One board, four sails, four sailors = 4x4 windsurfing. The crazy frenchies are at it again with their bid to be the fastest and funniest windsurfers in the world. Raf Filippi brings us behind the scenes for a not so serious look at the entertaining engineering and endeavours of the Quadem project.
Windsurfing has always been a highly individualistic activity. It is very hard to share our sensations; many even refuse to share their wave! We felt that windsurfing as part of a team, shar-ing our joy and our problems could bring a new dimension to our sport. I started it nice and easy a few years ago with Régis Bourdon, doing the Défi Wind together on a tandem. I then welcomed a third crewmember, Matthieu Vinceneux, on an even longer board and confirmed that the motto “the more the merrier” can also be successfully applied to windsurfing. So why not push it a bit further hey? The idea of the Quadem was born.
THE SCIENCE
The Tridem had transformed the way we conceived windsurfing as a team and offers nothing comparable to riding on a tandem. Building the board was a technological challenge that Pierre Bracar successfully faced, but what a stress it was. Since we wanted to go fast, we forbade ourselves to train with less than 40 knots of wind… probably not the best option overall. The sailing also got extremely tricky and technical, synchronizing the action of three riders becoming a serious headache. We spent a lot of time training last autumn, discussing at length after each session the potential of our Beast and our dreams of speed records. The main idea was pretty simple. We started from the scientifically accepted fact that the speed of a sailing vessel is defined by / depends on the total sail area, the overall weight and the total wetted area on the bottom shape. After many calculations that kept us all very busy during our winter evenings, we came up with the conclusion that we had to get a fourth rider. In our eyes, it was then clear that the Quadem would become the fastest sailing vessel of all time.
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