You can't blame Syroco and SP80 for wanting to preserve the life of their pilots. It's not like for the Space race adventure of the 60s where they could use dogs or monkeys in the pilot seats of something completely automated... The pilot's life is priceless! There's also something important about those pods, and it's aerodynamics. If you follow the Luderitz speed challenge, many mention the drag from pilot and equipment as a limiting factor. Hence Erik Beale (1st>40) coming up with some contraptions like profiled helmet and body kit, to increase the aerodynamics of the pilot.
just to rebound on that particular line. There are probably less than 10 kiters and windsurfers in the world to have ever reached a VMax of 60kts. (F50s haven't yet). Amongst them, maybe one or two did have a crash at that speed. OK they survived, but that is still statistically irrelevant to define a trend... The risk is real. And the cockpit is probably the easiest part of the watercraft to design. There's a huge legacy of cockpit designs that can be tapped into. Also, if that allows all the controls to be conveniently positioned for an optimal comfort of operation, while reducing aerodynamic drag, it totally makes sense to use a cockpit.
Yes Alex Caizergues is still the record holder with 57.97 knots average on 500 meters, it's 107.4 km/h.tkaraszewski wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 10:04 pmIt's not a pursuit that very many are interested in. I believe Alex Caizergues is still the fastest at about 58 knots on f-one kites.
You're a few years out-of-date, here, but good name-dropping I guess.philmont wrote: Mike Zajicek would take his magic planer to a kite race board and together they would prove me wrong. I doubt it though. I suspect Daniela would ekk out a few more knots and start beating, not just most of the boys as she does now, but all the boys during the St Francis Thursday night races in San Fransisco. I am really, really missing those post race beer drinking discussions in that magnificent dining room in the St Francis Yacht club right now. I wonder if Chip Wasson and Johnny Heineken would buy me another beer to shut me up or because they agree with me. I wouldn’t mind either way.
Absolute top speed does not matter very much in windward/leeward racing (formula kite, SailGP, or otherwise) because you spend more time going upwind than downwind. It's a net loss to be one knot faster downwind and one knot slower upwind, you need to optimize for upwind in W/L racing. The idea that W/L racing classes should care about speed sailing records is just not applicable.philmont wrote: My own experience crashing at high speed when foiling, usually when the hydrofoil and the kite build apparent wind really fast and I wonder how I am going to slow down and everything just wants to go faster
I did answer that question with "none", because this is gone far beyond what kitesurfing does, and into the territory of specific ventures, targeting only that record. So it's essentially Syrocco, SP80 (and SailRocket before them), none of them being kite companies. And by the way, any such venture has to rely on investment partners to stay afloat for long enough to succeed, it's a tough world...philmont wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 7:06 am
I realize this conversation is getting pulled too far away from my original question, namely “Which kite company could set the world sailing speed record?” So far only nay sayers and segue-ers have responded. I would like to hear from anyone that doesn’t immediately dismiss the possibility and at least considers which company in the kite surfing community is capable of getting past 65.43 knots and if so what this company is doing now that could be used to push past this barrier and into the future.
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