We made our way out yesterday around 4 p.m. at low tide and through some good wave action which was rolling into the bay. The water clearance of VSR2 is pretty good so she rides nicely over the swells. Walvis Bay is a pretty open bay and there is quite often a lot of swell rolling in around the distant point. It's not uncommon to have breaking waves on the launch ramp. These swells can also be rolling into the end of speed spot and you have to approach this end of the course with caution when sailing. I have hit a wave in VSR1 at around 15 knots which buried the main beam and brought everything to a mushy stop.

Yesterday we set out to see if we could get VESTAS Sailrocket 2 to bear away down the course on her own from a standing start. We wanted to see if we could do it with the beam in the aft high speed configuration. If we could then it would greatly simplify the boat and the whole startup procedure.

We are still getting used to just the basic handling of the boat so every minute on the water is highly revealing.

SPEED SPOT IS A GORGEOUS PLACE AT THIS TIME OF THE DAY. A PERFECT CANVAS FOR A SUNSET.

What we say yesterday, in mild 14-16 knot winds was that by heavy oversheeting of the wing, we could force VSR2 to bear away onto a downwind course in a safe manner. From there I could ease the wing out to around a 30 degree angle and the boat would start sailing down the course... and hold a course. This was great. She pushed along at around 5-6 knots. We reckon that in a few knots more wind with the full wing in place that she would have made it over the 'hump' and up onto the plane. Like I said before, if she can get to 10 knots, she can get to 40.

We practiced this starting/sailing procedure a couple of times and were out on speed-spot until well after dark.

There are still lots of little systems that need improving and each of these will make overall boat handling much better but... we all really liked what we saw.

I think that yesterday I saw that the boat will work... and maybe quite quickly.

SO HERE IS THE FIRST SAILING PICTURE OF VSR2. SHE IS SAILING DOWN THE COURSE UNDER HER OWN STEAM. TO DO THIS SHE HAS MADE IT THROUGH A FEW KEY TRANSITIONS THAT WERE SOME OF THE BIG ISSUES RELATING TO THE GENERAL PRACTICALITIES RELATING TO THIS WHOLE CONCEPT. THIS MIGHTN'T LOOK VERY SPECTACULAR... YET... BUT WE ARE ON THE WAY.

It's all so conceptual and unproven that you don't always believe it's going to work until you actually see it.

I think that with a boat this ambitious that you can have two types of fear. One is that it mightn't work... and the next one is that it will work and that means you will have to strap yourself to it one day and take it to the limit! I came away yesterday feeling like we had perhaps just witnessed the transition.

It will take some more testing where the ultimate proof will be when we start from a standstill and get over the 'hump' and off under full control down the course. If we don't need to go swinging the beam and rig around through the start up sequence then that will make life so much easier.

I a still not happy about the general stability of the wing throughout all the handling procedure but we will start working on that. If we no longer have to pull the shrouds in and out around pulleys to swing the rig fore and aft then we can go to fixed standing rigging which is pre-stretched. There is still a lot to do... but maybe alote less to do than we thought before yesterday.

We will try and get out again today. The swell is bigger and the tides are wrong... but this is starting to get interesting.

Cheers, Paul

p.s. I will do Blogs when anything interesting has happened... and when we know enough about what we saw to share it. For short updates I will use Twitter which also comes up on the front page of the site.