Kiteboat Looking to Set New Sailboat Speed Record

[BlueBell]

This was my idea, but on steroids.

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Newsletter 2 - Widening our community - 10.12.2019

YACHT RACING FORUM

Thanks to our partner MaxComm, the team was pleased to introduce SP80 at the Yacht Racing Forum 2019, held in Bilbao on the 25th and 26th of November. This event, known as the leading annual conference for the business of sailing and yacht racing, was a great place for two of our co-founders Mayeul and Benoît to meet sailing industry professionals and to share their ideas. Naval architects and sailors showed interest and curiosity about this ground breaking project led by young dynamic entrepreneurs.

SP80's collaboration with EPFL

Information Days

As a MAKE project at EPFL, SP80 took part in the Information Days held to introduce the school to future generations of students. High school students were able to talk with SP80 team members about concrete projects held at EPFL by students.

Who knows, some of them might join us for the quest later on!

Alumni 50th event

SP80 attended the Alumni 50th day, which was held as part of the EPFL 50 years anniversary celebrations. The team was able to present the project to numerous former students, young engineers and experienced entrepreneurs. These meetings are part of the team's will to collaborate with alumni, who can become mentors and advice students thanks to their enriching professional experience.

Students projects

About the technical part, students keep working on their projects in many fields: aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, mechanics, numerical simulations… Experimental set-ups and tests were conducted and lots of results were obtained. The team has started the production of a half sized model of the boat in order to test all the mechanisms designed so far. Academic projects are ending in January and the subjects of next semester projects are being discussed within the team.

We are recruiting!

A recruitement meeting has been held at EPFL in early December. It will allow to expand the team with new motivated students who want to take part in the project, and to prepare the next academic semester.

Investor Day

The team was pleased to be present at the first edition of EPFL Investor Day, which was held as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the school. This event aims at showcasting startups developed at EPFL and at creating a social network between the startups and external investors. SP80 members were able to meet and present the project to invited investors.

REGUS Ilife City Etoy's inauguration

SP80 was invited to show the model and share about innovation with swiss corporate leaders and startups at the inauguration of the Business Center REGUS iLife City.

And what's next?

Our community is widening, media are showing a growing interest, results are promising and new students show an increasing motivation for this unique challenge.

Next technical goals:

Finalisation of reseach projects, construction of the prototype and implementation of the developped technologies are ongoing.

Events:

With academic projects ending for this semester, involved students will highlight their research results at the occasion of a Tech-talk next January.

Partnerships:

The team is still looking for new partners to involve in this adventure as financial and technical supports. All relevant expertise and knowledges are also welcome. Join us to contribute to the success of our project!



The team wishes you happy end of year holidays!

 

[jehardiman]

This was all developed in the 1970's. I will be disappointed if you don't break 100 knots...

 

[JosephT]

Glad to see a new design. Is there a video of this sailing speed record? It appears they unseated Paul Larsen's record. Job well done. What I wouldn't give to be strapped into a fast boat like this. I tell you what, if we see more fast sailing craft like this I can see a whole new venue of sail racing coming on. Imagine teams of sailors racing against each other over the water. Move over America's Cup.

 

[JosephT]

Ok reading up further on the new concept it appears they hope to set a new record by the year 2022. Wishing them all the best. Hopefully they settle down onto a design that flies with good stability and has and can safely land in the water. Once that happens, we might be seeing production boats & kits becoming available for the public to buy. Flight training a must in my opinion.

"Their goal? To break the world sailing speed record in 2022 and bring it back to Europe."

Ref: SP80: the Swiss challenge to smash the current world sailing speed record in 2022 https://www.sail-world.com/news/224219/Swiss-engineers-to-design-the-fastest-sailboat

 

[BlueBell]

More.
Faster.

 

[Will Gilmore]

It can be done. What I'd like to see is an ocean crossing with a kite.

My thought are to put the kite on the top of a mast so it can be brought in and trimmed like a sail or paid out to be the kite. With a direct attachment to the mast, it could behave like a wing and actually lift the boat with much more force than with a long cable at an acute angle. Although, there is a lot more wind higher up.

I would love to see the polars on their design. How will it perform on all points of sail?

With a long enough set of cables, maybe it could be able to sail directly up wind too. Just scully the kite back and forth across the TW?

 

[BlueBell]

Just scully the kite back and forth across the TW.

Do you mean figure eighting?

 

[Will Gilmore]

Do you mean figure eighting?

Maybe. I'm not a kite flyer, but I think you should be able to angle the kite to sail, like a close hauled Marconi rig, and fly out such that it pulls with a net force directly against the wind.

I'm having a hard time picturing it with a string, but it works on sailboats. This would just allow the sail to tack back and forth while the boat remained steady on a windward course.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Doug Halsey]

Maybe. I'm not a kite flyer, but I think you should be able to angle the kite to sail, like a close hauled Marconi rig, and fly out such that it pulls with a net force directly against the wind.

I'm having a hard time picturing it with a string, but it works on sailboats. This would just allow the sail to tack back and forth while the boat remained steady on a windward course.

-Will (Dragonfly)

But you need the foil to be on the opposite side of the hull from the kite to keep it stable. If you tack the sail without the foil, you'll lose the advantage of the kite.

 

[Will Gilmore]

But you need the foil to be on the opposite side of the hull from the kite to keep it stable. If you tack the sail without the foil, you'll lose the advantage of the kite.

The foil is the lateral resistance normally provided by the keel. This dynamic in sailing is what allows the boat to extract the energy from the wind. While I'm not a kite flyer, I have flown kites. It is possible to fly a kite against the wind to some extent and get it to race upwind to one side or the other of your standing position. I don't know at what angle it must stall, but a typical sailboat can do better than 45% into the wind.

If enough momentum can be generated to get a kite to cross from one tack to the other, does the boat have to change tack or could it remain on a steady course into the wind while the kite swings back and forth? I don't know how close to the wind a kite can fly, but the performance cats and foil boats go faster than the wind with apparent wind ahead of the beam.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Doug Halsey]

...If enough momentum can be generated to get a kite to cross from one tack to the other, does the boat have to change tack or could it remain on a steady course into the wind while the kite swings back and forth? ...

I think the answer is that you could probably get away with this in a lot of existing boats, but you would lose the efficiency & steadiness that come from having the aero & hydro forces better aligned. So it probably wouldn't be a good idea if you're trying to set any speed records.

 

[Squidly-Diddly]

what are the rules for how long it must maintain speed or what length of course?

because maybe you cheat and use powerful winch to get extra force from the 'chute for limited time.

 

[BrendanfromNZ]

As a kite surfer and boater, I find it interesting some of the concepts around kite powered boats.

Hook in to a 12 meter kite on a 20 knot day and you'll soon get an appreciation for the forces involved

Great upwind performance and lots of gains to be made in foil and Keel design,

Like sailing its impossible to go directly upwind, every transition through from side to side pulls you back downwind.

Its the launch, wind range and landing of large kites that will limit their use in real applications

No doubt they will smash the record, I imagine a rigid composite wing (kite) to keep it in shape at really high speed

And a hull designed to reduce side slip, like a adjustable vertical foil (keel) and maximize the apparent wind angle (not sure what you call this, I'm not a sailor)

You need to factor in the lift from a kite, and the wind range for each kite.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Like sailing its impossible to go directly upwind

At what angle to the wind can you achieve and how hard is it to tack across the wind?

 

[BrendanfromNZ]

Never measured but I guess 20 deg for me riding standard board, but the foilers get another 10deg more or so.