Sailing Faster than the Wind

Brian wrote:
Those monohull guys are really discovering the fun and challenge of sailing faster than the wind: (wasn't it multihulls that started this trend? )
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via scuttlebutt:
FRESH ASSAULT ON RACE RECORD
Roy Disney and his Pyewacket crew have returned to Newport with a new MAXz 86 footer built not so much break, but smash the record for the 630 mile Newport/Bermuda Race beyond the reach of the traditional racing yacht. Two years ago, Disney's previous Pyewacket set the present record of 53 hours 39mins 22secs. Now, he and his crew have high expectations of knocking at least 15 hours off that time.

The only problem for Disney is that there are two other crews with equally high expectations. Hasso Plattner's German entry Morning Glory is identical to Disney's rocket ship, while Rich and Doug DeVos have the same Reichel Pugh designed 86 footer Windquest which relies on water ballast tanks for her stability instead of the complex swing keels that the other boats employ. Previous racing form gives little indication of who might win. When the three first raced together in the Caribbean over the winter, the Pyewacket crew led to the first windward mark on each occasion, but then lost their way further down the course. "I didn't know there were so many ways to lose a yacht race," Disney jokes. "It wasn't until I hit my head and had to stay ashore for the last day that we got our act together."

The Pyewacket crew have been in Newport this past week preparing and
practicing for what Disney forecasts will be 'a great race'. On Wednesday, I joined the crew for a day of sail testing on Rhode Island Sound and witnessed first hand the extraordinary speed potential of these boats. Sailing in just 3.5 knots of true wind, we were slipping effortlessly through the water at almost 3 times that speed. "There are not many times when we can't sail faster than the wind," Disney enthuses. "If we get 15 knots winds, we will be doing 20 knots easily." Dee Smith, the skipper of Pyewacket's rival, Morning Glory is just as confident. "These boats can cover 500 miles in a day on delivery, so we should be able to do this race in a day and a half!" - Barry Pickthall. Event website:
http://www.bermudarace.com

 

Heh heh... Yup! But we mono guys can get upright again after being knocked down

 

Revolution

Nothing short of a revolution in monohulls! I think
a maxZ86 doing three times windspeed is big news; even consistently going over windspeed is terrific...Won't be too long before we see canting keel mono's sailing on two retractable hydrofoils(at least the main foil) at "multihull" speeds but with 100% self righting -(if the keel stays on).....Fantastic era of sailing development we've found ourselves in!

 

Fantastic Era of Sailing Development

I agree. But watch out and don't let the handicap racing guys stifle these new developments as happened in the late 60's, early 70's and more recently in an Admiral's Cup dispute over a certain mast development.

When I saw Bruce King's twin daggerboard arrangement in early SORC get 'rated' out of the game (and future development), I jumped over to multihulls as that was were free design thought abounded.

 

You have forgotten one brand new 36 footer, FULL PELT X.
Under IRC the z86 Maxis rate 1.648 and Mari Cha whilst not having an IRC certificate is thought to rate about the same.
So imagine a mono hull with an IRC rating of 1.704 !!!
The yacht is off the Richter scale.
FULL PELT is 36ft long and weighs in at 1600kg and 800kg of that is the keel bulb which cants 55 degrees(110 total). The hull is made of wet lay carbon/nomex, and she has a Proctor carbon rig.
She has better displacement length ratio than a 49'er.
FULL PELT will becompeting in the Round the Island Race at the end of June; apparently this beast does meet the stability requirements!
The true objective of the designer Jo Richards is that FULL PELT will plane upwind

 

Planning Upwind

Now I think that is really wishfull thinking for a ballasted vessel to 'plane upwind' . Multihulls don't even do this.

 

"Ballasted"?

Brian, a 49er is "ballasted" and planes upwind and so does my old "ballasted" Windmill. Oh, you mean ballast in the keel? But the keel ballast moves out as far as the crew on the trapeze-why shouldn't it plane upwind? The only possible thing holding it back would be the drag of the bulb and I don't think that's enough to stop planing..I bet she will plane upwind!

 

Brian - I have been there and done that in an Open60, waterballasted, about 14 years ago. The guy at the helm that day was Dan Neri of (then) Shore Sails, while I forget his exact quote it was along the lines of "Now THAT was a rush..."

Steve

 

Hey Brian,
Multihulls dont plane upwind cause their hulls arent designed to plane. but if you look at Yves Parlier new cat, I think that planes upwind, maybe, but the normal multihulls don't plane down wind either whereas mono's do

 

Knocking 15 hrs off the record seems very optomistic to me. Thats about 28 % faster than the record speed. It would also place them in the area of the absolute record of 38-35-53 set by the 125' catamaran Playstation and they were able to pick their time to go.

 

pyewacket and playstation

At last year's Heineken Regatta in St. Martin/Marteen Pyewacket sailed around the island in 2 and a half hours. She is awesome. Incidentally, the only boat to do it faster was Playstation, who set the record (still standing) at the same event the year before, in two hours. A thirty minute difference between a multi and a mono on such a course is unreal. 30 minutes!?

Both are incredible to watch - but i'd still give the catnip to Pyewacket...

 

Pyewacket got beaten again by Morning Glory by 5 hours

 

Planing upwind

Parlier's cat finished theTransat with an average speed near 8 kts. = not planing.

 

Parlier was also taking it easy, that was his first major trial offshore & he was by himself. He also broke some parts on his boat during the Transat. The boat is new, they are still testing it. Whats the average speed got to do with anything, he could have been going 20 knots for like 1 hr, but then the rest of the time he could have been going around about 10 knots, this would mean that he would have a lower average speed. Average speeds cannot be used to tell accurately whether a boat is planing or not. The accurate way is to have the actual hull speed of the boat & if it passes its hull speed this means that it is planing.

 

"At around 27 knots it starts to plane, but we hope it will be more like 18-23 knots when we have modified the T-foils," he says. (quote from Parlier's team).

In tests Parleir's boat has acheived 36.6 knots in 18-21 knots of wind. That is 1.8 times wind speed. That is planing!

This is a downwind (true wind) boat, the Transat is not a good race to show its true potential and was used to test the boats durability not show its performance. He was quoted before the race as saying he would be happy just to finish.

As an aside at these types of speeds (1.5 x wind speed) the apparent wind means the boat is always sailing upwind, even sailing downwind (true wind), the fast moths actually tack "downwind".

Gareth