Longboards vs. sailboats in light winds

Originally Posted by RAW

With regards to the sailboat vs sailboard down wind. Interestingly some of the top level dingy sailors and definitely some of the A-Class cat sailors ( fastest of the single handed cats) are now reaching on the square run. It is a very difficult thing to get right as the angles ( distance to sail) vs speed are critical. A sailboard when using this technique would be devastating. A skilled laser sailor is going to out point the sailboard but the extra speed the board can get when sailing just a few points lower is going to really hurt the laser rounding upwind mark. My dingy sailing days are well and truly over.

Raw, the cats and fast dinghies have been doing that for about 40 years and the windsurfers have been doing that for at least 30! :-)

[Jean-Marc]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Great vidoe, search
Kite vs Moth vs 49er
on yuoutube.

Very interesting to see the duel between Moth vs kiteboard racing in winds well above 5 knots :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l29gGKzmlkU

Below 5 knots of wind, this will be a different story of course with regards to the 49er outcome.

Cheers !

JM

[Jean-Marc]

Did another match race between a Serenity and 2 sailboats lately :

Wind : 4-6 knots. Fresh water lake, no chop, swell at 5-8 cm.
Board : Serenity wood mk 1. Drake XXL 70 cm stock fin. Mast track set right in the middle.
Sail : Severne Reflex II 11.0 m2. Mast Severne Enigma 550 cm. Boom Severne Enigma 210-260 cm carbon. Luff set at 561 cm, boom set at 252 cm. Sail is trimmed very deep, draft kept forward with a tight leech, monofilm barely touching the boom's arms up to the harness lines.

GPS readings showed that I was able to point upwind at a 45° angle. Speed upwind was around 6-7 knots.

So, first match racing with the same upwind angle as a Toucan sailboat (and the helmsman was very good), I managed to catch up from behind and pass the sailboat after a 10 min upwind battle because I had a bit better speed upwind than her. I can point a bit higher than the Toucan but then my speed decreased quite a bit at 5-6 knots, similar to that of the Toucan. So I knew my setup was competitive.

Second match racing against a Psaros 33. That racing sailboat is a brand new prototype (April 2012), with canting keel and self-aligning daggerboard, high-modulus carbon mast, a full battened square top kevlar main sail, a light-air designed code 0 jib, total sail area of 87 m2 for just 1950 kg total weight (see specs : http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/0...33_english.pdf). Crew of 5. I sailed upwind and behind her, aligned myself with the same angle upwind and tried to follow. No chance. First, she points 10° higher upwind than me. Second, she was faster, maybe 9-10 knots whereas I was speeding at 7-8 knots at that time. After 20 seconds of match racing, I was done: just impossible to follow.

So, my point of view is that sailing the Serenity + 11 m2 sail in very light wind (2 Bft) can be highly challenging and rewarding against top-class racing sailboats. Costs are 50x less expensive than a Psaros 33 and all the kit can fit on a car/minivan/van's roof top...

Cheers !

JM

Kite report up on isaf.

6-9 knots wind. 15 knots on the beat. 23 knots run; 26 knots reach. Gulp.

12-15 knot Formula should give 'em a race though.

[sergio_kj]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Kite report up on isaf.

6-9 knots wind. 15 knots on the beat. 23 knots run; 26 knots reach. Gulp.

12-15 knot Formula should give 'em a race though.

Formula in it's current evolutions stage shines way before 12 knots...
What you got is a distorted kite propoganda... Plus, current race kites are a custom/multi fin creations, allow formula boards out of it's class limitions fin/weight and put a top guys
on it, kites would loose so quick...

[Jean-Marc]

26 knots reaching with a kite in only 6-9 knots wind ? 3-4x the wind speed ? That's pure BS all the way.

Reality check is that nobody is kiting in such low wind except 1 guy with a Speed 3 Flysurfer 22 m2 kite and a raceboard with 4 big fins on my home lake. Truth is that he barely exceeds 2x the wind speed, i.e., 12 knots kite speed in 6 knots wind. That's exactly what I do on Serenity + 11 m2 sail BTW...

Should the wind drop below 5 knots, the kite is swimming while I'm still flying full speed as described above. Should the wind drop down to 0, I can still pump the big sail and reach a top speed of 5-6 knots with the Serenity while the kite is still swimming and calling for the rescue boat.

Time to get to real hard facts and stop the kite fantasy...

Cheers !

JM

Absolutely agree, being the lucky and jealous owner of a Serenity MKII down here in Venice, Italy. Best board I've ever choosen and bought (and I currently own 10 boards of various types, 5 in Venice and 5 outside).
BTW in my home spot SE of Venice airport kites are forbidden, as in many other places.

[Jean-Marc]

Here is the link to the report that "unregistered" was kindly talking about :

http://www.sailweb.co.uk/download/Ki...icalReport.pdf

ISAF Kiteboarding Format Trials Santander, Spain, March 21-25
Technical Report

Page 5 of 33:

"Performance:

Equipment can be launched in app. 3-4 knots of wind, depending on current, wind variety and surf.

Kiteboards can sail and be immediately on the plan from 4-5 knots.

GPS analysis showed the following speeds and angles in 6-9 knots:

Speed on the Beat: 15 knots or 8 1⁄2 minutes /nm
Speed on the Run: 23 knots or 4 minutes /nm
Speed on the Reach: 26 knots or 3 1⁄4 minutes /nm"

On the GPS recording shown as "proof", there is only 1 event with a Vmax peaking at 26 knots and maybe another one at Vmax 24 knots over a period of 2 hrs. Was the wind gusting at more than 9 knots during those 2 Vmax peaks? Where was the wind being measured : on the beach, on the course or at a nearby airport weather station ?

The "proofs" shown in the report are highly questionable to me simply because some of my kitesurf friends are unable to reproduce some of the miraculous claims made in this report on our home lake.

1) "Kiteboards can sail and be immediately on the plan from 4-5 knots". Yes, that is correct but only in true 5 knots winds with a Speed 3 Flysurf 21 m2 kite and a XXL Flydoor board (170cm x 50 cm) or a tube 22 m2 kite and a custom Kite Race board equipped with 2x 40 cm long race fins forward and 2x 36 cm long race fins on the back. Below 5 knots, it's swimming time and rescue boat help on our lake.
With a standard equipment (a basic twintip board), the wind limit is more like ±7 knots with an 18 m2 kite or ±10 knots with a 12-14 m2 kite. On par with a standard Formula Windsurfing equipment.

2) None of our group of 20+ kiters can reach a board speed that is equal to 3-4x that of the wind speed in winds below 9 knots. Only specifically designed large cats can do that on our lake, as explained below.

Furthermore, to claim that "The class polars show that kiteboarding is one of the most performant of all sailing classes, including the AC 45 and Extreme 40s" is overly measleading and represents a gross oversimplification of what the reality is on the water.

In 7 knots wind, a Decision 35 cat can reach a sustainable speed that is equal to 3x the wind speed on our home lake. In that same wind speed, the defunct Alinghi 5 mega cat was reaching a sustainable speed of 28-30 knots, i.e., 4x that of the wind speed. Sorry, I just don't buy that silly argument that "kiteboarding is one of the most performant of all sailing classes". Not true.

No wonders why windsurfing is out of the olympic games with such a blown-up-on-steroid report. Go figure...!

Cheers !

JM

Hi again JM. Thanks for your local experience, interesting perspective. As you say that is the offical ISAF trial report on which the decision was based. Now I'm a WS, but in fairness the report states the wind was measured from a drifiting boat. They had the worlds top guys too, and from eye wtiness reports they beat all other craft on the water, including the Tornado, on all pionts of sail, in all winds experienced. Tornados aren't slow, take alook at the Youtube of Xtreme40 v Skiff 18 youtube.com/watch?v=KjQpB-Snyr8. I agree all your points on practicalities, too numerous to list, and the GPS analysis is interesting. Where were the WSer's to point this out? Should have had the lightweight RSX to demo. Should have pointed out the perils of teaching kids kitesurfing on inland venues etc etc

Agree that Formula is actually quite a techncially regulated class, no protos allowed. I based my 12-15 knot guess for parity on the testing that KA did between their Formula & Moth riders: that crossed over around that range, and the Kite v Moth videos. Would love Ross Williams to go out and prove it was lower, but I still doubt under 12 knots Formula would get the angles.

Whatever it's not all about speed and the Div 2 video was nice, now a RS D2 with 9.5 demon VG7 would be perfect for summer...

PaulM

[Jean-Marc]

Paul,

Thanks for the link to the video. Yes, Tornados are fast, but not the fastest in light wind. Sorry, I've never seen an AC45 nor Extreme 40 cats on our swiss lake as yet but I have the chance to sail against quite a number of fast sailboats in light wind on Geneva lake. One of the fastest so far that I met is a Decision 35 cat : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9cision_35.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYSxacQ7nM8

In less than 7 knots wind, a D35 is faster than anything else on our lake, including Tornadoes, Ventilos, 49er, or even my Serenity + 11 m2 : no chance to match their speed on a beam reach. Even a foiler such as the exotic LX Mirabaud or the Pi28 Gonet have no chance :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT174ppfbUM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ie5C1-b3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WalVD5NgNTA

In 7-12 knots wind, a D35 is still faster than anything else. I tried many times just to follow them on a deep reach with a large slalom board + 11 m2 sail. While I was speeding at Vmax 25-26 knots, they are doing 30+ knots easily. In those same conditions, I'm on par with a Bladerider whereas a Hobbie cat 18 is left behind very quickly.

Yesterday was a very interesting match race against the hydroptere.ch cat. In 10-16+ knots winds on a deep reach with iSonic 117 Wide + Reflex III 8.6 m2, I was speeding at Vmax 27-29 knots while they were doing 35 knots easily. Just amazing to see from behind how fast they are going over their 2 leeward foils...!

So again, I'd love to see a kite doing 3-4x the wind speed and beating either a D35, hydroptere.ch or even the defunct Alinghi 5 in less than 10 knots winds :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPef0qbNFWM

Cheers !

JM