Coaches Corner - By Gebi
This is Team NASSP’s second year sojourn to Luderitz’s Second Lagoon in Namibia to partake of the world’s fastest speed sailing strip. We brought Rob’s brother Jamie Douglas with us this year and he is currently running top 5 at this year’s event, giving his older brother a run for the money, posting a 47.7 knot run and quickly becoming a threat to the top players. Also, Melissa Gill is with us and she has broken the USA Women’s outright speed record claiming it from Windsurfer Meg McKenzie, which was 36.23 upping it to 37.52 knots. Nice job M! We are driven by the chance to break world speed sailing records, to push the limits of our kitesurfing speed equipment, and to take back the Outright Speed Sailing 500 Meter Record.
World Record Alley
Right now “Hydroptere” has on the WSSRC record books an (open water) run of 51.36 knots average speed over 500 meters. Hydroptere is a 65 foot long trimaran that rides on some pretty cool looking hydrofoils, so it does not matter if the surface of the water is rough, as only the relatively small area of the foils is cutting through the water. What we found intimidating about Hydroptere’s world record speed is that they did it in an average of 28 knots of wind. 51.36 knots in 28 knots of wind….now that is some serious efficiency.
Up until last year, for speed kiters to go anywhere near 50 knots, we needed 45 knots plus wind speed. But we quickly found out this year on the Luderitz Second Lagoon speed site that we could post runs of 47 knots in winds averaging 25 knots and gusting to 30. In winds of 30 to 35 knots with gusts to around 40 knots we are getting runs of 50.98 by Alex and a super close run of 50.95 knots by Rob, (Rob’s top run breaks his last American record which are now his fastest two speeds on a kite, just within striking distance of Hydroptere’s World Record run.
NASSP Workshop / Living Room
Now where we are not comparing apples to oranges is in how the 500 meter distances are recorded. Hydroptere is using a high precision GPS system, allowing them to sail around and track, on say a 10 mile long run. Then they choose the fastest 500 meter piece of track and that becomes their record. The kiters are limited to going fast by the surface of the water. If the water is flat then the higher speeds are easily achieved. Right now the kiters are sailing an arc, meaning they are having to follow the protective contours of Luderitz’ Second lagoon shoreline. Where the lagoons shoreline is broken up, we have built chop killers; make shift wooden walls that block the chop from blowing the kiters off of their edges.
The good news is the efficiency of the kiters and speed boats is coming closer to being equal. So what has brought the efficiency of the kiters up so much since last year? Well it is a number of factors. Better boards, better kites and a better speed course. Board designs are evolving, with more refined shapes expressing better flex characteristics. The flex of the boards is tuned to the weight of the riders allowing the power of the kite to be transmitted more effectively to the board as they blast through chop at high speeds. The kite designs as evolving as well. The kites generate less bar pressure in stronger winds, and depower more efficiently. The stability of the kites is improving, thus giving the riders more confidence to stay on the gas even when the ride becomes scary at speed.
Last, but maybe the most important improvement, has come in the improved speed course that Seb Cat “dug” for us this year. What Seb Cat did is dig a speed ditch 2 meters wide and a half a meter deep, that follows the natural arc of the lagoon’s shoreline. No one would argue that Sebastian Cattelan is the craziest of all the speed kiters. He was among the first to drive up to Luderitz and ride in winds 50 to 55 knots in 2 inches of water, hitting “top speed spikes” of over 61 knots!
When we saw the ditch for the first time, all of the speed kiters thought it would be next to impossible to make it down the course “In the ditch,” especially at lower tides, and not risk serious harm if you made a mistake and crashed. The Seb Cat ditch is 4 foot wide at the entrance and 6 foot wide at its widest point. The ditch is dug 3 feet downwind from a wooden chop killer for over half the course. The problem with the ditch and more importantly the wooden chop killer break wall, is that if you run out of wind, say as in a lull, while in the ditch, you can easily fall back and crash into the wooden chop killer at speed.
Black Dog Team Rider Christophe Prin-Guenon
This very scenario happened to Sjouki Bradenkamp’s (fastest woman in the world) father Henne, who smashed into the chop killer at over 40 knots, during a speed run. Henne broke off the nose of his board as it hit first, then crashed into the wooden wall with his front thigh, (luckily he is around 6’4” and 230 pounds) breaking off a 4 inch thick post of wood and seriously bruising his leg. Henne is lucky to be alive and has been limping around for the past week and will be off the water till his leg heals and he builds a new speed board. Also at the entrance of the course, kiters pushing the limit of the water depth, have hit the entry of the course only to blow their line by a few feet and run out of water, What follows then are some spectacular high speed crashes with riders seen kart wheeling over the dry sand bank just down wind. Amazingly enough no one has gone to the hospital yet!
What we do know about top speeds is that besides Sebastian, Hydroptere is the only other water sailing craft to post top speeds over 60 knots. Sebastian is hitting his 61 knot runs at a 155 degree angle off of the wind and in 2 to 3 inches of water… Seb Cat can only do this in Luderitz when it is so windy it is hard to walk, like a solid 50 to 55 knots of wind! What we do know now is that if we make the course straight we will easily post runs 2 to 5 knots faster over the 500 meter course. So next year we already have plans to make a bigger chop killer out of a man made “sand bank” that will be 5 feet tall and will be straight in line with our fastest angle.
Right now Rob and Alex are already faster than Hydroptere in a 500 meter arc, but because we are riding over an arc across the measured 500 meter course we are sailing an extra 10 to 15 meters. With only 2 more days of medium wind forcasted for this event’s window timeline it looks like next year will be out best chance to smash the new outright speed sailing record.