What a big day. I don't think we have ever done 5 runs in a day let alone in such top end conditions.

We went out there and went for it today. There were things that I needed to see. The conditions were, of course, just a little too much. The wind was gusting to 34 knots but I couldn't afford to procrastinate. Throughout the day I had come to realise that we are wasting our time down around 50 knots. The whole VESTAS Sailrocket 2 program is based around making ventilated foils work so that we can hit speeds over 60 knots. Small incremental gains around 50 knots is not what we are about now. I had a joblist to work through, a tough boat and a solid team who are comfortable handling her in strong conditions. It was time to push.

All runs were done with the ventilated/wedge foil

Run 1

Day still building so still a bit light, 1 person onboard, Easy run with a peak speed of only 44.3 knots. Nothing remarkable. No vibrations or unusual handling. Did a weave down the course with the rudder simply to see how the boat behaves and if any play in the system misbehaves. It didn't. We can reference this change from positive to negative loading later.

Run 2

Day building strong, 25-30 knots. 2 people on board (Helena's first proper run in the boat). Still a bit difficult to start with two people but nevertheless a good run. Peak speed 48.87 knots. Nothing remarkable again. No vibrations or unusual handling. Pod flying towards end.

Run 3

Wind 25-33 knots. 1 person onboard. Decided to try to max out the boat in tope end conditions. If it was going to ventilate... it would do it now. It didn't. This was this foils last chance. We maxed out at 50.8 knots.

This was not enough. Still no signs of the evil vibration. We should in theory be doing over 70 knots in these winds. Time to go under the knife.

Run 4

Wind 25-33 knots. 1 person onboard. water rough. 15 cm removed off the tip of the foil. I was expecting to see ventilation or at least the return of the vibration to show we were headed in that direction. I dipped the wing extension in a wave trough during the launch and did some minor damage. Peformance wise it was still fully functional. After a quick over the shoulder assessment I went for it. The start up was noticably less 'crisp' but VSR2 still hooked in and took off. She felt a bit more lively. As I beared away onto the course she did a big weave that took a fair bit of rudder to correct. This could be the foil switching between attached and ventilated flow. It felt like there were moments of 'release' in there and even the run itself felt faster.

It was rough though and this always adds drama and a sense of speed. It felt better although the peak speed was almost the same at 50.52 knots. The average was lower at only 46.02 knots. Oddly no vibration or sense of ventilation apart from that weave at the start.

Run 5

Getting dark now. Swam ashore to do a BBC radio interview whils the boys towed VSR2 up to the top of the course. The sun was setting and I wanted to do one more run with the new trimmed foil before trimming another 15cm off it. I ran up the beach to catch up with them and we pulled the wing up one more time in similar 26-32 knot conditions whilst the African sun set (first flamingoes present). 1 person. Good run with no weave or vibrations. Noted the hard surging of the boat which feels like it is pulling a lot of drag. Peak speed of 50.24 knots, (average 47.78). Damnit. 50 knots is boring now.

So, where are we? With limited footage and data downloaded I can still tell you that we are fully attached even with 15cm of main foil removed in strong, fully sheeted on conditions. No bad vibrations were felt although there was that big weave on the start-up and bear away of run 4. We will look at that one more closely. It's pretty surprising that reducing the area of the foil didn't initiate the bad vibration but then maybe that was caused by other more subtle situations. I am keen to chop off another 15 cm. I want this thing to ventilate. We will discuss it further and sleep on it. 

Overall it was a very good day. We pushed very hard in as strong a conditions as we should ever need to sail in. We did more runs than ever before and brought the boat back intact and ready for more tomorrow. Of course it's annoying that we didn't break through but days like this will create our end result. The whole team did a great job to keep the ball rolling and not fumble it.

Helena got a new PB of 48.87 knots but just missed out on becoming the second female ever to cross the 50 knot barrier on a sailing craft. I'm sure she will do it many times in the future.

In the end I had no issues with chopping the foil. It's only purpose is to go well over 60 knots and it simply isn't doing it. The rest of the boat is waiting for the right foil solution to set it free.

The boys have gone home after the other great team at The Raft sentg pizzas, extra big burgers and some beers around to the container for the data transferring session. It's 20 to 11 now and we will be up and at it early tomorrow. We will double check and reconfigure the boat. The beam and rig will be moved forward in anticipation of the greater leeway angles generated by a ventilated foil... and most likely another 15 cm will be trimmed off. VSR2 will be remeasured for reference and calibration purposes. Then we will head out and do it all over again.

The good news is that Saturday is grunting up and may be useable.

It's not over yet party people. As always, we will push it right to the end. We aren't just hanging around here. From the perspective of our teams performance today, we did very well. I doubt we could have squeezed much more out of the day. We just have to find what makes this dog hunt.

Righto, gotta call Malc.

Cheers, Paul.