The latest development of multi-hulls for the US Navy called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has some interesting parallels to recreational boating.

The US Navy, after the end of the cold war, moved from preparing for open ocean confrontations with a major navy to rapid engagement near land to support operations against “asymmetric” opposition. We have seen some of this already in Somalia, where special forces in small helicopters stage reconnaissance as well as surgical strikes on enemy land convoys.

A white paper by the Secretary of the Navy in 1992 called “From the Sea” defined the scope of “littoral” combat:

Operating forward means operating in the littoral or “near land” areas of the world. As a general concept, we can define the littoral as comprising two segments of the battlespace:

* Seaward: The area from the open ocean to the shore which must be controlled to support operations ashore.
* Landward: The area inland from shore that can be supported and defended directly from the sea.

The littoral region is frequently characterized by confined and congested water and air space occupied by friends, adversaries, and neutrals–making identification profoundly difficult. This environment poses varying technical and tactical challenges to Naval Forces. It is an area where our adversaries can concentrate and layer their defenses. In an era when arms proliferation means some third world countries possess sophisticated weaponry, there is a wide range of potential challenges.

This explains how the LCS design had to depart from prior designs in the Navy. It sails extremely fast but also has to be maneuverable; it can complete a 45knt turn in only 4.6 ship lengths. A one ship length turn can be done at 7knts. It accelerates to 45knts in less than 2 minutes and stops from 30knts in two ship lengths. Even with these performance numbers it still carries sophisticated and heavy arms as well as attack helicopters and small rigid hull inflatables.

A hull design suited for shallow water, a small crew and an open space for modularity further distances it from old warships. Although it sails the open ocean the main value will be achieved navigating around harbors, major rivers and near shoreline.

What does this have to do with recreational boating? Multi-hulls are pushing along the same performance/cost and complexity formula. Why sail a million dollar 52-ft “sled” with ten crew or even a million dollar 40-ft “turbo” with seven when you can get twice the performance with a quarter-million dollar 30-ft trimaran and less than half the crew.

The polar chart below shows speed in 10knts of wind at various angles.

This video shows what performance (capability per dollar) can look like these days:

While a trimaran built for fun provides speed, a shallow draft and a wide berth in the main hull for storage like an LCS, it also has a major downside. Compared to a monohull if it capsizes the crew will be unable to right the boat again and continue sailing. That should not be too much of a problem as these boats, while seaworthy, are meant to be raced “littoraly” (near shore).

The TV2 news station in Norway has been reporting lately that the American embassy in Oslo has very close links to Norwegian police. Some of the police working on the database records might even be employees of the US embassy.

TV 2 avslørte onsdag at USA i all hemmelighet har bygd opp en etterretningsgruppe for å systematisk overvåke nordmenn. Gruppen, som bærer navnet Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU), ble etablert våren 2000 og plassert i 6 etasje i den såkalte Handelsbygningen som ligger noen hundre meter vest for den amerikanske ambassaden.

In other words…

TV2 revealed Wednesday that the USA has covertly established an intelligence unit to spy on Norwegians. The group, called the Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU), was started in early 2000 on the 6th floor of the so-called Trade building, a few hundred meters west of the American embassy.

The news station says Norwegian authorities admit no knowledge of the operation, which could be a bluff but makes it harder for the US to claim they had diplomatic approval. The timing of the operation is interesting — almost two years before 9/11 but after American embassies were bombed in Kenya and Tanzania. The embassies must have initiated countermeasures as a reaction to those bombings, then adapted it in 2002 and just continued to this day.

An example of “spying” used in the story does not sound clandestine; a former Norwegian police officer stood in the open and filmed a group at a Tamil protest in front of the Royal Palace in 2009. Other men with headsets who looked out of place walked around the demonstration. Members of the protest group at first joked about being monitored. Now they are upset that they may be listed in the U.S. terrorist register.

The uproar so far seems to be less about secret and clandestine behavior by a foreign agency and more about a foreign embassy trying without express authorization to monitor and build a record of local public activity as well as gain access to local law enforcement information.

It started with Norway but Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland now also claim they have found similar concerns with their American embassies.

A technology company is taking on fraud in the Czech Republic’s capital city. Although taxis in Prague are infamous for abusing passenger trust, mobile audit software for passengers could change things:

…a Czech IT firm, Et Netera, has come up with a method which could deal with even the most notorious abusers. It says it’s developed a smart phone application that uses GPS to measure distance and calculate the proper fare. Called the ‘virtual meter’, the free app calls a cab from a list of approved firms, calculates the distance and displays the projected fare. All the customer has to do is sit back, watch the display, and enjoy the ride.

Et Netera says it’s offered the system to Prague City Hall after one of its foreign business partners was ripped off in a cab. The application will make it possible to report offenders to the authorities on the spot, and even call a special City Hall helpline.

Maybe this can be used on friends and family as well. “Dad, you’re taking us the long way to the bridge! I’m reporting you to the tourist bureau.”

Although the audit capability for passengers is an interesting angle it raises problems in terms of security economics — everyone should not have to buy their own meter.

The city would get a better return on investment if cabs were required to use a secure GPS-based dispatch and metering system. This would have additional benefits at lower cost. A dispatcher could get real-time data on the location of cabs, for example, and give faster service while passengers would share the meter instead of each having to buy their own.