100km/h Sailboat Sets Speed Record 103
fustakrakich writes with news that a boat powered only by its sails has reached speeds of 100km/h for the first time. The team also claims to have reached 109km/h over a 500m course. The craft took the speed record back from kite surfers, who have somewhat smaller sails but a massive weight advantage over boats.
"Sailrocket 2 set the record last week, and the speed 54.08 knots (100.1 km/h) the craft achieved has been recognized by the World Sailing Speed Record Council as the new mark in Class B for vessels traversing a 500 meter course. The speed is higher than any other vessel recorded in the Council’s lists and is the only recorded speed over 100 km/h."
Gizmag has a more detailed article about Sailrocket 2's exploits, and says in an update that the craft achieved speeds of 121km/h today (65.37 knots).
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
no, but the laws of physics do allow the possibility of tacking in certain other directions faster than wind speed
Re: (Score:1)
I have no concept of speed in metric....
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nautical speed is measured in knots, worldwide.
1 knot = 1.1507794 mph = 1.852 km/h = 0.51444444 m/s
Re: (Score:3)
Just for reference, we were hauling close in a fresh breeze in my Mom's Kettenberg PCC on San Francisco Bay (thats going almost straight upwind into a gnarly breeze, for you landlubbers) at a stunning two or so knots, and the Old Salt at the tiller kept going on about how lightning fast the Antigua is. I didn't RTFA, but I reckon the hull on that boat is Carbon Composite, &c. ; 54 knots on water sounds pretty scary.
Re: (Score:2)
Your mom's sailboat has a basement?
Re: (Score:2)
Yours hasn't? It's indispensible for stability.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So, with that basic knowledge you should be able to approximate the speed.
Of course you will be further off the higher you go, but it gives you a general understanding.
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, I've studied physics, but I have no idea how many yards are in a mile.
Re: (Score:2)
Two possible replies: (1) you didn't study very much physics (since understanding and remembering units is kinda critical), or (2) try dividing 5280 by 3 . :-) :-)
And, yes, IAAP.
I suppose you could do better by deconstructing down to the ISO definition of the meter in terms of wavelengths of a certain hyperfine-split atomic emission, but since this is for sailors, who cares
Re: (Score:1)
I studied a lot of physics (indeed, I am physicist), but nobody in physics uses miles or yards. Yes, I've learned a lot of units. I can tell you how many joules an electron volt is. I can tell you how many pascals there are in a bar. Or how many fermis in a meter. And yes, understanding units in general is important, as is understanding the units actu
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
That's how many acres per chain and per sidereal year, pretty please ?
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm gonna get all pedantic on your ass. So apologies ahead of time.
>implying that chains are obscure
No, no they're not. They have been used in all English speaking countries ever since that guy Gunther came up with the system in 1620 ... all the way up to the middle of the 20'th century. If you ever found yourself in a land evidence vault in any city/town hall in any English speaking country, you'd find chains and links in all sorts of deeds predating the invention of steel tape.
With a little bit of adjustment, making a chain a decimal fraction of a nautical mile instead of 80 chains being a statute mile, the meter would have never stood a chance. A nautical mile is 92 chains and 6+1/4 links. If Gunther had made his chain 1/100'th of a nautical mile, we'd still be using it today instead of abandoning it in the 1940s for decimal feet and meters on steel tape.
And btw, 1 acre is 10 square chains. 1 statute square mile is 640 acres, since a mile is 80 chains.
1 mile = 80 chains
1 chain = 100 links
1 acre = 10 square chains
It's a nice self-consistent system that only needed a little bit of a tweak for it to be used on steel tape and other measurement technology. It was revolutionary when Gunther came up with it, since it suddenly made land surveying math standardized and *easier.*
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks, information bearing pedant !
Though I hoped someone would have catched the references to Vangelis' Albedo 0.39 and Pink Floyd's Another brick in the wall.
Re: (Score:2)
A chain is 16 and a half feet, BTW. I use chains as the basic unit on the farm, spacing trees, fencing pasture, &c. Just being arbitrary, but why not?
Re: (Score:2)
No, a chain is 4 rods.
A rod is 16.5 feet.
If you take a mile, in feet, and divide by 80, you get 66. This is the length of a Gunther's chain. If you further divide by 4, you get 16.5 feet, a rod.
If the chain in your hands is 16.5 feet, it will have 25 links.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
They already jacked up the record. Go to the site!
Re: (Score:3)
...can it go straight downwind faster than the wind?
Not downwind, but it can at various sideways angles to the wind (on the reach) where the sail acts as an airfoil.
Re: (Score:2)
All high speed sailboats such as skiffs avoid sailing directly downwind. They 'tack' downwind, first one way, then the other. (Technically a gybe, but what the heck).
Even on my relatively slow cat, dead downwind is not the way to go.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Then there's race kiters who routinely achieve a VMG better than wind speed going downwind, though not by as large a factor.
Re: (Score:2)
Is that VMG being compared to the windspeed at the surface or at the altitude of the kite?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. Just not for very long and it has to go across the wind for a bit first.
Re: (Score:2)
Downwind always means: your maximum speed is the speed of the wind. (Usually you make less)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That has nothing to do with on land or on water.
Sailing means: it uses a sail.
The links you show use a windmill, likely linked with a gear down to the wheels. You can do (and it is done) the same at sea.
Nice links though!
Re: (Score:1)
The boat has practically no resemblance to any other sailing vessel.
This might have something to do with the fact that it's a land vessel with wheels...
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah... but how many record breaking vehicles look anything like their normal versions? Boats, planes, cars, etc, there are always huge trade offs they have to make to get maximum speed.
Re: (Score:2)
Up until just recently these records had been set by windsurfers and kitesurfers using very mainstream looking gear.
In fact the linked gizmodo article even has a section on how accessible that equipment is. As an example: The second fastest time set by a windsurfer this week (which would've been an outright 500m world record
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The boat has practically no resemblance to any other sailing vessel. I'm mean yay!, you got the record and you took it back from kite surfers but your actual craft resembles a sail boat about as much as a kite surfers craft resembles a sail boat.
Well, it floats on water and has a hull (is a boat) and uses a raised structure to catch the wind (has a sail), so... it's a sailboat. A very light, one person sailboat.
Re:The actual boat (Score:4, Informative)
>The boat has practically no resemblance to any other sailing vessel.
No, it looks like a catamaran with different geometry and hydrofoils.
The base machine is a cat - two hulls and a sail.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
The base machine is a cat - two hulls and a sail.
What strange breed of cat do you have there? I have three cats, and every one of them has two hinds and a tail instead.
Re:The actual boat (Score:5, Informative)
I think the term you are looking for is "proa". [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's a lot more descriptive...
Thanks.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:1)
Looks more like a hydroplane than a hydrofoil. That's why the ride is so damn bumpy. Just designed such that it has to get up to speed before it gets up on the plane surfaces and skis on top of the water. If it was designed as a true hydrofoil with smaller winglets instead of pods and had more lift to get the hull clean out of the water they could likely cutdown on the bumpy chop and drag and even go faster yet.
There's even more interesting and spectacular footage of a crash in one of the related vi
Re:The actual boat (Score:4, Interesting)
>Looks more like a hydroplane than a hydrofoil.
After going to the website itself for the boat, the boat has one large foil 3/4 of the way toward the stern and the bow has a pod with a rudder. The pod on the stern is there only for low speed flotation as it is clearly completely out of the water at full speed in the video.
If you look at picture #5, you can see the foil.
http://www.sailrocket.com/node/298 [sailrocket.com]
If you go here: http://www.sailrocket.com/sites/default/files/VSR2-force-alignment.jpg [sailrocket.com]
You can see the foil is bent where a significant portion is parallel to the sail to help counteract the lifting force of the sail and sideways force of the wind itself.
--
BMO
Re:The actual boat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's just a sailing outrigger canoe with hydrofoils. It looks different, but it's not really that radical. You can actually buy hydrofoil trimarans for not much more than standard monohulls that also don't look exactly like regular sailboats.
NOT first to 100 km/hr (Score:2)
Let's have a look at the Council's list that is linked in TFA and TFS. 100 km/hr is 53.996 knots. What do we see?
2010 Kite-board Alexandre Caizergues FRA Luderitz, NAM 54.10 kts
2010 Kite-board Sebastien Cattalan FRA Luderitz, NAM 55.49 kts
2010 Kite-board Rob Douglas USA Luderitz, NAM 55.65 kts
3 kiters in 2010 certified as going faster than 100 km/hr. Sailrocket's achievement of a new outright record is awesome, it doesn't need to be embellished (or damaged)
Re: (Score:3)
I think the difference is that with a Kite-board, the sail isn't attached to the structure but rather flown as a kite and tethered to the floating device usually resembling a surfboard or a wake board. This uses an actual sail attached to an actual boat making it slightly different.
This is actually a record for the type of boat, one with the sails physically attached and pushing instead of pulling the vessel.
Re: (Score:3)
Sigh,
The rider is attached to the board making the kite tethered to the board. The important part here is how it is fixed means it requires more or less materials and the kite-board can be way less by design. This means less weight is being pulled through the water, less of a craft is in the water also meaning less resistance. It is e
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't say the article sumery, you said "whereas the other article goes for the simple and wrong strategy of conflating first Class B vessel to 100 km/hr with first in all classes to 100 km/hr." The other article which I correctly quoted from made a specific claim about a specific condition and was a specific resp
Re: (Score:1)
RC sailplanes regularly hits speed over 300 knots (400 MPH). That's pure wind power.
I'm sure some ice-rail has hit speeds well over 100 MPH.
Dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting fact — There's an 85% fatality rate [wikipedia.org] for the speed record for any boat. This sport is extremely dangerous.
The sailing speed record is 80% slower than the overall boat record, so the sailing record is a little safer. Nonetheless, one of the SailRocket crashes led to the pilot having a broken helmet [yachtpals.com].
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
After a crash like that he builds a faster boat and gets in it? I'm surprised the boat is big enough to fit his balls!
Interesting fact: The boat is travelling almost 3 times faster than the wind. This is due to the apparent wind, i.e. the wind generated by the boat's own motion through the air.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not really surprised, since unlike a lot of engine/rocket powered vehicles the driving force is external, not internal. I've been on a racing boat in gale force winds - not during a race mind you - and the forces pounding us were massive. I was more concerned then than doing 140 mph on the Autobahn in Germany, even though the few that were there from the racing crew said that during a race they'd have set even more sails and gone even faster. It's fine as long as you stay on the boat somehow but if you
Re: (Score:2)
So (Score:2)
How fast could it go in a category 5 hurricane?
Re: (Score:2)
0MPH? It'll have a broken mast ripped sails and capsized. Not to mention one couldn't control it, probably even reefing the sails to their most extreme reefing point wouldn't help. The maximum speed of a sailboat doesn't just increase with windspeed, it's a bit more complicated than that.
Re: (Score:2)
I kind of for that impression from the video and him repeating "this is very very fast" a few hundred times... Unless that was a code word for "bring new foul weather gear... Mine is fouled..."
Stabilized windsurfer ? (Score:2)
I wonder whether it would be possible to design an autonomous, computer-stabilized wind/kitesurfer. Free of human limitations this could go faster still.
The article is wrong (Score:3)
The speed record has "Hydropetre". Which has vrious records.
The question perhaps is if Hydropetre managed to hold the speed over 500m, but I would guessed so.
The point about Hydropetre is, it is a real sailing yacht where you can live on during your journeys. (Albeit, as a hydrofoil sailer, it is a bit gewÃhnungsbedürftig)
Re: (Score:2)
Nuff said (Score:1)
The speed in units most english speakers know (Score:2)
I know you think using only knots and km/h is cool and all, but given much of the english speaking world primarily still deals with mph for knowing speed you do everyone a disservice leaving it out.
The speed was 62.2 mph, which is damn impressive for a wind powered boat.
Re:The speed in units most english speakers know (Score:4, Informative)
>I know you think using only knot
There's a reason why nautical miles are used. They are roughly one minute of arc along a meridian. They are what you use when you are out on the ocean, because that's the only thing that truly makes sense when you've got a sphere divided up into degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Also
American here, I know the english system (both imperial and not) and metric system of measurments and navigational measurements (which are neither "english" nor "metric" but are SI anyway). Instead of being mad at people using terms you're not familiar with, how about you go look them up and educate yourself?
By the way, they broke 65 knots average speed. You do the math to figure out how fast that is.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
They are roughly one minute of arc along a meridian.
One minute arc of latitude, but the length of an minute arc of longitude varies depending on latitude.
They are what you use when you are out on the ocean, because that's the only thing that truly makes sense when you've got a sphere divided up into degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Any sensible map will be divided up using a square grid rather than variable minute arcs.
Thinking of the audience (Score:2)
There's a reason why nautical miles are used.
Yes there are.
Also to set up the rest of the post, the remainder of your sentence should have been "in the article summary" since that is what we are talking about.
They are roughly one minute of arc along a meridian.
That is not why knots are used in the article summary.
They are what you use when you are out on the ocean
Yes they are. How many Slashdot readers on out on the ocean as they are reading this? I would wager the answer is so close to none as to make no
Re: (Score:2)
>But they have no relevance to any of the readers.
Bullshit.
Not everyone is in a land-locked state, and when referring to marine events such as this, it only makes sense to use marine terms.
More than 50 percent live within an hour's drive of the coast.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html [noaa.gov]
--
BMO
Experience (Score:2)
Bullshit.
Double bullshit. I win.
Not everyone is in a land-locked state
BZZZZT! it's about EXPERIENCE.
More than 50 percent live within an hour's drive of the coast.
So what? I live within an hours drive of many large lakes and the mountains. I've not been on a boat or skiing in years.
But the real point is that very few people will have the EXPERIENCE to understand what 50 knots is or feels like. Is that like a train? A race car? Coasting down a hill on a bike? Most people KNOW from driving what a numb
Re: (Score:2)
>Just go up to any random person and tell them to guess how fast is 60 knots is compared to a car.
Around here, the answer would be "slightly faster" and they would be correct.
Stop being a twat.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=50+knots+mph [lmgtfy.com]
Bam. Couple seconds to type it into google, half a second for a reply. Done.
Re: (Score:2)
thank you for being reasonable. I often say in these kinds of threads that in todays world of instant calculation there's no reason to get upset of units being used when all it takes is 0.05 seconds of Google calculation to convert from one unit to another.
Re: (Score:1)
I know you think using only knots and km/h is cool and all, but given much of the english speaking world primarily still deals with mph
Most meaning UK, US and Canada? There is an entire world beyond your back-yard fence, a world that doesn't give a crap about the random numbers used to multiply ass-pulled units [wikipedia.org].
Shameless plug! (Score:1)
It is very cool and all but... (Score:2)
That is not sail boat.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or perhaps they are helping to make your next windmill more efficient, since their sponsor [vestas.com] is probably interested in some of the aspects of their work.
Although most of their recent work probably is more interesting for boat and propeller designers, since much of it was centered about not having the t-foil sword cavitate, to loose speed.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, are you complaining at those using the most green form of energy for a powered vehicle? Maybe you should think about where else the technology can be applied to. Also we would be nowhere without our culture, and sailing is a major part of that culture. All work and no play makes for a very dull, rebellious person.