Location: Winters cruising; summers Chesapeake Bay
Boat: Catana 471
Posts: 1,239
Quote:
Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat
2Hulls was talking about spinnaker poles. Cats don't need them.
Correct. My prior statement, "Why would anyone with a cat want to mess with such a contraption?" was referring to spi poles. Potential cat owners or spi buyers: do not let ANYBODY convince you that you need a spi pole. Bow sprit, maybe, for an asymetrical chute.
As for the kite, it looks interesting. But I'll choose to watch and see if the pros overtake any cons before seeking my own better mouse trap.
I have tried to contact Kiteship several times thru E mail but no result so maybe they are sailing !!! With the New FastCat 460 Green Motion with retractable electric motors I want to do 2 Ocean Crossings First from Cape Town to Miami and after that From Miami Via the Azores to Western Europe as a test for this New all electric and fossil free propulsion system and including a kite in this test sounds Ideal to me, If we are going to fast we just lower the electric propulsion and with the 2 props of 19 x 19 that should slow us down plenty and at the same time generate up to 8 Kw to keep everything else going, this endurance and practice test will last 20.000 NM and if this last test is succesful we will go into Production with this new system.
These units will be installed on the new Fastcat 405 , 460 and 560 .
Once this test is completed I will write a report on my findings regarding regeneration , slowing down of the boat during generation, charging capability,s and with what speed the amount of charge, Manuvering i n the harbour , speed under power , range from the batteries alone.
Besides the 2 Motogens of 10 Kw each we will also install one new Air breeze wind generator in the masttop, and 4 sanyo solar panles of 210 watt each on the bimini top.
For emergency use we will have 2 dieselgenerator on board one of 11 Kw and the other of 13 Kw that together can propel the boat at 9,5 knots or with just the 11 Kw unit at 7.5 knots
I do not think it is wise to fly a kite on any boat or even with a surfboard near any wall, A kite is a long distance sail used if you intend to use it for over an hour up to many days. When leaving St Helena 2 years ago we had our spinnaker up for almost 21 days and that was a good sail with average speeds of 11 knots and I inted to improve on that with a kite,
Kind of off topic, but in regards to the guy above who wasn't wearing his helmet:
I used to race bicycles (road and mountain), and one of the things that stuck in my head that my coach told me was that a person, not moving forward or backward, who simply tips over on a bicycle, will have their head hit the ground at around 22mph.
Adding *any* forward or backward velocity to that greatly increases the impact force, but 22mph is pretty damn fast to have your head meet pavement.
Wear a helmet when you ride your bicycles folks. Whenever I see someone riding without one, I know they haven't ridden much.
A kite is a long distance sail used if you intend to use it for over an hour up to many days.
Yes, I understand your point about that and the trip you have planned would be marvelous for it
but that is a fair added expense to the sail wardrobe for those that do a passage once per year and gunkhole the rest of the time.
All the best with it Take lots of piccs for us and tell us your sustained speed over 20 or 25 days!
I don't think Fastcat is planning on leaving the kite with the boat upon delivery completion. It sounds like a transport sail, keep the new customer sails crispy and re-use the kite over and over again. Makes sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkJ
Yes, I understand your point about that and the trip you have planned would be marvelous for it
but that is a fair added expense to the sail wardrobe for those that do a passage once per year and gunkhole the rest of the time.
All the best with it Take lots of piccs for us and tell us your sustained speed over 20 or 25 days!
Yes Joli , that is the general idea just use the kite over and over again for fast delivery trips to the states or Europe and with the gained experience we might later on bring them into our ocean crossing package on all the cats we build.
I am even considering to use one on a new build powercat to be shipped to florida
Sounds like an interesting concept.
Looking at the video it seem like the guy that is doing it on a smaller scale in Hawaii, that is, the sail is not just flown and set, it is actually actively flown back and forth and up and down.
Is this just how it appears on the "movies" or is it necessary for it to be continually "flown?"
If so then that is why the minimal interface with systems is a long list.
Wow...incredible.....on a MUCH smaller scale, does anyone have experience flying a 2 string sport kite off a boat? I have had one for 10 years or so that has about a 100' tubular tail...lots of fun to fly on a beach over the water...have to be careful to not dip too low and get it wet, but the kite will fly with no tail on it at all...just more squirlly...I've always wondered about flying it off the stern of a sailboat sailing to weather..would it work? Launching it would be the first issue me thinks.
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