JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #93 - December 2014 - 46

speed boat

Composites at work for
the world speed sailing record
The Around the World, Northern Atlantic, New York-San Francisco, 24 Hour Distance, and Nautical Mile are some of the records
that have inspired the stout-hearted for a very long time. This
includes Paul Larsen, who has taken on the short distance speed
sailing record for the 500-metre and nautical mile (1,852 m)
events.

n 17 November 2012 at Walvis
Bay in Namibia, Australian
sailor Paul Larson broke the
record set by American kitesurfer
Rob Douglas (55.65 knots) on his
Vestas Sailrocket 2 sailboat, nudging
60 knots with an average 59.23 knots
over 500 metres. On 28 November,
still in Namibia, he did it again on
the same boat, this time hitting even
harder with an average 65.37 knots, or
121.21 km/h, a record certified by the
World Sailing Speed Record Council
(WSSRC). They even recorded a top
speed of more than 67 knots. A definite record-smashing success!

A long-term undertaking
The Sailrocket team launched its
second-generation speed sailing boat
from the Isle of Wight on 8 March

The boat is designed constantly seeks stability

2011. The first Sailrocket had been
destroyed in 2008 during tests. The
Vestas Sailrocket 2 was designed to be
significantly faster than its predecessor, with the ultimate aim of breaking
the Outright World Speed Sailing
Record. During 15 months, the team
focused on building a better, safer
and - above all - faster boat in Vestas
Technology R&D's facilities on the
Isle of Wight. Since Paul Larsen and
his team started pursuing the Outright
World Speed Sailing Record in 2002,
the record has been raised by exactly 9
knots, or around 20%.
Although Vestas is the project's main
sponsor, there are thirteen companies
in all, including Gurit and CompoTech, that contributed in the different
areas needed to build this very special
boat.

An original concept
In conventional monohulls and multihulls, the leverage of the sail force is
countered only by a weight/buoyancy
leverage. This results in a very definite
limit to stability in both the roll and
pitch directions. Many designs for
speed record attempts suffer from the
two principal side effects of this limitation, which are limited drive force
and unsteady response to gusts.
Vestas SailRocket 1 (VSR1) employs a
wholly different concept that was first

46 jec composites magazine / No93 December 2014

The wing is built around a carbon spar

documented by Bernard Smith in the
1960s, in which the sail and keel elements are positioned so there is virtually no overturning moment and no
net vertical lift. When used correctly,
this concept results in a boat which no
longer has obvious stability limits and
in which the only significant response
to gusts is a change in speed.
These boats were based around a
concept where there are no overturning forces and the opposing forces of
wind and water are in alignment. It is

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #93 - December 2014

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