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Speed...

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  • Windy day today, at least for the afternoon races, and I had a GPS logger on board the Canoe when I failed to start the afternoon race after a very big gust left me little choice but to head downwind. I had a couple of blasts across the reservoir before falling off the boat and having it disappear off faster than I could swim. Thanks to Mike and his boat crew for fishing me out.

    Anyway, I thought one or two of you might be amused by the results. You hear all the big talk about very high speeds, but this is what I got in practice, running on the edge of control. Track was about 120 degrees off head to wind in the gusts, and as high as 80 or 90 in the lulls .

    I haven't bothered to post recorded peak speeds - these are quite spurious because GPS simply isn't accurate enough - you should see how much the recorded position varies while the boat is tied on the pontoon between races. 

    Best runs over 50m

    (still a bit dubious because of GPS accuracy I reckon)

    50 meter run n°1 = 26.89km/h [14.52Knots] (52.3 m. in 7.0 s.)
    50 meter run n°2 = 23.89km/h [12.9Knots] (59.7 m. in 9.0 s.)
    50 meter run n°3 = 23.7km/h [12.79Knots] (52.7 m. in 8.0 s.)
    50 meter run n°4 = 23.67km/h [12.78Knots] (52.6 m. in 8.0 s.)
    50 meter run n°5 = 23.65km/h [12.77Knots] (52.5 m. in 8.0 s.)

    Best runs over 100m

    (About the most you might expect to carry a single gust for)

    100 meter run n°1 = 25.77km/h [13.92Knots] (100.2 m. in 14.0 s.)
    100 meter run n°2 = 23.65km/h [12.77Knots] (105.1 m. in 16.0 s.)
    100 meter run n°3 = 22.64km/h [12.22Knots] (100.6 m. in 16.0 s.)
    100 meter run n°4 = 22.09km/h [11.93Knots] (104.3 m. in 17.0 s.)
    100 meter run n°5 = 21.97km/h [11.86Knots] (103.7 m. in 17.0 s.)
     

    Best runs over 500m 

    (This is the course length for a real speed record)

    500 meter run n°1 = 21.97km/h [11.86Knots] (506.5 m. in 83.0 s.)
    500 meter run n°2 = 18.07km/h [9.76Knots] (501.9 m. in 100.0 s.)
    500 meter run n°3 = 14km/h [7.56Knots] (501.7 m. in 129.0 s.)
    500 meter run n°4 = 12.72km/h [6.87Knots] (501.8 m. in 142.0 s.)
    500 meter run n°5 = 12.36km/h [6.67Knots] (501.2 m. in 146.0 s.)

    To put that in perspective the Sailrocket boys did a 500m run in around 18 seconds... So I was probably averaging about 11 or 12 knots on reaches across the reservoir once up to speed. In the morning race, which was admittedly in much less wind, the Canoe was doing 6 or 7 knots upwind and much the same on what were mostly very deep reaches. To put distances into perspective, I think mark 1 to mark 6 is around 580metres.

    The 29er will be faster than the Canoe on deep reaches, but probably not many other boats at the club will go a lot faster than this. 

    The content was created with GPSActionReplay. Visit www.gpsactionreplay.com

     
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