[MHml] hydroptere record attempt

[Dave Culp]

After 30 years of participating in, organizing and watching speedsailing,
the one thing I have learned, Paul, is to parse the semantics carefully.
What they say is, as Mark points out, that they have--by their instruments
and no others--"beaten" the respective records for their class. Current
record for D-Class is 42.12 knots over 500 meters; nautical mile is
39.97kts. Dozens of sailboards and even kiteboards have beaten these
times, as
have at least 3 boats (Longshot, YPE and Maquarie Innovation)--all all for
the actual record books, with proper WSSRD accreditation. It puzzles me that
Hydroptre is making these runs without having proper timing gear and
observers present. The cost of these is on the order of
$200-500/day--a tiny portion of the operaing cost of this boat. If there's
one thing speed sailors learn early is that record conditions happen when
you don't expect them and *never* when you do

Fast as they are showing themselves to be--and I'll be the first one to
throw my hat into the air if/when they take the outright record; the D-class
record is nearly 15% slower than the outright record--42 kts is a
1980s-1990s era outright speed. These guys are doing great, but not quite
world record class.

And last, once again, instantaneous speed is a far cry from 500 meter or
mile speed, and gps speeds, both instantaneous as well as accumulated speeds
are specifically unapproved for WSSRC records. Why is this French team
relying only on this "illegal" timing system, and then making record claims
based on it?

Dave

On 2/4/07, Paul Nudd <paulnudd at actionpotential.com.au> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dave Culp wrote:
> > The best of luck to them, but I haven't heard anything about sustained
> > speeds. It's great to sprint to 47 kts on the GPS, but can they sustain
> > this
> > over 500 meters, or a mile? They'll need to hit a good bit above 50
> > kts,, maybe 52, instantaneous, in order to average 47 even over 500m.
> > Faster
> > yet to take the mile that high.
> >
> > All the best to them, regardless. This is faster than earlier iterations
> fo
> > this boat has ever gone--much faster.
>
> "Samedi 20 janvier 2007 Today, l'Hydroptère reached the record speed of
> 46.5 knots and, according to our measurement system, she beat the 500
> meter distance record in her category as well as the absolute record for
> the nautical mile."
>
> Watching their video it looks as though they can maintain very high
> speeds over significant distances. They claim that they have beaten the
> records for 500metres and 1 Nmile.
> PN
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