Onward and upward indeed!
We did really great at the 2017 Extreme Chunkin event.
We had rebuilt part and beefed up the rest of our hydraulic winding frame that sticks out of the front of the bundle frame. This allowed more of "The Juice" from our hydraulic ram to be transmitted into winding the rope bundles even tighter. For our first shot on Saturday we shot 1229 ft using an 8.6 lb LaEstrella. This was just 3 ft short of our prior best shot of 1232 ft.
After the bundles settled from the first shot we juiced them up again, maxing out the hydraulics. Using an 8.1 lb LaEstrella with a modest tail wind we shot a whopping 1507 ft. This was a real shot in the arm far outdistancing our prior best and totally blowing away the 1/4 mile milestone. This got us into 2nd place in the combined adult catapult/torsion division. Being the only adult torsion machine on the field, and having only 20 adult machines, including trebuchets... which are gravity powered... and air cannons, they lumped us in with the catapults... which are spring powered (usually stretched garage door tension springs, rubber surgical tubing or rubber cord stock.
Anyway, whenever we outdo ourselves we are able to claim a new unofficial world record for a ballista. If you know of another ballista that can throw an 8 to 10 lb object 1507 ft, bring it on!
After our second shot on Saturday we juiced it up again to sit overnight. The bundles like the dampness from the overnight dew (or rain if we are lucky) because it helps the rope swell and takes a little friction out.
On Sunday, judging by the flags waving in the pits, the tail wind seemed to have increased, so we were really hopeful to do even better. Unfortunately we "only" got 1489 ft. We were still pretty chuffed at that since it proved that the improvements were pretty consistent. The safety crew/surveyors let us know that they were really pulling for us, but were seeing all of the shots that weren't perfectly straight get pulled even further off line by the side winds that were running above the big berm that we have to throw over.
Still, our 1507 shot held up for second place and we got a nice trophy!
Mr B pulling back for a shot