Photo: World Sailing RecordThe World Sailing Speed Record (for mono-hull, multi-hull or foil) was set April 10, 2005 by Windsurfer Finian Maynard with a speed of 48.70 knots over 500 meters (about a third of a mile), on the 'trench' at St Maries de la Mer, France.
The angle on the Trench was exactly 126 degrees and the wind was 40 knots with the occasional 45 knot gust.
Maynard's weight (and weight is needed!) provides the necessary counter balance to the wind force in the sail, the drag from the necessary small skeg at the stern, is expected to make anything more than a final 50 knot record, unlikely in the future.
Photo: Thierry Martinez
Roy Disney's maxZ86 Pyewacket IV
On Roy Disney's Pyewacket IV and Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory (both maxZ86's), a bulb on a strut that can be canted to windward is the equivalent of Finian Maynard's body weight hiked out on his board.
A narrow bow entry and a flat stern section to prevent - the stern squatting, makes for a planning hull that can overcome the wave barrier* that limits the speed of a displacement hull.
*Non planning hull's can go no faster than the wave length created by the hull as it moves through the water (1.34 x √LWL), they may sail down the back of a wave and temporarily exceed this, but they cannot maintain that speed as the hull squats in the trough between the stern wave and an insurmountable bow wave.
On the 2005 Transpac, Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory, and Roy Disney's Pywacket IV both broke Disney's 1999 race record set with with Pywacket III, a maxZ86 with a fixed keel (of 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 11 seconds), with new records of 6 days 16 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds Morning Glory, and 6:18:32:25 for Pyewacket IV.
Their average speeds were 13.9 and 13.7 knots for the 2,225 nautical miles* from California's Palos Verdes Peninsula to the volcanic landmark called Diamond Head just east of Waikiki. Randall Pittman's Genuine Risk, a Dubois 90 with a canting keel, also beat the record with an elapsed time of 6:22:02:35, as did Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 (7:03:02:57), and Doug DeVos's Windquest (7:05:58:03). *the distance sailed is far greater than the theoretical distance
The performance by the maxz86's was remarkable because it wasn't a particularly windy Transpac. Grant Baldwin, the retiring communications chief, referred repeatedly to "wimpy trade winds," and Peter Isler, who co-navigated Morning Glory with Ian Moore, said, "We didn't see 20 knots [of breeze] until the Molokai Channel." And yet the maxZ86s often exceeded that speed along the way.
"These boats are fantastic," Plattner said. "With the canting keels we have less weight and better righting moment. It's a pity that more people aren't joining in." Isler said, "This boat goes so fast effortlessly it's amazing . . . 21, 22, 23 knots, and you don't have the sensation of speed you have on a smaller boat. Everybody got a lot of sleep. It's a pretty painless way to go on this boat in these [relatively mild] conditions."
Both Pyewaket IV and Morning Glory have Canting Ballast Twin Foil (CBTF®) technology, differing from a canting keel system in that the boat has twin rudders-one forward of the keel strut and one aft of the keel strut. The "rudders" perform the function of both the keel and rudder on a normal fixed keel boat relieving the canting keel strut of having to produce lateral resistance.
Bob Oatley's Open 60 Class Wild Oates
Photo: Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex
Bob Oatley's Azzura-built Reichel/Pugh 60 Wild Oats also has CBTF®, and in 2003 led the Australian Team to its first Admiral's Cup victory in 24 years.
The rudders are operated in two modes:
1) Steering-both, they turn opposite directions
2) Together, turned the same direction makes it possible to dial out leeway going upwind. This capability also makes it possible to go to windward sideways for short distances, for instance, in pre start maneuvering and in other tight situations.
Skandia an Open 60*, has a canting keel strut and bulb, but unlike Wild Oates she has twin rudders and port & starboard dagger boards for leeway control (in the photo; as the keel strut is only slightly canted, it provides most of the necessary leeway control and the dagger boards can be seen part raised midship).
*Open 60 Class are built to what is termed a 'Box Rule' allowing each sailboat to be individually designed within a 'Box' of length, beam, sail area, displacement in order to provide fair competition.
Photo: Chris Ison
Sunday 29 May 2005 the Open 60 Sill et Veolia skippered by Roland Jourdain, crossed
the finish line of the Calais Round Britain Race 2005. The Lombard design
took 6 days 16 hours 43 minutes 21 seconds to cover the 1815 miles of this
clockwise race around the British Isles from Calais to Calais at an
average speed of 11.29 knots [mach 1.05].
The distance sailed is far greater than the theoretical distance of the course, so Sill et Veolia had to sail at much higher speeds than mach 1.05 for her l.w.l.
Photo: Thierry Martinez
Owned by Robert Miller, the all carbon fibre 140 foot super-maxi, Mari Cha IV, was launched in August 2003, the yacht weighs just 50 tonnes, and has a canting keel with a 10 ton bulb, which can be swung + / - 40 degrees; and a water ballast system.
A fully uncompromised racing machine, from conception and design to construction and finish. Every last detail has been scrutinized to minimise weight. There is no room for luxuries or home comforts on this yacht, just minimal living quarters below deck and freeze dried food to eat.
Mari Cha IV took the world of sailing by storm in October 2003 on its maiden voyage, she crossed the Atlantic in only six days at an average of 18.07 knots, setting a new Transatlantic monohull record. The team also made sailing history during the crossing when they smashed the previous 24 hour record of 484 nautical miles by sailing 525.7 nautical miles (averaging 21.98 knots per hour), the first monohull yacht to ever sail over 500 miles* in a day.
* April 13, 2005, MovieStar (a Volvo 70), set a new record of 530.19 n.m. in 24 hours..
Photo: Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex
While Maximus at 100ft l.o.a. is shorter than Maria Chai IV, she is even more revolutionary with a rotating mast to reduce rig drag (which translates directly into improved boat-speed), and a canting keel capable of being canted 50 degrees off centre to provide a massive righting moment, and is also retractable to reduce draft from 19.7 ft to 13.2 ft.
"We wanted a yacht with the maximum righting moment and a very high power to weight ratio, and a boat that is fully powered at a low wind speed", explains co-owner Charles St Clair Brown. "We wouldn't have built the boat unless we hadn't been very happy with the VPP's (Velocity Predictions). We did a huge amount of VPP analysis and also ran various scenarios including water ballasting and canting with various hull forms, beamier and narrower at the waterline, and have all been analysed as best as we can with the computer."
June 1, 2005, the Rolex Transatlantic Challenge. The 100-year-old west-to-east race record across the North Atlantic, from New York to the Lizard, fell Wednesday morning to Mari-Cha IV as she crossed the line due south of Cornwall's Lizard Point at 10:05:23 GMT, making her time for the 2,925-nautical mile course--from the Ambrose Light off New York Harbor - 9 days, 15 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds*, at an average speed of 12.61 knots (Maximus passed the Lizard 3 hours, 13 minutes, and 32 seconds after Mari Cha IV, to win the 2005 Race on corrected time).
*
Although various boats, including Mari Cha IV have bettered this time during a passage (leaving whenever the weather looked best for a record), in 100 years Atlantic's time in the 1905 Race (for the Kaiser's Cup), had never been beaten.
In the 1905 Race, America's Cup veteran Charlie Barr on board Atlantic, set a record of 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds (to win the Kaiser's Cup). Mari-Cha IV, despite the inclement weather conditions and a broken headboard (she sailed a reverse course for a day), took 2 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes and 56 seconds off the 1905 race record.
* The start of the 20th century was not good for the Kaiser, his 158-foot schooner Hamburg (ironically built in England), lost to the 163-foot American entry Atlantic, and the preemptive war he considered necessary for his nation in 1914, turned into WW1 and Kaiser Wilhelm's exit from sailing to a landlubber's exile in Holland.
The official race rule for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09, released September 20, 2006, shows subtle refinements from its predecessor with the main focus on improving durability while safeguarding the Volvo Open 70's status as the world's fastest ocean going monohull.
To that end, weight distribution, restrictions on appendages and the integrity of construction materials in keel mechanisms are the main elements of version 2 of the Volvo Open 70 rule - upgraded from the 2005-06 race.
The race organisers and Rule Management Group (RMG), led by chief measurer James Dadd, have concentrated on the issues which contributed to structural problems in the previous race - particularly in the area of canting keels.
The intention has been to stay true to the stated philosophy of producing 'fast, single mast, monohull keelboats of similar performance, suitable for long distance racing offshore at the highest level of the sport'. The next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will start in the autumn of 2008 in Alicante, Spain; log on to www.volvooceanrace.org for full copy of changes.
This box rule came from the mind of Bob Salmon, his concept was that by restricting boat size, it was possible to provide economical 'entry level' for single-handed / double-handed Formulae 1 Ocean sailboat racing.
The rules encourage development of many principles not allowed in other modern classes, such as a canting keel that can also move fore and aft - it can be preferable in the Mini6.5 to increase weight at the stern when running downwind to prevent unintended submarining.
Since 1977 there has been a Mini TransAtlantic race run every two years (single-handed) for more on the Mini6.5 [click here]
Schock 40 - A production One Design with DynaYacht's patented canting ballast and twin foils CBTF®. An electric motor operates a hydraulic rod that cants a 1,800-pound ballast bulb at the end of an 8-foot steel strut. At maximum position it projects 55 degrees to windward, providing the righting moment of a 6,000-pound fixed keel.
The two slim 8-foot rudders, one forward, one aft, are connected to the tiller so they operate in sync, albeit rotating in opposite directions. They can also be articulated 4 degrees to act like trim tabs for additional hydrodynamic lift, and further reducing leeway.
The Schock 40 length to beam ratio* is 8.3:1, in comparison to a J-80's 4.3:1, and J-24's 3.6:1
*(LWL + LOA/2) / Max beam
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
17 March 2005, Bruno Peyron and crew of 'Orange 11', in addition to having set a 24 hour sailing record [706.20 miles] during their circumnavigation, crossed the finishing line off the Island of Ushant, to set a new round the world record of 50 days, 16 hours, 20 minutes and 4 seconds, achieving an average speed of 22.2 knots, smashing the records set last year by American Steve Fossett and French yachtsman Olivier de Kersauson.
As she crossed the finishing line, the south south westerly wind was blowing at 25/27 knots, 'Orange 11' crossed it at 28 knots just 0.5 miles from the coast. Olivier de Kersauson, the chairman and former holder of the Jules Verne Trophy, congratulated Bruno Peyron and crew on their fabulous performance around the world. "the hurdle of fifty days is now within reach, showing the huge amount of progress that our sport makes each year. No other racing sport can claim to have made this progress, as each new generation of boat pushes back the limits still further."
Orange 11 in its 2006 successful attempt on the West to East Atlantic Record; on 2-3 July, 2006 broke their previous recode of 706.2n.m. [in 2004], with a new one of 766.8n.m [an average speed of 31.95kt] and this with a broken rudder, and set a new Atlantic Record of 4 days, 8 hours, 23 minutes, 54 seconds.
Orange 11 has a 20:1 length to hull beam ratio (the ocean racing mono-hull Mari Cha IV has 6.4:1), that's a lot less water that has to be moved aside to let Orange 11's hull/s pass, plus a catarmaran will be much lighter [with better power to weight ratio] than a mono-hull, as it can 'fly' one hull for stability when sailing close hauled, Orange 11 was designed to fly a hull at wind speeds in excess of 14 knots.
Photo: F. Van Malleghem/Mer & Media
While the speed of a [non planning] displacement hull is a function of 1.34 x LWL and the hull's of a multihull would be no exception [√LWLx1.34], except that their extreme narrowness (between 11.1 - 20.1 beam to length ratio), results in very little water to be pushed aside, with such a small bow wave to mount, coupled [the theory goes] by the force in the sails [as the hull reaches the critical hull speed], forcing the bow down and the narrow stern up, leaving little for the water trough to 'grasp' and consequently, a multihull can continue to accelerate.*
*July 6, 2005, Francis Joyon on IDEC set a new North Atlantic single-handed sailing record of: 6 days, 04 hours, one minute and 37 seconds (from Ambrose Light off New York to The Lizard, the southernmost tip of Cornwall, UK), an average speed of 19.75 knots for the theoretical distance of 2,980 nautical miles.
Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget
Trimarans are not a new invention, over 5,000 years ago they were used by the Melanesians in the Pacific. The modern-day multihull is a space-age breed of boat that has taken high-speed ocean-racing to new levels, an open 60 Tri-maran, can sail at up to 30 knots, the crew wear googles as eye protection from the spray.
In general, a crew of seven is considered to be ideal, but some limit the crew to five (saves weight of provisions), but with more work for a smaller crew, leaves little room for crew error.
Depending on racing rules, the outriggers can contain water ballast tanks, which can be filled or emptied as required for ballast.
To be fair to Monsieur Blériot's time of 37 minutes, he did get slightly lost, finally finding the Port of Dover it was said by following some ships which were steaming for that port! Then in addition, the power to weight ratio of his plane was such, that he was unable to climb higher than 200ft (and the White Cliffs rise to 300ft), and he had to find a grassy hollow called Northf'all Meadow, a gap in the escarpment less than 100 feet above the water, where a fellow Frenchman stood waving a large French flag. Hydroptère in turn at their finish line below the White Cliffs of Dover, had to overcome the chaotic backwash from the waves rebounding off the cliff face.
© John Browning