VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/blog/ ( Friday, November 21, 2008 & Monday, November 17, 2008 http://www.speedworldcup.com/general-ne ... ecord.html
) A controversy exists ... Why is kiting not recognized as a legitimat candidate for a speed record ? Here is a petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/kite50kn/petition.html

boo on those arrogant Yachties! Too bad if your million dollar carbon trimaran cant keep up with some dude on a lunchtray!

too funny, downwind dave..."some dude on a lunchtray"....yea, strapped to a kite the size of a king bedsheet

crusty old farts - grow up or grow old and out! They just rendered their organization obsolete with this bonehead move!
I guess the term kitesurfing or kiteboarding and not kitesailing doesn't help. I have sailed my whole life and I don't for a moment understand how kitesurfing, er ah, kitesailing is not sailing?

IT IS SAILING.

Some windsurfer perspectives

http://www.boards.co.uk/forum/forum_pos ... 3564&TPN=3
and a thread from last month
http://www.boards.co.uk/forum/forum_pos ... 3427&TPN=1

BTW, while 90% of the WS posters there support kitesurfing as sailing for the record, there are a few there that appear to be the opposite; mostly, this is just British humour, and meant not to be taken seriously, e.g., "let them stay in the wilderness till they learn their port from starboard" etc. Don't let them wind you up!

Oh, yeah, and someone posted a pic of the committee that decides these things; all blue blazers, striped ties, and brass button yachtie club types.

50.57 knots as of Dec 1, 2008
http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/content/view/100/3/

Still just the "kite record" so far it seems. But this is promising:

"At this stage we only want to clarify that the WSSRC has been always supportive to Kiteboarding and has made clear that they see kiteboards fully eligible to claim the outright speed sailing record. We are working on this topic now with full energy to resolve the matter." Nov 21
http://www.internationalkiteboarding.or ... Itemid=140

Here's a look at the top speeds at one event (where the record was set by Alex) and if it was a kite or windsurfer:
http://www.luderitz-speed.com/ContentPa ... sults.aspx

Ohhh, that makes it look bad afor windsurfers. You gotta remember, though, that the only top windsurfer there was Bjorn D, and he left early on before the record-breaking winds came through. I doubt he'd be much better than a quarter of the way down the list even if he'd stayed, the kites are clearly have a big edge. Anything over 30knots is just stupidly fast anyway, I had trouble getting to 25 even at Nitinat.

Just when you think the kites have it wrapped, the yachts are suddenly back in the hunt big time, maybe they'll take the overall title fair and square yet! Sailrocket got 47.4 knots over 500 m and was over 52 knots on a second run when it did an endo backloop. 'pilot' survived unhurt. Check out these pics, awesome!!

BTW note the resemblance of their 'sail' to a kite! Also note that they only needed 22 knots of wind, unlike the windsurfers who need 50-60 knots to get similar speeds
http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=144431

higher def pics here
http://www.sailrocket.com/live/?q=node/78#comments

Video will be posted soon, they are working on it!

Nice research MF4 ... Here are some videos from Namibia in Oct. : http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=ve ... emb=0&aq=f# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XOdXPCaQBE

Wow - the onboard camera is awsome! Especially when he loses steering and almost hits the assistant boat.

There are over 1250 signatures on the petition now, with lots of amusing comments.

But all this talk about just plain speed ... what about speed and style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_v2-hY ... re=related
Reuben Lenton - he'll be the next PKRA champ.

Yep that near miss in October was pretty damn close! Its clear that the pilot has a full-time radio connection to the support RIB, but I didn't see any evidence that the RIB actually made any moves to avoid the crash. Probably happened way too fast. I can't wait for the airborne 3/4 loop clip from the boatcam. Some commenters are calling it the most spectacular sailing crash ever - certainly its the fastest Probably the highest too - he's getting kite-like boost there!!

On the youtube 'similar' links is the 'fastest boat in the world' clip of the Hydroptere getting the overall 1 mile record. That is one amazing boat, if it ever crashed there would be multiple bodies flying a long, long way! Its much more impressive really, as they are in real waves, not a couple of metres from a sandbank like the windsurfers, kites, and Sailrocket.

I thought the Y&Y caption was pretty apt: "The Full Donald Campbell".

Cost of the kite and board that set the record $3000 max. Cost of Sailrocket ?

Ross wrote:Cost of the kite and board that set the record $3000 max. Cost of Sailrocket ?

A lot more than the kite! Was the kite and board off-the-shelf? If so, that speaks volumes!

To give credit where its due, I think Sailrocket is the low-end budget alternative of the yachts. Its a whole fortune less than Hydroptere!

From today's "Paul Blog" on their site
"I have assessed the damage to the boat and it is fixable. I have lost a day trying to manage all the media demands and am typing this in a white dust suit in between repairs. We are only a small team remember. I want to be back in the water in a week."

He says the video is uploading to youtube, but the connection is slow.