That was pretty cool. With some more development maybe they can figure out how to make it go upwind. Did you notice how high the bows were? No chance of pitch-polling with all that upward pull from the kite I guess! And there were 4 guys on board, but it looked like it had plenty of freeboard. Question, did they have daggerboards? And if they did, were they as deep as a "normal" cat board would be? Do they even need to be that deep, or there at all? I know Kiteboards do have little fins on the bottom, don't they? But nothing as deep as say a windsurfing board. So, does the Kite Cat need deep boards, shallow boards or no boards at all? And why are there 4 guys on it?? Looks like the extra two are just there to keep it from lifting up in the air! Imagine how fast it would have been if they had left those other two on the beach?
Now, let's put that kite on that cat with the foils and see what happens!! This could revolutionize the way we sail cats! And just think of all the kites you could buy for the cost of a carbon mast and 3 sails, not to mention the hour of setup time you would save when you got to the beach, just unroll the kite, hook it to the beam, off you go! Of course you would need quite a bit of wind, take a look at the whitecaps in the background! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />
Two drawbacks I see right away: 1. no hull flying and 2. no trapeezing, both of which I love and I'm not ready to give up, yet...Perhaps if there were a way to mount a short, stubby mast, say 10 feet tall, with trap lines and all the kite controls attached to it, we could have our trapeeze, and the kite too! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Last edited by Timbo; 08/22/07 02:43 PM.