Sailrocket 2 set to launch

Sailrocket

Excerpt from update from Paul Larsen: ( read the whole thing here- http://sailrocket.com/node/518 )

I am not going to give away too many details of the new foils. It has cost us a lot of time and money to reach this level of understanding. like most things in life, the answer is easy once you have seen it. We haven't shown that we have the answers yet but no doubt we will share things as they are truly revealed. In reality we only really understand our Mk1 foils now. Many of the explanations I may have given earlier wouldn't stand up to our current knowledge. I am as happy as can be with the logic behind our current path. I can't see any loose ends or aspects that we are deliberately overlooking. In fact, many of the previous 'weird' un-explained stuff now ties in with our understanding of the issues.

The tooling moulds will be put under the CNC machine tomorrow and we are pushing to have them ready by the end of the week. This means the actual build of the foils will commence next week. As soon as they are finished they will go direct to Heathrow where they will be accompanied on a plane down to Walvis Bay. Team members will be down there setting up the boat and base a week earlier in preparation. It's all go. VESTAS Sailrocket 2 is at a stage where we should be able to get up to the high speed stuff very quickly. As always we have to be careful not to make any silly mistakes along the way.

 

Interesting comments. Sometimes tackling something without really understanding what it involves is the only way to achieve progress . . .

 

It will be good to have another round from only active boat team going for the record.

Paul mentioned the kite crowd would be back in action. Sure enough, their web page has been updated and includes:

The 2012 Luderitz World Speed Sailing attempt will take place over 6 weeks:
Windsurfers from 5th of November to the 2nd of December
Kitesurfers from 3rd December to the 16th December.

I am rooting for a big improvement from SR2 and I wish the best for the Kiters. When I say the best, my main interest would be for injury free competition. Those guys are crazy (says a guy who dreams of similar foolishness).

 

Sailrocket

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

VESTAS SAILROCKET 2 - THE SEARCH FOR A BREAKTHROUGH

The Vestas Sailrocket 2 project will be returning to the waters of Walvis
Bay, Namibia this September with a new hydrofoil package which they hope
will bring them an Outright World Speed Sailing Record. The months of
September through to December typically provide the best winds for speed
sailing and the team has been keeping their powder dry in anticipation.

The team, which began the pursuit in 2002, will seek to topple the current
world record held by American kite surfer, Rob Douglas. It was set in
Luderitz, Namibia late in 2010 and stands at 55.65 knots (64 mph/103 kmh).
The kite surfers are expected to return to Namibia in October this year in
an effort to take the record even higher.

Vestas Sailrocket 2 is a bold step beyond their Mk1 boat which still holds
the 'B' class world record and hit peak speeds over 52 knots (60 mph) on a
number of occasions. The outright record eluded the Mk1 so the team focused
all their energy into Vestas Sailrocket 2 which was designed and built from
the outset to be a breakthrough boat with a view to overcoming the limiting
factors rather than just the current record itself.

Conventional high speed foils (i.e. rudders) begin to have 'issues' as they
reach high speed and these become unavoidable around 60 knots. Liquid water
turns to vapour due to the low pressure on one side of the foil. The
phenomenon is called cavitation and this causes a lot of drag and quite
often loss of stability with dramatic consequence. Vestas Sailrocket 2 is
designed to not only remain stable if the conventional foils fail at high
speed but be capable of employing special foils that will be immune to this
problem and take her beyond normal limits.

"From my perspective in the cockpit, this version of the boat is a delight
to sail," said pilot Paul Larsen. "It is much less traumatic than the first
boat. VSR2 is just ambling down the course at 50 knots in a very stable
manner. Hopefully these new foils we have designed will allow her to really
show her potential. I'm sure she won't feel so docile over 60 knots. I
think she's patiently waiting for us to gain the understanding to release
her from all the drag and give her free rein."

Full report: http://tinyurl.com/SR-091312

 

It's an exciting project, hope it all goes smoothly for them this time.

 

These guys are the real "pioneers" of speed sailing at this point.

No brute force, no huge platform, just the right tool for the job.

And the job is (and has been since Longshot) finding a foil that will break through the cavitation barrier.

They have a suitable location with shelter from big chop but enough wind for the power, they have the power, the efficiency and the stability to do the job.

There is no question in my mind that they can do it if they can find the right foil. The right foils should be entirely possible (with transition to supercavitating at design speed).

They certainly have the "due diligence" part of the equation down with all of their efforts.

All I can say at this point is Go SR2 Go!

 

Sailrocket

==============
I'm all for the Sailrocket team-100%-but I wouldn't go so far as to say or imply that they are the only "real" speedsailing team pioneers. Afterall, Hydroptere has set her records in the open ocean and in an interview(see the Hydroptere thread) Alain Thebault said that in the next year or so they're going after the +65 knot speed record.

 

The Hydroptere effort did grab the record and is a significant technological advance. But I see their effort more as a large tri with with surface piercing foils that used speed sailing to gain knowledge and skills that would be then be used for their real quest - open ocean distance records.

The large tri format provides a "brute force" approach to power and efficiency. Using surface piercing foils to get around hull speed limitations is not new. Combining the two took lots of time, effort, money and a big team.

They did a great job, but I see this as a technology that is only appropriate for for a large well funded effort. With the scale and cost, you probably need more that just the 500 meter (or one mile) runs as a goal to sell your idea to the sponsors. The Trans Atlantic, & the Jules Verne are probably bigger sellers that you need to be at least talking about.

I expect an open ocean full foiling boat to grab the high profile records in my lifetime. BP 5 and Hydroptere are both advancing the state of the art to converge on this outcome.

The 500 meter record for boats on the other hand has been "stuck" for a long time due to one problem. Foil cavitation. Once this problem gets solved, the specialty boats like SR2 will probably push the record up a bunch. It will be unlikely to see more normal platforms (like Hydroptere) ever be a reasonable approach to the outright speed record again.

 

Sailrocket is a great idea and a great team but the design also has its limitations, it's a delicate, asymmetrical one-way craft which has to be towed to its starting point and back home after each run and requires exact weather conditions available in few locations at certain times of the year. I agree that it's the way to go for a narrowly focussed speed attempt, but like the boards that are its main competition, it's hard for me to take it seriously as an actual boat that's indicative of the future for sailcraft as a whole.

 

I doubt that anyone on the SR2 team has any intent of affecting "sailing as a whole".

For the outright record, boats have been foil limited for years. As soon as the cavitation barrier is broken, special purpose boats will probably increase the outright record over 500 meters by more than 15%. Physics is on the side of the boats (as compared to kite boards or windsurfers).

Small to medium boats take a much smaller team and investment than the big ones. The physics is better for the bigger ones, but if you don't get the configuration right before starting, the cost of failure becomes very high.

Given the above, the most likely success path will probably be more like Longshot, YPE, MI, SR1 or SR2 than Hydoptere, BP5 or other more traditional boats.

This should not surprise anyone.

The rocket cars that dominate the land speed record share more features with aircraft than typical land craft.

This does not take anything away from other forms of sailing (for boats) or automotive pursuits (for the cars), it is just the nature of chasing records for the maximum possible speed that we can achieve under a given set of rules.

Some of what is learned may filter down to the rest of us, but if so it will probably only be a little tid bit here or there.

 

I would of thought there would be a lot of technology here that would be very useful in the high speed ferry market, maybe not to have them foil borne but in their stabilisation systems the foil technology would be very useful.

 

Sailrocket

From the website: ( read the whole article here- http://sailrocket.com/node/522 )

Flights to Walvis Bay are booked for Friday. Two of us will head down ahead of the rest of the team to get the base set up at the Walvis Bay Yacht Club. We have to find accomodation and get the transport sorted out and of course we have to get VESTAS Sailrocket 2 fully rigged and ready in anticipation of her new foils arriving a week later.

Meanwhile back in the UK, Helena will be running around picking up all the extra pieces including the new foil which has to come down as 'sports equipment' on the plane. It's not a small or light piece. It will probably weigh around 30 kg and is a big 'L' shape. We have to juggle our luggage allowances carefully. I think I have all the bits and pieces we need but there will no doubt be some issues that I discover once in Walvis that Helena will need to fix from UK shores i.e. specialist glues have gone bad or rubber seals for the drysuits have perished etc.

Dan Emuss from Independent Composites in Bristol is building the new foil and has been working through the weekends to get it ready ASAP. Appreciated Dan. The boys at COSWORTH are working through the electronic and data logging system and we hope to be able to log vapour/air cavity pressures down the back of the new foils at high speed during our runs. New cameras are on the way and the MUSTO clothing has all arrived and is being branded.

 

Sailrocket

They're in Africa: http://sailrocket.com/node/523

 

Sailrocket

More from Paul Larsen: http://sailrocket.com/node/526

 

Impressive video from Sailrocket, honoring her name.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OW9lALlFd4U