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Making the World's Fastest Kayak
bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek looks at the world's fastest kayak, which floats over the water rather than nosing through waves like more typical boats. Named 'Little Wing' for the fore and aft wings that add stability, the kayak is the creation of Ted Warren. An MIT-educated engineer, Warren 'played around for three years with 3-D wire mesh designs on his PC, crunching the numbers for speed and stability, then started building actual models to test in the waters near his Massachusetts home.'"
Still, at least the water might not slosh over the side, and into the kayak itself (or worse, the nose bury itself so deep in a wave that it comes over the front).
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Add carbon fiber to ANYTHING and it will be faster!
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
"The addition of the fore and aft wings was a sound decision that earned the kayak approximately an extra 50HP," a California Institute of Technology professor of Aerodynamical Engineering commented adding, "but I am really eager to get one of this into my lab to see how much performance I can squeeze out by adding reducing the coefficient of drag with racing stripes and aft flames as well as introducing a chrome muffler to increase performance by another 25HP."
It took this guy 3 hours to cross 13 miles. The world's fastest kayak can do 16.9 mph. http://www.kayakwisconsin.net/2006/01/blur.html
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Like this one. And did you all know that Alexander Graham Bell was a pioneer in hydrofoils?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Huh? Not remotely -- this is not a hovercraft. This is simply an ultra-light kayak with a differently shaped hull based on racing boat designs.
Nor is it the world's fastest kayak, at least not according to TFA. The best it's finished in a competitive race is 6 seconds out of 1st place.
OK, it's pretty cool, and I'd like to take it on the Hudson sometime. But don't overhype it, please.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's an ocean kayak, not a white water kayak. Perhaps you were not aware, but kayaks are not all created equal. White water kayaks are shorter, and more maneuverable. Ocean kayaks are longer, more stable, and with more pronounced keels for better tracking in the wind. This kayak was not designed for waterfalls and rapids.
I'm guessing this one is faster. :-p
There are two types of hulls that you'll find in a boat (or kayak) - a planing hull and displacement hull. So this is a planing hull. The fact that it is designed by an MIT graduate using finite element analysis makes this news? And just what criteria are they using to make the claim that it is the "worlds fastest kayak"?
Yeah, but can it run Linux?
That is the real question.
"If God had intended us to walk he would not have invented roller skates." -- Willy Wonka
Anyone else notice that the article about "worlds fastest kayak" wasn't really about the boat. Seemed like it was more about a particular ride. I wanted specifics, ya know, more techie stuff like said 3d wire mesh or something.
--alop
Just about as fast as you can paddle it
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Perhaps next he can put that world class education to really important stuff like lighter golf clubs or more aerodynamic bowling balls.
Yeah, AND you can totally Tokyo Drift race this thing. Because it's light. Word.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"Can it go over a waterfall or down some steep rapids?"
Still looking for a way to return to the Land of the Lost, Rick Marshall?
Where were you when the voynix came?
However, I can guarantee they won't float. They might make good boat anchors though... they are built like tanks!
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
I think we know. The thing is mono-hulled, only 18 feet long, and has a traditional rudder. Even if you want to exclude catamaran and trimaran kayaks, you're not going to be able to compete with the fastest kayaks out there -- which are longer and have underwater foil rudders.
Now, if the question is whether or not this is the fastest kayak you can get for under $5k, maybe you're onto something.
Note that max speed increases as hull length increases, though this depends on the seas as well. And I'm also referring to straight-line speed, a more maneuverable kayak will outperform a very long one on there-and-back type races of moderate or short length.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The expression 'world fastest kayak' is somewhat like 'world fastest running shoes'. Race kayaking is all about the motor and to a much lesser degree about the kayak.
It makes much more sense to speak about the water resistance of various kayak designs. For some given athlete(balance skills, strength and technique) racing some given distance in some given conditions one could even speak of an optimal design. As a general example - the kayaks used for sprint racing are different from the kayaks used for marathon racing.
On a related note genetic algorithms have been applied to the problem of finding an optimal hull given a number of constraints: http://www.cyberiad.net/library/kayaks/racing/raci ng.htm
Nothing revolutionary turned out though.
The only support for the statement that this is the worlds fastest kayak is:
/. reader, went to the newspaper to tell them you had built the worlds fastest something, (say car).
1. The builder goes to MIT
2. The journalist thinks it is fast.
You start to wonder what kind of people goes to MIT. If you, dear
Would you not have some data to support your claim? A radar gun readout? A win in some competition? Anything?
"Fix it"
Article summary: Rich yuppy buys overly expensive kayak because it is "fast" and "looks like a ferrari", although he is unable to explain why, from a technical perspective, it is any better than a regular kayak. He almost exclusively talks about his little vignette of crossing the Long Island Sound in it, pandering on about how he was buying the $5000 kayak so he could get sponsors to give $500 or so to "needy children" for his little cross bay adventure. He gives props to his friends, who will no doubt be tickled to be in BusinessWeek.
Before you mod troll, read article and you will see it is completely devoid of any technical or scientific interest. Slashdot's slogan is "stuff that matters". This stuff does not.
This anecdote, if true, must be relatively recent -- this clearly is not a guy whose life, and that of his family, depended on his ability to hunt from his kayak in any weather. Traditionally, Arctic peoples certainly could roll, with differences among cultures. Hunters who used kayaks could roll even if they lost their paddle or dislocated a shoulder. Even so, kayak deaths were common. From what I understand, children learning to kayak first learned how to brace ("leaning" on the water with a moving paddle) to keep from capsizing in the first place, then learned how to roll up, and only later learned how to paddle forward. Their kayaks were narrow and sat low in the water, both of which made rolling easier and helped keep the kayak from getting blown around. They also wore one-piece sealskin jackets whose bottoms were tied around the hatch, keeping the paddler warmer and drier than modern equipment does. For a list (with pictures) of capsize maneuvers performed at the Greenland championships, including rolling without a paddle while holding an 8-kg stone, see http://216.92.139.192/QK/rolls/rolls.html.
Is it just me, or does this kayak look a hell of a lot like a Viking longboat?
Viking longboats were well known for being fast, sleek in the water, and capable of traversing the shallowest of waterways - kinda like what a kayak is intended to do.
I personally wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if he copied the general design of a longboat while making it slightly more streamlined and rounded on the topside.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Having been paddling for several years competitively I can make the following observations:
1. Yes paddling on flat water is different to paddling on ocean/sea conditions. Generally it is harder and slower paddling in choppy water, however if you are experienced you will know how to best make use of the wind and weather conditions in order to increase your speed. Depending on the swell and wind direction you can quite often get equal speed compared to flat water and sometimes much greater speeds if assisted by good swell.
2. Carbon fibre is nothing flashy in a kayak; most competition kayaks, and increasing numbers of recreational kayaks are made with carbon fibre.
3. US$5000 is way too much to spend on something that is so ugly and slow as this kayak. You can easily pick up a K1 racing kayak weighing around 20-25 pounds which would go much faster for around US$2000-2500. And THAT is expensive.
4. Judging by the content of the article, and despite the author being a novice, you would expect an amazingly fast kayak to be faster than the reported time. Much cheaper and probably stabler kayaks are faster and cost less (and are less ugly).
I could go on and on. The whole article and indeed the kayak itself are all wrong.