Ryft

Waiting Game

So we’ve been hanging out in the hostel for the past several days, not doing too much since the car shipment got delayed by a tsunami… We have had the chance to check out the nightlife in Melbourne, including a brief visit to the Crown Casino and some other interesting locations. I haven’t lost any money and have so far only enjoyed the idiot-subsidized food and other perks associated with these sorts of places.

We’re going to customs tomorrow to see if we can get our car, provided that the boat gets into port. We also need to stock up on supplies (which will take place while the van is hopefully getting steam-cleaned as part of the quarantine process).

Additionally, having high speed internet has been helpful for keeping tabs on other teams. The winner of the 2007 World Solar Challenge, the Nuon Solar Team from the Netherlands, suffered a severe accident after a tire blowout near Darwin. Video of the wreck can be found here:
http://www.autojunk.nl/2009/10/nuna5-crash-scene-investigation

Pictures Here:
https://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=168da798-7187-4083-884b-c8a769631501&lang=en

The accident doesn’t look, at least by inspection, any different from the accident Stanford had during WSC 2007.  Without a concrete drainage structure to hit, however, Nuna5 did not flip and instead apparently hit some trees.  The damage looks more severe than with Equinox in 2007.  The top-shell wraparound components have completely delaminated and the carbon fiber around one of the front wheel areas looks almost completely destroyed.  If we had suffered a similar level of damage, we would be packing up and heading home right now.  If Nuna can fix/patch up their car in time for the race, that would be impressive.

Having a broken car already in Darwin may still be better than having your car stuck at sea…