High-Speed Sailing

Vessel Name: Sailien
Vessel Make/Model: Experimental/custom
Recent Blog Posts
28 September 2013

The America’s Cup

I watched, with interest, the videos of the 34th America’s Cup. At last we have fast sailboats engaged in a competition that is fun to watch. The virtual images (such as course boundaries, distance grid lines, separation between boats, etc.) overlaid on the real images really helps to keep the race [...]

31 August 2013

100 Knots for Hydroptere?

The latest news from Hydroptere is that they have plans for a 100 knot sailboat. This was posted on 26 Aug 2013, so look for that date at this address. http://hydroptere.com/en/the-news/last-news/

17 November 2012

Aptly named Sailrocket, blasts off!

While yet to be ratified, Sailrocket posted an average speed over 500 meters of 59 knots. I will not be surprised if they increase their record into the 60 knot range during this record attempt.

02 January 2012

More drag for VSR2?

I want to start by pointing out that the whole VSR2 team has done a stellar job and has demonstrated conclusively that the forces that drive a sailboat can be aligned for roll stability without using ballast and without using any down-force. (Trifoiler achieved roll stability by using down-force, but [...]

18 December 2011

My analysis of Sailrocket

I copied a diagram of VSR2 (wing doesn’t show well) and added in the major force arrows that apply. Be aware that these arrows are not correct in terms of scale (length) and some of their locations are guesses, however I believe I’m correct enough for us to learn something about what VSR2 has been [...]

23 October 2011

60 is within reach, what’s next?

I have been watching Sailrocket’s progress with great interest and there’s no question they have a winner. I fully expect to see them reach 60kt in the near future. Sailrocket has now demonstrated what I first learned with my models and again with my full-sized prototypes, that if you get the forces [...]

50 Falls

04 October 2008
On 3 Oct. "The Daily Sail" posted that 50 knots has been broken by kiteboarder Sebastien Cattelan. The record run is listed as 50.26 knots in 45 knots of wind. I do not know if this is official yet, but congratulations to Sebastien Cattelan.

This is great! The mighty 50 knot barrier has fallen and we're free to progress to even faster sailing. Now I know that some of you might think "But it's just going to get increasingly difficult to go faster, look how hard it's been to get this far." Fair enough, but our real barriers are with our own considerations of what is possible. To go faster we don't really need to make heroic efforts to find more wind, nor do we need to be super athletes like the windsurfers and kiteboarders (I admire you guys and gals for your talent and ability).

Real sailing speed will result from a better understanding of the basics of sailing. "Solving" problems isn't really the way to success; UNDERSTANDING the problem is the key. If you understand the real problem, you essentially have the solution.

In the arena of high-speed sailing what are the real problems? The number one problem is stability (as I've said from the start). I'm talking about stability in terms of pitch, roll and yaw (see my post "Pitch, Roll and Yaw" 14 Jun. 08 for a discussion of this). Out of the current (active) contenders, who has stability solved (understood)? - No one that I've been discussing. The windsurfers solve stability by balance alone (skill) they adjust their weight, board and sail position to achieve that balance and essentially have the most unstable sailboat in the water. The kiteboarders are next but have a bit more stability because of the position of the kite and its control. A kiteboarder can lose balance, "hang on the kite", sideslip and recover. Macquarie Innovation, Wotrocket and Hydroptere have limits in their roll control because they are using weight for roll control. Wotrocket additionally appears to have a pitch control problem. Sailrocket actually has the best set-up so far and they appear to have pitch and roll well under control, but they are still working on yaw control. We'll see how well their new set-up handles yaw.

On another note the WSSRC has posted the true wind speed for the last kiteboard record they posted, and the new record shows 45 knots true wind speed (per the Daily Sail post). I hope that posting the true wind speed becomes a standard feature of speed sailing records.

Bob
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