Kiteboat: sailing innovation on SF Bay | Hacker News Reader

Kiteboat: sailing innovation on SF Bay

project.kiteboat.com

46 points205guy14 comments

Once again my two favorite things on the HN front page - technology and sailing.

The combination of kite power and a foiling hull make for crazy speed. 31 knots on a relatively small craft, in 10-18 knots of breeze is incredible, and must be a huge rush to drive.

As a racing sailor, I'd be interested to see how these boats could compete in a fleet race setting, or even a match race / America's Cup style setting. The more of these types of craft I see, the more I am hoping my kids will be sailing cheap foiling kite dinghies at 20 knots in the next 5 years. Exciting stuff!

Submitter here: I have the same excitement (though not a sailor myself, just a spectator). I actually wondered about a kite pulling a boat a while ago myself, and now someone goes and does it.

I was surprised how fast the foiling technology has been spreading after the America's Cup. There were the foiling moths (small sailboats) before, but now it seems to be more popular. Then recently, I saw something about kiteboarders fitting a foil to their boards and gaining speed. Now this.

One disadvantage of the kiteboat is that it requires a bigger sail and thus longer lines. That will increase the risks of entanglement in a race. And with 80-meter lines, this prototype already has to worry about bridge clearance on the bay.

I'm a longtime sailor and did a bit of kiteboarding back in the early 2000's when the kites were a lot less safe than they are now (they automatically dive now when the rider loses control, which I would have loved instead of being dragged onto a beach and into a fisherman's truck)

The amount of power generated is insane, but I would love to see a computer controlled kite instead of relying on a human to keep the kite moving in a way to maximize power. The margin of error can be small there.

This looks nice, but I really don't like websites that make me click around to find out what exactly they are.

Is Kiteboat a company that sells... kite.. boats?

Or is it a technology?

Why is on HN?

Is a kiteboat a boat that's sailed by kite? or is it just a cute name?

Are you selling something or just showing off your cool boats?

What's the goal?

Why am I looking at your site?

Who are you?

What's the Log In link for?

What would I be logging in to do?

I get none of that from the main page, and none of the links in Navigate look anything like "About" or "FAQ" or "Who We Are" or "What is Kiteboat?". All I see are videos (which I rarely watch for various reasons, but even so, few look like they explain what the Kiteboat Project is), News (why should I care if I don't know what Kiteboat is?), Advantages (compared to what?), Tests (???)..

I wound up clicking around and got answers to some of those questions, but for someone who just lands on your homepage, that's a lot of work to expect them to do. Ideally, you would have something front and center that says "Kiteboat: A Better Way to Sail" and then a button that says "Find Out More" or something. Because otherwise I'm either just gonna navigate away, or start clicking random links til I find something that explains WTF I'm looking at.

Why so grumpy? And why assume it's my website? I thought people could post anything on HN, not just their own stuff.

I've been a commenter on HN, but this is my first submission to get any traction at all. I thought it was self explanatory, had a descriptive title (keyword: innovation), and gave a few links at the bottom for those that want more than pretty pictures (try videos).

You know, I like websites to be clearer as well, I can't stand products that don't show me what it is and how it looks (screenshots). But I thought this was pretty straightforward:

It's a boat powered by a kite (see big pictures). It's existing tech applied in new ways, but still requiring lots of innovation, prototyping, and testing (notice the experimental nature of the craft). It's on HN because I like sailing, the Bay Area, and people developing innovative things. I am not affiliated in any way with the people or the website.

Do you write a comment like this for every submission on HN?

I'm not grumpy at all! Just wondering, because as someone who is not an avid boater, I have no idea what a Kiteboat is, and it was not exactly self-explanatory. I did have to click around to find out the answers to my questions. I'm just pointing out that the website could be better, and that as a non-boater, I was confused.

As a techie and HN user, I'm interested in technology and websites, and one thing I want is for websites to appropriately convey their messages. This one simply doesn't convey necessary information to people who don't know what they're looking at. Is that a problem? Not necessarily. It depends on the audience.

Also note that at the end I offered a solution to the problems I mentioned. If I were grumpy and a jerk, I would have simply complained. It just so happens that I'm trying to help.

Thanks for the downvotes though! Carry on.

Twas not me who downvoted you. I did not even know before today that HN won't let me downvote any comment on my own submission (unless you need more points for that too). Only the upvote arrows appear for me here.

You may not be grumpy, but having many short questions with a sarcastic tone ("cute") or negative slant comes across very aggressively. I realize the website may not provide all the answers to someone who has no knowledge of the domain (sailing), but I think it provided enough visuals and information for someone approaching it with an inquisitive mind.

Hacker and kiteboarder here

This kiteboat is very impressive and powerful. The kite area is 25sqm and you have a lot of powerful wind in SF. I kiteboard in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - where the wind is not so strong and my kite area is only 11sqm.

I wonder what were the decisions involved on choosing 80m flying lines (regular kiteboard is 30m) and only 4 lines instead of 5 lines (safer and easier to relaunch)

Me too. I'm guessing that 80m is for more altitude and better wind. There are plenty of safe 4-line systems, you can always flag the kite on a single front line. Maybe they're Cabrinha fans? I wonder how this would do with a 25m foil kite instead of an LEI. 11m is my go-to most of the summer here in Boston

There is a good New Yorker profile piece that came out May 2013, that gives an interesting account of this innovation and potentially using it to harness energy. Made for nice coffee reading.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_...

Its easy to take a sail above the speed of the wind. Airfoil effect. Did it all the time on iceboats as a kid (sailboat on ice skates, basically). Not sure how or if that applies to a kite. A sail (at least a properly designed one) is not a parachute... it pushes against the keel to go faster than the wind.

I would imagine performance in calm to variable gusty conditions is interesting. Could of course pop a very small mast and sail with that. I've been stuck in the middle of nowhere and no breeze with a conventional sail, so I suppose this isn't any worse other than dunking the kite and tangling the wires.

For long distance sailing I was always hyper paranoid about bigger ships (duh) and a fairly obvious safety feature that wasn't discussed (that I saw) is lifting a simple tinfoil and styrofoam retroreflector up with the kite. I wonder that no one sells small/tiny kites with retroreflectors to cruising sailors.

Reminds me of SkySails: http://www.skysails.info/english/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails

They claim a 10-35% fuel reduction.

This is pretty cool but lower-tech than i was expecting when i saw the link. I went by their loft a few times in 2008 or 2009 but haven't followed them since. I think Makani is a sister company.

http://www.google.com/makani/about/

There's also other companies working on e.g. computerized winches that can react in hunderdths of a second, if I remember correctly

http://inhabitat.com/power-your-boat-with-kites-wind-power-b...

Cool idea. Love the speed.

Back of the napkin calculations with an average 25 knot speed would mean you could cross the Atlantic from Ireland to Newfoundland [1] in about 3 days.

I wonder when Richard Branson will attempt the crossing?

https://www.google.com/search?q=ireland+to+newfoundland+mile...

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