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Oh no, my recent obsession has made its way to HN... oh, no....
If you're into reading/watching fiction about the Age of Sail (more so late 18th/early 19th century, so later than this video), I can't recommend Master and Commander (also known as the Aubrey/Maturin Series) enough. It's a lot of fun, witty, and full of all the jargon you just watched.
Of course you can also learn to sail - if you're lucky like we are here in Boston, there's affordable options for this that also do great things for the community, such as a sliding scale membership for adults + kids, accessible races, and more: https://www.community-boating.org/
Just in case you weren’t aware, these guys have been doing deep dives on the series with a chapter by chapter breakdown, digging into every single reference and historical mention in the books. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lubbers-hole-a-pat...
After reading Aubrey-Maturin 5 times through I didn’t think I could appreciate it even more but this podcast revealed a whole new depth of awe for the author. Like Steve Jobs insisting the inside of the Apple II looked beautiful even if no one would see it level of craftsmanship.
Thanks for the zipp. Added it to my list of podcasts.
Can I also recommend getting hold of a copy of "seamanship in the age of sail". I've always had a latent fascination for just how they managed to manoeuvre relatively massive ships around well before the steam engine came of age. It's the only source I've ever came across which really goes into enough information to explain it to the limit of my curiosity. The page showing how a sailing ship was worked up and down a tidal river using various methods blew my mind.
And a copy of "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship" (Dover has a cheap paperback reprint). This is fun because it, having been originally published in 1808, is a textbook actually used in the Age of Sail.
There was a line from the philosophy book “Zorba” that went something like “happy is the man who before dying sails the Aegean sea”.
When I first read it I was like - yeah right, another exasperation l. But a few years later I happened to go to a sailing coarse in Greece (Thessaloniki) and OMG was the author right. There are a lot of seas / oceans about, but very few places with so many small islands to scoot about. And honestly going on a boat as a tourist does not really prepare you for the experience of sailing yourself. When the wind powers the boat there is no noise, you’re just gliding through with the power of your wit and ages of engineering.
Dolphins swim around you, cause its fun for them and no smelly propellers, and the camaraderie you form with your fellow sailers is intense, cause you depend on each other for survival.
And at the end of the day you anchor in some cosy beach, swim around and go to the local taverna for cheap drinks and amazing food.
Sailing the aegean sea is definitely something you should do at least once before you die.
How’d you find the sailing course? I’ve been planning to take a course on sailing and this sounds great.
A colleague of mine had gone through it so I had a direct reference.
Have no idea how one would search for such a thing…
I also recommend people check out the Horatio Hornblower books, which not only inspired the Aubrey/Maturin books but also the Sharpe books, Hemingway, and even Star Trek.
They are a little less contemplative than the O'Brien's works but no less excellent.
They also inspired the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, which is basically Hornblower in space. I enjoyed the first few, though the author inserting his monarchist politics was mildly annoying. I got bored with the later books because it felt like he wrote himself into a corner with a character that had to keep coming up with increasingly implausible dramatic victories. Kind of the Mary Sue thing.
I also recommend novels about fictional British captain Horatio Hornblower [1] for those who like sailing and Napoleonic Wars.
There is also this fun novel series I read some of as a teenager:
Look up the Swedish ship Gotheborg. It sailed from Sweden to China and back. They take volunteer sailors (who know nothing) for sailing legs of varying degree. Best adventure of my life so far. Hopefully it will sail again.
I've found that the Thomas Kydd and Alan Lewrie novels covering the Napoleonic era also scratch this itch.
Tally Ho was built very similar to this animation, it's a great YouTube series that just passed 200 episodes. The care, quality, engineering, and process that goes into each step is lost on the 3D animation. You really need to see the chisel work and the lines drawn to get how it all works. Highly recommend watching all 7 years! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA
Second this. Talk about a binge watch but the journey was so worth it.
The launch had me in tears.
For the uninitiated: Dude buys a rotten sailing yacht. Rebuilds it from the keel up, starting with sourcing the lumber! Lots of tedium and ups and downs… and oh so much amazing craftsmanship!
Spoiler alert: it’s beautiful.
I want to know what his plan was to complete the build if his YouTube channel/sponsorships didn't take off.
It took 7 years with seemingly 5-10 skilled volunteers, an (almost literal) boatload of free or subsidized products, as well as direct income from sponsorships/ads/patreon.
I think he initially overestimated how much of the existing boat could be retained, and underestimated the amount of work required by 5–10x. But there was also quite a bit of scope creep compared to his original intentions for the project. Not unlike most software projects.
His initial plan was to spend about half of each year working as a sailor and the other half working by himself on the boat, which he had moved to the empty yard of some generous friends who also let him take over their unused woodshop.
Is there some kind of curated… I dunno, “smart YouTube”? I can’t stand browsing the site, but love these kinds of gems.
[edit] I dunno, “smart” isn’t even right to describe my ideal YouTube—I’d want to include stuff like those “slow”-style videos that aren’t necessary smart. Just non-clickbait YouTube? Low-dopamine-abuse YouTube?
Make use of subscriptions, dislike your dislikes, like your likes and liberally hide/remove things from your feed you dont want. Also make sure to prune your history from time to time, especially if you watched "junkfood" and dont want more recommendations for it. The algorithm catches on quickly. My feed is pretty decent and relative to my interests.
I never subscribe to anything and I never like or dislike videos. I do use "never recommend this channel" occasionally, especially for that bald guy with the beard who has like a dozen channels. If I see his face in a thumbnail it's an instant "never recommend." I will probably start doing the same for channels that are obviously AI created or AI-voiced.
Yet it still learns from what I watch and though it throws some clickbait into the mix it's mostly stuff that's relevant to my interests.
You never know what it's leaving out though, so a service that curates videos based on stated interests might be interesting. On the other hand I already spend too much time on YouTube so it's not like I need more to watch.
I was spending way too much time on YouTube. So I disabled history and subscribed to channels I liked. My YouTube use plummeted immediately. Sometimes I search for something or someone links something interesting and I click that, and maybe even add a new subscription that way. I am missing a lot of what YouTube has to offer and it’d be cool if it had a more useful/less exploitative recommendation algorithm, but like you said I don’t need more things to watch.
> I never subscribe to anything and I never like or dislike videos.
Youtube has a tremendous library of videos, tremendous in volume and topic. You are going have to give the algorithm a little more to work with. A curation service seems nice on paper, but I think you will actually miss out on more that way, as it'll remain static over time. My YT interests ebbs and flows between various topics over time. Sometimes the algo throws something unrelated in, that takes me down a total rabbit hole for months. My current rabbit holes are synthesizers with a dash of urban planning. I basically self-curate by using subscriptions, and if the latest batch of videos from a creator move beyond my current tastes, I unsubscribe.
Pretty much this. I've curated the recommendations pretty well to my liking over the years.
It has some recency bias on "junkfood" I might watch from time to time but it clears away quickly.
You can remove items from your history, which clears out the junk immediately.
Sometimes my wife will accidentally watch something on the TV's YouTube app without signing in to her account first, and then the history delete feature comes in quite handy to ensure I don't get any knitting or kpop videos in my feed.
It's ironic you say that as that is where these videos have been coming from more and more (YouTubes recommendation algorithm).
Nine times out of ten, this one included, I'll see the video on YouTube THEN here in HN.
gotta feed the algorithm, and it will still try crap, but eventually ends up more signal than noise
Be mindful of what you click (and possibly even just linger over). You get what you engage with, love it or hate it.
thankfully they have a "never recommend this channel" that I find pretty effective when they're sending me bait...
I don't use these but you might want to check things like CuriosityStream or Nebula.
Everyone has different interests though. e.g., I went through the whole series of PacificNorthwestHillbilly videos of rebuilding a 1950's Caterpillar bulldozer. You might not care in the slightest.
> curated
Here's one with some good stuff https://theawesomer.com/category/videos/
Yes agreed, these Animagraff videos are so interesting and well put together. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird video [1] is also brilliant.
Another channel producing excellent work like this is Blue Paw Print, for example the B-17 Flying Fortress [2]
If you're interested in the subject particularly, the channel "WWII US Bombers" has very dry but information dense and extremely well researched videos. Most of what he does is present period documents about all manner of aspects about US bombers from WW2, from the operation of computing gun sights to effectiveness of various tactics, he dives into the nitty gritty of things you probably never even thought to wonder about.
Thanks, I am interested in the subject. My great uncle flew Lancaster bombers in WW2. He wasn't one for always retelling the old days to the young generation but one time he took me and my brother aside to tell us what it was like for the crews in those times.
Going on a mission involved facing the prospect of death every time, the odds were not good, they didn't know when the next mission would come and they compensated for the stress by getting drunk a lot.
His words came back to me with extra force when I read Catch-22 years later.
There's a really good game called the "Return of the Obra Dinn" where the events happen in a 18th century ship and the creator strived for accuracy.
To beat it you need to learn a lot about the ship and crew.
If you like detective games the only problem with it is that you only get to play it for the first time once.
I am a big fan of Lucas Pope (the creator) and tall ships :) Return of the Obra dinn is one of my favorite games, I highly recommend it.
Bonus fact: Lucas Pope publishes very interesting dev logs [1] that go into depth both on the setting and the technical challenges.
"... the Dutch ship Vasa" - Vasa is Swedish [1], not Dutch. Reconstructed Golden Hind[2] is worth a visit, it is next to the Borough Market, London. They do children parties too.
Indeed Swedish, but the master shipbuilder running the shipyard was Dutch [1]. Perhaps that’s the source of the mention?
Funnily enough, I was at the Vasa museum yesterday in Stockholm! I enjoyed it very much, would recommend to anyone visiting Stockholm. Incredible salvage achievement.
If you’re interested in life on commercial sailing ships (hauling cargo for trade), I highly recommend “Two Years Before the Mast”. The reference in the title defines the book - a well educated young person signs on as a common sailor and writes about the experience. Not an officer, not a passenger, the author sleeps “before the mast” and tells about that life in glorious detail.
I have zero tolerance for wasting time watching long YouTube videos and I didn't think I had any interest in historical ship construction, and yet I couldn't stop watching all 40 minutes of this. Amazing.
Watch everything at 2x and you waste half as much time.
This is an incredible video. What a time to be alive that high quality, information dense videos like this are readily available for the world to see.
Kudos and congrats to the creator!
Amazing video! For those of you that want to experience it - check out https://sailtraininginternational.org
Also keep an eye on https://www.gotheborg.se/en/about-gotheborg/ in case they decide to go on another expedition. Highly recommended.
Holy. How have I never seen this account before. I’ve never wanted to give someone my money so quickly before
It took me three sit downs to watch this. Its so information dense my brain was full after 15min. Worth it.
What a piece of engineering and what a research and work went into explaining it this thorough.
Perfect companion to the Captain Hornblower series of books.
If you like Hornblower, you should read the Aubrey Maturin series.
With the Hornblower time period, I'd point to the video on 18th century ships on the same channel instead. There's a lot of subtle differences, even putting aside the size differences of the ships.
Hard to imagine what these sailors went through on these journeys. Insufficient food, always cold and wet probably, huge risk of injury, no medical support, underpaid. Just unimaginable for us.
Amazing. As someone who mainlined Stephen Biesty and David Macaulay books, I think this is brilliant (could do with a few mammoths, though).
How Things Work was extremely formative for me
Excellent visuals! The 18th century warship video is a good watch too. It's a nice comparison to the ship described in this one.
absolutely amazing explanation that provides a lot of etymology for words and ideas for people interested in sailing as well. what a pleasure to watch.
was saddened by the ending abasement and skipping the last minute of the video leaves you with a nicer memory of it. (the end comment uses the whole thing as a vehicle for a genuflection about the "sordid" history of the sailing tech. really, don't be so humble, you aren't that great.) Otherwise, what an absolutely fantastic project!
I don't think the intent was to use the video as a vehicle to make some political point, since he hasn't for any of his other videos. So I think this one had what you mention just as a ass-cover to preempt any anybody getting overly sensitive and trying to accuse him of making the opposite sort of political point.
It's not like he ends with a lecture to educate people about what happened, he just makes it known with brief and general language that he's knows some bad shit happened and he's not glorifying those acts. Somebody who was clueless about all of it would more or less remain so; it's a message directed towards people who are already familiar with the subject and might conceivably be offended by his video if he didn't include the end bit.
it was an amazing video. I was sad the author felt the need to pre-empt that sort of criticism as acknowleding it just encourages it. I commented as a way to offset its impact and recognize that it's not normal, no matter how contrived the efforts are to affect it, in the hope others take heart. Even if the author were instead absolutely committed to that whole narrative and my comment clashed with that, I'd still say it's contrived and taints a really beautiful exposition.
it's like performing a Bach piece and ending with, "...and he was probably a racist too." it's degrading to the art, and I don't think anyone is served by self abasement like that.
Wow, I feel like you have to have incredibly thin skin to be offended by the one or two sentences acknowledging the legacy of what these ships were principally used for. Bach's music's principal purpose wasn't to further racism.
This is incredible.
basically medieval astronauts
Wow, stunning. What a gem of a channel. Just subscribed.
Crafted by Rajat
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