Sailrocket (VSR2) posted (http://sailrocket.com/node/663) a 500 meter speed of 65.45 knots about a week ago, setting once again the outright world record just shy of 10 knots higher than her competitors, forever extending speed sailing into an entirely new realm of understanding, of complexity, and of risk. The team led by Paul Larsen will forever go down in the history books for an unprecedented and truly pivotal achievement in the art and science of nautical development.
November 30, 2012
Wow! 65.45 knots by VSR2
November 16, 2012
Congratulations Paul and VSR2!
It’s been a long time coming, but it was no doubt worth the wait. Congratulations to Paul and the VSR2 team in achieving a phenomenal 500 m average speed of some 59+ knots. http://sailrocket.com/node/631
May 14, 2012
A quick update
I’ve been working on and off toward a comparison program for evaluating three high speed sailboat configurations: aeroballast-type like Radboat, “force-aligned” type like Vestas Sailrocket 2, and pod-type like Macquarie Innovation. I hesitate to post the results just yet, as I haven’t torture tested the data nor consulted all the literature.
As always, I continue to follow the incredible progress made by the kiteboarders, VSR2, Hydroptere, and Banque Populaire V. I wish them all the best in their common quest to expand the speed sailing envelope.
April 11, 2011
The original video of the pivot assembly motion.
July 22, 2010
Performance analysis
On another note I have been working on the performance analysis of the Radboat sail design in an attempt to determine optimum balance and wind conditions for maximum speed. Hopefully have some stuff to post about that soon.
July 19, 2010
New website
My apologies if anyone has visited the site recently only to find that it has been taken down. My last hosting plan expired before I had a chance to upload all of the old content here at Blogger. It will still take me a couple more days for the domain to fully redirect where it needs to go, if it all works as intended.
Update: Seems to all work as planned. Still working to get all the old content uploaded.
February 5, 2010
America’s Cup
For any of you following the lead up to the American’s Cup Deed of Gift (DoG) match race to be held in early February, you’re probably familiar with BMW Oracle’s entry into the match as the Challenger of Record, a boat some are calling DoGzilla. Below is a picture of the boat from yachtpals.com showing a recent modification. They have added streamlined fairings to the structural crossmembers connecting the three hulls. This goes along with what I wrote in an earlier post about reducing parasitic drag as a key to increasing speed.
Credit: Yachtpals
Some updates: here’s another image of BMW Oracle’s boat from a better angle for viewing the streamlined fairings. You can even see the hole in the fairing for the helmsman to stand.
Credit: BMW Oracle
Come to find out, Alinghi has similarly streamlined their structural crossmembers, as shown below.
Credit: America’s Cup
January 15, 2010
Large Multihulls
Not any real news to report, so why not share a great link from Yachtpals that does a great job compiling information about some of the coolest and most advanced multihulls, some of which are described on my Exotic Sailboats page. It even has a great video. Here you go. http://yachtpals.com/monster-multihulls-9004.
January 15, 2010
The Amazing Work of Hanno Smits
Just after I posted the multihull link I remembered intending to show you a hydrofoil sailboat prototype incorporating one of the same principles as Radboat, namely something similar to what I call aeroballast. I ran across this link about Hanno Smits on Monday of this week. Oddly enough in all the research I performed leading up to my patent application, I never was able to retrieve any information about him and his work. But better late than never, as I now greatly admire his work. The “Hydrofoil ideas” link on the left sidebar will take you to the pictures below. I’m in the process of writing him an email to discuss our very similar ideas.
Credit: Hanno Smits
Credit: Hanno Smits
October 28, 2009
Patent Update
At the request of a great friend to whom I owe my sailing knowledge and skill, and who calls me ALL CAPS, I’ve made a PDF version of the patent and shared it here. I plan to follow this up with a bit of condensed and clarified explanation. For those that have read, written, or otherwise worked on patents, you’ll appreciate the condensed explanations.
RSS feed: http://radboat.com/rss
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