Mark Megahan
Breaking the speed record on water is a “spectacularly dangerous” pursuit. Seven of the 13 people who have attempted it have died trying. There have been only two attempts at breaking the current 317 mph record and both ended fatally. Former holder of a land speed record, Richard Noble, is heading up a team with a new design. They’re aiming to hit 400 mph or better.
Water speed record
Since 1979, Ken Warby is the only human to race across water faster than 300 miles an hour and survive. He set the 317 mph record which stands today with his hydroplane, the Spirit of Australia.
79-year-old speed demon Richard Noble set a record of his own on land. His Thrust SSC hit an astounding 763.035 mph in 1997. He won’t be driving the boat, rated at up to around 450 mph. A much younger person will be behind the controls. A robot will be doing most of the driving, though.
That’s because speeding across land is a whole lot different from racing across water. The danger is “horrendous.” Dihydrogen monoxide is “around 800 times more dense than air.” From a practical point of view, “hitting it at any speed is extremely hazardous, often fatal.”
Unlike an asphalt track, “it’s almost never flat, with imperceptible swells and waves that can deflect a craft.” Not to mention “semi-submerged hazards or pockets of different density, which can cause instability.”
Noble’s new design for a hydrofoil, rather than the more common hydroplane, is deemed capable of hitting 450 mph thanks to “almost-friction-free travel” over the unpredictable water.
As Nobel works on fine tuning the design with scale models, there are currently three other teams working to beat the record. All three use the more standard hydroplane hulls.
No room for error
None of the four teams are rushing to beat the others. There’s simply too much at stake to skimp on the design engineering. If another team makes a run at the water speed record, they’ll all be watching closely and cheering along, hoping that when they get their design tweeked into final readiness, theirs will be faster.
One person challenging Noble is David Warby, son of the current record holder. His craft, Spirit of Australia II, is rated at “more than twice the power of its predecessor thanks to its Rolls-Royce Orpheus 803 jet.”
Also in the running is Quicksilver, a British effort led by Nigel Macknight. His “stepped hydroplane design” was built “with input from high-speed boat designer Lorne Campbell and aerodynamicist Mike Green.” It’s “powered by a Rolls-Royce Spey jet engine.”
He’s making sure the engineers have everything worked out good and precise. “The water speed record is really, really difficult and dangerous,” he notes, “and I’ve every respect for Richard Noble’s effort. I don’t really see these things in terms of rivals, as it’s not helpful.”
Another project, also British, is Longbow. Project manager David Aldred points out, “unlike the land speed record, which is done in the desert and is just a YouTube video, this will be done in the Lake District, where you can come and see it, skimming across the water, with a guy putting his life on the line, to get the record for Britain.” Nobel’s hydrofoil turned a problem called “cavitation” into a design feature by forcing it up to “super-cavitation.”
The designers think the “effect can be harnessed and made to work at high speeds, maintaining lift but reducing drag.” The challenge is that there’s virtually no room for error in the one degree of pitch the craft must maintain at all times. It will be on autopilot to cope with “many calculations per second to maintain the pitch and elevation of the four super-cavitating foils as well as the craft’s direction.” The full size version should be in the water soon.
