Masters of Speed

The ground under the world sailing speed record is shaking! This record, currently held by the proa Yellow Pages Endeavor set in 1993, has been nearly surpassed by a windsurfer! I've been watching this group of windsurfers with amazement during the last year - they keep getting faster and faster.

The record held by Yellow Pages is a 46.52 knot average over a course of 500 meters (547 yards / 1640 ft). Mr Finian Maynard blazed a trail on a narrow canal in southern France averageing 46.24 knots during an event held there this week. He fell short of the world record by an astounding 0.28 knots - which breaks down to something like a 0.12 second difference by my calculation! These guys are using very custom boards, sails, and masts and are wearing heavy weight jackets to help them counteract the sail force on these boards - but I'll promise you their setups cost a lot less than Yellow Pages Endeavor. From the footage I've seen it appears to be extremely physical too. Check it out!

http://www.mastersofspeed.com

I saw that! 53.6 mph!

The sails are only a slightly different than the ones we can buy. A few pictures ("joining 45 knot club") look like they are using stock Naish sails. Maybe a little more than usual pretwist?

The booms are very different. They have a compression member and half wishbone on the windward side and nothing to leeward. I suspect their fins may be asymmetrical as well.

Earlier this year there was a record attempt at Fuertaventura. I think they Bjorn Dunkerbeck hit 44 knots on the ocean using slightly less exotic gear.

Check Video 3 here. The water looks hard.
http://www.hgs.at/wss/news/details.aspx?id=17#

I hope they post some video on masters of speed too.

-colin

I wonder what a beach cat could do on this same course, optimised for that speed reach? Beam winds and flat water make for some special moments on a beach cat. How about a Marstrom 20 with slimmed down foils, a high speed-reaching spinnaker and set up for three person trapezing?

I don't know that any of our current beachcats have the capability of getting anywhere near there because you must be on plane to achieve anything near these speeds. I don't think even our foil technology can sustain these speeds yet without cavitating (?). I have wondered what might happen if they have a small arm mounted foil or ski attached to the windsurfer masts to help counter the heeling moment. It could help them reduce the weight in the weight vest and carry more sail area (and would look strangely like a proa).

It almost feels like cheating to be sailing for the speed record in a narrow man-made canal because it eliminates dealing wth any sizeable (realistic) chop. Then again, it is a waterborn wind-powered craft going terribly fast...and that's cool.

So what is the top speed for beach cat? and which one holds the record?

500 meter records are a lot harder to reach, conditions have to be perfect. The boards rely on gale force winds, Yellow Pages went something like 3 times the wind speed.

Current records for 500 meters.
http://www.speedsailing.com/Background_records.htm

Don't confuse what they call an "A Class" with what we commonly call A class...here's 'Longshot' - the current A Class speed record holder (43.55knots) and the first sailboat to best 40 knots. It is also reportedly the predecesor to the Hobie tri-foiler. It makes you wonder how far away 50 knots is. We need some development!

I reckon HALF the record speed on a standard beach cat over 500m would be optimistic. Boards are designed to be "almost perfect" speed machines. The stronger the wind blows, the more the sailor pulls the rig down onto himself, creating lift on the board. Biggest problem these guys have is trying to keep the whole thing on the water at these speeds. Cats have the opposite problem : the stronger it blows, the more the leeward hull is depressed into the water, creating more drag. 3 big fat guys on the wire will only increase the downward force on the leeward hull.
Anyone who says he averaged "30 knots" on a cat over a 500m course was either on Playstation, on Hydrofoils, or on drugs.
Me, I heard the news, and rushed out to buy some windsurfing kit. After a 13 year lay-off from boardsailing, it was a blast. You CAN have the best of both worlds !
By the way, check out Dave White (son of Reg, Tornado Olympic sailor) - Fastest production board sailor on a F2 Sputnik. Go buy one, and go fast !

Steve

maybe then we need a canting rig and flatter hull bottoms?

Flatter, planing-type hulls were tried in the Richard Roque designs. I never can remember the name of the boat that was supposed to become a production class. There were one or two of them at Sailfest in Sanford, Florida one year. I think 16-foot. And he also designed one for Randy Smyth one year for the Worrell (or World?) 1000. I can't remember right now and don't have time to look back through my files. But maybe somebody on this forum will remember those boats and why they did not achieve the promised performance. I know they seemed to work well in some conditions but poorly in others.

Also, I wonder what happened to Roque. We haven't heard from him in years. Anybody know?

I know that a co-production, rip-off, copy or similar development was the Hurricane 500 (16 foot) maybe this was the name you were looking for. I thank there was also a Hurricane 600 or something the big brother.

We haven't heard much since these boat from than onwards

Although I do know one design who was quite pleased with the performance of such a planing hull and incorporate several idea's of it in a new 16 footer which is available and growing in numbers at this time.

Wouter

Nope, that's not it.

Hi Mary,
The Roque boat that Randy sailed in the Worrell was bought by a sailor who lived on Key Biscayne. Miami YC Tornado and P19 sailors have told me that they saw the boat out on the bay occasionally a few years ago. These sailors would drag race the Roque boat and had no trouble pulling away from it. Evidently the owner was learning to sail. The boat has not been seen for a couple of years now.
Bill

Hi Jake,
Sailboards went from a speed of 28 knots to 40+ knots when the sailing course moved from a real body of water to the swimming pool in France. Now, you tell me what is responsible for the largest improvement in sailboard speed.
The next step is to build some sailing models and test them in a wind tunnel and then scale these model speeds up to full size and claim a world record.
Sailboards and foil boats sometimes sail in the distance races that I sail in and they always finish hours behind. Real world water slows these boats down very much. They can fly on the swimming pool but on Biscayne Bay they don't go so fast.
Good Sailing,
Bill

Agreed...hence a flat bottom planing catamaran would probably only be practical to use in the manmade ditch in France.

With all due respect Bill…while I agree with you that sailing in a ditch has brought the numbers up to where they now are…it is still easily with in reach of an accomplished windsurfer to hit 35-40 mph with high quality stock “off the shelf windsurfing gear”. As far as real world water goes, cooking along at 35-40 mph in 3 foot chop on a 7’-10” X 20” (bump and jump type board/sail, not race board/sail) basically in the air more than in the water is pretty common sight. Ask Keith Notary…he was building some of the best boards for those conditions.

I use to do it all the time (still can). Sustained winds of 30 mph +. Come up to Herman’s bay just South of the St. Lucie Nuclear power plant on those strong west winds from the cold fronts, and you will see sailors all over the place going 35+ in wicked chop. On rare occasion conditions get to the point where a 2.5 sq/mt. sail was too big to hold on to. That is a small sail…you need 20 mph wind just to keep the board from sinking under your feet…forget about planning till nearly 30 mph wind speed. . Even on modern wave gear (which is designed around maneuverability rather than all out speed) we are probably getting in the low to mid thirties on the ocean…how else do you think we get 20’+ plus in the air launching off a five foot wave face?

In the early 90’s windsurfing was making some quantum leaps in performance…the board plan shapes and rocker lines were obsessed over with countless prototypes, hand ground fins with exhaustive foil research, new stiffer carbon booms that helped retain the sail shape from changing (kept out haul constant), new carbon fiber masts which zeroed out quicker to keep the sail designers shape over a wider wind range…steps toward using mono film and scrim/Mylar sail material that held its shape better. Ever ounce of board weight, mast weight, boom weight, sail weight, even the mast extensions, mast foot and foot straps were paired down to minimum. The interaction between components was finally beginning to make sense. Rigs became more and more controllable; the back winded face plants became rarer and rarer.

The speeds achieved by modern sailboards is due to a host of factors well beyond the sailing of a few in a ditch in France…

Bob

I agree, many of the speeds over 37 knots were set outsite the ditch.

The 38.86 Pascal Maka record was set at Canaries Island and many speeds over 40 knots were set in the ovean with very strong offshore winds (Bjorn Dunkerberk., Olivier Auger)

Also, I remember in 1990 that there was a race between a windsurfer Pascal Maka recordholter at that time and the 60' racing trimaran "Haute Normandie" over a nautical mille course (approx. 1850 meter). The windsurfer had the advantage on a downwind reach, the Trimaran had the advantage on an upwind beat and speed was equal on a beam reach. The speeds recorded were at 28knots but the race was setup in open waters but in fairly strong wind (30knots+)

As far as the speed of a beach catamaran, it would be interesting to see a bigger cat with a smaller rig in strong winds.

I am certain that a big cat like a 20fotter with a small rig could go very fast in protected waters. I have a video of a Tornado event where they setup a course and the fastest time recorded was 27mph. I am certain that they would have gone faster with a smaller rig because they were overpowered.

I thought I read in several places on the internet which give the history of the Tornado that they have recorded speeds of 33 knots with the Tornado Sport. That’s a far cry from 27 mph…which is it?

Bob

The highest speed I have known the Tornado to go was at CORK '75.
A 40kn storm hit, when the the fleet got to the reaching leg.
The peak of the storm must have hit, when the leaders got to
the jibe mark. At this mark a couple boats broke their side stays,
one of them was Reg White who released the other stays, so as not
to damage the boat from the mast.
Notary was there on "Salt Water Wine", Zutec on "Twister" & Smyth.
Anyway a Canadian destroyer radared the fleet at 28kn average.
That's 33mph average, at that speed the hulls were no longer in
the water it went like a skipping stone from crest to crest in a 9'(3m) chop.
It was amazing the Tornado could skip the crests, and soar over the troughs.
It was sheer madness, with some poet license here, it seemed like
we zoomed over 5 crests in ten seconds, and the wind would
calm down to 2 or 3 crests in 10 seconds a la bucking bronco,
and then accelerate again.
I will never forget the thrill, not to mention wondering will
the wind ever slow up. I recall a Tornado to windward of us,
and counting it cartwheeling/rotating about it's mast 3 1/2 times, and
the crew later righted the boat unassisted, no air tight masts then.
Anyway, I would call it somewhere between sailing/flying & oh ____.
So with a broader wave/wind angle, and a huge offshore swell with
a kite to keep the bows up, 33kn seems possible in the Carribean or Oz.

Great wind & waves,
Chris

With all of the devices employed to increase boat speed there is nothing quite so effective as a "poetic license".

All the best

Gareth

I think one of the first poster said it best :

Windsurf record rely on gale force winds for their records. (1 to smaller then 1 times the windspeed)

Yellow Page achieved its record by doing 3 times the windspeed.


First is brute force with huge refinements in control.

Second is elegant with huge refinements in efficiency.

Both records are equally important and interesting. Especially interesting is to see how close both approaches are in their final result.

Wouter

It finally came to me. I think the name of the Roque 16-footer(or maybe 18?) that raced at Sailfest was Planecat.
* * * * *
By the way, another planing cat that Randy sailed in the Worrell 1000 was a Holder design. Didn't sail it very long, though, because the mast broke right after the start of the first leg. He replaced the mast with a Supercat tall-rig mast, and then the beam broke right after he started off again. That was a beautiful boat, and I am wondering if that is the one that somebody said is still sailing in the Miami area.

The Roque boat that Randy sailed in one of the Worrells looked like it was upside down on the beach and as though somebody had mounted the mast on the bottom instead of the top. As I recall, he won the race with that boat, but it was not a comfortable ride. Also -- and, again, this is distant recall, because it was more than 15 years ago -- I think that boat capsized on the first or second leg of the race and he and crew were not able to right it until they finally drifted almost to shore and were in shallow enough water to stand up.

The reason those planing-hull boats were designed for the Worrell 1000 is because it had traditionally been primarily a downwind race, which would be more favorable to a planing hull.

I wish more attempts would be made to develop a catamaran that planes. I think one of the problems has been the difficulty of making such a boat both light enough and strong enough with a flatter profile. (That probably explains Roque's upside-down-boat design.)

I have always had this weird theory that a Shark catamaran could plane if the boat could be made light enough. But same problem -- fat hulls need more interior reinforcement and probably stronger crossbeams, all of which adds too much weight.

In the ideal world, if you had two cats of identical size, with identical sail area and identical weight, which would be faster, the displacement cat or the planing cat? It is a question that has nagged me for many years.

On a Windsurfer the canting rig is a major factor in performance, but not because it lifts the board out of the water. If you look at the pictures of the boards sailing the speed course the rig is nearly vertical.

The canting rig allows the force vectors of the sail and the fin to be aligned in the horizontal plane. Since the vectors are aligned there is no yawing moment and only one wing (a fin) is required in the water. That fin can operate at the minimum lift coefficient to balance the force in the sail. Since the fin is operating at the minimum lift coefficient its induced drag is minimized. More importantly, the additional wetted surface of a second wing is eliminated.

Reduced wetted surface is the real key to the windsurfer’s remarkable speed. As speed increases the induced drag on the planing surface becomes nearly constant since it is a function of the weight it must support. The induced drag of the fin becomes nearly constant (slowly decreases) since the required lift depends on the available righting moment. It is the reduction of wetted surface area that allows the board to keep accelerating. The viscous drag, which increases at nearly the square of the speed through the water, actually begins to drop above a certain speed as the wetted surface is reduced.

The design of a windsurfer allows the center of gravity to be kept behind the center of lift of the planing surface as the rider moves back on the board. This allows the board to maintain pitch stability with a very small wetted length. The smooth water surface allows the boards to maintain their most efficient trim angle (typically 3-4 degrees) for minimum planing induced drag while still keeping more of the bottom of the board clear of the chop (less wetted surface than in rough water).

Most of the other technology that goes into the speed boards revolves around maintaining control. The rigs have very effective gust response just like the production sailboard rigs but are set up stiffer. For added stability of the rig center of effort the booms are stiffened with a compression member on the upwind side. The rails are more parallel and the tail rocker is flat to reduce foot steering sensitivity. The nose is very short to minimize wind induced pitching moment that makes the nose “blow up” in high wind. Not many people can sail a board at 50 miles per hour, and if these folks lose control they might break more than equipment.

Windsurfers are fast in real world conditions as well as on a speed course. Competent sailors can reach at over 30 knots on open water. Formula windsurfers can approach twice the true wind speed.



A am not sure that windsurfers are the brute force approach to raising the speed record and Yellow Pages is elegant efficiency. Look at the available righting moment of Yellow Pages compared to that of the windsurfers. I would say the opposite is the case. The triscaphs exemplify BRUTE force. Her successor is even more extreme (and pretty): http://www.macquarie.com.au/speedsailing/gallery.htm

I would never trade my cat for a sailboard. I would never trade my sailboards for a cat either. That is like Sophie’s Choice.

-colin

http://www.windjet.co.uk/water/competitors.php

Yea, but who would want to go to france anyhow?

Good discussion though

I was surprised nobody mentioned the wind-jet (not to be confused with windjet) - a French production planing catamaran: http://wind-jet.com/uk/technologie.html

I think the 16 foot planing catamaran folks keep mentioning was called a Hardcore 16.

To plane efficiently a catamaran's hulls must have a lower load coefficient than displacement hulled cats have. Since load coefficient is proportional to 1/beam^3 it pays to make the hulls wider. Narrow hulls have higher induced drag when planing.

-colin

That's it!! Hardcore!

Hi, regarding the wind-jet: Having watched the videos on the website, it doesn't seem to be travelling that fast considering it's planing. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could take it on a broad reach . Does anyone have any experience racing one of these things downwind? Maybe with a wider beam and more sail and an asymmetric chute . . .
Al

oops, meant to change my associated picture rather than post an attachment.