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Zinnemann 40 Catamaran


The Zinnemann 40 is the tremendous new catamaran from Zinnemann.

Specifications:
  • 28 Prims
  • 10.5m LWL (and LOA excluding bowsprit)
  • 12m LOA including bowsprit
  • 6.8m beam
  • 12m high above waterline
  • 0.8m draught

So far the 384 Zinnemann 40 catamarans that have been sold have sailed a total of 94,931km (the equivelant of sailing across the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool about 18 times).
Top 10 Features
1

3 Sails
The Zinnemann 40 has 3 sails. The upwind sails comprise of a 10 meter tall mainsail and a slightly smaller jib. These give great upwind speed of around 20 mps as well as exhilerating heel.

The Zinnemann 40 also has a large symetric spinnaker to allow it to continue to travel at speeds well in excess of 25 mps downwind as long as you can keep the kite filled.

The upwind sails and the spinnaker both use take their commands from completely separate keystrokes (or gestures).
2 Customisable
The sails, trampoline, hull, keels and rudders can all be customised with your own designs.
 

To customise your catamaran you can either buy off the shelf sails from companies like Nautical Notions or use our templates to create your own textures.

You upload your textures into Second Life and then log into our website where you add the texture keys to a form.

The beauty of this system is that whenever you upgrade your Zinnemann 40 your designs will automatically be used on your new boat.

Custom sails designed by Nautical Notions
3

SLSF Race Wind
The boat uses the official Second Life Sailing Federation Race Wind. This can be locked so that new wind is not picked up by windsetters when racing. The wind can also be set in the user's online profile. The boat can also be toggled to use Second Life's ambient wind if you prefer.
4

Gestures
Rather than relearn all the controls for a new boat I thought it would be useful to use familar keyboard controls to operate the Zinnemann 40. So you still raise the mainsail with "raise" and park the boat up with "moor" or "dock".

I have carried on this strategy by basing the gestures on the ones Cory Copeland created for the Flying Tako and that most sailors use.

All Tako gestures work on the Zinnemann 40 as well as a host of new ones such as ctrl F2 to raise the sail or ctrl F8 to launch the HUD (useful on dodgy SIM crossings).
5 HUD
The Zinnemann 40 comes with a Head Up Display which you can share with your crew so you can both keep an eye on your performance. The HUD has a simple menu system which allows you to toggle between wind angles and boat speed. Future versions of the HUD will include a race timer and may include sail angle information.
6 Animated Helmsman
The helmsman's pose was created using Poser 7. In the current version it is not as advanced as the poses on TruCor's beachcat but future versions will include upgraded animations for the helmsman and crew.
7 Telemetry & Mapping
As you sail your Zinnemann 40 it uploads information such as your speed, windspeed and location to a central server. This will allow you to further analyse your performance against the performance of other racers and gives a better experience to race spectators who can view the position of the boats using online mapping.

Please note that there is a privacy option for these features.
8 Guest Skippers
Allow other people to helm your boat by adding them to your guest list on our website.
9 Copy Permissions
Because of the intermittent sim crossings we have made the Zinnemann 40 copyable.

(The Zinnemann 40 is no modify and no transfer)
10 Free Upgrades
And last but certainly not least we will be providing free upgrades to all future versions of the Zinnemann 40 for ever.



Version Upgrades
The following features where added to new versions of the Zinnemann 40:
v1.2 Animated HUD Dials
A new Head Up Display has been included with animated dials.
v1.2 Guest Skippers
You can allow other people to helm your boat by adding them to your guest list on our website.
v1.2 Spinnaker Rules
The spinnaker has been edited to behave more realisticly by collapsing when not correctly set and adding proportional speed to depending on how well tuned it is.
v1.2 Nudge and Rotate Commands
If you should be unfortunate enough to ground your catamaran on some rocks, a jetty or even a passing whale you can now get yourself out of bother by using "nudge" followed by the direction (e.g. "nudge n" or "nudge e") to move your boat 10m in that direction. You can also type "rotate" to spin your cat 90 degrees in a clockwise direction.
v1.2 SLSF Start Line
The Zinnemann 40 is now SLSF start line compatable including providing it with Flying Tako style helmsman letters and ID number.
v1.3 Sleep Mode
To help reduce sim lag and global warming the main scripts can be turned off when the catamaran is not going to be used by typing sleep before you stand up. Typing awake will leave sleep mode.
v1.3 New Default Wind
The default wind direction was set to 250 degrees and the default speed was set to 18 m/s to reflect racing conditions. The benefit of this is that if a catamaran has to be reset during a race (e.g. if it gets stuck on a rock) then it will not loose race wind.
v1.3 Sail Number Retention
The sail numbers is no longer lost when the catamaran is moored.
v1.4 Password Integration
You can set your password for www.zinnemann.com from your boat.
v1.5 Tighter Turning Circle
The control surfaces have been enhanced to allow to cat to be turned in a slightly tigher circle.
v1.5 Enhanced Nudging
To aid nudging out of difficult positions the cat levitates to 10m in the air. Nudging over sim boundaries prevented in order to stop the cat travelling offworld.
v1.5 Toggle Wind
You will be able to toggle between Race Wind and Second Life wind (just type wind). This will allow you to have a more leisurly experience if you choose. The implementation of Race Wind will also be edited so that the wind bearing and speed fluctuate.
v1.5 Additional Gestures
The result of the poll came out in favour of support for sheet gestures for all sails 9 votes to 3 so this has been added.
v1.5 HUD Permissions
The HUD is now transferrable and can also be requested by guest skippers.
v1.6 Demo Version
The free demo version has all the features of the full version and is not time limited. The only constraint will be that it only works in twelve sims in and around Zinnemann island.
v1.6 Enhanced Nudging and Rotating
Nudging and rotating can now be done when moving. To prevent cheating these will stop the boat.
v1.6 Dock Remembering
Once a dock position is set it is remembered even when the boat is re-rezzed.
v1.6 Protest Shouting
When a protest is said using a gesture or chat it is shouted by the cat so everyone hears it. The words protest, starboard, give room, leeward, up and no are all recognised.
v1.6 Wind Direction Change
The direction that the wind turns has been changed to anti-clockwise to be in-keeping with all other boats.
v1.6 Lock Wind
When lock wind is enabled the Zinnemann 40 will no longer receive updates from windsetters.
v1.6 Skipper Wind
By popular request the skipper can now specify the wind settings for his or her boat in their profile.
v1.6 My Wind
The boat shouts the current wind information when the skipper says my wind. This has been added to help clarify the wind settings and to help prevent cheating.
v1.6 Mono Scripts
The boat and HUD scripts have all been refactored to use mono. This makes the scripts more efficient and allowed the number of scripts to be reduced.
v1.6 Spinnaker Improvements
Some additional rules have been added to the spinnaker to ensure that it can only be flown when the wind is at an angle of more than 80 degrees. Additionally the spinnaker will only draw when the pole is within 45 degrees of being perpendicular to the wind. When the spinnaker is not drawing it darkens to warn the skipper.
v1.6 Customisable Wind Vane and Sail Numbers
Skippers can set the colour of their wind vane and sail numbers in their online profile.
v1.6 ID Board Improvement
The ID board now recognises firstnames which begin with a lowercase letter (e.g. ahjep).
The following features will be added to the next version:
v1.7 HUD - Race Timer
An additional view will be added to the HUD to automatically start a two minute countdown when it hears the command "+start" on the standard voice channel. The timer will beep as the time nears the start and continue counting for the whole of your race.
v1.7 HUD - In Irons Indicator
v1.7 HUD - Compass
An East pointing compass will be added. The compass will be gimbaled so that the amount of heel is also visible.
v1.7 Multiple HUDs
Multiple HUDs will be positionable onscreen.
v1.7 Water Effects
Wakes from the stern, rudders and bows will be created using particle effects.
v1.7 Set Camera Position
You will be able to adjust the view of your cat via a dialog.
v1.7 Capsizing/Pitchpolling
If the result of the poll is positive then we will add capsizing and pitchpolling. Vote Now.

Likely Future Enhancements
Here are the likely future enhancements in future free upgrades:
Map Provision
You can ask the cat to give you a copy of the latest race maps.
Crew Roles
If a second avatar is travelling on the vehicle then trimming of all the sails would only be possible by the additional crew member.
Enhanced Poses
The helmsman and crew will both have their poses enhanced to include changing their position to the windward side of the boat. The helmsman and the tillers may also be animated to respond to changes in the helm angle. There are no plans to animate the crew member to hike out on a trapeze because this is unrealistic for this size of boat.
Inner Spinnaker
An additional prim will be added so that the spinnaker looks better when viewed from the side. The spinnakers will also be shrunk when not in use.
More Customisable Textures
At the moment 12 of the 28 prims are customisable. A further 6 spar and tiller prims will be made customisable.

Lifting Keels
The centreboards will be liftable to allow the boat to travel faster downwind. Be warned this will also create more leeway on other points of sail if you forget to lower them again.
Apparent Wind
Wow, where would we start with this? It has a certain appeal and may be added if it does not create too many programming headaches.
 
Unlikely Enhancement
There are some features which are unlikely to appear in future versions. If you feel strongly that any of these features should be included please IM Hans:
Windshadowing
To be done realistically windshadowing requires the effect to be felt up to about seven mast heights away (i.e. about 84m). Windshadowing is also not as noticeable in the moderate wind speeds that the cats are raced in as they are in lower wind speeds.


Known Issues
The following known issues will be resolved in future versions:
Eliminating HUD Crosstalk
The HUD communicates by whispering on a static channel. In theory this means that your HUD can be updated by other boats which are extremely close. In practice boats have not been sailing close enough for this to behaviour to ever be observed..
Mooring
The moor command is required twice in order for a level moor to be attained. The cat does not moor at sea level if it was heeled.
Sail Display
We have temporarily disabled the facility to hide your sails when moored.

Controls
The controls for the Zinnemann 40 are as follows:
Gesture Keyboard  
F6 Down arrow SHEET MAIN & GENOA
F7 Up arrow EASE MAIN & GENOA
SHIFT
F8		 Page Down MOVE SPINNAKER TO PORT
SHIFT
F9		 Page Up MOVE SPINNAKER TO STARBOARD
  Left arrow TURN TO PORT
  Right arrow TURN TO STARBOARD
Other commands include:
ctrl F7 reset Resets the boat
ctrl F2 raise Raises the mainsail and genoa
ctrl F3 lower Lowers the mainsail and genoa
F4 spinnaker toggles raising/lowering of spinnaker
(and lowers/raises genoa)
ctrl F8 hud Provides you with a copy of the Head Up Display to wear. To give your crew one type hud again and give them a copy
ctrl F4 moor Moors the boat in the water
ctrl F6 set dock Sets current position as docking position
ctrl F5 dock Go to docking position
  nudge n Move your cat 10m to North to get out of tricky spots
  nudge s Move your cat 10m to South to get out of tricky spots
  nudge e Move your cat 10m to East to get out of tricky spots
  nudge w Move your cat 10m to West to get out of tricky spots
  rotate Spin your cat 90 degrees in a clockwise direction to get out of tricky spots
  display Displays mainsail and genoa for world to see (but without causing your cat to sail)
  gestures Provides you with the gestures object for you to open and install in your inventory
  sleep Enters sleep mode to reduce lag
  awake Leaves sleep mode again
  password Typing password then a space then your chosen password sets your password for www.zinnemann.com
  wind

Toggles between these modes:

  • SLSF Race Wind
  • Normal SL wind
  lock wind Stops the wind being updated by windsetters
  unlock wind Allows the wind to be updated by windsetters again
  my wind Shouts current wind settings.
ctrl F9 help Launches instructions notecard

Lag Stats
A Zinnemman 40 draws 0.011ms in sleep mode (wake mode adds 0.003 to this and each avatar adds 0.005).

This compares to a Tako which draws 0.018 (and 0.003 when scripts are set to not running).