Thursday, October 18, 2012
This one works
(With apologies to Tillerman)
It might be crazy but that's what makes it interesting. Pushing the edge of the ol' envelope on foiling carbon fibre wing sail big-cats, that's the bleeding edge technology for sailing in 2012.
And lets not forget it involves the likes of Jimmy Spithill, Ben Ainslie, Grant Dalton, Russell Coutts, and Tom Slingsby.
That's a long list of the world's top sailors.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Did you notice how flat the water was in this video?
I haven't read any of the buzz on the Oracle crash from the smart people - just saw the video - but my take is this:
They capsized on a broad reach in 'normal' SF Bay sailing conditions - 25 knot winds and a 3-4 foot chop. One of the world's best helmsmen was driving, with lots of experience in big racing cats. The conditions - not structural failure - were enough to pretty much destroy the boat. So, is the AC72 something so ungainly that it can't be sailed?
Or have they built the world's most complex and expensive inland lakes boat?
As Tillerman implied (or did I infer?), even a Laser is designed to survive capsizes.
(Sometimes I think that's all it was designed to do.)
What struck me was that just before the crash Oracle had really rolled in the jib and to get balance on a standard rigged boat you'd normally put in a reef on the main.
But of course in this case they couldn't, so the nose dug in.
That's a problem with wing-sails, and the designers need to find a way round it.
Post a Comment