The last week has been a good week in the life of the VESTAS SAILROCKET. It has been made all the better by being in the company of Hydroptere and the team who sail her.

It was quite special for me to finally meet Alain Thiebault in person as in many ways I guess we are kindred spirits out on the ‘Far Cliffs’ of our sport. There were times when we were both going for the same outright record at the exact same time in different hemispheres on very different craft but in our minds we may as well have been facing each other across a table. I had no doubt that they, and the Macquarie Innovation boys, were going to push themselves and their craft to the limit so I had no doubt as to what my job was. It was a great little battle where we all had our ups and downs, often quite literally. Now that that particular battle is over, it’s time to sit down with the enemy and have a beer.

Fraser, Alain, me and Jacques Vincent (who only drinks tequila from a tea-pot!!!)

Sharing some of our non-Youtube moments!!!

Alain and Helena...

There is so much to talk about when you meet someone like this that it is hard to know where to start. We talked about many things including how our projects differ from a driver/pilot perspective. Alain has the help and companionship of a strong team on the water but he also carries the responsibility of committing them to his drive to find the limit. If he gets it wrong then ten humans go with him. Mine is a more lonely affair and yet you still carry responsibility. I was aware of this after my bad crash that took me out when friends and loved ones started to genuinely worry about what I was stepping into each time at the top of that course. You have to consider that if you make a right mess of yourself, these are the people who are left to clean it up. So you are not alone and it is not just you that gets hurt. I suppose we spoke about this early because it is the large weight on the other side of the mental scales that you balance all the other good reasons to ‘go-for-it’ against... just before you make your mind up to push even harder again. Knowing the other guys perception of this is to understand the psychology of the competition even more. People who understand the risks and are scared of them... but still go forward and take it to the limit are likely to be people who spend a lot of time considering issues and being very thorough... or they are simply stupid.

So the conversation drifted on to how fast we think we could go, how much we thought the kite-surfers had left in them, what the issues were with our respective craft and what the future holds for both of us. Alain’s first question was ‘What speed are you aiming for’? It sounds like a simple question but is actually quite hard to answer. We will never give away all our secrets as there are a few aspects relative to a craft with no limit to its righting moment that will keep people guessing until the end. Our simple mission now is to break the existing record. There is no point throwing around big easy numbers now as that is done too often and I am sure we will confront issue that we haven’t considered as we go faster... so let’s just leave it at that.

So we invited them all over to a big ol’ BBQ at ours on one of the fine summer evenings just gone whilst we cracked on with the build. The first skins of the new hull have been cured and later on I invited Jacques Vincent from Hydroptere over to see what we are doing... and help push the long roller table into the oven. As I sit here and write this, the core has now been cooked in and Matty and Ben are outside preparing to do the inner skin. By the end of next week, both of the hull/fuselage pieces should be finished.

On Sunday we were invited to go for a sail on Hydroptere although Alain wasn’t there. Helena, Malcolm and Finn (Malcolm’s son) joined us.

The elevator goes up as Team Sailrocket rides l'Hydroptere. Me, Finn and Malcolm.

It started off light and got progressively stronger as we reached back and forth across the Solent. We started off with full main and Solent and ended up with two reefs and the trinquette with winds up to 27 knots. You very quickly get used to the speed and flying aspects of the ride. It really is a wonderful balcony. The first time I ducked under the boom and ran over the central hull to the other side, I nearly ran off the back as I am more familiar with heading to the helm station of a 60’ trimaran. With Hydroptere everything is further forward along the main beam.

Although they call her the ‘old girl’, she appears to be in very good condition. You are in no doubt that a huge amount of time and money has been thrown at this boat by people who care. The scale of our project pales in comparison but that is not to take away from either. The overheads and logistics of running a big project like that are immense and the ability to keep everyone involved motivated through the darkest hours is truly admirable.

Steaming away from Cowes at speed

So we blasted back and forth along the Red Jet fast ferry path lining up with it whenever we could. The Red Jet sits on about 36 knots so it was a fair match up. As the wind built and Jacques got better at lining up an approach to the run, the match got closer. The captain of the Red Jet was obviously enjoying it. He would put the ferry in a safe position... but he was just as interested in the match up. It must have been a brilliant sight for the people onboard. We finally got one run just right and with a peak speed of over 40 knots we managed to make the Ferry cross behind as he had to duck down to Southampton water. Whilst all this happened I was imagining what it would be like lining up for a crack at the 500 meter run onboard this boat. I feel I can honestly say this. That boat is truly on the edge at high speed. To me it is fun... but not what we aspire towards with our own project. At 50 knots I can cleat off the wing and let go of the controls. I couldn’t help but feel that Hydroptere felt like three boats forced to fly in close formation.  When it gets upset by chop or ferry wakes it seems to fight itself as it wracks, yaws and nods around. This is not fast. Once it shakes itself free of all this and settles down to smooth formation flying again, you can feel it accelerate as the internal fight subsides. Foils are effective brakes when they are not in harmony. The torsion that those large foils put on the beam must be significant and to keep them in harmony must be a large engineering problem in its own right. To ride this thing at record speeds must be one of sailings finest balancing acts. She goes her fastest when she is flying the windward foil but when you look at what her motion is when she does this you quickly see that it has issues. The problem is that when she rolls, she goes from riding flat on three foils to sitting on two foils that are diagonally offset. If she just rolls to leeward then she risks lifting her ‘T’ rudder out of the water and losing all pitch stability. I guess it all depends on how she is trimmed at speed i.e. does the T rudder pull down or create lift... or neither in that it just follows the surface piercing front foils. I have to assume that they can’t control the trim tab during record runs as only the instruments are allowed to be powered. From what I understand they simply try to fly the boat flat. If the rear T foil is supporting the aft end then when the boat rolls, it also rears backwards along the diagonal line between the leeward foil and the rudder. This would increase the angle of attack of the foils to the water and cause her to rise and lift higher on her foils. As they are canted inwards this would mean that her righting moment is reducing right when it is being pushed the hardest. The boat would be going damned quick but is heading to a point of instability which demands crew input to control. The sheets get eased and the helm put to leeward. Here she would suffer the same issues as VESTAS SAILROCKET but in reverse. Her highly loaded and inward canted foil would lose some of its angle of attack in a bear away that would cause it to sink lower as it loses both vertical and lateral lift.  So the drag picks up and then does so even more when the windward foil touches down. This drag to windward causes the boat to go into a nodding yaw and the whole formation goes into an oscillation that slows the boat and takes a little time to settle down. Their best 500 meter speed run ended just after they survived one of those high speed moments as the boat slowed significantly whilst it regained its composure. It took one of those high speed moments to drag the average up to a record speed... but then I guess it does for all of us. Each time they do this they run up and poke the crocodile in the eye.

Now all of this is my take on what is happening... and I think it is even more complex than that. I’m still getting my head around it. It seems to me that a bunch of undesirable things are going on which this team have done an amazing job of understanding and controlling. To me it looks like a very complex way to go fast, but a hell of a lot of fun... especially if you can afford to cover the consequences of when the crocodile snaps!

It was brilliant to blast around in the sunshine. They had Helena doing Nav and keeping them off the Brambles bank. Like us getting Jacques to help us push the mould in the oven... nothing comes for free! On the water that day there was also some good friends on a British foiling project called ‘Daddy Long Legs’. It is a very clever and well executed 26’ long foiling catamaran. Every ‘Daddy’ still has a ‘Mother’ and as Chris and the boys lined the mighty Hydroptere up for a run, that big French boat sure looked like the mother. It really was a cool day. Probably the first day in the Solents history where foiling multihulls were king.

Daddy Long Legs and Hydroptere

The Daddy does a wild fly-by.

Jacques let me take the helm for one of the runs to see what she was like to drive. The view is spectacular and the seating position comfortable. The steering is hydraulic so there is not much force feedback through the wheel although the boat itself has a lot of feel. All your other senses take over in giving you feedback. Now the boat does wobble around quite a lot. Whilst she just charges through small chop no problems, she does weave all over the place in waves like any other boat.

It doesn't matter which side you are on... This is fun with a big 'F'!

You have to choose which oscillations you need to steer to and which ones to just leave to sort themselves out. Seeing as I had no idea what her pitch stability is like as there are no bow or forward foils to reference,  I wasn’t exactly sure if there were some big don’t do’s so I basically held a straightish line with a few little weaves thrown in to get a feel. I knew that I had the best guys I could hope for on the sheets and that although they were smiling along, were very aware who was on the wheel and hence were paying attention. I wonder what Alain would make of doing a run in VSR1?

The crew work was very slick as the team are well practiced in what they do. We didn’t do any gybes and only tacked. This was a slow process for some reason. The initial turn in was real fast and you would lean into it like a bottom turn on a surfboard, but then they would let the speed die off to an almost standstill before slowly poking her nose through the wind. She seemed to steer very well at low speed probably due to the massive overall area of the rudder when not foiling. The lift off on the new tack is progressive and although the acceleration is impressive for a 7 ton boat it felt similar to a 60’ tri when pushed... and nothing like the Rocket. I guess where a 60 tri starts to slow around mid 30’s... Hydroptere and Sailrocket are just winding up. Mind you, you had to keep it in mind that we were just joy riding around the Solent without the canted rig or any of the two tons of water ballast used for record runs.

Afterwards when I jumped off, I followed her around in their equally impressive RIB just to get some pictures and marvel a bit more about the craft I had just been on. It is a brilliant piece of kit, but just like our own Mk1 VESTAS SAILROCKET, it has issues and neither of us would build the same boat again. With our heads so immersed in our next boat and the potential it promises, I can’t help but see the flaws in these boats... but love them for what they are none the less.

The following day I took their team up the Medina River to see VESTAS SAILROCKET 1 sitting in her container. She looks a bit battle worn in comparison having had no refit since her last outing. I guess I wanted them to see how simple our little boat was in comparison. I am proud of how we could take the battle to something like Hydroptere but I also know that we were doing it with a boat designed specifically for the job whereas they had to carry the compromise of all the other tasks their boat has to perform along with them. Neither of us can ignore also that we are both in competition with the simplest craft of them all in wind and kite surfers.

A couple of days later when Alain returned, I invited them over to our build shed in East Cowes to see the new boat. Some of the key aspects are not evident but seeing as we are currently heavily committed on different paths and that we hope to launch (as do they) in 9 or so weeks, I thought it was a good opportunity to share something I know they would appreciate. The fact is that is very hard to make a real opinion about someone’s project until you know it intimately.

Hydroptere now sits on the jetty directly out front of our shed and even as I write this I am constantly stopping and pondering different aspects of what makes that boat tick. I have a million more questions for them. They are a good bunch and it has been a pleasure having them about. As I sat around the BBQ a few days earlier with the Hydroptere and Daddy Long Legs  teams, I felt happy to be in the company of such clever and motivated people. I feel that we may cross paths many more times in the future. For now I am even more confident in the path we are on and the decisions we have made within our own project. It's our turn at the top next.

Thanks for the ride l' Hydroptere. I hope we can return the pleasure.

Cheers, Paul.