an extract from the WSSRC site (www.sailspeedrecords.com/content/view/88/3):
"
The WSSR Council announces an addition to WSSR Rule 3 The Course
Insert new paragraph 3:
"Record claims will not be ratified when, in the opinion of the WSSR Commissioner, the minimum water depth over the whole course is below 50 cms"
This rule to take immediate effect.
John Reed
Secretary to the WSSR Council
Explanatory notes on the WSSR Newsletter No 155..
There has been much debate about the attempting of sailing records in very shallow water. The controversy has only recently come to light because up until now the need for skegs on windsurfers made water depth self-limiting. However the high speeds being claimed by kite surfers has circumvented this as although they need to "edge" their boards somewhat to generate lift, at 50 knots and at deep wind angles, the edge doesn't run very deep. There was a real concern that unless some sensible ruling was brought in, a world record claim using water only as a lubricant was a possibility. For example, creating a record course by covering a large car park with a plastic sheet and then wetting it to a few mm depth. There was a general feeling that this stretched the aim of breaking records on "water" too far.
"
This is absurd.
The speed strip next to the channel at Sandy Point is 50cm or less for much of the time it's covered by water. So you can kiss goodbye to that.
Wouldn't be surprised if the Canal at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer in France was <50cm in depth ALL OF THE TIME.
Does this mean that the records held by windsurfers are now invalid?
I.e. how on earth do you prove, long after the fact, that Antoine Albeau's and Finian Maynard's records were done in water that was >50cm depth FOR THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE COURSE?
This ruling is for a course specification that would require (at a place like Sandy Point which is tide-affected and relatively shallow) that a detailed survey (to probably millimeter accuracy) be made of the entire course prior any runs being taken. And that only when the tide level is above a certain watermark.
Dunno about you lot, but I reckon getting decent wind, and from the right direction, AND only on a high tide is going to be pretty hard to nail.
If someone does break the record again, this is a rule that can be SO easily challenged by their competitor's to prevent them from being officially recognised as the new record-holder.
Come to think of it, the only way you can guarantee you meet these specifications is to do almost exactly what this rule supposedly prevents; i.e. you find yourself a 500+ metre long carpark, cover it with plastic sheeting and fill it to 50.1cm depth with water.
Like I said, this is an absolutely absurd rule.
And I guess someone had better tell the French to give their Canal a top-up.
Sounds like this is just something to prevent the kiters from blowing everyone else away - this year was shaping up to be the one they would do it in. Heck, they only just missed doing it last year by a bee's todger.
Select to expand quoteThe Waterboy said...
Come to think of it, the only way you can guarantee you meet these specifications is to do almost exactly what this rule supposedly prevents; i.e. you find yourself a 500+ metre long carpark, cover it with plastic sheeting and fill it to 50.1cm depth with water.
Or you must use a minimum 50cm fin
I think that this will be the death knell of the WSSRC. (About time too). They seem to be reluctant to accept progress in hand held GPS measurements of speed and then introduce a totally knee jerk reaction rule that relies on the OPINION of a commissioner to disqualify kitesurfers. In the process they have disqualified just about every other contender especially windsurfers. The WSSRC will fade into obscurity or bankruptcy faced with massive legal challenges of how the Commissioner formed his opinion that water depth was a minimum of 50cm over the entire course. Unless the water is significantly deeper than 50cm (open sea) then an opinion as to depth can not be formed unless the depth is reliably measured over the entire course and shown to be over 50cm. and the tide better be coming in otherwise the measurements will be invalidated and the opinion worthless.
No I think it's a good idea. A line has to be drawn somewhere so as not to muddy the waters with ground effect. 350 mm might have been better, but 500mm is only knee deep, most runs at Sandy point would comply, with a little bit of attention by sailors they'd all comply, speeds wouldn't be much different. Safety will improve if sailors aren't tempted to push the depth advantage.
I see this rule to be going against everything we,Gps sailors,have been striving towards!
All we needed was wind,water and a relatively accurate Gps and that was usually proof enough that we were heading towards the upper limits of our sport.
Now we have another variable to be observed and monitored.
This rule really heads back towards inaccessibility in the case of setting up a coarse somewhere like SP because there would need to be cameras to prove you didn't get with in a couple of meters of the shore or a lane rope or some other expensive monitoring device.
Now I will have to have my Navi on my right arm and my Depth sounder on my left foot
If world records are being attempted then rules need to be in place. In any other sport verification of results are required. So if there was any problem with any particular result why could the result not be checked?
So you sailed a river estuary at 10.35am on the 11/7/09 and you achieved a fantastic speed. Someone protests the water was too shallow. The water depth at that time is worked out via tide charts and then an onsite examination can take place. Who makes the examination would need to be worked out.
Naturally the rule needs to be interpreted in a reasonable way. If they are pedantic about the depth then the rule will become unworkable and will be ignored along with the organisation making the rule.
The reasoning of the rule is reasonable and few would argue with its aim. Is skimming on twenty millimeters of water on a kiteboard, sailing?
I think its a great idea. Relying on the ground effect to boost efficiency is not "sailing on water". Its sailing on the ground with a thin layer of water for lubrication. Its never been an issue until recently. Its a relief to see the WSSRC are active in maintaining the integrity of speed records.
For windsurfing it creates no real issues- the record-breaking venues are all mostly 50cm deep or more where we run. The exception is Namibia, where records have been broken on very shallow water. The problem of ensuring depth could be solved by placement of windward course markers at a suitable distance from the shore to ensure the depth requirement is maintained.
No big issue there. Kiters can play that game too. Its not exclusive.
i really find this all crap
all windpowered craft depend on water at any depth anyways i guess the hydroptere's nautical record is now kaput
all windpowered craft depend on water at any depth anyways i guess the hydroptere's nautical record is now kaput
A blow to shallow water kitesurfers looking for WSSR ratification but heck, it just brings them in line with everyone else! I can see both sides of the argument but for windsurfers, I wouldn't want to be sailing in much less than 50cm of water anyway. Ideally, we'd all be sailing in 30-35cm of water but this would only be safe if the shore was in a straight line and at least a few metres away. Even at Sandy Point Aust on the ideal tide and wind days, sailing close to the sand bank is risky. The WSSRC hasn't made much progress in recognising the role of handheld GPS so far so this is really a minor additional rule IMHO. As the units get far more accurate - more accurate than video timing (AND FAR MORE ACCURATE THEY WILL GET), the WSSRC will have to budge. I look forward to the day.
The new ruling specifies that if the coarse gets under a depth of 500mm at any point your attempt will not be ratified!
Slowie reckons that will be no skin off his nose because a couple of blokes in a 12ft tinny should be able to slap down 500+ meters of marker buoys in 10 minutes while the wind is blowing 40-50 knots
.
Of course if that is at mid tide and the tide is going out the buoys will probably have to be in 1.5 meters of water.
Sailing on the leeward side of these buoys and another 20 or so meters off shore shouldn't cost much speed[}:)].
I think people are getting a little confused here. The council is not saying that we have to sail in more than 50cm for a GPS speed to be recorded. It's only for when you are doing a council controled, observer observed , official speed record run. In this case then running out a windward lane marker is a tiny inconvinience compared to organizing all the other stuff, such a serveying the course and getting all the council people together when the conditions are good.
For the 98% of us that just like to blast along with a GPS strapped to our arm it won't make any difference.
Jethrow
all windpowered craft depend on water at any depth anyways i guess the hydroptere's nautical record is now kaput
open ocean is definitely a different record
Too deep, as said by others, the canal would be barely that deep.
Most of the time at sandy we run in about that depth and on low tide it is usually a LOT more but in high tide we are often only running in 250-300mm.
Obviously there is no significant 'bottom effect' help in 'safe' fin depth water and there are numerous current world records set in 300mm deep water at Walvis. Why they would choose 500mm as the depth is very sus' I recon and I wonder at the motives beyond the obvious one with kites in 50mm or less of water.
A letter writing campaign to the WSSRC would be the obvious way to start.......... Pump for 200mm. That should be deep enough to achieve the stated aim about kiteboards.
I also agree with the can of worms this could open up with the 'judgement' left up to the commissioner. That is far too subjective and dangerous to be left to that sort of 'judgement' and it is way too hard to define and test for if trying to measure it by some other device. My suggestion of 200mm plus is self regulating with windsurfers as we know we have achived this if we don't run aground. Simple!
Anyhow. It is totally irrelevant to GPS-Speedsailing.
Just read the explanatory notes on the WSSRC site. I guess this means that if we have a 40cm wide board we can set a record in 40cm of water?
I'm with Slowie, Ian, Moby, Bono, Jethrow etc on this.
There seems to be all sorts of invective on the GPS-SS site. The letter Markus sent the WSSRC seemed extremely rude and inaccurate on many points. Nothing like getting windsurfing off side with the ref. But i think Slowie said it best.
I think its a great idea. Relying on the ground effect to boost efficiency is not "sailing on water". Its sailing on the ground with a thin layer of water for lubrication. Its never been an issue until recently. Its a relief to see the WSSRC are active in maintaining the integrity of speed records.
For windsurfing it creates no real issues- the record-breaking venues are all mostly 50cm deep or more where we run. The exception is Namibia, where records have been broken on very shallow water. The problem of ensuring depth could be solved by placement of windward course markers at a suitable distance from the shore to ensure the depth requirement is maintained.
No big issue there. Kiters can play that game too. Its not exclusive.
Just caught up with the topic on the GPSSS forum. It now appears that the rule that relies on a personal OPINION is also open to INTERPRETATION. To me that defines a bad rule.
Nope. Sorry guys, you have been sucked in by nepotism. The divide and conquer tactic. This is not about protecting the 'purity' of sailing. It is about protecting vested interests. If you give in to that you stoop as low as them.
As for sailing: The whole thing about increased efficiency from shallow water and trying to sell this as 'unfair' is just a red herring designed to suck you in. The exploiters have noted that there is a small minority of windsurfers who feel threatened by kite surfers and are taking advantage of this for their own devious means.
It is pure and simple: As long as a craft uses the water for lateral resistance with some sort of foil or fin and wind to power it, then it is sailing and can be correctly described as a water sailing craft. (An ice yacht is not sailing on water because it uses the lateral resistance of the ice, not a foil in water - and lets not get bogged down in stupid semantics about micron thin films of water, we all know it is true. The micron thin film of water just lubricates the groove in the ice which provides the lateral resistance).
Kite sailors can take advantage of sailing in shallow and very smooth water. Windsurfers can take advantage of sailing in shallow water next to a bank to avoid chop. Hydrofoils can take advantage of flying over the top of the waves to avoid them. Some people can even take advantage of a man made Canal to provide an ideal strip of water. Speed sailing has ALWAYS been about finding the advantages to go as fast as possible on water with wind power.
There are always people out there who want to find ways to eliminate the competition with artificial rules and limitations to protect their particular advantage, rather than just getting on with trying to go faster. This is just the worst example of that I have seen in a very long time.
Water depth for a sailing craft is self limiting. It must be deep enough for the foils to work to provide the resistance for the forward lift. Dragging the fin, foil, keel, board etc. against the bottom is counter productive (and usually bloody dangerous) so, as I said, self limiting. Therefore; no 'rule' required!
Of course there is a possibility of gaining lower drag in shallower water. Just like there is a possibility of gaining lower drag by sailing in flatter water in a purpose built canal, or flying over the water and waves, or using super-cavitating foils, or cleverly designing a very efficient wing, or a super low drag fin, or designing a rig that is free standing and can be angled to windward to produce aero lift as well................ That is, and always has been the whole challenge! That is what speed sailing is all about.
Great rant sailquick, I've found this an interesting topic and have been swayed by both sides of the argument but, You've struck a chord with me in this post, makes a lot of sense.
Kinda knocks out a fair chunk of Hardies run.
Will be buggered if I go down it with a tape measure, scared the crap out of me when we went rock hunting.
There are some things you should remain oblivious to, If you don't know they're there then you can't hit them.
Andrew, I strongly disagree.
At the end of the day the argument comes down to whether pushing off the ground through a layer of water with unregulated thickness is sailing. And for sure the kiters have raised interest and forced WSSRC to investigate since in the past this has never been an issue. Its clear the WSSRC dont consider pushing off the ground fair for speed records. However, I'm not sure a blanket rule of 50cm is adequate or fair to achieve this, if it rules out some of the main contenders who might be able to operate without benefit of the ground in water shallower than 50cm.
The kite configuration in very shallow water is undoubtably using the ground for both vertical and lateral lift components contrary to what some kiters have been proclaiming. The bottom is acting as an end-plate, and as a flow constrainer which increases the pressure differential between both sides of the board, since flow is restricted and constrained by the ground. This boosts the lift (both lateral and vertical) without increasing the drag. Again, the issue is whether using the ground for advantage is in the spirit of speedsailing. We might only be talking about a few % in drag, but thats enough to smash records.
If the board is exerting a significant force on the ground, it is gaining lift from the ground. The same deal applies in all forms of sailing- land sailing with wet wheels, ice sailing with a thin layer of water over the skates, and kite boarding where the board is running close to the ground.
We dont call driving on a wet road boating, do we?
I dont think theres a big conspiracy here, just the WSSRC actively protecting the credibility of its speed sailing records.
We can work within this rule as windsurfers, since we are generating significantly less vertical lift from the water (its mostly aerodynamic), and the fin is usually washed out so much due to twist, that its tip vortex strength is reduced, and the effect of endplating it with a very shallow sand bottom is much reduced. Effectively we gain much less from sailing in shallow water than kiters do. If the kiters are not benefiting from the ground effect, then they should be the same speed in 50cm of water against a bank.
too much typing there.
Andrew, you list a whole bunch of examples of methods to increase the performance of sail craft as a comparison.
All of these methods
1) use free, unconstrained water
2) do not get their lift from the ground (its all from wind and unconstrained water)
Using the ground for advantage is a bit like pulling yourself along a rope and calling it "swimming". I can think of a lot more analogies.
