Luderitz Speed Challenge New World Record of 54.1 knots

Like I said... it will be forgotten.

Case in point: the three records you mention for 24 hours, Trans-Atlantic and Jules Verne are only the records held by crewed sailing vessels. All of those same records are also held by solo sailed vessels, yet the particular solo delineations have become meaningless by your own choice.

The folks who can recall these kinds of records with names and figures are less than 1/10 of 1% of the people on this planet who know anything about sailing. Respect for achievement... sure. I suggest that this reality represents the status known as forgotten.

 

For the records that fall into the "other categories" (solo versions, the mono versions, etc.), most are more of what I would call personal achievement records rather than records that represent pushing the limits of what can be done at sea under sail. Many of these are not really "forgotten" so much as never known in the first place.

The records that receive the most attention in the first place are those that represent some measure of an ultimate sailing performance and are contested enough to be interesting. These are the records that are noted by more folks than just those directly involved.

As far as forgotten, we are in an information overload world and most have become mentally lazy. We do not try to remember any details since the raw info is just a Google away. As such the WSSRC web site actually is part of mankind's collective memory as we currently know it. Unless we have a total breakdown of civilization, I assume that tools will be available to help people sort through the exponentially increasing junk web info to find relevant info for the foreseeable future.

 

The Best Days Run (24 hour) has been a measure of speed under sail for over a century.

The Transatlantic also dates back more than a century.

Other passage records like NYC to SF and Hong Kong to London have historical significance too.

At one time the ocean records were front page news.

500M and Mile ... not so much IMO

As a technical challenge the short records have some interest for me, but more as proof of concept for design. To set a new 24 hour record you need a boat that is somewhat faster than 40 knots over a mile. This is why I pay some attention to boats like Hydroptere, that *might* be able to run for 24 hours or make a passage at speed. I happen to think that they are beating a dead horse with the foil system they have, but the effort is noteworthy none the less.

For speed under sail the big ocean multi's seem to be king. No mono-hull boats (even those with powered ballast systems) are in the hunt. Any new design that might beat them will probably turn up first in 500M and Mile speed attempts ... that is why these records have some interest for me and why the boardsailers don't, the concept just won't scale up to anything I think is useful.

R

 

Dead Horse

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Whats your reasoning, Randy?

 

I think that one of the keys that makes the Moths work so well is that the design minimizes the load on the surface piercing foil. The foils "fly" banked into the wind and that is very much like the vectored lift from a sailboard's (kite or otherwise) planing lift.

As I understand surface piercing foils the idea is to have a self regulating "flying height" through reduced foil area in the water. This tends to ventilate the foil at the TE, just as a surface piercing rudder vents and stalls when the load is high.

If I were doodling I'd forget trying to fly at low speeds, I'd look at the area needed to fly at 55-60 knots with moderate lift (high L/D) and see what the take-off speed would be with that area adjusted for high lift. So you might have a "normal" boat into the high 30's - low 40's and only "fly" above that speed. If fixed foils would prevent the boat from getting to take-off speed they would have to be retracted until needed. On a Tri that might be getting to 40 on one hull, lowering the foil from the windward hull then gybing to fly on the foil?

Structure of the surface piercing strut and the mechanism might make the whole thing too heavy ... I have no idea. If the whole thing could get to 2 x wind speed before going to foils it should sail faster than 2 x wind speed once it was flying? This would be a 40 knot boat in 20 and a 60 knot boat in 30 making the whole deal much more "practical" in that 20-30 knots and relatively flat water has got to be easier to find than 40+ knots with flat water?

For a passage racer, you would use the same system and might have higher average speeds in 20-25 knots and not have to go looking for a gale to ride for 24 hours or more. In truly ugly conditions you go back down to the "normal" ocean racing tri configuration.

Just letting my mind wander.

I still am not convinced that lifting foils of any kind have much of a future at much larger than Moth size, just as I don't see 40 foot racing kite powered planing skiffs or big scows with 5 guys trapezing off a wildly canted giant boardsail.

I think these things work pretty damn well when the pilot/ballast is more than 50% of the total. However, when the intelligent ballast/suspension system is removed they become less likely to be successful.

Disclaimer: These are only my opinions. I do not claim to know more than those that are out sailing fast and I don't have a favourite program to defend. So save the flames for someone that cares.

R

 

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Seems to me that Hydroptere has pretty good control over ventilation-have you found something different?
I agree with your comment about the Moth though for more reasons than that it unloads the mainfoil with "Veal Heel"-one of the biggest reasons is Veal Heel can provide a 20% or so increase in RM "for free" with no increase in weight.
And I think it is completely possible to design and build a 60' Moth: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sa...acing-monofoiler-design-discussion-15143.html that would have many of the advantages of small bifoilers including the 26' Mirabaud.
See, no flames, none at all. And thanks for your answer....

 

The no flames please was not meant for you Doug.

For a quick proof of concept. Build a RC boat that foils. Decent rate servos can be had for $15. Limit the moving ballast to less than 50% of the total weight. Use one channel to trim the ballast side to side and put a gyro in the loop on the roll axis. Use another channel for active pitch control with a gyro on that axis. Once you had it flying and healed to weather the gyros would stabilize it and you could try to sail it.

Keep reducing the ballast weight until it is reasonable for a 60 foot boat and I'll bet that you can no longer sail the boat on foils.

I'll also wager that an RC kite board would not work either even with $200 MSM gyros to stabilize it. The point being that it is the human and the intelligent ballast that makes these things work.

A Moth has a Smart Ballast to Weight Ratio of 75kg Smart Ballast to 25kg Boat. For an all up weight of 100kg and a D/L of about 57:1

Scale this up to 60 feet: 13,000 kg sailing weight with 9750 kg as Smart Ballast (tm) Smart ballast comes in 75kg units so your 60 foot mono-foiler needs 130 Smart Ballast units to sail it.

Yes, in theory you can (and have) done a sketch of such a boat that could work. What you have not done is figured out a way to get 4.5 tons of ballast to move around the boat like a moth skipper can. Much less shown how a 60 foot boat that needs 4.5 tons of ballast can be built to weigh 1.5 tons.

You just cannot ignore the unique ballast systems that make little boats work when scaling them up.

R

 

But RM is a lot more effective as you scale something up(and a lot less effective as you scale down). It would work Randy. And I've done a microMOTH foiler that was a screeching bat out of hell-at least as fast as the F3 before it crashed spectacularly.
I think one thing that might be added to a 60' Moth-sort of like your earlier suggestion- would be retractable "power foils"(with integral electronic or mechanical wand) : the relatively small foil-about 25% of mainfoil area or less- would extend from the windward side of the "wing" deck pods and would hold the boat angled to weather like in this very rough illustration(below). This would allow the boat to carry more SA than covered by the movable ballast(above X pressure) making it fast in light or heavy air.

(click on image and again on resulting image for greatest detail)

 

I'm going to reply to this in the foiler thread.

 

The record kite powered speed run at Luderitz, Namibia, back in October by Rob Douglas has been officially ratified by the WSSRC as the new Outright World Sailing Speed Record.

This link will take you to a very well-done video piece that focuses on American, Rob Douglas. Douglas' recent record kite run is the theme of this clip and it takes an all-too-brief look into his prep work, training, the run itself and the injury he sustained after clearing the last speed trap.

Needless to say, there are only a very few people on this planet who are capable of doing this and anyone who watches this vid, will see what it's all about.

WOW

http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/509633/new-world-speed-sailing-record-official

 

This year, October kite speed sailing will be split focus with a closed event at Luderitz and a Rob Douglas sponsered event at his home turf. See the link below for more details on the strange turn of events

http://nasailor.com/2011/09/28/world-speed-sailing-record-holder-barred-from-trying-again/

 

I've always said: "If you want to go over the water at more than 30 kts, get an airplane."