Hi all, well yesterday was truly epic.

The day shaped up better than forecast and I went over feeling strangely calm. Conditions on the course looked perfect, the sort of otherwise ordinary day that I always envisaged.

What was to follow was anything but ordinary. The seemingly innocent boat we pushed across the Lagoon was about to live up to its 'Rocket' title. It was a spark to a powder keg.

We stopped off at the timing hut to wait for the wind to build and swing. I tried to have a little snooze under the table. Surely enough, good ol' Walvis turned it on and away up the course we went.

I was determined to bag a record. I knew our wonderful boat had it in her to do something special and that at the top of the course... it was up to me to make sure she was allowed to do it. I had had enough practice... and this was no longer practice. This was a proper world record attempt. This was the dream. It was time to dig a little deeper, judge yourself as critically as you judge others. "what would you do in this situation". From the outside things are simple, from the inside... far more complicated. Sometimes you need to be inside with an outside perspective. I suppose having only one option is a calming thing.

The setup procedure was careful. I told the boys to take care as something we have all worked for was waiting down the other end of the course. Everyone left Venassius and me at the top of the course as they hurried back in the support RIB to take up their expectant positions. Things looked perfect. The boat was perfect. It was time.

There was enough wind to sail a 'flattish' trajectory onto the course. I built enough apparent to attach flow onto the wingsail with only a slight dip. we were off. I was quick to sheet in and get on the main flap whilst simultaneously switching from foot to hand steering. A real one man band affair. VESTAS SAILROCKET was going hard and I had tunnel vision. we had made an adjustment to the rig to stand it up a couple of degrees so as to hold the nose down and it seemed to make the boat ride flatter. Control was excellent. At one stage a gust pulled the nose away and I brought it gently back up. The main flap was in but I noticed that the wing angle was still a little eased. It was too late to change. The boat was smoking... but balanced. I held onto it until I was certain that a solid 500 meter average was recorded... and then dumped the flap and eased the wing. No more big bear aways to slow down. I pulled on the leading edge bridle to slow her down by feathering the wing and it worked a treat. Hiskia caught the boat on the shore. I was pretty surprised by the data on the GPS. It read a top speed of 48.90 knots and an average of 47.35! I told the team over the VHF that they were now looking at the fastest boat in the world and congratulated Malcolm on designing it.

VESTAS SAILROCKET OVER 50 KNOTS IN PERFECT CONTROL.

There was no supernova of emotion, no tears... just huge smiles and a sense of arrival.

We did some pieces to camera and then carefully dropped the rig. Then we felt safe. It was only later when we checked the two onboard GPS systems that we saw we had actually hit sustained speeds over 50 knots peaking at 51.76 knots. We averaged 46.4 knots over 1000 meters. The mean wind speed was around 22 knots. VESTAS SAILROCKET had definitely arrived.

I reflected on the wing angle during the run and the knowledge that I could come in closer.... to flatter water. armed with this we headed straight back up the course. the wind was up a knot or so and the course was still lovely and flat. This was our dream day. We had plenty of time.

The wind was gusting to 25 on the second start indicating an average of around 22-23 knots... no more. I did an even flatter start up procedure focusing on getting the wing into 10 degrees as soon as she accelerated... and bloody hell... did she accelerate. apparently she pulled 0.35 G's all the way up to 52 knots before the nose lifted. I expected her to step sideways as before but not this time. The nose floated higher... and then it went quiet... I was flying. i waited for some sort of touchdown... somewhere... but it didn't come. the nose just kept going up until I was lookin vertically up at it! There was no rolling and I was just a passenger. It was still quiet... and strangely dry as we continued the loop. I sort of knew I was inverted. It all seemed to take so long. I consciously thought "righto boy, when this thing smacks down... get the hell out of it because you're gonna be upside down"!!! I smacked down hard. Like someone big had full palm slapped my helmet with all their might. I was out of that boat in an instant. I was a bit beat up and bruised... but alright. I lay on the upturned hull and got my head together. My helmet was broken but I dragged the mic. over to let everyone know I was OK.

Damnit!

We had been in similar, although less spectacular predicaments before. I assessed the damage and warned the support RIB crew not to make it any worse as sometimes it isn't as bad as it seems. The platform looked oddly intact... but the wing had had a hard time.

Slowly we dragged the sorry pieces back to the shore where a heap of local wind and kite surfers helped us to sort it out. we left the wing on the shore where it still sits as I type this... and brought the boat back. We were all pretty happy when we removed the TRIMBLE GPS and saw it happily blinking away despite complete immersion for some time. This meant our data was safe from the previous record run. I was worried we might have lost it.

LtoR VENASSIUS, HISKIA SINDIMBA, PAUL, HELENA DARVELID, BRAD WITHEMAN, GEORGE DADD.

So we had learnt something new. We had discussed the possibilty of this happening but had perhaps not expected to go this quick this soon. Today the potential of this boat just took over. We didn't need to force it. The Rocket simply did what it said on the box.

I felt a mix of emotions. We were the fastest boat on the planet and had broken a couple of world records... but we had narrowly missed out on our ultimate goal of becoming undisputed number one. We also had the ability to smash the nautical mile record and significantly raise our best average... however, overall I felt good. My head hurt and my right elbow was seizing up... but I felt good. The cause of the loop could be rectified by simple tuning of the geometry. We had beaten many of those that we admired for many years and had overcome a mountain of hardship in doing so. This was but another obstacle to be overcome, nothing more nothing less. I am now safe in the knowledge that no-one can dispute that this is a very viable concept of enormous potential. in fact, I think it is perhaps one of the most significant speed sailing craft of all time. The concept behind this craft is future proof. This Mk1 prototype has also shown itself to be a pretty damned good first stab too.

So we got the big bottle of MUMM out of the WALVIS BAY YACHT CLUB and shook the s**t out of it!!! We even drank some. Next we went through the data. It was then that the real performance came out. I won't go into it too much until we get the TRIMBLE  data anylised... but this boat is rapid.

We all went out for dinner. I finally saw the above pics and associated Hi-def video. It sure was epic. What do you do with pics like this? Bugger it... we will put them out. This stuff comes with the turf. We ARE pushing the limits here on prototype craft. Make your own call. I reckon we can fix it and I reckon we can break the outright record. We built the boat and we've fixed her many times to get to where we are.

This is more than a rollercoaster... it's got all the rides of the fair thrown in.

Stay tuned.

Paul

*all speeds subject to WSSRC ratification.