Summer Research at NC State - EMSSL/MARINER

September 1, 2025

This past summer I had the amazing opportunity to work on the MARINER Project under Dr. Andre Mazzoleni and Saurabh Agrawal in the Engineering Mechanics and Space Systems Lab (EMSSL).

I'm excited to continue with EMSSL this academic year as a Research Assistant where I will continue to lead the electronics development for the project.

Summer 2025 Sailing Trip - Kitty Hawk to Ocracoke, NC

August 15, 2025

This summer, I, along with three friends, embarked on a five-day sailing trip from Kitty Hawk to Ocracoke, NC on my Catalina 22 sailboat. Not only was this trip a test of My and my friends sailing abilities, but also a test of my boat and my work in progress restoration. The following is a brief summary of each day of the trip (more pictures coming soon):

Day 0

The day prior to departure, I drove home to Kitty Hawk from Raleigh, NC to perform last minute maintainence checks and begin packing essential sailing gear for the trip.

My friends arrived later that night, and we began packing food and water provisions.

Day 1

We woke up early to finish packing personal items for our departure at 8:00 AM. With a southwest heading and a steady east-northeast breeze we started out with an easy sail toward the west side of Roanoke Island. On the south side of the Manns Harbor Bridge we tossed an anchor for lunch and a swim break.

Upon pulling the anchor we continued south under an assymetrical spinnaker and the mainsail. We flew the spinnaker for as long as we could until the wind picked up an we doused in favor of main and jib sails. We arrived on the southwest side of Long Shoal point by 6:30 PM after dodging the Long Shoal Bombing Range.

This first night anchorage offered calm waters in the point's protection from the coming northeast winds. After getting settled in, we cooked burgers under a nice sunset and caught many fish although they were all too small to eat.

Day 2

We woke early on the second day to a beautiful sunrise over the Pamlico sound. We wasted no time getting off the anchor as foul weather was headed our direction from the west. With a firm northeast wind we pointed her straight south toward Ocracoke Island. Unfortunately my three crewmates suffered from sea sickness for much of this second day; however, the symptoms could be managed by staying busy up on deck.

For the first time in the trip, we could no longer see land. Much of the day was spent with just us and the Pamlico Sound. With a squall on the horizon, we continued our crossing.

As we approached Ocracoke we made two realizations: first, we were on the wrong end of the island (east as opposed to west). Second, the squall had arrived. We reduced sail and began heading west. The storm produced a stout northwest wind which when coupled with the notorius sandbars surrounding Ccracoke made for a challenging sail.

Fortunately the storm subsided before too long and we were made substantial progress toward our destination. On the downside, we no longer had a good angle to enter the channel without losing much of our progress. Our solution? We fully retracted the keel and rudder bringning our draft from 5ft to 2.5ft and we walked the boat across the sandbar into the channel, much to the amusment of passing boats.

Once in the channel, and with a dying breeze, we started the motor and made our way into Silver Lake, Ocracoke's natural harbor. We docked and tidied up the boat and had a nice dinner. That night we played guitar and several card games

Day 3

The third day was our layover. We took time to rest and enjoy Ocracoke Village. That night it rained hard, foreshadowing for the remainder of the trip

Day 4

Under threat of another rain squall, we quickly set off on the forth day headed toward Stumpy Point. We motored for the first few hours until the wind filled in from the southeast. With our newfound breeze we once again launched the spinnaker. We sailed under spinnaker and main for most of the day until the wind picked up heavily in the last hours of the sail.

By the time we rounded Long Shoal to head in to Stumpy Point, the wind had switched to west-southwest making for a challenging beat through the Stumpy Point channel. We sailed deep into Stumpy Point to find protection from the coming heavy southwest winds that night.

The evening focused primarily on eating and resting for what we knew would be a testing sail the next day.

Day 5

We set early wake up alarms for Day 5. The radar showed a long wall of thunderstorms several miles to our west stretching almost all the way north to the Manns Habor Bridge, our next waypoint. I knew that if we could make it to the bridge, we'd be safe to hide underneath it. Without much further thought we set off. For the majority of this leg it looked like we were going to be the storm to the bridge. With light showers here and there and thunder far off in the distance, we were fairly comfortable for a few hours.

Unfortunately, as we got within a half hour of the bridge, the storm seemed to grow an arm that reached out to block our path. Even worse, the radar showed the darkest shade of red it could with lightening popping up all around us. When we were 15 minutes away from the bridge, we entered the red blob of rain and lightening. The wind picked up dramtically and our vision was limited to several yards in front of the bow due to the rain; we could no longer see the bridge.

We continued on as that was our only option. Fortunately, after several frighteningly close lightening strikes (<1 mile), the bridge came back into view and we were able to hide and evaluate the situation. It seemed that the storm had subsided by that time so we continued north toward Kitty Hawk where we arrived by 4:00 PM. After a showers and a brief moment of relaxation we could finaly unpack the boat.

Catalina 22 - Rigging Upgrade Progress

January 1, 2025

Mainsail Control Lines

On my sailboat, some of mainsail controls were permanently applied or completely absent including...

• Outhaul
• Downhaul
• Reefing line(s)
• Traveler controls

Over the course of the first few months with the boat, I have replaced the control lines for each of these systems; however only the traveler is complete by nature of only being lines.

The other controls are waiting on the hardware and time necessary to finish up. For example, the outhaul is functional, but it is cleated using a horn cleat when it would be more effectively held with a cam or jam cleat. Similarly, the reefing line and downhaul are cleated to the old halyard cleats on the mast.

Halyards

The halyards on my boat have been frustrating from the beginning because they are so close to being setup well. The few issues I have include:

• Only two turning blocks for the three halyards
• Cracked turning block sheaves
• Line jammers unable to maintain tension
• General lack of lubrication/cleaning

Once again, the dilemma with replacing the halyard systems has been a lack of hardware and time. That said, I have a plan for how I want everything to work and go together.

As the boat stands, each system (sail controls, halyards, etc), is functional, but not where I want it to be for everyday use. Luckily, I was fortunate to receive much of the needed hardware as gifts for this year's Christmas. So with hardware acquired, I only have to wait for when I am back home from school this spring to have time to work.

MATLAB Teaching Assistant - New Position

August 12, 2024

I am very excited to start a new position as a lab TA for CSC 113 MATLAB at NC State. This position will present great opportunities to practice collaboration and leadership as well as hone my skills in both MATLAB and programming in general.