Monday 17 January 2011

Trainspotting

I love Moths and I am a bit of a Moth trainspotter. That with my database geekyness has resulted in a Statistics Page of the Boat data in the IMCA Database:

http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/Stats.jsp

The first thing to notice is that this data is not a complete set of data of all Moths built since 1928. Does such a record exist? I know that year books contain some lists but I do not think there is a complete record.

I hope the Boats For Sale feature (see my last post) will feed more data into this but so far zero response. Maybe it does not work or no one is interested? Anyway I want to get this data and use it because it gives a nice picture of the class and the trends within it.

If you want to reuse this data there is a dump of it here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/boats.xml This can be used to sex up gear tables for events.

If you are a member you can log in to the IMCA site and add your boat into the database (if it is not there already). The problem with this is I do not know who is a member and who not as my centralized membership management features have at best failed miserably.

Am I the only trainspotter out there or are there others that are interested in this project? If so do you have data and time?

Friday 14 January 2011

Content Havesting.

I have been meaning to finish this off for a while but there is now a new feature on the IMCA site that allows you to "Sell a Boat".

You have to login to the site. Then in the IMCA toolbar you can click "Sell a Boat". You search (by name, number and sail number) and select your boat to sell. If it is really not there please add it to the database. You can not add new designs or builders at the moment so send me an email if yours is missing. You can edit the boat data and enter advertisement text. The Contact details come from your Contact data which you can also edit with the toolbar link "Edit your contact details".

Boat for Sale can be found here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/BoatsForSale.jsp and on the National pages filtered to Boats in that country. Adverts run for 2 months then expire. To reactivate open and "Save" them and they will be active for another 2 months. Your adverts and their status is listed on your Home page.

The reason for doing the above is to use the Boat Data from Boats for Sale to feed the Boats database on the IMCA site. It is hoped this harvested data can then be used to provide data for gear tables at events, track boats and produce statistics. You can Search the boat database with the now open to logged in users "Boats Search." toolbar feature. Also the harvested contact data can be searched and viewed by Members and National Committee members.

As I blogged earlier I want to increase the content on the Side without having to do too much work and this initiative I hope will be a step in that direction.

Please continue to use the Moth Market and test out this feature as well. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

Saturday 8 January 2011

Ticks in all the important points boxes

I am really really really impressed with this video and how it ticks all the important points boxes of the wing issues.



I have nothing to add. I totally agree with everyone in this video. Unfortunately that leaves the wing issue unclear in my mind.

Great work guys.

Thursday 6 January 2011

Back in the workshop.

All the moth news from the worlds has got me all keen to get Flashheart ready for next season. So I have spent some hours in my workshop.



The picture above is the making of a trophy for an Austrian Moth event. It is a bit of an experiment so I am not sure how it will turn out but that can be said for everything that goes on in my workshop.



It is great that the Moth sailors take time to blog and tweet at the Worlds because when I go to an event I find it very hard to turn on a computer in my holidays. So thanks guys.