Want to thank Zeeva Quintessa  for doing this photo -- it was amazing working with her and I felt very lucky and privileged that she wanted to take one of me -- more about Zeeva Quintessa's Photography

Meet the "WingCat 10"

[19:14] Miguelito Shilova: I'm just about done with my WingCat

[19:15] Tasha Kostolany: is this something from your imagination or are there boats like this

[19:15] Miguelito Shilova: Actually wing sails have been around for some time

[19:15] Tasha Kostolany: really?
[19:16] Tasha Kostolany: I mean it makes sense

[19:16] Miguelito Shilova: Yep, even won an America's Cup race

[19:16] Tasha Kostolany: wow

[19:16] Miguelito Shilova: lemme see if i can find a link [of what inspired me] ...

[19:17] Miguelito Shilova: here we go ...

[19:17] Tasha Kostolany: this is really cool

[19:18] Miguelito Shilova: the video's interesting as well

http://www.harborwingtech.com/company_promo.htm

and this is the real life demonstration for the US Navy

http://www.harborwingtech.com/products_demo.htm

[19:21] Miguelito Shilova: There's also something called the Olmer Wingsail which is a flexible, reefable wingsail.
[19:21] Miguelito Shilova: I looked at both before working on mine

[19:22] Tasha Kostolany: wow!!!!!!!!!! this is really intersting
[19:22] Miguelito Shilova: :))

[19:23] Tasha Kostolany: so what you have made is the man-less boat they are making or the one that won the America's cup?

[19:25] Miguelito Shilova: well, I just took inspiration from the manless design. I have to look but what I remember was that it was like 10 or 15 years ago, when the US surprised the Austrailians with a wingsailed cat that really ran circles around the Aussie's keelboat

Stars and Stripes' 1988 wing sail system was developed by Dave Hubbard and Duncan MacLane

[19:25] Miguelito Shilova: I think as a result the rules changed and they created another class of racing

[19:26] Tasha Kostolany: how does this thing do going downwind -- since its build like an airplane wing its always giving "lift" does that work downwind?

[19:27] Miguelito Shilova: It doesn't do well downwind, but it does really good into the wind.
[19:27] Miguelito Shilova: the olmer sails can go 19 degrees into the wind

[19:28] Tasha Kostolany: yeah I can see going into the wind with the lift it would be amazing

[19:28] Miguelito Shilova: I set the BWWind script to 19 degrees - it's really cool to see it sail so close to in-irons
[19:29] Miguelito Shilova: I have to look at the other parameters more closely to replicate the other effects - like degrading performance downwind
[19:29] Miguelito Shilova: just need to better familiarize myself with those parts of the script

[19:39] Miguelito Shilova: In addition to getting the dynamics tweaked, I've also got one other challenge to work out ...
[19:40] Miguelito Shilova: you can't reef a rigid wingsail, so de-powered it should turn like a weather vane.
[19:40] Miguelito Shilova: I have to figure out how to fold that into the code

[19:47] Miguelito Shilova: I appreciate your interest - this has been the most fun build so far.

[19:47] Tasha Kostolany: how long have you been working on this?

[19:48] Miguelito Shilova: hmm about two weeks off and on. Mostly for a couple hours in the evenings.

[19:49] Tasha Kostolany: so did you see this wingsail thing at the website and thought I want to make this?

[19:50] Miguelito Shilova: exactly - I knew I wanted to try a sailboat next, and wanted something unique. Then I remembered the wingsail cat from the Cup, and started reading up on them
[19:51] Miguelito Shilova: when I saw the harborsail wing I knew that's what I wanted to try to emulate

Day 12 of the Boat Builders Show and today I want to show you some of the amazing sails that are made for the Q-2m -- a fun little racer that as been around a little wile and I know there are a number of them out there.  Here we have 4 country designs and a Star Trek and Kitty design -- all of these are amazing.

Come see the displays in person -- just touch the boat to change the sails  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dex/176/41/22

These are all available at the marketplace  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/47430

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