Another test of the new steering system today. We had a lot of success controlling the kite, including sailing through the sea-wall gap and making an impressive kite recovery at the end of the test. We were able to get on the foils a few times, but no sustained foiling. The sea state was really choppy–at one point a fish landed on the Protector–but the wind was only slightly stronger than yesterday.
Today three French journalists from the program Thalassa on France3, one of France’s national public television stations, visited to film a kiteboat test. Their half-hour program will profile interesting San Franciscans and should include some footage of Makani as well. We had a very successful test, foiling near Treasure Island and in front of the city, and we were able to get each journalist on K2 for a short time.
We tow-tested K2 today to show Jim Antrim, a naval architect and our newest consultant, around the platform. We towed out to Treasure Island and inflated the 30 sqm high aspect ratio kite to demonstrate how the mast worked. Jamie rode on K2 for the first time, in order to operate his new logging equipment.
Today we towed K2 around the bay to test new logger updates. We hoped also to try our new 50 sqm high-aspect-ratio kite, but the wind was too low. Damon’s father-in-law joined us on the Protector. Joe and Vincent also tried out brand-new drysuits, and Gabe’s father visited the shop.
from Jamie: For the first time on K2, we are now recording the kitearm angle and the rudder pitch angle. We are particularly interested in relating the rudder pitch to the boat speed, since this is an important manual adjustment that could be automated in the future. Currently, the helmsman must adjust the pitch of the rudder to keep the boat level as the boat speed changes. An example […more]
