The week ahead shapes up...

 Firstly... we all very much enjoyed watching Felix do his thing yesterday. The team was glued to the screen. For me the highlight was watching old Joe's face light up at the instant that Felix stepped off. In that instant he was 50 years younger and stepping off himself. I can't wait to see all the other footage from the cameras that weren't live. What a fantastic stunt. Congratulations to all the team and to Red Bull for backing it.

WATCHING FELIX MAKE THE JUMP.

 

We have had a couple of very light days here in Walvis Bay and have used them to keep ticking off the job list big and small. The wind has been light and from the North so totally unsuitable for getting out on the water.

Here is a short video from around the team base on the lawns of the walvis Bay Yacht club...

youtu.be/U_-Vm67Ed20

 

We have begun fitting the SMD pressure sensors to the new foil which will give us vital information as to how closely the foil is working to our expectations. Basically we are trying to measure the shade of 'grey' between cavitation and ventilation pressures. If we have cavitation pressures down the back 'base' of the foil over an extensive span... then we won't be going very fast. We will then have to play around with some of the variables at our disposal.

Ben has been doing a lot of sanding to get the new foil exactly right. The new rudder is now fully fitted and functional. It's going to be pretty interesting to see how these two foils work together during the start up phase. They are both pretty small in relation to what they are replacing and whilst they may be more efficient at speed and thus require less wind to go faster,

they may need more wind to get started. It's all part of the compromise. At least now we are no longer switching the boats configuration between one main foil and another. Each time we did this on the last outing we had to change all the upper and lower shroud lengths between runs.

So today looks ok to get out on the water. We are hoping to have our first outing as the rest of the week will no doubt have some good sailing days. We should be close to getting some answers to some pretty big questions shortly.

 

Cheers, Paul

 

Comments

Getting excited Paul

Walvis still looking good Paul and very much looking forward to hearing of great success soon. Wish I was there!

Morgan.

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