“Up Where the Air is
Clear”
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
Let's go fly a kite
And send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!
--song from “Mary Poppins”
Yesterday it was Team New Zealand’s “false hull.”
Today it is Oracle’s “kite.” Things are finally getting interesting
in Auckland.
For many months Sailing Anarchy has been hearing
rumors that an AC team or two may have been working intensively
to develop a kite-sail to fly in lieu of the conventional gennaker
or spinnaker.
No, the photo as right is not a trick photo. Today
on the Hauraki Gulf, in 6 to 8 knots of breeze, Oracle launched
and flew this kite for all the Cup world to see. It flew for nearly
30 minutes [actually 43, ed.]as Prada and OneWorld, and the media and TV boats assembled
for that match, bobbed around under postponement not too far away.
Our sources tell us that such a kite-sail, if it
has been perfected, could be a huge advantage because:
a kite is aerodynamically more efficient than a
standard spinnaker -- it doesn’t just pull like a spinnaker, but
“sails” back and forth at the end of its tether(s) thereby increasing
the apparent wind it “sees.”
a kite is deployed aloft where there is more wind
than the surface winds in which normal sails operate; and
for the purposes of the racing rules, i.e. “overlaps”
and the “definition of finishing,” the kite’s “normal position”
can be several hundred metres out front of the yacht. In theory,
a yacht flying a kite could cross the finish line well before a
yacht four or more boat lengths ahead but flying a conventional
spinnaker. We hear it is legal under AC Class rules.
The only drawback seems to be launching and retrieving
it, but Oracle would appear to have somehow solved those problems.
The other problem is keeping it flying once launched. It reminds
us of the old saw about senior-citizen kite-fliers: “I can get it
up, but can I keep it up?”
Why would Oracle make such an obvious spectacle
of their new kite if it is a secret weapon? Our sources tell us
the development time is so long-lead that any team that does not
have it perfected by now will not have a chance in the time remaining.
Perhaps Oracle figured they had better give it a final real-time
shakedown on the Gulf for possible deployment in the upcoming sudden-death
Semifinal Repechage. Or is this kite-thing really just a “red herring”
to send their remaining opponents off on a wild goose chase?
Speaking of a goose chase, Sailing Anarchy has
learned that “The Goose” is the code name Oracle has given the mysterious
white pod swinging off the antenna frame on the back of their race
boat, USA-76. We are working on The Goose story, but Oracle is among
the least leaky syndicates on Halsey Street so it has been slow
going. Alinghi, on the other hand, like their neighbor OneWorld,
is starting to leak like a sieve. So much information is now coming
out of Alinghi via Team New Zealand sources that it is widely speculated
that a former Team New Zealand member now with Alinghi has “gone
bad” and is passing Alinghi info to his Kiwi mates next door at
TNZ.
Stay tuned; the “false hull,” the kite and “The
Goose” seem to be only the beginning of the techno tango emerging
downunder.
12/17/2002
[Source, Sailing Anarchy]
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