link didn't work ?

its a pics of this boat from the top
http://www.aopc.com.au/media/11-8-08/48.html

looking at this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6uNwQe4lRU the amount of time to deploy something is incredibly minimal, once you get past 30 degrees or so you have a kite and nothing is going to stop it. any more angle than that and you not only have a high pressure zone under the boat, but at race speeds you also have created a low pressure zone on top of the boat which will suck the boat over.

I think "if ever" are the ones that got out before anything happened. Unfortuntely, there have been very skilled drivers and crew who after many years have experienced tragedy, whether they are cats from Offshore, Unlimited, or Grand Prix. It is a dangerous sport.

Michael

No doubt- some very skilled people have run out of luck on the competitive circuit. But if you ran the numbers, I think you'd find a definite tilt towards the lesser-skilled.

In that youtube video you see the boat go up a little then come down or bounce and then go over if this would have deployed before the bounce and cut fuel or spark or somehow cut the motors I think it would work. I am not thinking anything high tech I am actually thinking very low tech just like a nascar roof flap it would be like a scoop when opened I am not thinking tunneling air into hull or anything crazy just a flap or mutiple flaps.

Now I do not know much about airplanes but when they put the flaps down on the back of a wing they are very effective in slowing the plane down and decreasing lift so a flap in the tunnel or "wing" I feel would have a similar effect.

Now for the side to side crashes it would not work as well but I feel that usually before a sponson stuffs it is at an angle above normal running which would deploy the tab and cut the motors this would not prevent a stuff but could severly cut the speed at which it happens and with the motors stopped it would not keep pushing through the water

airplane wing flaps increase lift

Just my .02 worth and certainly no disrespect to anybody but.........If you'll take a close look at the history of offshore powerboat racing you'll learn about going fast and safety issues. There's been many great people that lost their lives in cats and v's running alot slower than these high speed poker run boats. One thing I learned was to have a full high tech canopy w/ full time air / 5 way harnesses in any competitive event over 90 mph, and this is still no guarantee for survival in a crash. I was violently ejected at over 80 mph in a turn and was lucky to survive. Like I said no disrespect to anybody and hopefully we can all learn from this tragic accident.

most cats that go over do it in the corners... blow overs are almost a non factor (and the few that do happen usually involve taking water down the tunnel from another boat, and a flap at that point would catch even more water, probably knocking you over faster)

i wouldn't take the throttle away from them either, you'd be surprised what a good one can do with it.

To continue the theoretical exercise, an issue that is just as critical would be the reverse- stuffing. Imagine if you had this very basic venting system that dumped lift. The nose of this 44' cat travelling 140+ mph is now 50-60 fet above the water's surface and no longer suspended. It's going to come down hard if your vent stays open. Now we have a real problem.

The system you propose is theoretically possible, but presents a great challenge. You'll have to employ quite an array of accelerometers feeding into a multi-channel processor that controls your system. Then you have to have enough modeling to create the piece of software that analyzes inputs and operates the controls. It has to analyze what's going on and be right 100% of the time. That's alot to ask.