Speed Dream 27 Prototype

Sd 27

Thanks, David! Did he say when he's coming to Florida? Any news on the MX Next?

 

It sounded it like they are planning to stay in Maine for at least part of the summer.

Nothing on MX Next. It wasn't mentioned by either of us.

 

Is there any indication of how fast this thing is?

 

To quote J.R.R. Tolkien who was writing about an encounter with trolls, "Lots and none at all".

--
CutOnce

 

I can't find anything much but a little video. To be honest it don't look THAT fast in the vid.

 

At least from the info available it's too early to tell if the 27 is a success or not. Appears that they just did some early testing in light air before Maine winter set in. There was talk of them going to Florida for the winter but if they did nothing has been posted. Maine should be starting to warm up, maybe they'll get going again.
From the early videos I saw I thought the 27 appeared tender.
Time will tell

 

It was carrying a big spread.

2c

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YchFS5OGTMY

It looks reasonably lame compared to an 18ft skiff, nice to see it sailing though.

 

S27

Looks pretty damn good to me-what's this comparison with an 18' skiff??
Terrible sound on that clip. I'm not sure what to make of the keel-in and out...

 

I too am disappointed in virtually no updates on this.

Yeah I doubt it is meant to beat an 18 foot skiff? You cant scale an 18 foot skiff to the size of what the full size version of this is supposed to be. Shouldn't this be compared to ULDBs like lead keeled sportboats rather than skiffs? I think to really prove the concept the crew should sit in the middle and only use a heavier keel as support because crew weight will do almost nothing on the proposed full size version.

 

Sd 27

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Dennis, aside from the sound, what did you think of the video?

 

Looks like conditions were near perfect. Just one reef in the main. But they still struggled to get an amazing speed. I'm sure it would be blown away by a regular beach cat. Not sure what this means for a full size version though? Seems like keel boats get much faster as size goes up when compared to small cats.

Keeping the keel in the air looks difficult.

 

Sd 27

How about compared to a 27' monohull?

 

It certainly looks faster than any 27' mono that comes to my mind. In that respect I think its a good thing. Overall I think its a great innovation, but lets not forget the claims of the full size version being able to beat the multihulls. What that means for this version compared to multihulls I am not sure? But I believe it will get hosed. But as I mentioned, that does not automatically mean a larger version will not be competitive against multis because I don't think the speed of this design scales well in smaller sizes. But I could be wrong about that too.

 

What I don't understand with this design is what is considered the ideal angle of heel? If you have the keel out as seems to be desired the mast and rig is in an inefficient position as it's heeled well to leeward maybe it needs a canting rig for better performance? Just interested not attacking the concept.