2005... will this be the one?

Paul Larsen updates us with the latest from his SailRocket speedsailing campaign

When the last big surge for speed was on back in the late 1980s early 1990s I doubt that those involved would have thought that the title of 'first to 50' would remain unclaimed in 2005.

A lot has occured in the past few months in the world of speedsailing. The inevitable happened and the sailboards reclaimed the title of being the outright fastest. It was only a matter of time until they beat the times laid down by Yellow Pages but the question was always would they be able to do it before the hurdle was raised. Nice work to all the team with the deserved title, 'Masters of speed'.

The interesting thing about the runs is some of the numbers that were recorded by GPS. Finian Maynard (click here to read our interview with him) hit a top speed of 49.3 knots and maintained averages over 100s of meters over 48 knots! This hints at what we can expect if, and this is always a relative 'if' in this game, they can get the right conditions. It is still a quantum leap to 50 knots but then they know this more than anyone. I have no doubt that they have the skills, determination and support... but do they have the craft? What do they have left in their armoury which will give them a significant performance jump?

Their are rumours that they are developing more rigid solid sails but I would suspect that a) they are in fact semi-rigid and b) in need of a lot of development in order to fulfil the requirements of a sailboarder right on the edge of stability and control. So far Finian Maynard is well ahead of the others and he has shown that size matters. At 115kg we were under no illusions as to who it is coming down the course in that wind-cheating lycra body suit... it certainly wasn't Cathy Freeman! It clearly demonstrated that a sailboard still needs a lot of weight in order to generate power. Of course big balls of solid brass are also good when doing over 50mph on an ironing board down a narrow trench in a gale. If he works out a way to move them more outboard we'd all be in trouble. Seriously though, well done.

Only a couple of days after this I got a flurry of text messages from various sources saying that Macquarie Innovations had crashed and burned... no one seriously injured. Two sources say that the craft slewed to windward and hit the shore before capsizing but the best description comes from the horses mouth and can be found in Seahorse magazine (or indeed on your favourite website - here).

Simon Mckeon, helmsman on Macquarie Innovations, tells the real story where the boat went into an uncontrollable bear away where the boat would not respond to steering input. He knew in an instant that this meant they had taken on an odour and were heading for the fan. (The craft rides on a fore and aft planing surface with the rig somewhere in between. This means that in order to go straight the side load generated by the rig must be balanced by the foils on the fore and aft planing surfaces. If you lose grip on the front foils... you bear away and vica versa. Obviously something went wrong up front). This bear away continued all the way into a gybe and happened with such force that the two crew were ejected from the crew pod. It was all over in a couple of seconds and the boat was totally written off. The guys were obviously going for it and up until this incident were full of enthusiasm. They only expected Finian to hold his record for one day!!! Bloody great stuff, getupit fellas.

Now I'm not going to sit here and fake compassion towards this incident... mainly because no one was injured. The fact is that this is the nature of the game. We are all trying to push the envelope in a totally open field. This pushes everyone from all aspects of the project to the limits of their collective abilities. We are all in a race to be The Fastest and right now everyone is focusing hard on being the first to 50 knots. The designer can't build a boat that can't be sailed and the sailor can't make a boat defy physics. Shortcomings on either side can lead to lengthy in-house debates (just add alcohol or lack of performance as catalyst). In fact there are three ingredients that you need in the equation for ultimate speed:

THE BOAT
- involving concept, design, structure, build, practicality/versatility. A clever design will be one that is practical to use in real conditions where the craft can live safely outside of the ideal i.e. transportable, launchable, towable, repairable etc.

THE SAILOR
- involving skill, knowledge, learning abilty, adaptability, balls, open mindedness, understanding, oh... and as Finian clearly demonstrated...dimensions (height, weight etc) also counts for alot. It is the human aspect which is the soft, fleshy and sometimes emotional link between 'The Boat' and 'The Physics'. The sailors job is to do their best to make the boat fit the equations.... or to use the lingo...to find the 'groove'.

PHYSICS
- it's the religion that explains everything but it must be understood. Something that can't be cheated...just balanced. Wishful thinking is no substitute. Follow it blindly and you may end up building something totally impractical and un-sailable. An academic understanding is best balanced with an experienced intuitive one.

When the competition breaks up or runs out of cash... well hey, that's part of the race as much as missing a shift or capsizing the boat may be in any other sailing event. They simply got one aspect wrong. Sure, we can sympathise but we do so in the knowledge that it may well be us sometime in the near future. The fact is that at the moment they are way ahead of us... or were. They are an extremely capable team but were bitten by what has shown itself to be a very highly strung craft. Perhaps it is the best thing that has happened to them as they can now start over and build a boat out of what they have learned which will be more controllable. I think that these guys will get their title back off the boards one day.

SAILROCKET IN 2005

Well, we sailed Sailrocket for the first time since SpeedWeek on 16 January in the new port tack configuration. This has taken a while as it has meant that we had to duplicate all the asymmetric aspects of the boat. Once again, a big thanks to Nick Barlow at DesignCraft for building the port tack foil. We hadn't sailed since SpeedWeek as our coffers had finally run dry and we had to join the real world and go and earn some money. Simple as that. On the other hand, the weather has been truly crap and we haven't missed that much anyway.

We have also managed to make a start down the path of designing and building the solid wingsail for Sailrocket.


Flow analysis courtesy of Antoine Derely, Southampton University who has studied many different wingsail configurations for possible use on SailRocket.

We aim to be sailing with this by SpeedWeek this year. More on this later.

A few detail changes have been added which have made the boat much better:
a) A forward brace has been added to the mast to prevent too much bend which leads to excessive twist of the sail and hence de-powering. Doyles have continued to improve the sail with the addition of two full length battens and a recut luff pocket.
b) Foot steering has replaced the tiller arrangement and freed  up the hands of the pilot to concentrate more on the sheeting. It is very simple and has allowed us to remove the tiller and quadrants and replace them with two simple foot stirrups linked directly to the rudder.
c) We finally solved the problem of sealing the centreboard compartment which now stays dry from the minute we launch instead of requiring us to pump it dry before each run and then rely on the Venturi effect to keep it that way. We were always carrying water down the course in previous runs. I know it sounds like a simple task but it is actually a very busy little part of the boat.

We have spent a lot of  days looking out at some cold miserable weather and laminating bits and pieces in a freezing, wind swept container only to have to bring them home to allow them to cure in front of a heater. The days are short and unmotivating. The forecast looked good for the 16th and we were keen to blow away the cobwebs. We weren't expecting a lot of wind but the direction looked good so we rallied the troops.

Now that we are on Port tack we can sail SailRocket straight off the boat ramp. While attempting this we got caught by our old nemesis which involves the clew catching in the water. (Because of the 30 degree inclination of the rig, as the boom swings more inboard, it arcs down and into the water. As it goes outboard as in a normal sailing situation it arcs up. It is arranged so that when it is fully sheeted in it is nearly touching the water so as to get some sort of end plate effect like a sailboard.) Once this happens, the boat begins making leeway which forces the clew into the water more which effectively sheets it on more making more leeway and so on. It all gets very messy and hard to control without a fixed point to anchor the boat to to prevent the leeway. The end effect was the boat trying to blow over backwards whilst a bunch of us struggled for footing on the greasy slipway (never a more appropriate name). The rig backed hard against the beam and we broke the carbon/Nomex rear flap which helps to lift the outboard pod and rig out of the water at speed. Nice start.

We removed the flap in minutes and suceeded in getting away cleanly the next time. With only around 14 knots of wind, the water was very 'clean' and flat. The boat picked up surprisingly well and got on the plane suggesting that the rig was working more efficiently with the additional stiffening and work carried out by Doyles. There was obviously more weight on the outboard float with the flap missing. All in all we did six runs with surprisingly close speeds. On the last three runs we hit 26.9, 27.1 and 27.3 knots respectively. Pretty good considering that the highest windspeed recorded by the sailing coaches out on Portland Harbour was 16 knots and that the outboard float was in constant contact due to the lack of the flap.



The RIB gets left behind, a lot of float contact, less sail twist but still too much.




The new port-tack tillerless cockpit. A very expensive box of TRIMBLE GPS and logging equipment sits behind the seat.

We were much quicker than the sail and kiteboarders sharing the course. The foot steering worked a treat and seemed very natural. The leech is still twisting quite a bit but we know we can resolve that with more tension. All in all it was a good day. The boat is constantly improving. One thing is for sure, the RIB generously loaned to us by the RYA is not fast enough to keep up. It is a fantastic towing platform as we don't need anything big but it just can't accelerate as fast as SailRocket. By the end of the last run I had to wait for nearly a minute for the RIB to catch up. This is frustrating for the design/support team who are trying to be the eyes off the boat and pick up subtle details missed by the sailor. So we need to start looking for a RIB about the same size with at least a 70hp outboard on the back.

That night we repaired the flap and fitted a new aft planing surface just to see what will happen. The following day was a bit too windy and we were understaffed... not a good combination. The cloudbase was low and the wind unsteady hitting 30 knots at times. It was expected to build. The direction, however, was perfect. I felt nervous, uncomfortable and knew I was looking for an excuse. These are usually all the cues that tell me to go for it. In the end I decided not to more for reasons of practicality than bravado.

Launching could be a destructive process when short handed and the RIB would be well off the pace in today's conditions meaning no filming or valuable observation. The conditions were also 20% more than those she was designed for and hence the water was a lot rougher. I will go out in these conditions one day just out of interest but will do so when more things are in our favour.

The near future

Well it's a case of making hay while the sun shines for me at the moment. I am about to head off to Qatar to take part in the Oryx Cup on board one of the Maxi-cats for a non-stop blast around the world against three other beasts for a cool million dollars prize money. These races come up only so often and seeing how this is how I earn money... well, it's just too good to miss. I hate being distracted from this project but then hey, we all gotta eat. Two good things for SailRocket, a) I get to check out the speed sailing courses in Qatar which look pretty damned awesome for future use and b) If we pull this off then myself and the project will be able to afford to go ahead full steam throughout 2005. Meanwhile the design of the solid wingsail can keep moving forward and hopefully be ready for build by the time I get back in April. So it's all go, go, go.

Happy days ahead.
Cheers, Paul.