LEGO with Friends: Patrick Norton, Part 3

15 thoughts on “LEGO with Friends: Patrick Norton, Part 3”

1. Does it come with a Captain Phillips minifig? Because it totally should.

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2. Ya know… you could at least pretend this wasn’t one long shoot, cut into pieces… Change your shirts and and maybe run your fingers through your hair to fake passage of time

   Lie to me… I won’t out ya’s

   ,-)

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3. You guys should test a telescope…..

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4. shipspotters are a special sort oft nerd indeed. I’m a naval architect, so I have more of a professional interest mixed into the ship nerdery.

   Maersk Line has long been on the leading edge of the race to bigger box ships. Until fairly recently they had their own shipyard in Denmark that turned out successive families of the biggest container ships, culminating in the E class, predecessor to the triple E that you are building.

   E and triple E are different ships in a lot of interesting ways.

   The E class is a single engine, single screw ship, pretty slim even for a box carrier and fast, 25 knots tops. It has the accommodation in the middle, with the engine below it. That makes for more cargo space, but necessitates a very long shaft to the propeller aft which is problematic. The bridge in the middle limits how high you can stack the containers on the bow. The single 80mw engine is the limit of what is feasible in one engine. Some would say it is beyond reasonable.

   It’s a boat that was designed in a container shipping boom. Rates were good, containers needed to be fast to make money. So the E class can carry a lot of containers fast. They crammed as many containers as possible into a fast ship. The economy of scale works out like this: make the boat bigger, carry more containers at the same speed of a smaller one, more containers shipped for less cost.

   Then we sailed into a global recession and shipping is in a crisis ever since. There are too many ships for not enough cargo. So, everybody started slow steaming. Fuel consumption rises almost exponentially for ships, so slowing the boats down saves a lot of money per container carried instantly. It also means there is space for more ships on the conveyor belt from China to Europe.

   This guides the design of the triple E. Length is almost the same, but they are broader and fuller compared to the E class. The two 32mw engines are proven medium size engines, very efficient. Splitting the engine compartment from the accommodation allows for more deck containers, makes the engine installation less troublesome and the hull stiffer.

   The triple E is made for slow steaming. Carry a lot of containers very efficiently at a drastically reduced speed, just fast enough to be competitive. It’s all about cost per container per mile. One big ship is cheaper to operate than two smaller ones. That is why everyone who can afford it, and a lot who technically can not, are still building bigger and bigger ships. Even though we have had more ships than cargo for years now.

   That’s why I find the comparison between these two ship classes especially fascinating. They are designs of their time and represent two distinctly different interpretations on economy of scale.

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5. Just announced today, joining the LEGO Ideas line: Doctor Who and Wall-E (SQUEE!!!!)

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6. I’d love for you guys to try out some telescopes and do some astrophotography. Maybe you can find some local astronomers/astrophotographers and do some interviews?

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7. Norms mad sticker skills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (or should I say “skilz”

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8. That’s a great idea! I had a roommate once who was an amateur astronomer, and he built his own 4in refractor telescope. He dreamt of having an autoguider mount thingy, that would track the sky for a long exposure. I believe he does have one now, twenty years later.

   Anyway, there are a lot of opportunities for making, and learning about, new nerdy gadgets in astronomy.

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9. Oh man look at all of those stickers…. Guuuuh that’s almos enough for me to re-consider having this on my lego wishlist.

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10. Maersk is Danish, just like LEGO. 😀

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11. I still don’t understand why i enjoy watching people build Lego, But i do lol

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12. 18,400, containers…. The darkest place I have seen was in Afghanistan in Kunar Province… very beautiful night sky, used a telescope that I brought and saw so many stars that I could never see at home. I liven an area that fines you if you use external lighting because of sea turtles.

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13. I cant wait for the day when I hear of an experience, whether it be seeing a sky out at sea with stars all around, or riding an old steam engine and see an old workshop that is historically accurate, or out on the san francisco bay, and being able to experience it in VR. 360 video or eventually that photo realistic render in the far future.

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14. I just knolled my chex mix while watching this…

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15. I know this is old, but I’ve only just started watching this particular LEGO with Friends.

    Australia is a great country for Dark Sky. Sure, not around the cities. But you don’t have to drive to far (by Oz standards) to get a spot with not a lot of light pollution.

    Additionally, back in 1998, I went to parts of the Middle East on a holiday. We spent the night on the top of Mount Sinai in Egypt (where Moses is meant to have received the 10 Commandments). The night sky was amazing. I still remember that night, spent out in the open. We lost count of the satellites you could see with the naked eye, so clear was the sky and also due to the lack of light pollution.

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