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To me, this seems like "race walking" or a contest to see who can whisper the loudest. If you want to go really really fast, build an airplane.
Huh?sailing yacht
reached 65 knots
At 25 knots winds.
Huh?
Something does not add up here.
Huh?
Something does not add up here.
So you are telling me it's actually possible to sail faster than the wind?
Is there any explanation of how this works?
I can't picture the physics of it.
That is something that I too haven't quite been able to picture. I think the key here is not to consider the sail as an object necessarily perpendicular to the wind, but more like a vertical wing, whose "lift" then can move the boat.
The fastest sailing yacht Vestas Sailrocket 2 BTW reached 65 knots speed over 500 meters distance in 2012. Peaking at 68 Knots. At 25 knots winds. Thats already enough wind for letting smaller boats stay at home.
Sailing record I can understand. That's a combination of skill and design. Not madness.
Was about similar to your jet engine case. This yacht was simply made for reaching maximum speed in a wave protected bay at good winds - on a straight line course.
From what I can tell, it did not even have the ability to do rapid turns.
That's not the point of these record hunts. Any spacecraft already was way faster than an airplane long ago. Nobody is fascinated by that.
The point is to keep going with some defined challenge although technical progress made that pretty stupid. The jackass comparison is pretty much spot on (and that's what keeps people engaged). To top the stupidity, there's still the 'fastest boat' record to catch - more than 80% of people who tried so far died in the attempt. Doesn't keep yet more from killing themselves.
Reminds me of something I heard once, about the number of dead frozen bodies you have to climb over to get the the peak of Everest these days...
Yeah - hardly surprising if you look WHO is climbing there. Money can buy you everything, but no good physique or mountain climbing experience.
Sailing record I can understand. That's a combination of skill and design. Not madness.
Mounting a jet engine on a boat, waiting for the one day where the wind is so still that not even ripples are on the water and blazing away in the hope that there's *really* no wavelet that throws you out of the water however is something else entirely.
With an approximate fatality rate of 85% since 1940,[1][2] the record is one of the sporting world's most hazardous competitions. Two official attempts to beat the 1978 record have resulted in the death of the driver; but despite this there are several teams working to make further attempts.