Thanks for the links Wouter, that was some excellent sailing! I thought wind surfers held the outright sailing speed record at about 49 knots, but that wind surfer didn't look too fast. I guess there wasn't enough wind for him?

Wind surfers need their own special conditions to excel. The ones encountered at this event were not theirs.

It was however perfect conditions for the ORMA 60's.

Wouter

Yeah even the kite guys looked slow. What was the wind speed, and what do the kites like for optimum speed? To me it looked like about 15kts?

Yeah Tim, I`d say no more than 15-18knots looking at the size of sail and kite being used, but for those multi`s to average over 30 in light wind is amazing.
I`m curious as to why the windsurfer wasn`t on a Formula board with 10-12sqm sail area, would have been faster than the slalom board in those conditions..
As we speak the records are being taken apart in Walvis Bay, Namibia. Not the outright 500m record yet, but the nautical mile records are falling.
The speedsailing circus is there until 23 November, could be we see a new world record, maybe even the big 5-0 ??

http://www.50-knots.com/index.php?o...ask=view&id=66&Itemid=42

From the first post :
"Minimum wind strenght necessary to take off...12 knots
Maximum speed...45 knots"

I`m sure that when the windsurfers break 50 knots, Hydroptere`s web-site will claim "maximum speed ... 48 knots"
They can`t be seen to be lagging behind too much. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Since we are discussing record breaking again and the board and kite boys are at it again I figured that is was time to check up on Macquarie Innovation again.

Take a look here :

http://www.macquarie.com.au/speedsailing/updates.htm

Apparently the boat has been rebuild and is waiting proper conditions of sandy point Australia.

I guess the race is on once again.

Who will break 50 knots first. A board sailor or a sailboat sailor ?

May the best win.

Wouter

"Who will break 50 knots first. A board sailor or a sailboat sailor ?"
Hi Wouter, sadly I can not identify with that "thing" as being a sailboat. I do admire their efforts though, and believe they have the potential to get there (the 50 knot barrier).
Will be interesting to see who gets there first, and if all the interest in speedsailing will disappear when someone does.
I`m amazed that they say they only get up to max. speed some 300m into the course - if they want to average 50knots over 500m, you`d think they`d enter the course at max, speed ? This means that in order to average 50knots over the course, they`d have to be doing close to 60knots at the end of it.

It looks more like an ice boat on steroids, or three windsurfers tied together, which brings up another question; are foils allowed in this speed attempt?

And would it be faster as a foiler? The only difference between a 50 knot "sailboat" and an 80 knot iceboat is the drag from the wet water vs. the frozen water. So, if they could lift the hulls up out of the water to reduce the drag, maybe they could get closer to iceboat speeds with a smaller boat? Like that one man foiling tri in the earlier pictures.

Even with foils they will never get the drag down to that of blades running on ice and the choppy water will never be as smooth as ice...but it sure is fun to watch the development.

"It looks more like an ice boat on steroids, or three windsurfers tied together, which brings up another question; are foils allowed in this speed attempt?"
Hi Timbo,
Actually if you look at it, it looks a lot like a refined scaled-up windsurfer - it has all the same design characteristics : A flat-bottomed planing hull, the rig is displaced to weather of the craft similar to a windsurfer when sailing, and the crew weight is further to weather to counterbalance the forces of the rig on the planing hull.
On the subject of foiling, foils have always been allowed, I `ve read somewhere that they don`t work for the speeds in question due to cavitation, or the suction of air down the foils at these speeds. There was a Tornado on foils that attempted the record many years ago, but I don`t think it went much faster than a standard Tornado.
What I find interesting is that Macquarie Innvation is the only craft of it`s kind to be successful (or more precisely the Yellow Pages Team, now MI), I`ve seen many web-site claims such as sailrocket etc which claim that they have designed and built a craft capable of breaking records, it all works out on the computer model etc, but then you never hear from them again. There`s a new one out now, claiming it will do 100knots, well we will see if they disappear like the rest or prove their claims.
What really impresses me is the kitesurfing guys - I`ve stood on the shore and watched Olaf Marting sail at 38knots on very choppy water, it takes large nads to do that being hauled by a kite that is almost 30metres away from you.

They do not have the room for a run up at Sandy Point and must also come from out of the lee of a large sand dune. Despite being very light for its size, MI is no windsurfer and requires a fair run up to hit top speed.

I believe they are exiting their runs in excess of mid 50s. If they had more room, then 50s would not be a problem.

Go to the link :

http://www.macquarie.com.au/speedsailing/updates.htm

and look at this graph.



As you can see, the boat was still fully accellerating when it reach 46 knots of speed. Normally one expects ar levelling out of speed (reduced accelleration) when close to a top speed. This graph isn't showing that yet.

This plot indeed suggests that MI is capable of 50+ knots speeds with relative ease, apparantly the trick is to AVERAGE 50 knots of speed over a 500 mtr stretch.

Wouter