Wot Rocket – the learning curve

by Crosbie Lorimer on 16 May 2008 Thursday was day two on the water for Australia’s Wot Rocket Team, who has been busy sorting out launch and recovery procedures. Yesterday the breeze reached no more than 6-7 knots and the Rocket probably maxed out at about 5.5 knots!

Slow speed sailing is difficult for the Rocket, as co-pilot Martin ‘Tacker’ Thompson explained; ‘Because the wing is angled to be exactly vertical when she is foiling at speed, this makes driving at the start difficult with the angle ‘falling in’. The procedure they are now using is to they set her downwind with the wing squared off, get enough speed to get drafting working across the rudder/foil (4-5 knots) then gybe her and move her to ninety degrees apparent from where in theory she gets up.'

With the Wot Rocket bow digging in a bit, Sean Langman put the canopy on the front part of the pod. He soon said, 'I’ve got enough of fog up in here to start drawing the new one on the canopy'! Very apt, given he said he drew his first concepts of Wot Rocket on his shower screen at home.

In really light winds she stalls fairly easily close to the wind (she tracked backwards very cleanly a couple of times, before the Protector gave her a nudge! At one point they were both paddling to get the bow off the wind!

As you can see from the picture her pod sits a bit low in little breeze (Langman denies it has anything to do with his weight at the front of the pod and like Grant Hackett his wetsuit created a completely false impression of his obviously high state of fitness for this challenge, which presumably requires carb loading!).

They plan to change the front of the pod configuration to stop it digging in. Apparently the wing is barely cured (only a week old) and needs some refinement. Anyway the team seemed very happy with what they have learnt over the last two days. It will probably be at least a week or two before they get out on the water again, given the quantum of work to be done.