Kiteboat Project

Today we went to the beach to test the new 12 sqm kite that Pete designed. The bridle on this kite is designed to distribute loads in a new way, so the kite can take higher loads without deforming. As you can see from the profile, this kite is flatter than our other C-shaped kites, which is a feature we think will help withstand load.

The goal of this test was to gather information to improve upon the kite enough that we can scale it up for use on the boats. On Monday, Don kitesurfed with the kite on his own, and yesterday Pete and Dudu tested the kite together. Today Pete and Don both surfed with the kite, returning to the beach to make bridle adjustments four different times. We also took several photos of the kite in flight, in order to map the photos to the original design sketches, to compare the predicted and actual kite shapes.

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