The ''Vestas Sailrocket'' was built to capture the sailing speed record competing in the B-class for 150 to 235 square feet of sail. It is piloted by the project leader

Paul Larsen Paul Larsen (born 16 January 1970) is an Australian sailor who has been involved in many extreme sailing projects. He led the 10-year project for the Vestas Sailrocket, which set new nautical mile and 500m world speed sailing records in 2012. He ...

and sponsored by Danish

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

manufacturer

Vestas Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines that was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the Uni ...

. In 2008 the first version reached a reported unofficial speed of , before crashing. After being upgraded to a second version, the ''Vestas Sailrocket 2'' began a campaign to break speed records in November 2012 off

Walvis Bay Walvis Bay ( en, lit. Whale Bay; af, Walvisbaai; ger, Walfischbucht or Walfischbai) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The c ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. On 12 November, it made a run over a distance, then on the 16th. It attained on a one-mile run on the 18th and simultaneously on 500m. On 24 November, with wind speeds at roughly , it ran the 500m course at with a peak. Both records are ratified by the

World Sailing Speed Record Council The World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) was founded in 1972, initially to ratify records at the inaugural Weymouth Speed Week held every year since in Portland Harbor.The WSSRC is the body authorized by the World Sailing (formerly Internati ...

(WSSRC) for the 500m and the mile. A Swiss team of

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

university students and engineers, including members involved in the development of previous record-holder ''

Hydroptère ''Hydroptère'' is a French experimental sailing hydrofoil trimaran imagined by the yachtman Éric Tabarly. The Hydroptère project was managed by Alain Thébault, the design done by naval architects VPLP design and the manufacturing by a gr ...

'', formed in October 2019 to develop a new

hydrofoil A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates in water. They are similar in appearance and purpose to aerofoils used by aeroplanes. Boats that use hydrofoil technology are also simply termed hydrofoils. As a hydrofoil craft gains sp ...

boat, SP80, to exceed the ''Vestas Sailrocket 2'' record in 2022, with a target speed of 80 knots.

References

External links

Official website
Hydrofoils Multihulls {{ship-stub

See also

References

External links