Kiteboat Project

We tested the new motors and motor mounts today, a beautiful and warm afternoon. We used two kinds of propellers, standard and high speed. We started the test with the standard props, then switched to the high speed ones, and then switched back again. We used the articulating motor mounts to try the motors at different heights relative to the boat hulls and the water level. We also added two-by-fours to the mounts to act as temporary preventers to keep the motors from rising too high. Overall, the motors looked very cool, and the low-speed maneuvering was excellent. We were able to motor the boat around the various other boats at the dock and to back it up with equal ease. However, we were unable to get the boat foiling with any propeller/height/crew combination. We also tried towing the boat with the Protector to get it foiling, then casting off and trying to stay on the foils, and that did not work either. The motors added close to 300 lbs to the boat, but even with just one guy (vs three) on board K2 was not close to foiling. The motors are electric, powered by four 50-lb batteries, which we had to distribute unevenly, two in the center hull and two in the port hull, because the kite air tank was already installed in the starboard hull. On this test we also had the new mast up for the first time, although only as a camera mount. We were, however, able to observe that it was much stiffer than the previous single-pole mast; we’ll try it tomorrow with a kite.

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