Back in action!

Well we got out on the water as promised and it was great.

I am so happy that we managed to get the boat back in shape after such a big wipeout.

We are only a small team.

All in all the repair to the boat and wing was completed with the materials we had brought along in the container, some local help and around £20 worth of metal work. The wing still has its lovely shape, it is stronger than before and no heavier. Go team!

Sailrocket designer Malcolm Barnsley arrived a few days ago and quickly joined the fray. Malcolm has been working hard on getting 'Malcs Calcs'... or the VPP (velocity Prediction Program) as realistic as possible. This allows us to enter a number of variables into a simulated run and see how the boat will react. We can adjust wind strengths, direction, sheeting angles etc and find out such things as rate of acceleration, top speed and even rudder loads. From this we can work out if Sailrocket will be controllable more by rudder input or sheeting loads at certain start up speeds. It is a very powerful and useful tool when you consider what we are trying to do here.

 

Malcolm-"Its fantastic to see the conditions on the speed strip -its an incredible natural feature and hard to imagine anything better! - the fact it is 1.5 miles gives us plenty of time to investigate optimum setting and start-stop procedures.Yesterday we got correlated gps and apparent wind data each second for the first time which is vital for validating the performance simulation and understanding how to get the boat to perform to its potential."

 

We have added a small rudder for high speed work and fully upgraded the whole foot steering mechanism which should give me more power and sensitivity.

 

Yesterday shaped up well but then looked like getting a bit too strong there for a while. The tide was also low when the wind was getting up. This means that we have to stand off the shore a little and live in a more choppy environment. High tide is best. This place is just incredible on the right tide. You can sail as close as you dare to the shore. After low tide we started making movements to get out on the course. One last wind check showed that the wind was down around 15 knots which would be ideal for our first run after the carnage of day 1. We only arrived at the top of the course as the sun hit the horizon in yet another gorgeous African sunset. The rig was easily raised and everyone scrambled for position wary of how quick the last session unfolded.

The wind had dropped to less than 14 knots. It was getting light but I still felt that it would be enough for Sailrocket to hook into. We had dropped a large anchor to use as a pivot point for the initial release. A line comes off it and runs through a loop on the transom. The nose of Sailrocket is pushed away from the wind and the wing is sheeted in hard. The anchor stops the boat from sailing into the beach and all that happens is that the nose falls away from the shore and we spin to face away from the beach. Once we are at a good angle the line is slipped and I sail slowly down wind in a stalled state. Once I am happy with the seperation from the shore I have to ease the wing to assist in turning into the wind. If I don't use the angle and power of the wing in union with the rudder... the boat simply doesn't respond. Ease out to come up and sheet in to bear away.

In theory, according to Malc's calcs, I should be able to steer Sailrocket very effectively just by sheeting it correctly. In a nutshell that is what we are trying to do today.

Our aim is to see if we can sail in such a manner as to give the boat lee helm when she goes fast. This means that if something goes wrong with the steering, we will quickly turn away from the shore and not into it and certain disaster.

An added bonus to lee-helm is that when we go to using the Air rudder, it will mean that we will have it sheeted on which will give added thrust. It has already been calculated that the small rudder will boost top end performance by 2 knots over the current big rudder. This is still drag and therefore a negative... just less of a negative than the other. The air rudder has the potential to be a substantial positive. We haven't used it yet as we aren't going quick enough... but we will.

It took me a while to get Sailrocket to lift over the 'hump drag' and get going. We were at the bottom end of the wind range. There was certainly nothing over 14 knots. Still she picked up and took off quickly hitting mid 20's. I sheeted in hard to see if this would make her bear away hard. It did a bit but I still felt that I needed to add rudder to assist it. We quickly hit a top speed of 28.8 knots but the course was also a little down wind and I was oversheeted. The performance still felt powerful, even bullish. This boat is becoming intimidating. If it can do this in these conditions and considering how it launched on the 'wipeout' run, I can only wonder at how it will go in 20 knots or above.

I did a bear away from the shore to see how quickly she slows down. She can carry the apparent wind for an incredibly long time but then, like all fast boats, when you lose the apparent the boat slows rapidly. The town lights were blazing across the lagoon. I sailed slowly into the shore and everyone was ferried down in the RIB. We lowered the rig and headed back to the yacht club absolutely delighted to have had a successful damage free run. A half moon gave us a little light. Sailrocket was left fully rigged complete with wing beside the container. I love this spot. You would never do that in Weymouth.

So the steering was OK but I am still not totally confident in it. It still feels like I could lose control of the situation and spin in to the shore. I sailed massively oversheeted to see what would happen. we think that the deep angle to the wind and the light breeze might have diminished the bearing away effect. It would have been nice to do another run but of course it was too late.

That's the nice thing about this spot... conditions could be just as good if not better tomorrow...and/or the day after. This is exactly what we need and why we are here.

The team worked well and the assistance of the locals is essential. Worthy of mention is Juergen Geiger on his kiteboard. That kite is just an extension of his body. It's as if he can fly. One minute he is over here helping, the next minute he's down the other end of the course helping... and then just for kicks he is flying 30' over your head. Unbelievable. I gotta get into that.

So I am typing this from the container using a 3G card. there are 4 laptops all smoking away. Brad is downloading and editing the video, Helena is managing all the recieved GPS and TACKTICK data and Malcolm is pouring it all into his VPP to try and correlate what happened with what is expected. Sailrocket sits patiently outside under her suncovers and the wind is just beginning to trickle in from the right direction.

There are no grinders going or resin going off. I shouldn't need to pull on any rubber gloves.

Happy days.

 

Malcolm has just informed me that the data is not very good. The wind instruments are too low to the water so we will raise them up on a pole. That's a nice little job for a change.

 

So all is well and it's great to be back. Fingers crossed that we can get out again today.

 

Cheers, Paul.

 

Paul Larsen
Mobile: + 44 (0) 794 684 1929
E-mail: paularsen1@aol.com
www.sailrocket.com