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  • Night regatta

    Every year in late August there is the night regatta on Lake Lucerne. I learned about it only last year, and went to observe the start as well as a small part in the dark. There was very little wind, so the boats moved super slowly. Nonetheless the scene was impressive. I was floating in the middle of the lake as ten sailboats with dimly illuminated sails passed.

    This year I was asked, if I would host the security chief on my boat while accompanying the regatta. That’s such a cool event that I agreed Being awake the whole night is not so easy any more in my age. And it kind of excluded the weekend for other family adventures. But my main concern was wether the battery would last. If I drove the course of the event all at once on foils, it would consume roughly half of the battery. But I didn’t know how much I would have to go back and forth, and at what speed. My boat consumes about the same amount of energy per distance at 40 km/h on foils as well as at 10 km/h in displacement mode. If I go slower than 10 km/h I can go signifficantly farther, but I didn’t extensively test this so far. But any speed between 10 km/h and foiling burns considerably more energy, and thus reduces range. So If there was good wind, and the participants could sail with 20 km/h, I might need a good strategy. Because if I go for some distance and sit for a while, every acceleration to get up on foils again also costs some energy.

    At the start the wind was barely noticeable, and so the boats moved slowly. It was interesting to see the difference between the different boats. Even more interesting to see was how the wind flowing down some mountain slopes gave an advantage to the sailors who were close to the shore below those mountains. As the lake has a very interesting topology, the conditions were very interesting to observe. Sometimes there could be opposite wind directions within less than 5 km. And in between there were areas with barely any wind. Sailing regattas really has lots in common with cross country paragliding.

    I tried to preserve energy from the start, and drove at 7 km/h most of the time. As far as I saw, none of the slower boats went faster than 10 km/h. Hence we often paused and waited for the trailing ones to catch up. To further preserve energy, we didn’t go all the way to the turning point. The boat also consumes some energy while the ignition is turned on for the computers and lights and radar. That shouldn’t be much, but that was also outside of my experience., The whole event could last for more than 14 hours. I never drove the boat this long in one go. There were a couple of motor boats with the organizers accompanying the saylors. Our position was always towards the tail end of the field. The slower category didn’t have to go all the way back to the starting point. So in the dusk, we waited for the last boat to appear at the finish line. When our job was done, the battery had still plenty to offer, so we foiled back home.

    Guess how much energy was still in the battery when I plugged the boat in at the home berth? A staggering 67%. Apparently all my worries were unfunded.

    You can replay the live tracking at Metasail My boat is labeled as SIBE

  • Electric boat trip on the rhine river

    I was planning this trip for quite some time, and contrary to the rest of the family I was looking forward to it more than to our normal summer holidays in Ibiza. I am still relatively new to boating. It was my first time driving a motorboat on a river. I was ready to cancel the trip in case of too much water, and I planned to rely on advice from locals in case of low water. And still it had many unknowns and uncertainties.

    • How would foiling work on a river with current?
    • How would the range be affected by the current?
    • How would charging work?
    • How bad would the traffic be on Europes busiest inland waterway?
    • Would my trip plan hold up, or would we have to improvise?
    • How would trailering the boat work?
    • How would the family like it?

    Preparations

    Lately I realized that the boat would come up to foil with less weight than last year. Candela support told me the most likely cause was algae growth on the under body. So I had the boat cleaned and an anti-fouling paint applied shortly before we departed.

    Internet videos suggested that AIS was very practical when leaving harbors. Sometimes you don’t have good overview of what is happening on the river until you leave the harbor. So I evaluated some options. Best would be to have it directly on the chart plotter. But that would require an installed radio and the accompanying license. Since AIS is not used on our home lake, and we won’t go so often to waters where it is used, I decided to go without. But maybe the radar will also be helpful?

    When I made my car driving license, permission to drive with a trailer was gifted to me. Since I had little to no experience, I booked a driving instructor to train it voluntarily.


    I also asked the guy who rented the trailer to me to show me how the boat is properly loaded on a slipping ramp. It took quite a bit longer than I anticipated. We also had to adjust the trailer to the boat.


    Last but not least, my car doesn’t have enough towing capacity, so I borrowed a heavier car from a friend of my brother.

    Day 1: Kehl to Rheinstätten

    In the early morning we drove off from home with the massive trailer. As to my understanding, you couldn’t tow anything much bigger behind a car. Driving forward worked remarkably well, especially on the highway. And when I had to drive backwards, I just took my time, and tried as many times as was necessary. We reached Kehl near Strasbourg shortly after lunch. I was happy that somebody was present, who could push the trailer down the slipping ramp around the corner with a tractor.
    Excited by the adventure ahead of us, we took the first short swim shortly after leaving Kehl. Not much later we entered the first lock. We were surprised to see so few boats. We were mostly on our own. People told me that the big ships have priority, and the smaller ones always have to wait. All the more we were pleasantly surprised that we had the lock for ourselves and they moved us down immediately.


    After the Iffetsheim lock, we entered what people call the “wild Rhine”. In the upper part, the water level is regulated by the locks and hydroelectric dams. There is barely any current and plenty enough depth. The lower part is free flowing. Just after the lock, we saw a harbor, and wanted to have dinner, ideally, while charging the boat. The water was so low, that we could barely navigate into the harbor. The people with slightly bigger boats told us that they are currently trapped in the harbor. It was a very nice area, but unfortunately, the restaurant was closed and no shop was nearby. So we continued.
    In the free flowing part, the current was visible, and I assumed it would be the average 5 to 6 km/h that I found in the internet. Later I learned that in this part it is actually closer to 12km/h. Foiling downstream felt a bit awkward, but it worked well. The awkwardness was probably from the small swirls you could see everywhere in the water coming from the water flowing around obstacles, and since I was going too slow because of my wrong assumption about the speed of the current.
    The initial plan was to spend the first night in Speyer, but as the battery went below 10%, I drove to the marina of “Yachtclub Oberrhein” in Rheinstätten shortly before Karlsruhe. That is quite a bit shorter than the 100km range I assumed for going downstream. I think the main factors are that the river has almost no current in the upper section, and we loaded the boat with 4 people plus lots of luggage. The two locks surely also cost some range.

    Day 2: Heidelberg

    The people in the marina were super friendly and helpful. They advised us to not go further downstream, because the water was so low, that boats could no longer enter or leave the harbors. In the river itself there was still enough water, but not entering a harbor means not charging the battery. So we visited nearby Heidelberg by train, and spent another night at the same harbor.
    Part of the reason to stay longer was also that the battery was not charged fully in the morning. The boat charged with only 2.8 kW due to the voltage being slightly lower than 200V at the berth.

    Day 3: Rheinstätten to Greffern

    Right when we left the harbor and entered the current, I tried to get up on foils against the current. When it didn’t work the first time, I lowered the anchor and waited for the motor to cool down. I tried the same thing about four times before I gave up. Apparently the GPS speed does have an influence in the flight computer. The river was too narrow to get on foils downstream and do a 180. I wanted to stay upstream of the familiar harbor to always have the option to return there. So I motored upstream for a while with 7km/h ground speed, burning through the battery much quicker than if we cold foil. When I saw the small lake adjacent that we were told was so nice for swimming, we relaxed for a while in the calm water.
    For our standards the water looked a bit dirty. But that’s because we are used to Lake Lucerne which is exceptionally clean and has low nutrition levels.


    Then came the big moment. I accelerated in the lake, got up on foils and entered the current in a tight turn. If a big ship was approaching, I would have aborted immediately, that’s why I told everybody to watch out. I didn’t know if the boat would come down from the foils when abruptly entering the current while banked almost to the max. That’s why I told everybody to sit down and hold on to some rail. The experiment was successful, and we foiled towards Iffetsheim almost effortlessly compared to before.
    The upper part was to drive almost like on a lake again. But we burned so much battery in planning mode that we had to stop in Grefferen already. It was a nice marina in a big pond with a restaurant.

    Day 4: Greffern to Altenheim with a stop in Strasbourg

    To enter Strasbourg we had to go through a lock with barely any height difference. We found a vacant spot at the city harbor. Entering the canals would require a vignette. We walked instead, and disovered a very nice old town. In the evening, when we approached the north lock, one of the kids wanted something from the cabin, which I had locked prior to going to the city. So I landed the boat, retracted the foils, removed the ignition key to unlock the cabin. When I switched the boat back on, it somehow confused the foil position, because I switched it off, while the foil retraction was still in progress. The aft foil went all the way down, farther than usual. It seemed to be stuck there. I tried to pull it up with a rope and a lever, while initiating a retraction on the touch screen. Didn’t work, and like this the motor refused to start.
    While I tried to fix it on anchor, a rowing boat approached. My wive screamed. He slowed down and still hit us. Fortunately, no damage.
    I was still trying to retract the aft foil with the tools I had at my disposal, when my wive asked ChatGPT for help. It gave her some phone numbers. The Candela support hotline didn’t answer, so she called a German Candela dealer. They had direct phone numbers, and asked Candela employees to call us, presumably in their free time. One of them told me how to enter the service menu, and manually run the retraction motor little by little.
    Before we could foil again, I had to dive under the boat, and remove the seaweed from the foils. I had to do this a couple of times actually on this trip. At home on the lake I never had that problem, as you are not even allowed to enter zones with water plants. But on the Rhine or the Strasbourg channels, sometimes you have no other choice. In the obscure water it is also difficult to see. And the foils collect whatever comes close.
    Since we charged the boat during our stay in Strasbourg, we didn’t run the battery empty this day, but only drove to the marina in Althenheim. By the time we arrived it was dark, and I didn’t feel confident enough to navigate in unfamiliar territory in the dark.

    Day 5: Altenheim to Breisach

    When I asked the people in the boat just next to ours about what to do in the vincinity of the harbor, I learned that their boat was also electric. It was a steel houseboat that was converted after the engine needed replacement. Their boat has a max speed of 12 km/h and they cruse mainly around the French channels. So it is a completely different experience from ours.


    Today we saw a number of locks, but otherwise little civilization until we arrived in Breisach. On the way we entered a side arm of the old Rhine for some swimming. We did not know Breisach before, but many boaters along the trip told us they like to go there. With the big church and other buildings standing on a big rock, the landscape was truly different from what we saw in the flat lands so far. The Breisach harbor was full, so we went to the French side just opposite. Even if we didn’t have much of a choice, we didn’t anticipate the 3km walk to reach Breisach. Then again, after sitting on the boat, a walk was always welcome.

    Day 6: Breisach to Kehl

    The Candela trip computer calculated that with the fully charged battery we should arrive in Kehl with slightly less than 10%. It assumes two people without luggage, and most likely a boat without any options. The experience from the previous days told us that most likely it would not be enough. I hoped that the current, while barely noticeable, would help us. Instead we had strong headwind. In addition we had to stop a couple of times for the locks. Accelerating to get up on foils each time after the lock also cost some energy. When we arrived in Altenheim we decided to make a stop and recharge a bit while swimming in the nearby pond. Maybe it would have been quicker in the end to just drive very slowly instead of charging slowly and then foiling fast. I haven’t figured out all these calculations yet.

    packing and going home

    My wive made the appointment for putting the boat back on the trailer. In the morning we were ready earlier than anticipated. So we tried to do it ourselves. It took some trying, but we figured it out. When the harbor master arrived, he helped us secure everything for the trip back home.

    recap

    Now lets come back to my initial questions that I could not fully answer before the trip

    • How would foiling work on a river with current?
      Sometimes I get warnings on the screen about GPS accuracy being low, and that this could affect foiling performance. That made me thinking, that if GPS was the only velocity input to the flight computer, then a current could severely skew those calculations. So I contacted Candela support, asking how foiling would work on a river. They told me that it would feel awkward, but should still work. They also told me that the height sensors would be more important for take off than the GPS speed input. Turns out it was no problem downstream, but I needed a trick to get up on foils against a 12km/h current. I will report the exact timestamp to Candela support, so they can use the logged data to improve the software.
    • How would the range be affected by the current?
      This one is hard to answer. Since we had to change our plans due to the low water, we only spent a limited amount of time in the section with the fast current. But our range was lower than the range calculator on https://candela.com/leisure-boats/candela-c-8/ would suggest, even if I set it to 6 people. The reason is likely the many locks we had to go through, and the acceleration phase after each of them. I always tried to go with 22 knots relative to the water, and tried to minimize the kWh/NM reading on the screen. Typical values were between 1.5 and 1.8 kWh/NM, but sometimes it could go up to 2.0 for a short time.
      One very useful value when driving in unknown territory is the projected state of charge upon arrival. In the Tesla this value is updated continuously, and you can juggle a bit with the speed, as in the car it is clearly correlated. With the Candela boat, 22kn is really the sweet spot. If you go a little bit slower, you actually consume more power per distance. If you want to consume less, you have to go a lot slower in displacement mode. But more importantly, the Candela trip computer shows that value only for a short time in a message box, after entering the destination. It would be really helpful to have this value continuously calculated as in the car. And it would also be helpful to base it on the current consumption.
      One thing that is obvious however: Going against the current in planning or displacement mode eats the battery really fast.
    • How would charging work?
      This was more or less as expected. In my preparations I didn’t find a single fast charging station along the Rhine. I found some shipyards that could provide 11kW for emergency needs during business hours, but we ended up not needing this. All the harbors offered the standard blue one phase camping plug. It is supposed to deliver 3.6 kW, but the boat displayed charging speeds between 2.8 and 3.2 kW. This is mostly due to the voltage sometimes dropping below 200V at the berth, but also charging losses may contribute.
      The usual “charging over the night is enough” from home didn’t fully work out. At home we rarely spend consecutive days fully on the water. Either we return with a battery that is not totally empty, we start later the following day, or we make a shorter trip the next day. So we had to juggle a bit with this on the trip, but it worked out quite well in the end. Being able to charge while visiting Strasbourg was a big bonus in that regard.
      If you treat the “driving electric” as a given, and accept the current limitations of the infrastructure, you can adapt your plans accordingly. But if you expect the same overall behavior as filling a gas tank, then you might get disapointed, until there are fast charging stations. On the other hand, I saw many people carrying gas canisters, saying there were no fuel pumps in reachable distance. In the end everybody has to decide for themselves, which option is more convenient.
    • How bad would the traffic be on Europes busiest inland waterway?
      Due to the low water there was very little traffic. For the most part we were on our own. The big ships didn’t produce a huge wake neither, because they were loaded only 20% of the usual capacity. There was a single occasion where I went off the foils, because two big ships were crossing just in front, and I was not sure if there would be enough room. With the low traffic, AIS was definitely not needed. But the radar was of no use on the narrow river. Even at home, MARPA often has false positives on the shore. But on the river I could either zoom so close that it would be too late anyway, or have the screen full of false positives. Now I know why Swissradar do the processing with exact maps.
    • Would my trip plan hold up, or would we have to improvise?
      The initial plan was to go from Kehl to Koblenz and back. I was especially looking forward to the part around the famous Loreley. Due to the low water, our trip ended up completely different than planned. From what I heard beforehand, the lower part would be more interesting and beautiful, with many interesting cities right at the river. Even though the upper part is an artificial channel, the environment is mostly wilderness. There are plenty of small harbors along the way, that have toilets, showers and electricity. But you are lucky if there is a restaurant or a shop or even a village nearby in walking distance.
    • How would trailering the boat work?
      I am really glad, Ernesto from UniNautik, who rented me the trailer, showed me how it is done properly. I thought no harbor crane would be available on a Sunday, and I wanted to see and know how trailering works. With our trailering attempts, the freshly applied underwater antifouling paint got damaged a bit, and needed some rework.
      Now that I did it with instruction and on our own, I would try to use a crane next time. Driving with the trailer was totally fine, even backwards around a corner down the slipping ramp.
    • How would the family like it?
      Ever since I ordered the boat, occasionally I watch youtube videos of people living on their boat, while doing great adventure trips. I got hooked to the point that I could imagine taking some months off after the kids finish their education. On our great South America adventure we often met people in their fifties. The rest of the family is not so much into such stuff. The boat was not really designed for multi day family trips like this. It was marketed for weekends and the cabin is for two adults plus two small children. Our boys are taller than us by now. Knowing this, I had the harbor cover made with a zipper, so that the aft part can be used like a tent covering the aft sun lounge. We slept like this on the boat before. I usually sleep well, but the rest of the family prefers a proper bed. I am also the only one who was in the army and in boy scout camps. What was new on this trip was the amount of luggage. It got very crowded. Like in the old days with our small camper van we had to juggle the luggage around between sleeping and driving. Sadly, now we are a bit divided. I enjoyed a trip like this very much, and would like more of that. The rest of the family complained a lot, and had enough for a while. They still enjoy the day trips, just without spending the night on the boat. This is something I often hear from boating families. It seems to be only in the youtube videos that everybody involved loves to sleep on the boat.

    Planned vs actual route

  • Electric Boat experience

    Last week I read an article about hesitation with electric boats.
    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phase-most-electric-boat-companies-arent-prepared-andrew-sell-bl1te/
    This triggered me to write about my experience after owning an electric boat for almost a year now. But lets start from the beginning. Boating was not really on my radar for a long time. I am a flying guy. When I was a kid, I wanted to become a helicopter pilot. Paragliding has been my favorite hobby since I started in 2002.

    How it started
    A couple of years ago, my wive approached me with an idea. She said paragliding was my egoist hobby. Even if I flew tandem sometimes with our older son, it was time mostly away from the family. She proposed sailing as a new family hobby. I told her that I would probably like sailing, as I had a little experience with wind surfing, but I would never stop flying. So we went on a couple of short sailboat trips. As expected, I quite liked it. I was already familiar with wind and weather, it is in the nature, fairly technical, and can be demanding or even competitive. But my wive didn’t like it too much, as the boat was always inclined and one has to do something most of the time. She was looking more for a chill experience. She wouldn’t admit, but that’s how I interpreted her dislike. So I made the motorboat license. My condition was that, since it is a family hobby, she and later the kids would make the license as well. But I soon realized that I was the only one learning.
    Already during the education I realized that I didn’t like going to the clean lake with a combustion engine, after driving electric on the road for so many years.

    Rent or maybe buying
    With renting boats it was the same, there weren’t any electric boats for rent. For sail boats there are sharing organizations and it seemed to be easy to hire a boat. But I soon found out that if I wanted to rent a motor boat on a nice sunny day, they were all occupied already.
    So I was reminded of an article I read some time ago on electrek.co about electric boats that used hydrofoils to enhance range. As a flying guy and a techie, of course I liked the idea of flying over the water. Pushing a boat hull through the water needs lots more energy than pushing a car over a road. You can easily see the wasted energy by the wake and waves that are created. The more obvious energy saving comes from the electric motor as compared to a traditional combustion engine. Some people claim that such an electric hydrofoil boat uses only 10 to 20 percent of the energy of a traditional boat. But buying a boat was never the plan.
    Towards the end of the Corona pandemic Candela introduced a second version whith an enclosed space for sleeping. Wow was that cool. We had a small camper for many years, and I always enjoyed the adventures. How cool must the adventures be with a camper boat?
    For a while we tried to rent a boat when the weather was good, but often none were available, and when they were, we didn’t like to pollute the environment with the combustion engine. Still no electric boats for rent.

    Stockholm
    Out of the blue I received an invitation to the 10 year anniversary of Candela in Stockholm. That’s the company who builds those cool boats. At first I dismissed it. They are super cool, but I still preferred if somebody else bought an electric boat, and I could rent it. The thought stuck in the back of my head that if nobody else did it, I could be that person. I talked to friends who have experience with boats, and they all told me that it would not be profitable renting out such a boat, as it cost much more than a traditional boat, and you couldn’t charge that much more, and that there weren’t that many days where you would rent it out and not that many people looking for this electric experience. But the thought didn’t leave my mind. If not profitable, renting it out could at least help covering the running costs. So I signed up to go to Stockholm for the party and the factory tour.
    The factory tour was super interesting. So was the test ride. And the party was a blast. But I still needed one more month to decide and to convince my wive.

    Bitcoin
    The real challenge was yet to come. As with all things that are not everyday expenses, I want to pay with Bitcoin. I contacted many shipyards before we finally found a solution. Most said no straight away, or didn’t even answer. One closest to my home, wanted to try, but his bank representative told him some bullshit. Also most BTC payment providers were set up only for smaller amounts, and not for the additional KYC/AML in this price range. In the end all the effort payed out, and I could pay my boat with Bitcoin.

    Road tripping
    The experience with an electric boat is different han with an electric car. They both have a similar battery, and similar charging capabilities. On the road, there was a sufficient network of fast chargers already ten years ago. But on the water, these are still a novelty. I am still hoping for some to arrive at lake Lucerne. But we also use the boat differently than the car. Road trips were possible and even great already when we bought our first electric car in early 2017. If you charge the car while eating, coffe or ice cream stops and when somebody needs to go to the toilet, there is barely any waiting involved. I am currently planning our first road trip with the boat this summer on the Rhine river. All I found so far are blue camping plugs with 3.6 kW. My experience tells me that at the boat ramps the voltage is lower than usual, so the charging power is even less. That means we will drive one time the range of the battery each day, and the rest of the day the boat needs to recharge. The boat would be ready for faster road tripping, but the infrastructure is not there yet. But that is not a problem. We will select harbors close to interesting areas and we will use the time to explore those areas. I read that between Genua and the Cote Azure there is a long stretch with fast chargers. I am curious how road tripping along that route would work out. But all my questions regarding this remain unanswered.

    Regular use on the lake
    Some statistics say that the avearage pleasure boat day trip is about 20 km. I wold say on average that is pretty accurate. Like with cars, you don’t buy the vehicle for the average trips, but for the longest one you want to be able to perform without too much trouble. The 100 km range of my boat mean, I can go to any point on the lake and back without recharging. That’s great. The low energy cost means that we use the boat more, as we don’t have to worry how much each trip costs. I knew before ordering that this boat is not built for wakeboarding, but we still use it for tow surfing and wakeboarding. This summer we want to also explore water skiing and tow foiling.
    Of course I also wanted to use the boat for water camping. I knew that sleeping the whole family in the cuddy cabin would be too crowded. So I ordered the custom harbor cover with a zipper in the middle. When the aft foil is retracted, the strut acts like a pole to a tent. This way, two of us can sleep on the enclosed sun lounge in the back, and so we all have enough space. Sleeping in another harbor was a cool new experience. The showers and toilets are cleaner than on a regular camp site, and we met interesting people. For example an 83 year old woman who goes sailing on her own, and spends a couple of weeks in different harbors each year. Sleeping on anchor was also a fun experience.
    So far I know two places on the lake where I could charge with 11kW, but even though it can be nice at times, the 3.6kW at the regular berths are really enough almost all the time. As far as you don’t use your boat for wakeboarding all day long, there is not much reason to just drive around without end. Either we go some place for dinner, a lakefront concert, a walk, a hike, a barbecue, we anchor to swim, sunbathe or just chill.
    What I like most about it, is that going to Lucerne takes about the same amount of time as with the car and uses a comparable amount of electricity. That’s because the water route is more direct, has no traffic jams and the search for a parking place is much easier.

    The experience
    No pollution was the reason for buying an electric boat. But the benefits go beyond that. The low operating costs are nice, even if they will probably not compensate the higher upfront price at my level of usage. Near silent operation without vibration is really nice. But flying above the waves makes the experience really enjoyable.

  • Saving our holiday at the last moment

    We were late this year with planning our holiday. We discussed a couple of options, but were always too busy to look at them more closely. By end of June, less than a month before embarking, I finally booked an apartment in Tossa de mar at the costa brava in Spain. We spent our honeymoon in this area, and there was a picturesque village with an old fortress directly at the sea, that we especially liked. We didn’t remember the name, nor had we any pictures of that place, only memories. After searching the internet, and looking at lots of pictures, I was 95% certain, that Tossa de mar was that village.

    My over-cautious wive convinced me to pay an extra 90 bucks to be able to cancel the reservation in case something unforeseen would happen. As always I used a booking platform where I can pay with BTC. Up to one week before the holiday we could cancel free of charge, and up to one day before, we would get 50% back. The area is quite expensive, and being late doesn’t help with the pricing neither. So I payed more than ever before for an accommodation that was more on the cheaper side of the options that I found.

    The plan was to drive there with our electric car. That would allow us to be free to move around the area. It is important for us not to pollute the environment for our holidays. And since it is one of the older cars, it still has free supercharging included.

    Six days before the holidays should start, the unforeseen event happened. After a day at the beach in Luzern with some friends, we couldn’t drive home. The car seemed to have little power on the 12V battery, and wouldn’t allow me to drive. After a while of trying even the computer shut down. I called the TCS, but they also were not able to make it drive. After six and a half years where the car never let me down, this was the first time I had to go home by other means.

    The TCS brought the car to the Tesla service center on Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning they started the error inspection, and by Wednesday they told me that the problem was with the high voltage battery. They presented two options: a new 90kWh battery for CHF 22k or a refurbished replacement battery for CHF 12k. Both had a waiting time of about three weeks, so the car would not be ready for our holiday. By chance I found a company that can repair the battery for about CHF 6k and provide a loaner battery for the duration of the repair. They are overwhelmed with work at the moment, so that the repair is estimated to take 3 months.

    Since it was too late for the full refund, we didn’t want to just loose half of the money we paid for the hotel. So we checked our options:

    • cancel and postpone the holidays
    • rent a car
    • go there by train
    • go there by airplane
    • borrow a car privately
    • buy a car

    While I was still overwhelmed by last minute work at the office, the rest of the family explored those options. My wive had a small hope that somebody would go to that hotel instead of us, and reimburse part of the cost. In my view that chance was virtually non-existent. I expected that we would drive about three thousand kilometers on that holiday. A rental car for this would be insanely expensive, and after my recent experience with AMAG, my appetite for rental cars was non-existent. Going there with a train would also be very expensive for the whole family, and inconvenient with the connections. Most planes were probably booked out, so that the only ones that were still available would have us arrive in Barcelona in the middle of the night. Some people offered to lend us their car free of charge, which was very nice of them. But we didn’t want to just take somebodies car, use it for so many kilometers, and give nothing in return. If we wanted to be fair, we would need to give them almost CHF 2k for that. If something broke with that car, it would raise inconvenient questions about who would pay for the repair.

    That left us with either cancelling, or buying a car. Time was tight, but luckily I had Thursday and Friday off. So my plan was that I could go test drive one or two cars on Thursday and immediately decide, so that we could go to the traffic office to terminate the immatriculation. I would then go home, transfer the money, and buy insurance for the car. On Friday I would go to the traffic office to immatriculate it, then go to Tesla to collect the number plates from my car. After making sure the seller received the money, go collect the car. That tight schedule left no room for additional problems. One possible problem was, that bank transfers are not guaranteed to arrive the next day. So a better option would be to pay with Bitcoin, which arrives almost instantaneously and has an unparalleled reliability.

    So on Wednesday, while I was still working, my kids started looking at the used car listings. They called some people to ask if they would sell the car on very short notice, and if they wold accept BTC for it. I am not sure if they thought kids calling with these questions was a joke, they all declined. So I took over in the evening. My requirements were as follows:

    • electric (we don’t want to pollute)
    • supercharging included (only Model S up to about 2016) As I don’t have a credit card, and there are no sane ways yet to pay for charging, this is the only option for long distance travel with an electric car.
    • must be able to sell on short notice according to the plan above
    • payment in Bitcoin

    Most people I called failed on one of these points. Some promised to check the next day. And then there was one that said he could even come to my place for the test drive, and would accept two thirds in BTC but the rest in CHF. That was great, but I told him that I could not guarantee that the CHF were on his account on Friday. He said that a statement from my bank that it was sent, would be good enough for him. So he came on Thursday afternoon for the test drive. The car looked much nicer inside and outside than on the pictures. It was nice to drive, and since it is two years younger than my car, it has some things that are nicer and better. That it is a performance version was not important to me at all. Sure the insane acceleration is a lot of fun, but that also means that insurance and road tax are more expensive.

    I agreed to buy it and signed the contract. Then I sent the BTC and the CHF. Big thanks to SEBA for all the effort to make the express payment happen after the initial hesitation. On Friday the seller even came to pick me up at Tesla. After this stressful week his support meant a lot to us. So our holidays were saved at the last moment!

    Driving to Spain was nice as always. There were good restaurants at the supercharger stations. Even though my wive was a strong opponent of Autopilot before, she slowly got used to the car driving itself under my supervision. We spent some wonderful time at costa brava. We are thankful that we didn’t have to cancel the holiday, and loose half the money for the hotel.

    Now I have three months to decide which of the two cars I will keep after the battery is fixed. The one with the nicer things or the one with the cheaper insurance and road tax. Both are good choices, but which is the better?

  • Stoos Trail

    Last year when we bough something at a sports shop in Schwyz, by chance I saw a flyer for the Stoos Trail. Usually I run only to keep myself fit, and I have no aspirations to compete. But a trail comp so close to home looked interesting. On the website they advertised a training class to prepare. This offering caught my interest even more than the competition itself. I have been running uphill for my RunAndFly exercises for some years, without ever bothering about theory or technique. So I though it might be a good idea to learn some of the basics. After all, I hear about running injuries from time to time. I never had anything, was not too afraid, but still…

    My older son also showed interest, so we signed up together. Stoos trail had three distances, 46km with 2400 meters of altitude, 24km with 1700 meters of altitude and 10km with 500 meters of altitude. The longest was out of the question, but I was unsure which of the other two I should sign up for. I remembered how tired I was once after a RunAndFly to the Fronalpstock. But with a bit of training, and some food and drinking, I might manage the descent as well. Levin wanted to go for the 24km from the beginning. We were not sure that was a good idea, and so we waited to see how the class would go, and consulted the opinion of the instructors.

    The training class was really interesting and fun. We went to a new location every week, and learned something new every time. But when it was time for signing up, we learned that the minimum age for the 24km was 18. We tried to get a special permission, but they couldn’t do that. Levin was really depressed for a couple of days. Somebody told him that if he completed with a good time he could do the 24km next year. So he also looked forward to it. That left me with deciding if I wanted to do the 10km together with Levin, or still go for the 24km. My wive convinced me to still go for the 24km, as I trained for that.

    So came the day. At the start everybody lines up more or less at the position in the gaggle where he thinks he belongs. My goal was to complete slightly better than the middle. So I aligned about in the middle before the start. When we started running I already felt tired, and thought everybody around me trained harder, and that I would be lucky not to end up in the last quarter or the field. I started slowly, and could bread through the nose almost up to Morschach. At the upper part of Morschach my family cheered, and gave me some water. They told me that roughly 60 people already passed before me, which would mean I was just in the better half.

    From there it got steeper, and we hiked more than running until the summit. I could keep a good pace, and made good some positions. Because I prefer to go light and don’t carry a vest, I needed some more time at the food and drink booths. But the positions I lost while drinking, I always made back soon after.

    When I ran and hiked up to Fronalpstock with the Glider, it took me slightly more than two hours to reach the summit. So my estimate was, that with more training and a less direct route in the competition I could still do it in about two hours. I reached the summit in two hours and five minutes, so the estimate was not too bad. For the way down I didn’t have any experience to base my estimate on. The way down is generally faster, but my training consisted mainly of RunAndFly. Thus my legs were not well trained for the descent, and I feared that I would have to walk some parts when the knees would start shaking. With all this in mind, I estimated an hour and a half for the descent, which would sum up to three and a half hours for the whole trail. The upper part was reasonably technical and I had the impression I did quite well. The lower part was on a gravel road which was easier. But my legs were so tired, that I just had to go slower. In fact I can’t remember my legs ever being so tired. Under regular conditions I would just take a break from time to time, but in a competition you just keep running. I reached the goal after three hours and fourteen minutes and ended up in 30th position out of 123 males. So all in all I did much better than anticipated.

  • It sucks when you realize that a big established company is trying to scam you

    Last February I drove my car backwards into a pole. The bumper sure needed to be replaced, but the rest I thought could be put back into place. First I went to the Tesla service center. Since Tesla doesn’t have body shops, they sent me to AMAG. The guy at AMAG who handled my case, seemed helpful and trustworthy. He organized everything with my insurance. He proposed a loaner car for the duration of the repair, and at first said that I should check with the insurance if that is covered. Since he handled everything else with the insurance, he agreed that he would also check the coverage for the loaner car. The next time we talked, he told me that everything, including the loaner car was covered by the insurance. I was surprised that the amount they got the ok from the insurance for the repair was twice as high as the initial estimate.

    I told AMAG a couple of times that a car with more than 9 years and more than 260 thousand kilometers doesn’t have to look like new. I told him I was ok with leaving some parts in place and just bending them back. My only conditions were that it doesn’t rain into the car, and that it doesn’t rust. He responded that if I wanted that, then I would have to pay for the repair myself. If the insurance pays, I would have to agree, to have everything replaced. Slowly an impression was building that they wanted to extract as much money as they possibly could.

    The repair took longer than forecasted. I wondered if that prolongation needed to be communicated to the insurance company, as it meant that the loaner car cost more. But I felt confident that everything was handled by AMAG. In the end they waited for some cable that was not broken, but was to be replaced as cautionary measure. I had promised to drive with my son to Munich the following weekend to watch a football game. For this trip I needed my car back, and told AMAG to keep the old cable, if the new one didn’t arrive in time. In the end I got the car back for the trip with the new cable.

    Although the loaner car was new and pretty nice, there was so much that I like better about my car, that I was looking forward to get it back every moment I drove the loaner.

    Two months later I received an invoice for the deductible. This was as communicated and as expected. So I paid it, and thought the case was closed.

    Another two months later I received an account statement from AMAG, claiming I owed more than CHF 800. There was no indication why this should be the case. After three rounds of questioning, I learned that they sent the invoice for the loaner car to my insurance, and they didn’t pay it. So I contacted the insurance, to learn that I have no coverage for a loaner car. I really can’t remember, if I had the option when I bought the insurance. But the guy from AMAG made it look like most people have it. When he told me that he checked with my insurance and it that it was covered, I saw no reason not to believe him and check for myself.

    Normally I am all for paying for what I consume. Sometimes I even ask proactively for the invoice if I didn’t receive it in time. But in this case I really feel it was not done correctly. Just imagine somebody handing you a gift, and after you consumed it he is demanding a lot of money for it.

    This all made me remember stories from the meetings of the Tesla club about cars that were repaired poorly by AMAG. And of some cars that were returned full with shards from a replaced window. Other stories were about repair offerings with horrendous costs, that were performed for a small fraction at other places. The general consensus was that AMAG tried to rip off their customers, while at Tesla the repair costs were always reasonable. Since Tesla sent me there, I gave my best not to think about these stories. And indeed, my car came back clean and well done.

    I talked to a lawyer about this experience. He advised me to send an insured letter, and wait for the prosecution. Then refute the claim with a “Rechtsvorschlag”. I think this is what I will do. Sometimes new experiences can be valuable, even if they are very inconvenient to go through.

  • Lightning wallet for ubports

    Bitcoin is about being in control of your money. For this to be really true, all the components have to be trustable. It is worth nothing if the application is fully open source, when it is run on a compromised platform. On the desktop this is easy. Linux distributions have been well supported, and more user friendly than its closed source counterparts for a long time.

    On the mobile side, the situation is not as nice. You can choose between two platforms that both include a rootkit, that gives the respective company full control over your device. Open source phones have always been available, but they remained a small niche. Besides having an ungoogled Android device for a while, I had devices running OpenMoko, Mobian, Ubuntu Touch and PureOS. But my favorite so far is ubports. It was born as Ubuntu Touch, was renamed when Canonical stopped development, and the community took over. In contrast to the operating systems that expand from desktop to phone (e.g. Mobian or PureOS), with ubports you feel that it is home on the phone. Only two things were annoying for a long time. One was that bluetooth handsfree didn’t work in the car for quite some time. That hasn’t been a problem for a while. The other thing that always bothered me was that there was no native Bitcoin wallet.

    So I used web wallets in the browser. It worked, but I never liked that workaround. I thought about implementing a simple wallet for a long time, but was always lacking the time. Last year I finally decided to give it a go. Since the Bitcoin part is essentially covered by BDK, I was mainly concerned with the QML and clickable stuff. I had a first look at the SDK when it was still developed by Canonical. Back then it looked really nice to develop for the platform, but somehow it never quite worked. All the more pleasantly surprised I was to find out that these days it is much easier and light weight. And it is even possible to develop apps with Rust. I used to develop Desktop apps with Qt in the past, and I loved it. QML is somewhat similar to Qt, but there are big differences. The basics are great, but there is still a lot about the details I have to learn. A first MVP was quickly done and published to the OpenStore. Of course it was the plan from the beginning to support Lightning at some point. But LDK looked much more complicated than BDK. First I wanted to build on top of the Lipa Lightning Library. But I soon found out that it includes also some stuff that I don’t need, and that there were incompatibilities with the ubports SDK. Soon thereafter I found ldk-node. That was just what I needed. It is a really easy to use LDK based lightning node in library form. That makes LDK as easy to use as BDK, or even easier. It is quite possible that at some point I need something else. But even in that case, ldk-node is a great starting point and learning ground.
    All this is to say that I have now a simple Lightning wallet on my ubports phone. So far reading QR codes is not integrated in the app, and I have to use a separate app to copy the addresses or invoices through the clipboard. That’s an inconvenience, and I want to improve it in the future. Also in general, it is still minimal and rough, but it works!!!

    Get utlnwallet from the OpenStore

  • Lightning operated chocolate arcade

    After the Covid lockdowns are only a faint memory, conferences are back again. Last October I was at the Lugano PlanB Forum with lots of familiar speakers. The talks were good, but not as technical as I would prefer. And last month I was at the Swiss Bitcoin Conference in Kreuzlingen. The talks there were even less technical, but the conference was all in German. That was new for me. I only recently discovered how big the German speaking Bitcoin community grew. So far the Bitcoin community that I was involved was more English speaking. A good percentage was also Swiss people, but since there are also a many expats, the main language has always been English. But that’s not what I want to write about here.
    The conference was a FIAT free zone. Drinks and food was all paid with Bitcoin Lightning thanks to the payment terminals from Lipa.
    At the conference there were some industry booths. These are always interesting to explore. One that was particularly interesting was Bischof vending machines. They presented an industry grade vending machine with a Lightning upgrade (prototype), that they actually plan to bring to production. They also sold toy LN Candy Arcades with a Bitcoin Switch kit. I had to get one of these!
    Back home I flashed the micro controller and configured it. And I modified the candy arcade to operate by the relais from the BitcoinSwitch instead of the coins. It is fairly easy to do, but it is at such a high level that it’s more difficult to diagnose if things don’t work, than working at the lower level that I usually prefer. But since everything was already so well prepared, I did the whole thing without diving into the code. The machine is now in the office at SEBA. So far only few colleagues installed a lightning wallet and grabbed some chocolate. It works most of the time, but I found out that the LNBits demo instance is not always so reliable. And I also found out that it is the most difficult to grab some Lindor, when the ground is fully covered with one layer.

  • Two decades of paragliding

    According to my flight log book, it was the first of April 2002 when I had my first flight on a paraglider as pilot in control. Prior to that I did a tandem flight as the passenger and a few days at the training hill.
    Of course it all started much earlier. I wanted to fly for as long as I can remember. Lots of boys wanted to become pilots. I don’t know if that wish is comparable to todays kids wanting to become influencers. Whatever. I carried my wish to become a pilot longer than most kids. When I started an apprenticeship as a mechanic, the plan was to become a helicopter mechanic afterwards and to make the pilot license. The other common path was to become an electrician and specialize on the flight electronics. I also explored that path for a bit, but decided on the mechanic path. In parallel, I started in the selection process for army pilots. Also there I wanted to become a helicopter pilot. Every path was viable that would lead me to become a REGA helicopter pilot in the future.
    I have known for a while that one of my eyes is a bit weaker. It was never a problem so far. But in the army selection process, that was the reason for dropping out. So I collected as much information on my options as I could. It would still have been possible to make the helicopter pilot license, but paying the 100k all on my own was just not possible. And even after that, it would have been nearly impossible to find a job. There were lots more pilots that wanted to work than there were jobs. It went even so far that many pilots worked for free, just to get the hours to keep the license.
    Already during my school time, my mother and me wanted to try paragliding. Every time there were vouchers in the newspaper, we checked the dates, and most of the time either of us was unavailable. So one day, my mother went alone to a training hill, and promptly broke her appendix. That didn’t discourage me in the slightest. I knew that once I try, I would want to start the training. The problem was that first I didn’t have enough money, and then during the study I didn’t have enough time. As soon as the study was finished, I started the paragliding training. It was the second best option after flying helicopter. Flying close to the terrain is something best done with a helicopter or a paraglider.
    The first years of flying were the most intense. I met good friends that I still see in my early flying years. There were years with more than 300 flights. My whole free time was organized to get the most and longest flights I could get. I started to participate in competitions to get better at cross country flying. Flying comps was a lot of fun. Imagine a week long holiday with a hundred like minded pilots, that are as eager to fly. The only thing to be cautious in comps is to not take too much risk. There were enough examples of pilots who were clearly flying over their limits. I would estimate it’s less than 5% of pilots, but those are the ones, people point to when they want to paint comps in a bad light. I always knew that I did it for fun and that winning is not worth risking your health. There is always risk in everything you do, but with competition flying you can learn managing it pretty well, if you want. There are different risks. The risk to get a bad result, the risk of landing too early, the risk of not reaching the next thermal, the risk to end up in turbulent and uncomfortable air, the risk to get injured and the risk of death. For each risk you have to know how far you are ready to go to reach the goal you want to reach.
    When you are so fully immersed in the flying circus, sooner or later you start thinking if you can make a living off of it. Nobody can live off of competition flying alone. Also sponsors only get you so far, and are hard to find. Lots of the best comp pilots are test pilots for the manufacturers. That sounds like fun, but appeared too risky for me. If you want to become better at a hobby, at some time you reach a point where you have to decide if it is more important than job and girlfriend. I really wanted to get better, but I didn’t want to think about a job that I liked less, or breaking up. Leading a normal live and have a family was ultimately more important to me than becoming a successful competition pilot. I had some role models that managed to still fly comps while having a family, but when one after the other divorced, that was a wake up call for me.
    At one point I started reading the theory books for becoming an instructor. I never wanted to do it full time. As an instructor you watch the students flying and don’t fly a lot yourself. Also if you want to work part time as an instructor, you can be sure to work on the weekends. I have been flying tandem as a hobby and earned some bucks to finance the equipment for many years. But also that becomes less pleasant, when it is the job that pays your bills. At least that’s what I think. And last but not least, I like my job as a software developer, and was not really ready to give it up. That’s how I kept my hobby, and still like to do it.
    Cross country flying is what I liked most, but since it requires lots of time, I had to give it up for the family. I hope I can resume it, when the kids are older. Until then I enjoy the shorter flights. Three years ago I figured out a way to get some short flights without taking too much time away from the family. Since then, I often run half way up the Urmiberg in the early morning to fly down again before going to work.
    In those twenty years I completed 2’523 flights in 21 different countries on 68 different gliders. Most of it was in the first decade, though. 416 flights were on tandem gliders with passengers. 535 flights were on competition gliders. 160 flights were on speed gliders. 211 flights were on single skin gliders. As mentioned above, there were years with more than 300 flights in the beginning. When the kids were smaller I had some years with only 40 flights. Now with the RunAndFly, I am at around 90 flights per year again.
    I saw marvelous landscapes from above. I met many cool and wonderful people through flying. I learned a tremendous amount about the weather and nature in general through flying. I learned a lot about setting and reaching goals as well as managing risk through flying. I will never stop flying as long as I can walk on my own two feet.

  • Rest in peace Seppel & Hoppel

    Yesterday I had to bury the beloved pet bunnies of our kids.

    But let’s start from the beginning. While I had plenty of pets in my childhood, my wive was less lucky in that regard. So she was especially eager to enable that possibility for our kids. Before they went to school, we bought a cat. Even though my wive was as excited as the kids in the beginning, it didn’t turn out so well in the end. After that we evaluated for a while, what pet would be best suitable for our family. I always preferred dogs, but we wouldn’t have enough time for that. And it wouldn’t work when we go to the Wallis at least once a month. So I just play with my parents dog whenever we visit them.

    After much consideration we decided to buy two little bunnies, one for each kid. They were happy beyond description. Three years later they still say it was the happiest day in their lives. They spent the entire first day in front of the barn, as they were not allowed to touch them during the first few days. After that, they took them out for petting very often. That’s how they formed a profound connection. Most pet bunnies are very shy and don’t want to be touched at all. The bunnies of our kids were different. They knew our kids. When they were afraid of something, they jumped into the arms of our kids, as they felt safe with them. When our kids had a bad day at school, they took the bunnies out and cuddled for a while. It made them feel a lot better. I remember I did the same with the dog we had when I was a kid. Last week our kids celebrated the third birthday of their bunnies. They bought them presents and sang happy birthday for them.

    When we were looking for a bigger apartment, one of the more important considerations was that there was room for the bunny barn, that it was reachable directly from the apartment and that there was grass right in front of the barn. It was quite difficult to find an apartment like that. We didn’t even consider apartments, where our kids would have to give up their bunnies. It would have broken their hearts.

    Yesterday their hearts were broken nonetheless. The bunnies were out in the grass as they often are. Then a husky ran into our property and killed one of the bunnies inside the barn, where it escaped into supposed security. Then the husky chased the second bunny back and forth around our patio, before also badly hurting it. Our kids had to witness how their dear friends get killed right where they always played with them.

    My wive who also had to watch it, took the bodies of the bunnies and the kids, and drove straight to the nearest veterinarian. But there was nothing he could do. One of the bunnies was already dead when they found him in the barn, the other was badly hurt and died on the way to the vet. The kids witnessed his last struggles.

    I returned earlier from work to give them some comfort. And then we had to find a place to bury the bodies. The grass part of our patio would be too close for everybody. So we went to the small forest just in front. We didn’t want it to be directly adjacent to the path where the kids walk every day to school, but also not too far away. The little forest is very steep and rocky, so I had to dig four holes until I found a place where I was able to dig deep enough.

    Today the kids didn’t go to school. My wive pained grave stones with the kids. They still cry all the time. I never saw them so devastated. Our neighbor who recently lost a cat, suggested to visit a person who can talk to deceased animals. To me this sounds way too esoteric, but at the moment we consider everything that helps to ease their pain. We might also have to go to some kind of therapy with the kids. They seem to have suffered a trauma.

    The owners of the husky are very sorry, followed to the vet and wrote us a letter. While I am a bit more pragmatic, my wive and the kids can not forgive them, or even talk to them just yet. My wive was advised to report the incident to the authorities, as a predator like this could also be dangerous to small children.

    Rest in peace Seppel & Hoppel, thanks for being such great companions for our kids. And I am sure you also had a good time with us.