f50 catamaran speed record

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

The Blistering Speed of SailGP

The catamarans use wings, not sails, and hydrofoils help the boat fly over the water. It’s like a fast video game, with consequences.

By Kimball Livingston

A generation ago, sailing would not, could not have made the short list of team sports played at highway speeds. The boats that most people race are considered fast at nine knots; screaming at 15. That’s about 10 to 17 m.p.h.

Then came the F50 catamaran in 2019, with wings instead of sails and hydrofoils that lift the boats above the friction of the water, reaching speeds beyond 60 m.p.h., as they seemingly fly above the ocean. Indeed, the crew member helping make that happen is called the flight controller, who manipulates the elevations and angles of the left and right hydrofoils centered between bow and stern.

In SailGP lingo, the controller can fly the boat higher or lower. Higher is faster, but riskier because it also gets the boat closer to a nosedive.

The boats also require a new breed of helmsmen — they call themselves drivers — who direct the rapid-fire team choreography in which decisions must be made in fractions of a second.

The wing trimmer, a term from sail trimming days, shapes the wing — an airfoil — for speed and stability. Compared with fabric sails, a wing can provide more stability even while producing more speed. SailGP wings are built from carbon fiber with titanium fittings under a light plastic wrap. The old days of eyeballing sail shape are gone from these boats.

Data from racing and practicing is accumulated and analyzed to determine optimum wing shape for speed in different conditions, and the trimmer uses hydraulic controls to achieve the target settings.

With more moving parts than an airplane wing, an F50 wing has a larger menu of shape settings.

Given more wind, a sailboat tips over farther and farther until it spills wind out of the sails or loses control. Up to a point, SailGP catamarans just keep going faster. The British team hit a record 53.05 knots. or 61.05 m.p.h., during practice last summer.

“Compared to traditional boats, what is striking in SailGP is the complexity of the control systems,” said Nathan Outteridge , a two-time Olympic medalist who drives for the Japanese team. “I should say that driving is pretty easy, until things go wrong.”

Jason Waterhouse , an Olympic medalist who is flight controller for the Australian team, manages the hydrofoils that go up and down at precise angles with precise timing. Get it wrong, and the boat can nosedive.

“I have to have muscle memory,” Waterhouse said about operating the buttons and dials. It’s like a fast video game, with consequences.

Waterhouse also controls the rake, or angle, on the horizontal flaps on the two rudders the driver uses to steer. The flight controller contributes to level flight by dialing in as much as seven degrees of differential rake between the rudder flaps. The flap on the side being pushed down by the wind is angled to push up, and the flap on the opposite side is angled to push down.

“It adds an extra 300-400 kilos [650 to 900 pounds] of righting moment,” Waterhouse said, referring to the forces working to keep the boat from tipping over.

Paul Campbell-James, the wing trimmer for the U.S. team, said that because much of the boat’s hydraulic power was generated by a battery instead of by a crew member turning a grinding pedestal, his team had given that grinder a second job.

“We set up our forward-facing grinder to also be a tactician,” Campbell-James said. The grinder spins the pedestal’s handles to generate power for the hydraulics but also looks for wind shifts.

Wing shape on these boats has taken over most of the trim-in, trim-out of normal sail control, while contributing to level flight. The key is negative camber, shaping the upper wing to pull opposite to the lower wing, countering the forces trying to tip the boat over. Negative camber adds to the effect of the rudder flaps to make for level sailing. Old school it is not.

In turning maneuvers, the crew switches sides and Campbell-James crosses the boat first to take over driving duties before others follow him across. As they come, if he wobbles the helm, the motion could flick his teammates off the deck.

At the same time, he has to keep the boat level in a dynamic turn, press a foot button to raise a hydrofoil, respond as the wing loads up on the new side and hang on against “G-forces that are unbelievable because, remember, you might be going 50 knots. That’s a lot going on.”

Published on August 18th, 2021 | by Editor

Capsizes, Speed Records, and Big Wings

Published on August 18th, 2021 by Editor -->

Critical to SailGP is for racing to occur, for when you are seeking to be an entertainment sport, fans expect the show to go on. But nobody controls the wind, so revisions to their F50 catamaran wings has been the focus.

When the global sports league got underway in 2019, the wings were leftovers from the 2017 America’s Cup, so each wing for each team was a bit different. Not ideal, so the plan for second season was to build identical wings that could transform into three sizes based on the wind strength.

The cancellation of the 2020 season due to the pandemic gave the league additional time, but still the early events in 2021 only had the small (18m; 20-30 knots) and medium (24m; 4-24 knots) size wings. With light winds prevailing through the first three events, the big 29m wing was needed.

As SailGP’s eight international teams ready themselves for the fourth event of Season 2 in Denmark on August 20-21, the large wing finally took to the water for the first time on August 16 for initial testing with United States Driver Jimmy Spithill.

“We went out and had 10-12 knots of wind, so we got to see [the wing] in the upper end of what we think would be its wind range,” said Spithill. “The big test we still need to perform is the real light-air conditions we haven’t yet had during testing, and to line up the standard 24m wing.”

So far stronger winds have prevailed for training, which led to a capsize by the Danish team in gusts of 27 knots and the British team breaking the SailGP speed record with a top speed of 53.1 knots on the Aarhus waters.

However, a downward trend for the wind is in the works for the inaugural ROCKWOOL Denmark Sail Grand Prix, and with the largest wing not yet ready for primetime, it will be a another test for the original 24m wing to power the teams.

SailGP information – Denmark details – Facebook

How to watch – Results – Noticeboard

SailGP Season Championship (after 3 events) 1. Australia, 22 pts 2. Great Britain, 22 pts 3. France, 21 pts 4. United States, 19 pts 5. Japan, 19 pts 6. Spain, 19 pts 7. Denmark, 17 pts 8. New Zealand, 17 pts

Format for SailGP events: • Teams compete in identical F50 catamarans. • Each event runs across two days. • There are three races on each day, totaling six races at each event. • The opening five fleet races involve every team. • The final match race pits the three highest ranking teams against each other to be crowned event champion. • The season ends with the Grand Final, which includes the Championship Final Race – a winner-takes-all match race for the $1m prize.

SailGP Season 2 Schedule* April 24-25, 2021 – Bermuda Grand Prix June 5-6, 2021 – Italy Grand Prix – Taranto July 17-18, 2021 – Great Britain Grand Prix – Plymouth August 20-21, 2021 – ROCKWOOL Denmark Grand Prix – Aarhus September 11-12, 2021 – France Grand Prix – Saint-Tropez October 9-10, 2021 – Spain Grand Prix – Andalusia December 17-18, 2021 – Australia Grand Prix – Sydney January 29-30, 2022 – New Zealand Grand Prix – Christchurch ( CANCELLED ) March 26-27, 2022 – United States Grand Prix – San Francisco (Season 2 Grand Final) *Subject to change

2021-22 Teams, Helm Australia, Tom Slingsby Denmark, Nicolai Sehested France, Billy Besson Great Britain, Ben Ainslie (alternate – Paul Goodison) Japan, Nathan Outteridge New Zealand, Peter Burling (alternate – Arnaud Psarofaghis) Spain, Jordi Xammar (alternate – Phil Robertson) United States, Jimmy Spithill

Established in 2018, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric inshore racing in some of the iconic harbors around the globe. Rival national teams compete in identical F50 catamarans with the season culminating with a $1 million winner-takes-all match race.

Source: SailGP

Tags: SailGP , SailGP Aarhus

Related Posts

Wing failure for Brazil SailGP Team →

SailGP: The Russell Report – Off-season →

Martine Grael to lead Brazil SailGP Team →

SailGP: We’re talking about practice →

© 2024 Scuttlebutt Sailing News. Inbox Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. made by VSSL Agency .

• Privacy Statement
• Advertise With Us

Get Your Sailing News Fix!

Your download by email.

• Your Name...
• Your Email... *
• Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

How the world’s fastest sail racing boats fly above the water

Tune in to SailGP Season 2 and you’d be forgiven for thinking that your eyes are deceiving you.

So, what is foiling, how does it work, and when did sailing become so… cool?

It's all about drag

The story behind hydrofoils

The next frontier.

Beneath The Surface

Watch on youtube.

Access All Areas

Want to learn more about SailGP?

Meet the denmark sailgp team, find all the latest news, go beneath the surface of sailgp, discover more beneath the surface.

Protecting paradise – Sailing towards a more sustainable future

Like so many coastal communities all over the world, preserving the delicate marine ecosystem and the health of the ocean is of huge priority on the island of Bermuda

Chasing a dream – Risking everything to renovate an abandoned hotel

When builder Bryan Baeumler stumbled upon a decaying and abandoned resort on the tropical island of St. Andros in the Bahamas, he was compelled to quit his cosy life in Canada and transform the ruin into a luxury escape. His top priority when revitalising the dilapidated resort was to renovate in the most sustainable way possible, with true respect for its island location. But how could this be done?

The Beneath The Surface show

We go Beneath The Surface of SailGP's iconic host cities, set a spotlight on great projects and curious mind and catch all the lastest with the Denmark SailGP Team. Join us as we travel the world and explore how innovation and science is helping solve the world's biggest challenges!

Helping Taranto sail towards a brighter horizon

Taranto, and other parts of the southern region, has long suffered from brain drain. But can the renovation wave that is currently sailing through Italy help reverse this trend and breathe new life into this once charming city?

ROCKWOOL Group

Tula, Russia: Land of Gingerbread, Samovars and Tolstoy

Slavic Travels Uncategorized

Fall was always my favorite season growing up.

Something about the air turning crisper, the weather getting colder. The leaves turning yellow and brown and orange. And of course Halloween.

It’s that back-to-school weather that any person growing up in the United States loves.

So it was a special treat to be able to experience what fall was like in a different country on a different continent, in a country so unknown in the west. To experience fall in Russia.

Maybe it’s because the season is so short here, but autumn in Russia is truly special.

For starters, it only lasts one month. Fall rolls in during the second half of September and ends in the first half of October. After that winter is already in the air.

But during that brief four-week period, when the country transitions from summer to winter, the Russian countryside explodes into the most beautiful mosaic of red and orange and brown and yellow.

They call it ‘zolotaja osenj’ here, or ‘golden fall.’

It was during this time of year I decided to head outside of Moscow and visit Tula, a city located three hours south of Moscow.

The year was 2017. I was living in Moscow working for a Russian newspaper. October had just arrived.

I was living with another American at the time working in Moscow. We both didn’t want to waste a beautiful crisp sunny autumn day cooped up in Moscow in the apartment.

So we took out a map and looked at what cities nearby we could visit.

We looked North, East, West and finally South. And there she was. Tula.

We’d read a lot of good things about Tula before. How Tula was the birthplace of Leo Tolstoy. That it was where a traditional Russian desert called pryaniki, or ‘gingerbread’ originated.

How for centuries Tula supplied the Russian empire with weapons and arms. And that samovars, what Russians used to make tea and keep water hot, originated from there.

Throw in a Kremlin too, which the city had, and the choice was obvious. We should visit Tula.

And off we went. To enjoy the Russian autumn in the Russian provinces.

How to get to Tula

There are two ways to get to Tula from Moscow. You can take a suburban train, known as elektrichkas, or you can take a regular train. The regular train costs more, and will take you there directly. In this case, Tula is usually the first stop of a longer train ride headed south toward Voronezh and Ukraine.

The other option, which we opted for, was the elektrichka. Elektrichkas are suburban trains that connect surrounding cities to Moscow. The elektrichka takes longer, three hours as opposed to an hour and a half. But the benefit is it is cheap. And you get to see all the smaller cities the train stops in.

When we went, the train was packed full of Russians heading to their dachas for the weekend.

Churches all across the Soviet Union were declared to have ‘no historic value’ and torn down. Churches that were several centuries old. Comunist style administration buildings were put in their place. Monuments to Russian czars were also destroyed and replaced by statues of Lenin.

In the 1980s under Gorbachev an effort was made to restore churches that had been neglected for decades under communism. The domes were put back in place and religious services began once more.

In 2006 the building was finally returned back to the Russian Orthodox Church. Somehow, Tula’s Uspensky Sobor managed to survive 80 years of neglect under Soviet rule. Let’s hope the 21st century treats it better.

It too faced threats of disappearing forever under the communists. In the 1920s the dome was torn down but the remainder of the building was left untouched. For a while it functioned as a school, and then in 1960 the building was deemed to be part of the city’s architectural heritage and received protected status.

It’s interesting to compare Kremlins in Russia and when they were built. As far as Tula is concerned, it’s Kremlin isn’t the oldest, but neither is it the youngest.

• Veliky Novgorod – 1490
• Moscow – 1495
• Nizhny Novgorod – 1515
• Tula – 1520
• Zaraisk – 1531
• Kolomna – 1531
• Astrakhan – 1581
• Smolensk – 1602
• Rostov – 1680

There’s actually a lot more kremlins in Russia, depending on how you define a Kremlin. Technically many monetarists could be considered Kremlins, but are classified as religious objects, such as Sergiev Posad or Zvenigorod . Some have only been partly preserved, such as Kolomna . In any case, Tula gets the honor of being one of a handful of Russian cities with a Kremlin that’s been fully preserved.

In Moscow, the Kremlin is closed to the public. In order to visit, you have to pay. And as a result, nobody gets to enjoy the Kremlin. Tourists will pay and go inside when they visit the city. But the actual residents of Moscow, the people that live in the city, never get to enjoy it. It feels separated from the city, not like an integral part of it.

It wasn’t always like this. Up until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, Moscow’s Kremlin was open to the public and anybody could walk in and out of it. It functioned just like the Kremlins in Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Novgorod and so forth.

Moscow should learn from these cities and open their own Kremlin up to the public. The city would become much more attractive.

One problem in Tula were the wide streets that favored cars. Tula’s main street in the city that went through the center of the city had three lanes for cars going in each direction.

It was no wonder, therefore that cars drove very fast. In fact, I was quite surprised at just how loud Tula was for a city of only half a million people. It felt like on every street there was the constant noise of cars rushing by.

What should Tula do instead? Streets like these should be reduced in size and preference given to pedestrians and cyclists. Two lanes in the middle should go toward a tram line, the other two narrowed in size to make way for a bike lane going in both directions.

Tula in fact, had tram lines operating on its main streets up until WWII, before the government decided to get rid of them.

Giving the streets back to the people would make the city a more comfortable place to live.

What I love most about these buildings is how colorful they are. They are all painted in different colors.

Unfortunately many of them were in bad shape. Traditional wooden buildings in Russia are in danger of disappearing forever. All across the country these buildings are being torn down as people move to cities and forget about the buildings where their grandparents grew up and came from. I wrote an entire separate post about the topic here about a street in Tula that was filled with these wooden buildings.

This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the city. Built in 1772, it contained some of the oldest graveyards and tombs in the city from over 100 years ago.

Tula was the city where the majority of Russian samovars were produced in the 19th century. You could find them all over Europe and chance are if you live in an old house and look in the attic, you will find a samovar that was made in the city of Tula.

Tula was an amazing city to visit in the fall. Russia can have extreme weather. Most of the year is covered in snow, but you have brief glimpses of fall, spring and summer that can be enjoyed.

These photos capture what fall in Russia is like. We happened to spend them in Tula, but really, any Russian city will look this beautiful in the fall.

When it comes t othe city of Tula itself, it is a great day trip outside of Moscow. The city is beaming with history. The armaments factory, the Kremlin, the wooden buildings in the center of the city, the beautiful cemetery atop the hill and the delicious Russian pryaniki all combine to make this worth the trek outside of Moscow.

Be sure to add it to your itinerary when you visit Russia and Moscow.

The Destruction of Moscow: Rusakovskaya Street

Ellicott City: Exploring Small Town Maryland

Down in the heart of Sumadija: Cacak, Serbia

Crash of an airplane in Tula: 34 killed

• AMERICA'S CUP
• CLASSIFIEDS
• NEWSLETTERS
• SUBMIT NEWS

Take a tour of the F50

Related Articles