Uncle Robbye sets new World speed record on X3

[dt]

Someone said a 14M 2004 North kite is 50% faster than a 2004 competitors 17M kite. Would Robbie have gone 50% faster on a new North!!!???!!!!

How do you put an emoticon in a post? I tried to drag an drop and that didn't work. Then I tried to cut and paste and that didn't work either.

[doofus]

it worked!

but u just click on them

[kgb]

The North kite is 50% faster? Now that is a joke. Who does North even have doing the speed thing? Maybe Will James farts 50% faster, but I doubt that fact as well.

The video is rad, but too bad about those holes in the middle of the course. You can see the lulls really slowed him down. There is no doubt Robby will break the record again on a better course.

[kiteantigua.com]

i know i will probably get flamed for saying this but i think this is as impressive as the sickest stuff andre pulls. Robbie's gotta be having a mid life crisis. That's nuts! Immagine how bad things could go wrong at that speed.
eli

[bubba]

If you watch his arms it looks like he's also working the kite a lot.
My guess is it was pretty gusty and choppy at the start of the coarse where you see the most spray. Towards the end of the coarse his ride seems to become more smooth (also faster).

If you check out the speedsailing site you'll see that the competition (foil boat thing) puts out a ton of spray so I don't think its such a bad thing. Note too that racing boats put out a lot of spray.

Anyway Bjorn probably stands the best chance of breaking 50k (IMO).
Robby will probably break 45K on a kite soon enough.

[GregW]

When water skiers break speed records they don't edge to increase speed. They go straight behind a boat that is going fast. That is easier than edging hard to go faster than the boat. Besides, the water ski speed record is measured along a straight line. They don't drive the boat around in a circle while the skier whips around outside.

snip

Ski boats got engines. Ski boats go very very fast in straight lines.

Kites don't got engines. Kites go fastest across the wind. Only way to go across the wind is to edge a bit or use a fin.

[gaffer]

judging the amount of spray against the speed I'd say he's hardly edging at all, probably going downwind slightly, if he was edging enough to go upwind or even across the wind he'd have a rooster tail over 6ft high and would never hold the edge through the chop.

[Flyboy]

I think at those speeds the apparent wind generated is enormous & that will pull you off your edge & force you further & further downwind - normally you would have to slow down to rregain control.

My guess is that Robbie timed it to start heading across the wind & then allowed himself to get pulled downwind on the last half of the course.

[dt]

Coming from a alpine ski racing background, I agree flat is faster but the dynamics are different for example in water skiing the harder you cut the higher the spray and the faster you go. It seems when kiting the harder you edge and throw a huge spray but effectivley set the edge so board doesn't lose any energy sideslipping seems to be the fastest
S omehow effectively transfer the energy into forward energy blah blah I'm rambling I'm intersted in others thoughts

Greg,

When I said water skiers go straight when speed records are set, I thought it was implied above that they set the record while whipping through a turn. Now I see I misunderstood the post. It was late and I was tired and blah blah blah.

But thanks for the reminder that ski boats have engines and kiters go faster when they edge.

Doug

[bubba]

Takoon has some good spped sailing videos (wipeouts and jumps too)
check out the Kiteshit.tk page; takoonfamilytour.
somebody does a big time butt check...erk