioner in private emails.

So please, do comment on these posts. I’ve imported all the logbook items into this blog so you can still make a comment on the older ones.

An email subscription option has been added in the right sidebar. This allows readers to sign-up and receive emails when new posts are published on the Fram Project. The subscriber can select how often this email is sent (the delivery frequency – immediate, daily, or weekly), as well as when this email is sent (the delivery window – a specific day and hour). This is an excellent way to keep in touch with the Fram Project.

Webcam video.

The webcam is offline as I don’t have an internet connection in my new workshop. However, I’m experimenting with an offline webcam and rendering the images into a fast moving movie about building the F-39 trimaran. Here is the first try and this link has been made permanent in the side bar at the right. Once in a while check for an updated video.

Our holiday sailing trip in Google Maps

In Google Maps format a compilation of last summer holiday sailing with the F33 “Hi5″ trimaran. Be sure to zoom in on the chart and click on the various icons for lots of photo’s and video.

View Larger Map

Engine.

Revised engine page.