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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).
...can it go straight downwind faster than the wind?
The boat has practically no resemblance to any other sailing vessel. I'm mean yay!, you got the record and you took it back from kite surfers but your actual craft resembles a sail boat about as much as a kite surfers craft resembles a sail boat.
Let's have a look at the Council's list that is linked in TFA and TFS. 100 km/hr is 53.996 knots. What do we see?
2010 Kite-board Alexandre Caizergues FRA Luderitz, NAM 54.10 kts
2010 Kite-board Sebastien Cattalan FRA Luderitz, NAM 55.49 kts
2010 Kite-board Rob Douglas USA Luderitz, NAM 55.65 kts
3 kiters in 2010 certified as going faster than 100 km/hr. Sailrocket's achievement of a new outright record is awesome, it doesn't need to be embellished (or damaged) with false claims to be first past a round-number threshold.
Remain calm! All is well!
They should be made to do a run in each direction like land speed records!
has run fas73r
As if anyone knows how many yards are in a mile. And I doubt anyone cares to know how many yards per hour the boat travels.
Interesting fact — There's an 85% fatality rate for the speed record for any boat. This sport is extremely dangerous.
The sailing speed record is 80% slower than the overall boat record, so the sailing record is a little safer. Nonetheless, one of the SailRocket crashes led to the pilot having a broken helmet.
These sailboat fun-boys should get real jobs. Our civilization isn't going to survive in the long run without people willing to devote their personal interests, intellect and hard work to the scientific and engineering pursuit of a long-term sustainable existence. These rich (or perhaps not so rich) party boys should stop fiddling with their sailboats and go to Engineering school... if they don't have the intellect for that then go to work elsewhere.
The only reason I read this blurb was so I could complain about them. Christ these sorts of people make me sick.
How fast could it go in a category 5 hurricane?
Next, learn how to spell.... METRE!
I can tell you from first hand experience that running 8 knots close hauled feels like 100 miles per hour. That run must have felt like riding a rocket.
I wonder whether it would be possible to design an autonomous, computer-stabilized wind/kitesurfer. Free of human limitations this could go faster still.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
The speed record has "Hydropetre". Which has vrious records.
The question perhaps is if Hydropetre managed to hold the speed over 500m, but I would guessed so.
The point about Hydropetre is, it is a real sailing yacht where you can live on during your journeys. (Albeit, as a hydrofoil sailer, it is a bit gewÃhnungsbedürftig)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
These guys should get real jobs! Some of them are engineers... and shame on them for indulging the rich party-boy sailboat pilots with their technical abilities to create a better sailboat! FIE UPON THEM!
I just love all you "back seat" drivers out there critical of this feat! This guy just went 100 km/hr in a sail boat!!! Nuff said!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
I know you think using only knots and km/h is cool and all, but given much of the english speaking world primarily still deals with mph for knowing speed you do everyone a disservice leaving it out.
The speed was 62.2 mph, which is damn impressive for a wind powered boat.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your mom.
That's a rod, d'oh (a quarter chain.). Well, I'm not a surveyor, or a mathematician. Just a hoboroadie.
Hey, this is in my hometown, and the Yacht Club is one of my favorite hangouts. When they broke the record, there was quite a bit of cheering and booze going around. And the next day it was even more windy - go figure. Seriously, though... this is seriously fast. The fastest I have ever been on water was in a fast rescue boat, and that could only manage 36kt, while this baby was touching 60kt... they are currently doing some checking and final preparation, and then will try again to break the 60kt barrier. Interesting fact... several sailing speed records are held in Walvis Bay... look it up sometime!
That is not sail boat.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
There's a reason why nautical miles are used.
Yes there are.
Also to set up the rest of the post, the remainder of your sentence should have been "in the article summary" since that is what we are talking about.
They are roughly one minute of arc along a meridian.
That is not why knots are used in the article summary.
They are what you use when you are out on the ocean
Yes they are. How many Slashdot readers on out on the ocean as they are reading this? I would wager the answer is so close to none as to make no difference. How may actually run a boat? I would wager the answer is still quite small, say 0.1%.
The use of Knots in the summary I really don't have a problem with, they do sound cool. But they have no relevance to any of the readers. Presenting data also in km/h does have relevance to lots of readers, but I would bet no more so than mp/h does. So by omitting one huge segment of the readership you are either a bad writer or simply trying to look cool by showing how you ignore mp/h even though it would provider far better context to a huge number of readers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bullshit.
Double bullshit. I win.
Not everyone is in a land-locked state
BZZZZT! it's about EXPERIENCE.
More than 50 percent live within an hour's drive of the coast.
So what? I live within an hours drive of many large lakes and the mountains. I've not been on a boat or skiing in years.
But the real point is that very few people will have the EXPERIENCE to understand what 50 knots is or feels like. Is that like a train? A race car? Coasting down a hill on a bike? Most people KNOW from driving what a number in mp/h or km/h feels like, they have no idea what a specific number in knots really means.
Just go up to any random person and tell them to guess how fast is 60 knots is compared to a car.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley