As VESTAS SAILROCKET shows her offshore pedigree - in a 40' shipping container heading North up the Atlantic - the UK-based team are working hard on their continued quest to set the Outright World Speed Sailing record.
Firstly, let me make it clear that we as a team remain completely focused on setting the Outright World Speed Sailing record. That was our goal when we started, it is our goal now and it will be the result we have achieved before we ever consider stopping. The team is tight and as motivated as ever for the challenge that still lies ahead.
Annoyingly, we are still trying to get the data out of our TRIMBLE timing GPS from our last session in Namibia. We are still unsure as to what our best run was... and therefore which one to submit to the WSSRC for ratification. You will know when we do. We suspect that we are somewhere around 2 knots short of the current World Record held by Hydroptere.
Hydroptere finished their outright World Record attempts in fine style by posting the first ever 50 knot nautical mile. That's more like it! I think we all expected them to be the ideal candidates for posting a big nautical mile run, so well done to Alain and all the boys!
So, where does this leave us? Now that we have drawn a line under the current programme and our World Record attempts down in Namibia, it is a good time to reflect and plan for the best course to achieving our goals. I have been archiving all our footage and photos since the project began. Whilst doing this, many things became obvious. The archiving process reminded me of every little issue that the boat/project had, and just how long we spent just waiting... and waiting... and waiting. One of the key elements for selecting a design is all-round practicality. It may sound odd, but in many aspects our boat was practical. It was basically a big, gangly dinghy in dimensions and therefore relatively easy for a small team to build, repair, assemble and store. She was also pretty tough and modular. On the water however, she could be a real handful. All that raising and lowering of the rig was always time consuming and often unsettling. The fact that the conditions had to be so specific was also an element that lead to huge logistical impracticalities. We could push on with the current boat in its current form, but the whole scene has changed somewhat from when she was first created.
I still believe that the current boat has all the potential to post a run over the current record. In a perfect world I would happily keep campaigning her until this was the case, but one fact remains: based on what we as a team have learnt, we know we could now make a craft which is simply so much better in all aspects, a boat that would serve the long-term aspirations of the team better. One of the key components would be practicality. Ideally we want a boat that can handle rougher water and a wider range of winds; a boat that can do run after run all day with no form of de-rigging necessary in between; and one that has ALL the stability issues sorted out - even the 'freaky' ones. A real 50 knot 'cruiser'. We feel that this is where the future of this concept lies. It's sort of the next step to showing how the concept can have all-round practical applications. We should go forward in a way that utilises all that we have learnt and reflects the strengths of the team now.
So we have all put forward our thoughts, done our computer modelling and built our scale models. Even a pure speed sailing machine has to make compromises. Because of all our accrued experience, we believe that we have a good feel for how these compromises should be weighted. There are so many possible versions of this concept that it has been a fascinating process to whittle them down.
I will leave it at that now as there is still so much to do. Hopefully we will get a chance to publicly display VESTAS SAILROCKET when she returns to UK shores in the coming weeks. I can only trust that she will arrive safely and manage to dodge all these storms that are continuously sweeping in from the North Atlantic.
Good luck to all you kiters down in Luderitz. I sincerely hope you get to have one more shot at the title down there. You never know when it might be your last.
Cheers, Paul.