Boat towed by kite : methodolgy for sea trials
Abstract
This paper presents sea trials on a 6-meter boat specifically designed for kite propulsion. The kite control is automatic or manual, dynamic or static, depending on the point of sailing. The measurement system records boat motion and loads generated by the kite. A particular attention was payed for wind measurement with several fixed and mobile locations directly on the kiteboat or in the vicinity. A fine modelling shows that
a classical power low is not satisfactory to describe the wind at kite location. 5-minute measurement phase were systematically recorded. At the end, 101 runs were conducted. Data are processed with the phase-averaging method in order to produce reliable results. First results are presented.