A couple of things. First, I think they begin from a standing start so, since the it takes more energy to get a thing moving than to keep it moving the added acceleration effort would have to be factored in especially on so short a race. Of course, a motor produces constant thrust not the herky jerky stuff of paddling plus paddles are about 86% efficient when used primarily in the drag mode as they appear to be used in Dragon Boats. According to my ergonomics data "typical" males (whatever "typical" is) can produce between 0.40 and 0.50 horsepower for short intervals and this drops by about 70% after two minutes. So, in the early stages of the race they put out quite a bit more horsepower. The actual shape of the power curve would vary with tactics but I suspect they might like to get out in front quickly to avoid the effect of diagonal waves. Not sure if wake riding would pay off in such a short race. As Matt points out Dragon boats are not the height of efficiency. C-4's have been beating Dragon boat times for years.If ayone was inclined to actually calcualte the resistance the best method would be to use Michlet since it is not a formula derived from regression analysis. Dragon boats are well outside the data base for any regression analysis formulas (that I know of) or of the tank derived formulas and get increasingly unreliable the farther out they get. Michlet would seem to be the best bet unless you have access to one of the advanced fluid dynamics programs. I sure wouldn't trust KAPER to predict it with any accuracy at all. Are you really sure you want to work this out? :-) Cheers John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Oct 02 2007 - 06:49:27 PDT
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