It has been forecast to blow today for some time. The winds have been very light recently so this has been eagerly anticipated. I just walked outside when I heard the first rustlings of the wind. The first 'fingers' of breeze were finding their way across the glassy lagoon being led by a pod of dolphins. That has to be a good sign if you're into that stuff (which I'm not really)... but there it is, a pretty sight in anyones books.

We have been busy trying to understand what is going on with our foils and working out explanations for VSR2's behaviour on the last runs. I must thank those of you who have had input and put forward suggestions as they are all considered. There are some very learned people who know a lot more about some of these high speed phenomenoms than us so it really is great to apply their understandings to our situation. Whilst we still can't explain the tendency of the conventional foil to bear away hard at around 50 knots, there is a consensus growing regarding the performance of the ventilated 'wedge' foil. We believe that it is too big and therefore not travelling at the correct angles which would allow it to hold a stable ventilated cavity. When we get that horrible vibration it may be because it is travelling in a 'no-mans' land mode where it has lost grip but can't lose grip enough to hold a stable cavity. It is obvious by the photos taken from the masthead (shown in the previous blog) that the cav/wedge foil is not 'sliding' as it is designed and therefore is not operating in the mode it should. The fact that it is travelling quite well with the water attached to both sides of the foil could explain why we have pretty good low and medium speed performance all the way up to 50 knots but are struggling to go faster. This odd foil is sort of behaving like a conventional foil. We did however go faster in one run with two people on board so really don't know what speeds it is capable of in this mode. We suspect that we will not be able to generate the angles of attack this foil requires to side ventilate i.e. shed the water off the suction side (probably somewhere above 5 degrees) unless we reduce the area of the foil. Cutting the foil is a one way path.

Now, based on the forecast, it looks like we may only have two good sailing days left before our current record attempt is over. Today and tomorrow. We may get some bonus days if the long range forecast changes but they are not obvious now and it would be risky to assume they are coming. This means that we have two paths which we can follow. We can try and purely optimise what we have in order to get the best result we can in this session, or we can make the call to go down the one way path of cutting the bottom of the cav/wedge foil and going for the breakthrough.

One 'optimisation' path, which has two options(one for each foil) is unlikely to yield an Outright record but may get us a few scalps further up the speed sailing ladder, the other 'breakthrough' path is perhaps our only chance of making the jump to realise the potential of the boat (It's great writing this down as it all starts to become obvious).

1/ OPTIMISE EXISTING OPTION...we try and repeat the performance where we achieved 54.4 knots, improve on it and bag the 'fastest boat' and Australian record. To do this we use the cav foil and simply try and re-find that performance now that we have changed a few things i.e. stiffened it. To do this we will try a few different pitch and inclination settings.

In a perfect world we would have a great couple of days that allows us to do 8 runs in similar ideal conditions so that we could scientifically progress through the above options in order. This way we could have our cake and eat it too.

If these are our last two big days then we do want to leave here having made every effort to glimpse the real potential of VESTAS Sailrocket 2. This boat is designed to drag a super-ventilated/cavitating foil through the water over 60 knots. If we only manage to make a few runs then I may have to make the bold call to chop large chunks off the very expensive and difficult to replace ventilated foil and just go for it. I know you're all probably reading this screaming "CHOP IT. CHOP THE BASTARD NOW WITH A BLUNT AXE!!! We want 60 and we want it now (in HD preferably)". Well, it's on the cards (the hacksaw is packed and the lines are marked on the foil) but the thing is that it may well not guarantee a result. The foil may just be wrong. It may prevent us from even getting started. It will however give us a point on the graph to reference future design decisions against. If it fails then we go down the 'old school' path.

So, we will see what we get weather-wise and take it one run at a time. We do need to be lucky on this front and it is out of our hands. The conditions may well not lend themselves to our proposed scientific method. We still have so much to learn.

Let's see what happens.

Cheers, Paul