Great test today—the launching mast and all of the new foils worked well, and we were were able to consistently foil in low wind, the most we have ever foiled in so little wind. It was a beautiful evening as well, with very little chop and lots to see from Fleet Week and the AC World Series races.
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 […more]
Greg and Joe built two articulating transom mounts out of carbon fiber, and today they began fitting them both on K2. They built the mounts to hold two Torqeedo motors that each have 378 lbs of static thrust, which should be enough to get K2 up on the foils. The mounts articulate in order to keep the motors high when the boat hulls are in the water and to lower them as the boat foils higher and higher. The motor shafts themselves are shorter than the foiling boat. Mount adjustment is by ropes on a pulley system located inside the mounts. We also purchased high speed props for the motors. If the motors turn out to be capable of high […more]
Don and the Kiteboat Project were featured on France3’s Thalassa on Friday, September 21st. The full episode on San Francisco, “San Francisco La Rebelle,” is available online here. The portion featuring the Kiteboat Project, “La Cité des Pionniers,” has been disabled on the Thalassa site, but it’s available on Vimeo using the password “sf.”
We took the new pre-preg J-foils out for the first time today. We towed around the protected area by the big ships to make sure everything was working correctly, and it was–with no adjustments! We then went outside the breakwater to sail with the 40 sqm kite. Great upwind performance and ability to pop back up after a jibe. Bruce Sutphen joined us on this test.
Jamie made a new inflator after the last one broke during a test a few weeks ago. The new inflator, like the old one, measures temperature, pressure and altitude, and it inflates through an intake tube.
Jamie also discovered that the junction box had a leak, possibly due to loose cable gland.
