from sailing anarchy
Translated via our forums: The Hydroptère has reached a speed of 61 knots spectacular peak this morning during his first run. Wind conditions were very tough, 35-38 knots of wind gusts and established more than 45. The water was not as flat as day prédédent, making navigation difficult and dangerous. The burst, which led to this extraordinary speed, unfortunately entaîné the capsizing of the Hydroptère.
"The gale was very violent, the Hydroptère was full accéléraltion to more than 61 knots when it crashed and then capsized," says Alain Thébault briefly while organizing towing the boat with his teammates. All are doing with minor injuries. The trimaran will be towed to Fos on Wednesday, as soon as conditions permit. Join the thread. Photo Gilles Martin-Raget / Hydroptere.
12/21/08
That would not have been a fun ride to capsize that bigger boat at that speed.
Hope the got it on filum
It's only when these things are upside down that we get a good look at the underside secrets. Look at the angle of the foils. Just one foil at the right angle to support lateral and gravitational forces simultaneously. I'd bet they were flying the windward foil when they hit 61 knots.
How did they measure that speed? Was it for a fraction of a second or longer? Where is reference to their 500m speed?
Extraordinary claims that demand a bit more substance to verify them.
If the wording is that it was an attempt on the record, then I wonder why it is worded "would have been a record". Perhaps they lost the orange used to record the current 
wow! amazing no one got seriously injured. The water would be pretty cold as well.
some video here but doesn't show the capsize (only boat upside down). The pilot is talking some french, would be good to know what he is saying (probably something like "fark... cavitation" or "fark... sheet out"
). Any french speakers out there?
www.hydroptere.com/galerie-videos-hydroptere.html#centre
Apparently, the french navy is using sonar and special buoys to work out the 'current' component!
Watching the video, there's something magical about such a large craft pushing those speeds.
Don't know why there's no footage of the "catapult" though.
BTW - he said "oui jaime pel fromage murde le smash" (of course I don't speak a word of french either)
we have a French guy in our office at the moment and I showed him the clip. Essentially the guy is talking a lot of technical jargon which my mate had no idea what it was about. Bottom line though, the guy says they smashed 100kmh and then something made the boat flip over and they aren't sure what it was yet.
It seems that they just didn't go very far at high speed as there is no suggestion that they might have actually broken a record from the team. All the references are about big acceleration and then it broke and crashed.
It also seems unlikely from this photo (and the lack of serious injuries and catastrophic damage) that the actual final flip was at high speed. It seems here to be either almost stationary or gradually sinking mast first.
Sounds likely that either cavitation or breakage caused it to suddenly drop into the water and dramatically slow before rolling over. No evidence of obvious breakage on the upside down photos apart from pieces of the mast so it points to loss of control and lift through possible cavitation. All this is pure speculation on my part but it seems to fit the facts as we know them so far.
That is completely nuts!!
We are living in truly exciting times.There are people really pushing the limits like no other time in history.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Anders Bringdal was on board at the time of the crash. Apparantly he has been helping with sail tuning.
Here is what he said ..
"On Sunday we had something quite extreme. We launched the boat in proper conditions with 35 knots of wind and during the run, the wind rose strongly ... We were around 55 knots when the big increase arrived, the boat then apparently accelerated violently to 61 knots!
During that gust, the boat began to insert the nose and, because of the strength to listen, we have failed to react fairly quickly. A force hitting the water, the boat was almost arrested on net and capsized 3 seconds later ... We all have bruises everywhere but everyone is fine, except the mast of the Hydrofoil which did not resist!
Personally, I have never experienced a similar planing and I am sure that this boat is capable of making a run of 500 meters at more than 55 or 60 knots! This is only a matter of settings in the crew because the forces, effort and precision that the high speed application, no one had lived until now ...
The thing that makes me sad is that the record of "missed speedloop" costs much more than a full run rake in windsurfing!
For me, this is a crazy experience and is a true honor to be able to sail with such great sailors! And even today I still can not believe that we have managed to sail more than 112 km/h on water! That is a totally crasy! "
Source: Anders Bringdal and Google from french to english
