Slashdot Mirror
100km/h Sailboat Sets Speed Record
fustakrakich writes with news that a boat powered only by its sails has reached speeds of 100km/h for the first time. The team also claims to have reached 109km/h over a 500m course. The craft took the speed record back from kite surfers, who have somewhat smaller sails but a massive weight advantage over boats.
"Sailrocket 2 set the record last week, and the speed 54.08 knots (100.1 km/h) the craft achieved has been recognized by the World Sailing Speed Record Council as the new mark in Class B for vessels traversing a 500 meter course. The speed is higher than any other vessel recorded in the Council’s lists and is the only recorded speed over 100 km/h."
Gizmag has a more detailed article about Sailrocket 2's exploits, and says in an update that the craft achieved speeds of 121km/h today (65.37 knots).
no, but the laws of physics do allow the possibility of tacking in certain other directions faster than wind speed
I think the term you are looking for is "proa".
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I'm gonna get all pedantic on your ass. So apologies ahead of time.
>implying that chains are obscure
No, no they're not. They have been used in all English speaking countries ever since that guy Gunther came up with the system in 1620 ... all the way up to the middle of the 20'th century. If you ever found yourself in a land evidence vault in any city/town hall in any English speaking country, you'd find chains and links in all sorts of deeds predating the invention of steel tape.
With a little bit of adjustment, making a chain a decimal fraction of a nautical mile instead of 80 chains being a statute mile, the meter would have never stood a chance. A nautical mile is 92 chains and 6+1/4 links. If Gunther had made his chain 1/100'th of a nautical mile, we'd still be using it today instead of abandoning it in the 1940s for decimal feet and meters on steel tape.
And btw, 1 acre is 10 square chains. 1 statute square mile is 640 acres, since a mile is 80 chains.
1 mile = 80 chains
1 chain = 100 links
1 acre = 10 square chains
It's a nice self-consistent system that only needed a little bit of a tweak for it to be used on steel tape and other measurement technology. It was revolutionary when Gunther came up with it, since it suddenly made land surveying math standardized and *easier.*
--
BMO