What? - good judgement restricts you to row close to shore in a large enclosed bay?
Actually the telephoto lens is “compressing” the distance between the 3 boats to initially appear close. Look at the wakes of the two boats after they pass the rower. They are well apart. And look at the reaction from the rower - other than they stopped rowing, nothing! A safe crossing.
always better to err on the side of caution… looks like either he is waving at the boat, or maybe taking a picture… ETNZ Spy???
a large wide open bay…easy enough to give the guy more space…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=stxnb5QICEg#!
at 1.55 minute mark. ETNZ is foiling on one hull and one rudder as the upwind rudder is popping out of water…
an through out the entire video they are foiling on one hull in many places… oracle is doomed…
17 minutes etnz gybes and never looses the foil…
in around 10knts of breeze…
I think that makes him the first AC helmsman to go overboard since 1901, when BB Crowninshield’s giant scow “Independence” flung her helmsman over as he fought the beast for control.
Cheers,
Earl
Hew. looks like LR is throwing up quite the rooster tail. much more than ETNZ and ETNZ appears to have much more speed and control…
Er, as somebody who spent many a happy hour on SF Bay, I would be careful going out on it in an open rowboat. What most people don’t realize is that it’s not your normal enclosed bay, it’s the mouth of a giant river system. This makes the water cold (60 degrees today, 1-2 hrs survival time) and if you go out during an ebb tide you better be able to row faster than 3-4 kt or you might find yourself outside the Gate and headed for Yokohama. All bodies of water should be treated with respect, SF Bay more than most.
Cheers,
Earl
First video I’ve seen where ETNZ looks to be having foiling problems. The leeward hull flys, but the windward one does not?!? Wrong angle on the foils?
See O.R sitting in background at start of vid no doubt wanting to line-up when ETNZ take-off but ETNZ will not engage O.R under any circumstances hence … ETNZ could well be playing lame duck until O.R clear out …
ETNZ & L.R have been practising & racing together and was interesting to see the affects how much dirty air comes off theses huge wings when these boats are close to each other… it’s more like jet-wash at these speeds that upsets a trailing boats foiling ability.
Watch this short vid with ETNZ & racing, L.R smokes it off the line and then ETNZ gets up to speed then briefly hits L.R jet-wash but then punch through it and take L.R on to weather and then coming around the first mark L.R catch ETNZ jet-wash and you can see L.R foiling becomes wobbly… and these guys have the most stable foiler of them all…iteresting new sailing tactics coming into play !
O.R have boat 1 & 2 on the water (hard to tell which is which with same graphics on both boats) with Ainslie helming boat 1 and Spithill’s boat 2 so there will be lot team distraction tactics and inter-team mind games going on.
Artemis will not be ready for start of L.V series (surprise ! surprise!! not) but they will be in later, so the challenger series will be in limbo waiting for Artemis to get up to speed…
Word is that L.R may have new hulls coming & ETNZ making further mods to their boat 1 so will be interesting seeing how things shape-up.
We thought, ETNZ was waiting for Oracle and tried to force them in some sort of action. So they had a tack in mind and the wing was not under full load.
We wondered how much lift the foils produce, while some speed is in the boat. You see that when the wing stalls, especially short before the tack (or during a gybe, when the new windward foil stays too long in the water and produces wheelies as seen with the Oracle).
Those two days I’ve seen them, ETNZ did the turns (tacks and gybes) like a bike (using the lift of the foils). We have seen many radical manoeuvres by ETNZ , all of them without loss of control.
ETNZ heading from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate:
[video=youtube_share;V5afkUDi2hM]http://youtu.be/V5afkUDi2hM[/video]
:darth:
I’ve been trying to find video/photos for a comparison of upwind performance between one of the boats on foils, and one just using “regular” boards. Wondering if the “pointing” ability while flying the hull(s) is any better/worse between the two. Hard to tell from the videos how close any foiling boat is to the wind, versus needing to bear off and reach a bit to pick up apparent wind, then speed, to support the lift. Have any course plots been posted yet that show wind/steering angles yet?
Just curious. Dick
I was under the impression that foiling was only on the off wind legs, not upwind. I can’t imagine reducing waterline and board area would be faster upwind.
Hew - when we fooled with the original foiling trimaran from MicroSAIL up here, it didn’t point as high as one of his 50 inch monohulls, but was so much quicker on foils that slight footing off allowed more speed and distance covered. For these multihulls, they still need boards provide lateral resistance and to sail upwind, so the foils and foil tips would (seem) to add to drag.
I would think…
Well there seems to be a different “pointing” ability while flying the hull(s) between L.R and ETNZ,
as you see at the video from John Navas at 5:50.
Really bad drifting for L.R. at 2:34.
[video=youtube_share;vlWaMVheYrQ]http://youtu.be/vlWaMVheYrQ[/video]
At 6:05 you see two red buoys, the line between them should be parallel to the Golden Gate.
So L.R. should be on an ‘beam reaching’ and ETNZ on a ‘close reaching’.
At my video ETNZ was on it’s way from Alcatraz to Golden Gate under west-wind conditions.
I could not imagine that the wind shifts there so much to the south, so should have been ‘close reaching’ to ‘close hauled’.
wasn’t a friend of foils so far (esp. with RC-Multihulls)
well, time will tell.
by the way where are the foils 
Foils not required - just the outboard motor ! 
Here is very good article on various foil shapes & designs …under title of Alphabet Soup (C, J and L Foils)
a bit off-topic now:
If think, at the RC-side we have underestimated the rig too much too long.
For the last two years I use a rake about 12° to 15° from the vertical (and the luff of the jib has much more) at my RC-Tornado. I saw something like that at a sailing school at lake garda with their hobie 16er. (There you get the chance to capsize backwards at a hobie 16 during a tack )
As long as the vector coming from the center of effort of the sails doesn’t point to the water, the hull get’s a chance to to dig out again while a pitch-pole.
And while the gusts are getting stronger, I can open the main, so the jib holds up the boat speed and lifts the bow.
Not so spectacular as the 18 footer above, but it works, every percent counts.