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From New Scientist:
 Ah, sailing. Idyllic, lazy days out on deck amid the flapping of sails, the cry of the circling seagulls and a long cool drink.
Not
for the Vestas Sailrocket team. They have just smashed the world
sailing speed record, reaching more than 60 knots (110 kilometres per
hour) at Walvis Bay in Namibia in a custom-designed, carbon-fibre boat that skims above the water.
The problem for Vestas Sailrocket was that at over 50 knots small
bubbles begin to form around the hydrofoil that sits underneath the boat
to keep it balanced. This effect, known as cavitation,
drastically increases the drag and meant that the team struggled to get
much beyond 50 knots. The team spent 2012 designing and analysing new
hydrofoils, but still experienced the same 50 knot limit: there seemed
no way past this "bubble barrier". Last week, they finally found the
answer by adding small perpendicular "fences" at several positions along
the hydrofoil, which seemed to solve the problem.
Read more here:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/11/sailing-boat-smashes-world-spe.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news
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Re: Sailing Boat Smashes World Speed Record
