I've just seen some photo's of the sail rocket disintergrating during a speed run in Namibia. Sounds like the main beam let go and the boat just broke up. More to follow
Their idea was interesting, but a bit flawed imho. It seems the biggest problem they've got is stability... I can't see an easy solution to their problems.
Now Hydroptere
www.hydroptere.com/ on the other hand... If those guys get serious I'm sure that Finian's record won't stay around for long!
I've been following the sailrocket for the last 2 weeks it's been in namibia. Talk about a fragile boat. It's biggest problem has been that when they really load it up it turns up into the wind. This is what happened to it on it's last run which really did some major damage. Basically it beached itself on the shore and the sudden stop made a few things collapse majorly. It's been interesting reading about all the quick fixes they've tried to sort various problems out.
I agree with you though Nebs, once Hydro gets serious that record is goooooooone. Although in saying that, they have mentioned themselves that going over 48knots is a MASSIVE challenge for them. It seems once you get up to that speed it's like trying to bust through some invisible barrier. I
Interesting to read on the sailrocket news section that they met a kiteboarder there who came and introduced himself and it was a guy who had gps proof he'd done a 52knot max. His name escapes me now but he's a well known speed kiter. I haven't heard of any windsurfers who claim an over 50 max!
Tilmann Heilig or something like that...
Now he's someone with big brass cajones, if ever I saw one! Read a couple of posts on his blog, wind was blowing at 40 knots or so, he put up a 9m and went for it. From memory he was in 10 cm of water as well!
I don't think that anyone wants to come unstuck in those sort of conditions.
In hindsight I think maybe sailrocket has some big problems to overcome, small changes in trim on the pod are having a big effect on the rig 50 foot away. Unfortunately the first possibility of making the pod more directionally stable will also slow them down. Maybe he hit the small rudder too early and the flow wasn't enough to make that directionally stable (similar to us going to too small a fin). My second thought is that by angling the sail over towards the horizontal the sail will inherently want to come across the wind, dont know if that is correct though (it's been a big week 
).
Also the sail could be better designed. It could have some twist on a large scale to settle the flow ....make it then faster.
They need to lean the rig forward to push off the wind.. looks like a brown wetsuit machine to me
Yeah i was thinking of some way of tilting the rig and maybe an adjustable top stay so the angle of the rig is adjustable nothing major just something that is fine tuneable.
Anyway there are people that are much smarter and get paid many more $ than me working on this thing so what do I know 
I could be wrong but I think you'll find the 'sail' is actually a fixed wing. Bit hard to make something like that twist 
It appears that the design was never intended to withstand being backwinded at speed in a good blow.
i thought the real world was CAD? 
you mean it's not.
well it will be soon. BIM is coming.......
now to the serious stuff.
i reckon there problem is because the fin is too big. once they use smaller fins all will be good. sailing big fins at speed is scary stuff. the gusts tend to make the board/boat do weird things.
like rail up unexpectedly.
He had control with the big rudder, lost it when changed to the small one.
They are probably lucky it backwinded, if he ran up on the dry at 34 knots they could have had a heap more damage.
Which brings a question, how does MI or even the old yellow pages stop? Given that they dont stupidly sail at sandbanks like us but we can backwind or bail if we need to.
quote:
Which brings a question, how does MI or even the old yellow pages stop? Given that they dont stupidly sail at sandbanks like us but we can backwind or bail if we need to.
