2021 GCASRA Trophy Regatta

 Personal opinion - I thought this was a disaster.

THE PROBLEMS

ENTRY RULES
The rules were weird.  Each kid could only row in one race.  Normally each kid rows a Quad, a double and a single.

For this regatta, we could only enter one (or possibly two) boats of each size in each age category AND each kid was only allowed to row in one boat.

This means that we had to discuss who is going to row in which boat.  ie crew selections.  But the crew selection thought process being biased becaue the thinking inevitably turned to what selections would result in the most overal points for the school. 

ROWING

The regatta started OK but although it was a lovely sunny day the wind was fierce.  

The regatta had been organised in a way where there were 'club' races in the morning and the aforementioned trophy races in the afternoon.  This was a noble attempt to ensure that the kids excluded from the above selection process could have a row.  By lunch time though, the wind had risen to the point of concern and they cancelled the single and doubles races.

PROBLEM #1 - Not all schools and coaches were in the loop on the decision.

PROBLEM #2 - They then changed some race times and did not communicate that to everyone and apparently some kids missed their races.

PRESENTATION

In my view the most saddest part of the day was the presentation.  For individual races, they presented one trophy per crew.  It looked like they had dug around in the scrap box and found some random old trophies and not enough of them.  They did nt even have GCASRA on them nor the race nor the position.  The sad looks on the kids faces said it all.

Then they announced the winning schools and Brigidine I think were about 5th.  Later on various people retrieved the race results from rowing QLD web site and recalculated points.  One of the difficulties was that the actual points rules seems unclear or not easily obtainable.

WHY ARE WE HERE

Upon reflection, I think the organisers forgot why we were there.  I think they maybe tried to create a grand final event or possibly put school glory in front of child experience.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

Every kid row quad double single as normal.

Present medals or pennants for winning 1,2,3 places.  One per kid.

Do some maths to work out winning schools or whatever agregate prizes one wishes to award and award them.

Back at the shed was a bit more enjoyable

Dinner Chris Kenzie Dan Jemma

Chris and his gf Kenzie, Dan and Jemma came for tea.

So nice. Makes me feel human. A contrast to the feeling of rejection that consumed me last weekend. 

Earlier in the week,  I'd invited Chris, Dan Jemma for dinner and Chris checked if it was ok for Kenzie to join and of course it was. 

Then Caitlin asked if we (brigidine coaches could stay for a meeting) so asked Dan to collect Jemma and Chris if he was ok to cook. 

About 7, I think,  I texted I was leaving Centenary.  Arrived home to the beautiful smell of meat being cooked.   Chris had done a great job.   So nice. 

It was lovely to sit around the table and just be human. Very good for my psychie. 

Icecream, beer and Pizz diet

from http://www.tallrite.com/LightRelief/icebeerpizza.htm





As we all know, it takes 1 calorie to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree centigrade. Translated into meaningful terms, this means that if you eat a very cold dessert (generally consisting of water in large part), the natural processes which raise the consumed dessert to body temperature during the digestive cycle literally sucks the calories out of the only available source, your body fat. For example, a dessert served and eaten at near 0 degrees C (32.2 deg.F) will in a short time be raised to the normal body temperature of 37 degrees C (98.6 deg. F). For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately 37 calories as stated above. The average dessert portion is 6 oz, or 168 grams. Therefore, by operation of thermodynamic law, 6,216 calories (1 cal./gm/deg. x 37 deg. x 168 gms) are extracted from body fat as the dessert's temperature is normalized. Allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net calorie loss is approximately 5,000 calories. Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat, the better off you are and the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal.

This process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains 16 latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories (6,216 cal. per 6 oz. portion) in the temperature normalizing process. Thus the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12,240 calories (12 oz. x 1,020 cal./oz.) are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer.

Frozen desserts, e.g., ice cream, are even more beneficial, since it takes 83 cal./gm to melt them (i.e., raise them to 0 deg. C) and an additional 37 cal./gm to further raise them to body temperature. The results here are really remarkable, and it beats running hands down.

Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. But, thankfully, as the astute reader should have already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.

We could all be thin if we were to adhere religiously to a pizza, beer, and ice cream diet.

Rowing Bits

SHOPPING LIST 

Wheels
T Bolts for foot stretchers

 

https://rowgear.com.au/collections/parts 

 

Only the short type which bind in the slide too easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 WINTECH

Agustin (Gus) Radero
Queensland & New South Wales
+61 4 3708 0830
sales@wintechracing.com.au

Jonathon Voller
Brisbane, Australia
+61 4 1888 5963
hello@wintechracing.com.au

https://wintechracing.com/spare-parts/
 

 

 

 

 

https://www.sykes.com.au/collections/parts-store 

 

 

 

 https://www.bolt.com.au/

 5 Project Street
Salisbury  QLD  4107
Australia

Ph:  (07) 3277 6944
Email: salisbury@bolt.com.au
8am-5pm (Monday to Friday)

 ASSUMPTIONS
Most slides are OK so we will clean the top before looking for corrosion.  That way we can check seat is smooth and then fix the seat if required.

 

 TO DO LIST

Seat & Slide
Clean slide with Chucks.
Run seat back and forth.  Check smooth.

SLIDE
Undo the wing nuts & lift the slide out.
Inspect the screws and wing nuts.  If head is reduced in size or the nut binds on he thread, discard the faulty part.
GLUE a mudguard washer inside the boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audi A3 Window Problem

 The Audi A3 is having intermittent operation of the drivers door window.

We do not know how it works but it appears there is a control box integrated with the window winder motor.

We have now established that the connection between the switch set and the controller consist of one common wire for all switches and then one more wire per switch.  Then each switch has 4 resistors to indicate which switch is pressed.

This video says that if one does a long press on the remote control unlock button that all 4 windows should scroll down.  Did not know this when we started but this may help us diagnose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OurkA-7SdN8

Having traced the wiring we tried jumpering resistors in place of the switch block and this worked for a minute or two but then it stopped working.  So it looks like the DCM knows if you have the rest of the door has been pulled apart because when we plugged the door wiring back in, it started to work again.

https://youtu.be/uA8y5Yiy7wc

 

OBDeleven is a Bluetooth OBD2 device that connects to an Android app. http://www.obdeleven.com​ You can do canbus VCDS long coding with one touch in OBDEleven Android App. I compare OBDEleven vs VCDS vs ELM327. Want an OBDeleven or OBD2 scanner? USA:

We observed the connectors are press fit.

This can lead to intermittent issues so we soldered them. The down side is potentially less vibration tolerance.

Note the pin numbering is down one side and back up.  Like an IC but not like standard ribbon cable connectors

Rowing Lights Review

Thought i would look into what lights are available for rowing boats.

Bris&GPS Rowing Club has a summary on their web site
https://www.brisbanegpsrowing.com.au/rowing-boat-lights/

These seem well built and give good light.

http://activelights.com.au/collections/rowing-boat-lights?page=2

 

 

 

 

 

FROG LIGHT

https://froglight.com.au/?v=322b26af01d5

EBAY Rechargeable

We had lots of these but they did not last and water got into them.

Ride

6:35 depart glenrich

7:15 cnr Gladstone Rd near cemetery 

7:55 East end of south bank.  Coffee