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livingdebThe first book Robin ever gave me to read was Neal Stephenson's Zodiac, an eco-thriller (according to the cover).
It's a great book, and the main character, Sangamon Taylor, is a trip, but what I'm going to talk about here is "GEE Northeast's nautical forces," the Zodiac. Sangamon works for GEE Northeast, a Boston-based group that takes action against polluters. Here is how he describes this boat:
"It's not doing a Zodiac justice to call it an inflatable raft. A Zodiac has design. It has hydrodynamics. It's made to go places. The inflatable part is horseshoe-shaped. The bend of the horseshoe is in front, and it's pointed; the prongs point backwards, tapering to cones. The floor of the craft is made of heavy interlocking planks and there's a transom in back, to keep the water out and to hold the motor. If you look at the bottom of a Zodiac, it's not just flat. It's got a hint of a keel on it for maneuverability.
"Not a proper hull, though. ..."
Zodiac is just one brand of "rigid-hulled inflatable boats." I had no experience with these kinds of boats before reading the book, but we got to see a bunch of them in St. Barthelany.
Here's a close-up of one of the bigger ones, though the cones that the prongs taper into are not as pointy as those on the furthest-away boats in these two pictures:
And even the motor in this picture is nowhere near as big as the one used in the book. I'll let Sangamon explain.
"Hull design is an advanced science. In the days of sail it was as important to national security as aerodynamics are now. A hull was a necessary evil: all that ship down under the water gave you lots of drag but without it the rest of the ship wouldn't float.
"Then we invented outboard motors and all that science was made irrelevant by raw power. You could turn a bathtub into a high-performance speedboat by bolting a big enough motor on it. When the throttle's up high, the impact of the water against the bottom of the hull lifts it right up out of the water. It skims like a skipping rock and who gives a f___ about hydrodynamics. When you throttle it down, the vessel sinks into the water again and wallows like a hog.
"This is the principle behind the Zodiac, as far as I can tell. You take a vessel that probably weighs less than its own motor, you radio the control tower at Logan Airport and you take off.
"We had a forty-horse on this puppy--a donation--and I'd never dared to throttle it up past about twenty-five percent of maximum. Remember that a VW Bug has an engine with less than thirty horsepower. When you hit running speed in this Zode, if the water's not too rough, the entire boat rises from the water. The only wet part is the screw."
So, Robin says the motor looks more like the one on this boat:
And there you have it, illustrations for the boring part of Zodiac. I'll leave you with the next two paragraphs from the book, which are not the boring part, even though they are about geography.
"It's the ultimate Boston transportation. On land, there's the Omni, but all these slow cars get in the way. There's public transit--the T--but if you're in good shape, it's usually faster to walk. Bicycles aren't bad.* But on water nothing stops you, and there isn't anything important in Boston that isn't within two blocks of being wet. The Harbor and the city are interlocked like wrestling squid, tentacles of water and land snaking off everywhere, slashed with bridges or canals.
"Contrary to what every bonehead believes, the land surface has been stretched out and expanded by civilization. Look at any downtown city: what would be a tiny distance on a backpacking trip becomes a transcontinental journey. You spend hours traveling just a few miles. Your mental map of the city grows and stretches until things seem far away. But get on a Zodiac, and the map snaps back into place like a rubber sheet that has been pulled out of shape. Want to go to the airport? Zip. It's right over there. Want to cross the river? Okay, here we are. Want to get from the Common to B.U., two miles away, during rush hour, right before a playoff game at Fenway Park? Most people wouldn't even try. On a Zodiac, it's just two miles. Five minutes. The real distance, the distance of Nature. I'm no stoned-out naturehead with a twelve-string guitar, but that's a fact."
*Bicycles aren't bad if you ride like he does, which I don't.
It's a great book, and the main character, Sangamon Taylor, is a trip, but what I'm going to talk about here is "GEE Northeast's nautical forces," the Zodiac. Sangamon works for GEE Northeast, a Boston-based group that takes action against polluters. Here is how he describes this boat:
"It's not doing a Zodiac justice to call it an inflatable raft. A Zodiac has design. It has hydrodynamics. It's made to go places. The inflatable part is horseshoe-shaped. The bend of the horseshoe is in front, and it's pointed; the prongs point backwards, tapering to cones. The floor of the craft is made of heavy interlocking planks and there's a transom in back, to keep the water out and to hold the motor. If you look at the bottom of a Zodiac, it's not just flat. It's got a hint of a keel on it for maneuverability.
"Not a proper hull, though. ..."
Zodiac is just one brand of "rigid-hulled inflatable boats." I had no experience with these kinds of boats before reading the book, but we got to see a bunch of them in St. Barthelany.
Here's a close-up of one of the bigger ones, though the cones that the prongs taper into are not as pointy as those on the furthest-away boats in these two pictures:
And even the motor in this picture is nowhere near as big as the one used in the book. I'll let Sangamon explain.
"Hull design is an advanced science. In the days of sail it was as important to national security as aerodynamics are now. A hull was a necessary evil: all that ship down under the water gave you lots of drag but without it the rest of the ship wouldn't float.
"Then we invented outboard motors and all that science was made irrelevant by raw power. You could turn a bathtub into a high-performance speedboat by bolting a big enough motor on it. When the throttle's up high, the impact of the water against the bottom of the hull lifts it right up out of the water. It skims like a skipping rock and who gives a f___ about hydrodynamics. When you throttle it down, the vessel sinks into the water again and wallows like a hog.
"This is the principle behind the Zodiac, as far as I can tell. You take a vessel that probably weighs less than its own motor, you radio the control tower at Logan Airport and you take off.
"We had a forty-horse on this puppy--a donation--and I'd never dared to throttle it up past about twenty-five percent of maximum. Remember that a VW Bug has an engine with less than thirty horsepower. When you hit running speed in this Zode, if the water's not too rough, the entire boat rises from the water. The only wet part is the screw."
So, Robin says the motor looks more like the one on this boat:
And there you have it, illustrations for the boring part of Zodiac. I'll leave you with the next two paragraphs from the book, which are not the boring part, even though they are about geography.
"It's the ultimate Boston transportation. On land, there's the Omni, but all these slow cars get in the way. There's public transit--the T--but if you're in good shape, it's usually faster to walk. Bicycles aren't bad.* But on water nothing stops you, and there isn't anything important in Boston that isn't within two blocks of being wet. The Harbor and the city are interlocked like wrestling squid, tentacles of water and land snaking off everywhere, slashed with bridges or canals.
"Contrary to what every bonehead believes, the land surface has been stretched out and expanded by civilization. Look at any downtown city: what would be a tiny distance on a backpacking trip becomes a transcontinental journey. You spend hours traveling just a few miles. Your mental map of the city grows and stretches until things seem far away. But get on a Zodiac, and the map snaps back into place like a rubber sheet that has been pulled out of shape. Want to go to the airport? Zip. It's right over there. Want to cross the river? Okay, here we are. Want to get from the Common to B.U., two miles away, during rush hour, right before a playoff game at Fenway Park? Most people wouldn't even try. On a Zodiac, it's just two miles. Five minutes. The real distance, the distance of Nature. I'm no stoned-out naturehead with a twelve-string guitar, but that's a fact."
*Bicycles aren't bad if you ride like he does, which I don't.