Annals Of Innovation–KiteShip: Kiteboarding already blurs the lines between sailing and flying, but no one ever imagined turning large yachts into massive kiteboards. No one, that is, except the mad wizards at the KiteShip Corporation. They orginally developed their massive kitesail for Larry Ellison and his Oracle/BMW America’s Cup team (talk about a radical technical approach), but it was never used. Now, though KiteShip wants to market its kites to commercial ships, they haven’t given up on freethinking racing sailors. And they found one in Aussie Sean Langman, who has been experimenting with the thing on his 66-foot AAPT (e-Grundig). Langman wants to fly the kite in the Sydney-Hobart race, which starts December 26, hoping it might help bring him home first, before much larger maxis. The 420-square meter kite-sail needs 10 knots of wind to fly, and sailors have supposedly launched it in winds up to 45 knots. Here are the sails alleged advantages:

– On average can be 50 – 100% more powerful than spinnakers

– Most conditions where a spinnaker can be used

– Flies from the deck of the yacht, not the mast, greatly reducing the tendency to broach or to lose control of the yacht i.e. safer to drive yachts harder in higher winds and under greater pressure of sail

– No alterations to the yacht has to be made – it can be flown from the yacht’s existing winches and ‘hard points’

– The kite-sail does not require spinnaker poles, bowsprits or much of the rigging and deck hardware

– Simple and safe to launch and recover, unassisted at sea

– Mark II kites offer increased performance over a wider range of wind speeds, especially at the lowest wind speeds.

We’ll see. Check out the pictures below and see if you think this is really going to work (or watch some of the videos here). I’m skeptical. But I love the fact that Langman will try to turn the Sydney-Hobart upside down with one…









“Hey, Sean. If this thing gets any bigger, 30 knots of breeze will launch us like a SCUD. Say, is there anything in the rules that says the hull has to touch the water?”