Pass the ball to Brian

South Africa is the International Rugby World Champions of 2007.

On Saturday, 20 October 2007 the Springbok Team won the William Ellis Cup by beating England 15 to 6 in Paris. It would take time for this reality to sink in. Somehow, the elation of the moment when the final whistle went was not fully realised. It felt like just another match in the run-up to the final somewhere out there in the future. But this time it was the real McKay.

Given the elaborate media ignorance in the USA of rugby, South Africans; English and other foreign rugby fans were gathered in select pubs in Cambridge and Boston to follow the game on satellite TV.

A sprinkling of English fans stood around in clumps in the pub looking quite dejected. I caught a glimpse of Prince William's distraught face on TV as the cameras panned the crowd on the stands in Paris. Moments after the final whistle I walked over to the English fans that had braved the large crowd of rowdy South Africans to follow the match on the telly. I shook hands with them and thanked England for standing their ground to give the fans a tense and tightly fought final. It was a civilised exchange of mutual acknowledgement.

The Springboks had come a long way since their previous World Cup victory in 1995. In between the victorious moments were the Big Slump in which the team suffered several humiliating defeats against various international teams. A lot of political wrangling and interference played into the uncertain direction of the team during the slump. But throughout, South Africa started to gather behind the team and symbol of what was once the archetypal icon of White South Africa.

This year, the main star of the team packed with sharp players was Brian Habana - one of the wings in the back-line and a non-white player of exceptional flair, speed and intelligence by all standards. So much so, the nation's jesters had come up with a joker's sound clip of the team's game plan: "Pass the ball to Brian."

The humour in the foregoing is typical South African and explaining it risks loosing the essence in translation between cultures.

The match was not spectacular or heroic in any manner. The two teams were quite evenly matched and no tries were scored. The ball got to Habana only to be bogged down by England's strong defence. Matters were decided on penalty kicks.

We had an early tense moment when the satellite feed was disrupted at the start of the match. Frantic phone calls rang out across Cambridge only to discover the feed was broken all over. We had a riot on hand. Three hurrays to the technicians who restored the crucial satellite feed and the peace within minutes.

I concluded the glorious Saturday with a group of fellow South Africans, holding a braai in true tradition as well as we could on foreign shores. After midnight, as we gathered on the street, as tradition would have it to see off one another, we played "Pass the ball to Brian" on the host's fancy cellphone and laughed hysterically at our nation's glorious silliness.

[Final championship statistics]

The fable of flight

It has been said that it is faster to travel across Europe by Porsche than by passenger jet. That is, if one covers less than 4h worth of travel. Depending upon the route, 4h may get you from exit 2 to exit 5 on a jam-packed autobahn at the start of Easter, or from Munich to Milan on a good day.

In New England, 4h worth of road travel will get you in a stupor of frustration plus a bonus ulcer if you call in the next two minutes. So, one rather takes the aeroplane, right? Wrong. One picks another page from the European book of travel and takes the train.

A trip to New York is due on 3 November to attend a dinner to be hosted by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch, my Alma mater. Choosing to attend was simple. Finding a hotel was, well, painful. Traditional uptown hotels that dare to show some stars seem to be in pillage and ransack mode that weekend. Rates are quite frankly over the top. I settled for the more daring "arty" alternative in Chelsea. The hotel happens to be neighbours of Penn Station. Expect inspiring sound affects of the industrial era at 6 in the morning after a hard night out. We expect the new Rector to know how to throw a party and if he doesn't live up to expectation then there is the city that never sleeps to fill in the gaps.

What with Penn station practically on my doorstep for 24h I thought a trip by train would beat risking my new Audi in brutal New York and also beat the aeroplane between Boston Logan and my hotel. Yep, I have not quite gone insane although some may contest that claim. I did the sums as best I could. It takes about 1h30 of pre-boarding time just to be on the safe side. Plus, if all goes well, 1h15 in the air, which gets us to 2h45. Then there is disembarking and finding one's way from JFK to Penn Station more or less - another 45 minutes. So, 3h30 so far. All for about $200, if you were lucky.

Take the train, the Acela Express no less, and from South Station to Penn Station will take 3h35. That's not beating it, you say. But here's the clincher, the trip from my flat to Logan Airport takes 1h on top of the 3h30. And from my flat to South Station takes no more than 45 minutes. No security queues; flight delays; cramped seats; safety belts or threats of terror come as a bonus at Amtrak, at your leisure. And all for $184. Now beat that, I say.

FSI

No, this posting is not about a secret merger between the American FBI and the Russian FSB. Such a concoction is only plausible in a hell frozen over during the peak of global warming. But this posting is over a merger of sorts, albeit two thermodynamic engine cycles rather than instruments of state power. Indeed this posting picks up on my recently acquired Audi A4, which uses the so-called VW-Audi 2.0 FSI engine.

You may recall my gripes with the new car having some noticeable engine vibration at certain low engine speeds. As it turns out the source of these vibrations may be traced to the nature of the beast, the FSI engine. In essence, the FSI runs on a four stroke cycle that combines elements of the Otto and Diesel thermodynamic cycles. Whereas this engine implements the basic Otto cycle, which requires an explicit ignition system to function, it also uses direct fuel injection, like Diesel engines, and runs a high compression ratio for its configuration.

Those familiar with operating Diesel-powered cars may recall that these engines are prone to emitting strong vibrations, especially at lower engine speeds under power. The cause of these vibrations is rooted in the exceptionally quick burn rates of the fuel mixture during compression ignition inherent to the Diesel cycle. In the FSI engine, a similar if less dramatic phenomenon occurs under power.

Due to the direct injection and a remarkably high compression ratio for a turbo-charged spark ignition engine, the FSI engine must be experiencing significantly higher burn rates of its fuel mixture than is normal for traditional Otto cycle engines. Evidence in support of this notion can be found in the use of a significantly strengthened crankshaft in the FSI engine, according to Audi technical publications on this engine.

The upshot of the FSI concept is that the engine can burn very lean mixtures under light load if it runs on proper, high quality fuel, as can be found in Europe. This makes for a fuel efficient, powerful engine with low emissions. However, in the USA where fuel is of less favourable quality, the FSI concept has to be compromised, again according to Audi literature. In my opinion, the fall-out of all that is an engine that runs somewhat rougher than intended on the diet of available US fuel.

My point is: Why must Audi pass on to the customer the issues resulting from their implementation choices? I do not want to know about vibrations because Audi in all their wisdom and experience has been caught out by sub-standard fuel in their biggest market outside of Europe. And the GTI 2.0T that I drove two years ago and which used the FSI engine, did not display these vibrations as far as I could remember. Clearly the installation in the VW is less susceptible to these issues. And according to road test reports, the A3, which shares the GTI platform is similarly free of these vibrations.

On the flip side, there are some performance figures to suggest that the 2.0T FSI engine in the A3 and GTI are somewhat less tweaked than in the heavier A4, although on paper the power specification is the same across board. If true, it would explain to some extent the increased vibrations in the A4 implementation of the engine, which would be running higher combustion peak pressure and probably a higher burn rate than in the A3. Also, the different installation layouts can explain the difference in perceived vibrations between these two versions of the Audi.

As a footnote it must be said that yours truly is particularly fastidious about these matters. None but one of my friends so far have noticed the vibrations that I have mentioned. One friend, a South African mechanical engineering student currently at MIT, did look rather surprised once when I accelerated the engine through the boom that emits at 2400 rpm. He clearly picked up something out of the ordinary and quietly checked the rev counter to see if I was labouring the engine at too low a speed. Nope, I was not.

I guess all engineering is about compromise, regardless of the marketing blurb. I suppose for me it will be a matter of accepting the status quo for the sake of driving the acclaimed Quattro platform propelled by one of the best new petrol engine designs on the automotive scene. It a pity that somehow it all got a bit spoiled in the implementation and deployment.