There has been some interest shown in software to make propeller calculations. A year of so ago, I offered and sent two sets of software to over 100 on TWL. One is "CaptnWil Suite" that provided a complete solution to the "Beebe" and "Gerr" methods of computing speed/range for displacement and semi-displacements vessels. That application has been updated to include the Bp method of propeller selection contained in "The Propeller Handbook" by Gerr. The new section includes both three and four blade prop. information. The other is "CaptnWil Sailings" which includes the Great Circle, modified Great Circle, Mercator, and Rhumb Line solution of routing as described in Bowditch and "The Calculator Afloat" by Shufeldt/Newcomer and published by the Naval Institute Press. All of these applications have been developed for my own personal use. They have been valuable to me in evaluation my own vessels and in judging vessels I had an interest in purchasing. For example, the Beebe and Gerr data indicate just how good a job Jim Krogen did in the KK-42. Its performance exceeded the Beebe projection by about 1/3 and led to what CaptWil has coined the Beebe coefficient. That is a ratio to be applied to the standard Beebe method to compare a real boat with the Beebe standard. CaptnWil has written on this before. The propeller program was written in order to analyze the propeller selections available on a vessel I was considering purchasing. The completed program demonstrated why the propellers available on the subject boat made the boat unacceptable. You should have heard the propeller manufacturer try to explain his way out of that. In this case, as in many others, it was just impossible to fit the proper size propeller to the boat. Since these programs were not written for the public (in another life, I owned a custom software house), all the help files, etc. have not been included, and the programs have not be subject to the rigorous testing that is required for software offered for sale. The only request I made with the distribution of the initial programs was to get feed-back from the users about their usefulness, bugs, etc. I got a few thank-you notes, which were nice but not necessary, but only about two notes giving any feed-back at all. Since I had no indication of any real interest, I decided to not do that procedure again since it does require more than just a little work to make sure the programs are at least semi-professional and user friendly. But Christmas in coming, and CaptnWil will try one more time. Here is my Christmas present to TWL -- with a few strings. 1. I will accept personal requests for the two applications described above until Dec. 20,2000. 2. I will E-Mail the programs all at one time of 12/20/2000. I will not do piece-meal distributions. 3. You make a request for the programs, give me some feed-back about how they work for you. 4. The programs can be run on Win95/98/Me operating systems. 5. The programs will be transmitted in compressed mode that are self extracting. CaptnWil Wil Andrews 40 Pier Pointe New Bern NC 28562 (252)636-3601 captnwil@earthlink.com