24 hour monohull distance record broken

[Paul Elliott]

I assure you that Mr. Clark knew when he started that Comanche wasn't going to beat Hydroptere. No doubt there is some context for his quote that would make this all very clear. You guys sure love to argue about silly things!

Congrats to Clark and the Commanche team! It's too bad that Stan Honey (the navigator) bumped his head during the attempt and so had to back out of his planned Transpac race aboard Wild Oats XI.

[44'cruisingcat]

Actually, I'm not sure if Hydroptere holds any records just at the moment. Maybe distance sailed in 1 hour?


The absolute speed record for sailing on water is held by either Sairocket, a foiling proa, or a kiteboard.


The 24 hour record is held by Banque Populaire.


So why would Mr Clark say he's aiming at the "fastest boat ever built" when he knows he isn't?


Why even call this a record? He fell nearly 300 miles short of the current 24 hour sailing record. I seriously doubt he broke any outright speed or distance in 1 hour records on the way.


I guess the thread could be "Rich guy spends heaps of money and fails to set any records"


As was said before. Whoopie.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Actually, I'm not sure if Hydroptere holds any records just at the moment. Maybe distance sailed in 1 hour?


The absolute speed record for sailing on water is held by either Sairocket, a foiling proa, or a kiteboard.


The 24 hour record is held by Banque Populaire.


So why would Mr Clark say he's aiming at the "fastest boat ever built" when he knows he isn't?


Why even call this a record? He fell nearly 300 miles short of the current 24 hour sailing record. I seriously doubt he broke any outright speed or distance in 1 hour records on the way.


I guess the thread could be "Rich guy spends heaps of money and fails to set any records"


As was said before. Whoopie.

Why do you take the quote out of context? You have no idea about the context it was said in but you just go on and on about him "failing".....

[44'cruisingcat]

OK tell me in what context the phrase "the fastest boat ever built" could accurately be used in relation to Comanche?

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

OK tell me in what context the phrase "the fastest boat ever built" could accurately be used in relation to Comanche?

OK, let's say they had been talking about class-compliant monohulls for the Atlantic race. Perhaps the phrase "fastest boat ever built" referred to that type of boat.

Or perhaps it didn't. I wasn't there, and I don't know. I do assume that Clark is aware of the amazingly fast multihulls that already exist and he knows how fast his monohull would be capable of going.

Your outrage (or glee?) is ridiculous on the face of it.

[44'cruisingcat]

And your defensiveness is laughable.


Comanche didn't even beat Wild Oats, did it?

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

And your defensiveness is laughable.


Comanche didn't even beat Wild Oats, did it?

In that context, I totally agree with you. Maybe they can set some 24hr Maxi 100 distance records, but they have to return to the S2H and not only beat WOIX but also smash it's record. To be convincing, it perhaps should be a race where WOIX betters it's record as well.

I think there is no doubt it can do it, especially after watching the start of S2H but as the race proved, it needs the right conditions which happen to be the conditions that are conducive to records. That doesn't happen every race.

[Tayana42]

So, how fast do flying fish go?


S/V B'Shert

[Polux]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

He can't claim to have the "fastest boat ever built" when it isn't. Not by miles. Not by hundreds of miles......

Certainly not the fastest boat on a drag race downwind but that is not the only sailing point of a sailboat and it is not by accident that the circumnavigation record westbound (against the prevailing winds) does not belong to a multihull but to a monohull. I never heard about a multi proposing to run for it and there is a good reason why they will not try it.

Even on a Downwind race like a transat if the seas are really bad you will see multihulls having not a so good performance and breaking a lot: On the last route du Rhum you could see that on the first part of the race (stormy seas) most of the Open 60's beat clearly the Multi 50 (with a lot of breakage among the last).

I can remember Transats (with Bad weather) where almost all the Multi 50 where beaten by Open 60's not mentioning an DNF percentage several times bigger on the multis than on the monos.

[Kinta Ray]

Just to stir things up I'd like to ask everyone how they can explain the monos beating the multis in the transpac? Well to be more precise I'd like to ask the biased Multihullers how they explain it. And yes I've sailed (or at least owned) nothing but Multihulls in my 67 years (apart from one Sailfish when I was very very young). Sorry but I'm over the bias from both sides but more disappointed by it from the multihullers who I would have hoped would have had more understanding. Enjoy the wind while you still can it won't last forever.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Kinta Ray

Just to stir things up I'd like to ask everyone how they can explain the monos beating the multis in the transpac? Well to be more precise I'd like to ask the biased Multihullers how they explain it. And yes I've sailed (or at least owned) nothing but Multihulls in my 67 years (apart from one Sailfish when I was very very young). Sorry but I'm over the bias from both sides but more disappointed by it from the multihullers who I would have hoped would have had more understanding. Enjoy the wind while you still can it won't last forever.

Cheers to you

I don't know about the transpac but size by size given identical sized boats and assuming top racing multihulls, particularly racing trimarans, they will be faster than monohulls on almost all conditions, excluding beating upwind and stormy seas.

They also demand a lot more attention not to capsize and have a much superior breakage rate.

Regarding racing multihulls in heavy Ocean conditions to be very seaworthy they need to be huge, I mean about 100ft or so. I remember the old times with the 60ft Orma Trimaran and a transat in stormy weather that saw almost all of them retire and several capsize.

Off course this regards top racing multihulls with professional crews. When we look to cruising boats and transats we can see that on the ARC the performance is very similar in what regards performance cruisers and performance cats probably due to the bigger margin of security needed on a cat (the monos can be pushed more to the limit with a lot more safety).

Of course a Transat is an downwind passage. I believe that in an upwind passage a performance cruising monohull would be faster than a performance cruising cat, specially on more demanding conditions and certainly hugely faster than condo cats that represent most of the cat's fleet.

[robert sailor]

After all the talk and bragging I'm really surprised how slow the condo Cats really are on a long passage. I just took the time to review the last years ARC results and these boats while comfy as hell are anything but fast even compared to a cruising mono hull.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Polux

I can remember Transats (with Bad weather) where almost all the Multi 50 where beaten by Open 60's not mentioning an DNF percentage several times bigger on the multis than on the monos.

Really love this glass half full view. The 60 foot mono's beat "ALMOST ALL" the 50 foot tri's.

ALMOST all. So in other words, in conditions that suited the mono's they were ALL still beaten by some of the tri's.

I guess it's Like Comanche. The fastest boat ever built. Except for all the faster boats...

[Factor]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

After all the talk and bragging I'm really surprised how slow the condo Cats really are on a long passage. I just took the time to review the last years ARC results and these boats while comfy as hell are anything but fast even compared to a cruising mono hull.

Im not.

[Lunita]

I think the concern over whether Comanchee was built to be the worlds fastest boat or not is mis-guided. Who cares what Mr. Clarke was thinking or aiming for. He put up a boat load of money and created a fabulous fast sail boat! Way to go.
High performance boats with big budgets will eventually trickle down better tech and gear and designs to the rest of us.
So maybe the next uber-rich dude will build a cat or tri and the rest of us will be happy to whine about his ambitions.
Actually that will be a pretty cool boat, can't wait.