Fastest Sailboat on the Planet!

Who said that only kiters & windsurfers can use the trench. How much would you like to bet on that. If you call up the organizers & offer to pay for a dirt moving machine, I will bet that they would let you dig it deeper & wider next year. Go find you a Hobie trifoiler, put some really advanced foils on it, replace the soft rigs with wings & have a go. With the available wind speeds, you could go with very small, very high aspect ratio, super efficient, one piece asymmetric wings with enough structural strength to not need guy wires. Maybe even move the center pod to the upwind side (replacing one ama) since it will be a one tack rig.

Even if the Kiters were reluctant, I am betting that the actual owners / controllers of the location would be glad to accept you offer of financial compensation for the use.

When you get into bigger craft, that specific location might not work so well. Up at Walvis Bay (where Sailrocket ran), is a location where you might be able to do some trenching. I do not see bigger craft needing the extra wind of the Luderitz location. If the Macquarie Innovation team wanted to figure out how to take their show on the road, The South West coast of Africa probably has something where they could set up. They talked about the thought of making a trench a few years back when their location seemed to be in a lull for giving them the wind they were looking for.

Remember that Longshot went over to the "French Trench" to get some records.

When you get into something really big, absolute flat is just not needed. Running off of a coast, beach, strip of land or something is really about all you need.

As far as building a berm or fence specifically as a wind block, that sounds not so cool. On the other hand, if someone makes a 57 knot run alongside of a man made jetty or off a coast that has 6' cliff, they would get the same benefit with no special effort on their part. Where would you draw the line?

 

Gentlemen,

"Cattelan reached 60.67 knots on his 9m Genetrix kite at second lagoon with an average speed of 53.37 on the GPS track, with the wind doing a strong, steady 40 knots."

There was no chop-killer mounted in the lagoon at the time."

FOOTNOTE: http://www.surfertoday.com/kiteboar...es-to-beat-lhydroptere-in-the-luderitz-speed-


If the boards didnt float then the WSSRC commissioner who is on site would disqualify the run....its a rule!

And the fence was removed after the 2009 event!!!

Bunch of old hens!!!!!! Cluck cluck cluck

 

Sounds like your team of cheats is getting defensive, Blue.

 

Gary-

No chop killer....no ditch.....no fence.....53kts!!!!

"The best defence is a good offence"

Blue Leader

PS - Longshot registered and then pulled a now show in Luderitz 2010

 

This is all quite funny, the use of the trench is a convenient way to be able to run an event over a few days while giving lots of competitors a chance to brake records. Even if you ban the trench and fences etc kites would still (or in the very near future) have a record close to what it is now, a guy who lives down the road from me hit over 44kts (GPS) in the local spot, it is a relatively easy way to have a go at breaking a record. Your could look at it this way, if there were more options in GPS units that could be used to ratify speeds kites would have had the record along time ago and it would have been much higher, in fact Sailrocket and some of the other challengers like them may have got their hands on it along the way as well. The big tri has a massive advantage of being able to ratify GPS runs, the kites have a similarly big advantage with their trench.

 

I notice no one even remotely touched on answering this question so maybe I should rephrase that

so the question was a two parter

are the conditions the same and is a board a boat ( bearing in mind that the commission apparently decided they qualify ) ( would be interesting to discuss if a board is a boat but I'll save that one for later )

the "boats" run on open water with currents, waves, the occasional rogue waves, junk in the water, and nothing whatsoever protecting the "boat" from the wind, to mention just a few of the typical conditions they face.

the "boards" run in a ditch without currents, waves, the occasional rogue waves, without junk in the water and with a sand berm protecting the riders from the cross wind.

how about if we look at the definition of "Conditions". It seems pretty obvious to most when speaking about the "conditions" on the water that they aren't talking about the fact that its water itself, but instead what the water is doing. For instance big waves, little waves, rain, snow, wind, weather, currents, things that constitute the conditions of the water. It seems a pretty good stretch to suggest that they are not referring to things like currents which might significantly alter the outcome of a timed event over a given distance.

from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/condition

So it seems that the kiters want to interpret "conditions" as meaning water, rather than the more typical interpretation of what the water, weather, currents, tides, wind, waves, things that are typically considered conditions are doing. The stipulation that the boats run on water is made previously in the rules and then there is this paragraph about similar conditions. Is the commission just being redundant or are they detailing that the conditions on the water must be similar in order for times to be valid in given distance classes.

seems pretty obvious that the conditions of the ditch and the conditions out on open water are so completely different as to fail to represent "similar conditions" as stipulated in the rules, but given Hydropter was going for the one mile distance and the kiters for the 500 meter class it doesn't mater. Each is the fastest in there class. with the ultimate speed in any class going to the kiters.

Whats interesting to me at least is the fact that this whole issue is based on some pretty poorly written rules. Did the kiters cheat? Or did they create a new class. Its a pretty sticky question cause the rules are so poorly written but they certainly changed the game based on some extremely loose interpretations of the rules

so the question is
whats next
running an artificial current in the ditch to reduce the drag on the boards kinda like the bicycle speed record behind the pilot car
or maybe an indoor ditch with a wind tunnel

at what point are the "conditions so dissimilar that it becomes cheating is the real question.

anyway
point is moot because the ruling body has already made its decision

 

Precisely and a point that was obvious from the beginning of this breakway discussion. You guys are, of course, free to chew on this forever, but it doesn't change a thing and in the end, all you are doing is trying to push a rope up a hill.

Now, if you had enough lobbying cash, professional influence and pure juice in the industry, you may be able to lobby hard enough and long enough to have the rules changed to your particular bent. Since I don't see anyone here with that kind of gravitas, the discussion is essentially over.

The proverbial clanking around of the deck chairs thing come to boatdesign.net

 

you might take a look at Hydropters best time before doing a little to much clucking yourself

61+ knots and I'm pretty sure that was almost 2 years ago before they rebuilt her ( with a few improvements )

 

so the question is
how did they come to that conclusion
I find the whole discussion pretty interesting regardless of its predetermined outcome.

if they wrote an explanation I've not found it yet but from a purely logical point of view the boards should have a class of there own and I think thats what the beef is all about. The conditions they run in are simply not similar. So why is the sailing commission not specifying a kite classification?

 

They do. Just like they have a separate clssification for L'Hydroptere. But you guys have not gone there in this extended thing that has gone on. You have simply been confining your comments to the Outright Record aspect of the whole thing. Wander around the WSSRC site and you'll find the classification divisions.

 

How much would you like to bet that the ditch is at angle to the true wind that a higher L/D rig cannot use?

As the vessels get more efficient, the true wind angle of maximum drive changes. A ditch dug at the right angle for a 2x wind speed vessel would make kite records impossible in that ditch.

The ditch is cut at the right angle for kites:

"Cattelan reached 60.67 knots on his 9m Genetrix kite at second lagoon with an average speed of 53.37 on the GPS track, with the wind doing a strong, steady 40 knots."

This is 53.37/40 or 1.33 times wind speed. His peak speed of 60.67 is 1.51 times wind speed.

Maximum speed is at the greatest AWA, since it is at maximum AWA that the largest drive vector exists.

For Speed = 53.37 in 40 true the angle is 139 degrees off the wind.
For Speed = 60.67 in 40 true the angle is 131 degrees off the wind.
For Speed = 65.00 in 40 true the angle is 130 degrees off the wind.
For Speed = 70.00 in 40 true the angle is 125 degrees off the wind.
For Speed = 80.00 in 40 true the angle is 120 degrees off the wind.

For Speed = 125.00 in 40 True the angle is 109 degrees off the wind.

A 140 degree trench limits the speed to about 1.3 times wind speed. To sail faster you must sail at a closer angle. If anyone sails faster than 1.3 times wind speed in a 140 degree trench, they would be faster yet at a better angle.

To have "comparable conditions" each vessel must be able to sail her best angles, this precludes the idea of a trench. It requires open water.

The trench only works for vessels that sail at that angle. Less efficient vessels need deeper angles and more wind to hit the same speed. More efficient vessels need less wind but a higher angle to reach the same speed. A narrow trench both dictates and limits the speeds in that trench since the course is set by the angle of the trench to the wind.

This is simple geometry folks. The trench only works for one vessel.

 

I'll have to go look it up again but if I remember the records for the outright speed mark ( and yes we're discussing outright speed ) are determined by the length of course and not by what type of vessel runs the course.

cheers
B

ps
really good job on the course restrictions RHough
states the case against the trench being optional for all pretty darn well

 

Care do back that claim up?

The full quote (from 2009):

We know that the chop killer was not implemented for 2010. But the trench:

From North American Speed Sailing Project

 

I agree that the kites would still have the record even without the trench. I also feel that more/better GPS options are needed. It is not fair that the GPS carrying vessels can "pick their best 500M" and claim a record. Nor is it fair that the kiters don't get to sail in a straight line to get a time.

The start of the run should be the same for all and 500M straight line at what ever angle the vessel sails best at is the end. Either small onboard recorders or shore side telemetry should be used.

As it stands now the kites are limited to the wind angle of the trench and shore-side video timing. Bigger vessels have the luxury of no fixed start point and freedom of sailing angle.

 

you know honest is a big part of these conversations and if you guys want to defend your records you might want to rely on honest interpretations of the facts.

not sure how saying you weren't kiting in a ditch helps your case, or how suggesting that something called a chop killer was not installed or working at the time when it certainly looks like it was and you were, is helping you much in front of the readers.

one of the issues sailers are having with the kites is what looks like a dishonest interpretation of the rules.

so getting caught out in a public forum in what looks like a dishonest statement is hardly conducive to furthering your claims

RHough
please include reference locations with your quotes so we can independently verify these statements

for instance

from http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/mu...-70-1-mph-peak-speed-15612-34.html#post420217

that way folks can click on a link and make sure everything is being taken in context

cheers
B