At the end of a windless tunnel...

Dobbs Davis talks to JB Braun about a new generation of potentially cost-effective sail design technology

Introduction

For decades sail designers have been searching for a reliable and reproducible method of testing and refining their ideas on fast sail shapes. Until recently the process was primarily empirical, with countless hours of carefully controlled on-the-water testing necessary to yield meaningful results. Even then there was probably as much art as science applied in the process, with designers relying on experience and intuition as much as any more objective methods.

Since sailboats operate in a fluid medium similar to cars, aeroplanes and other craft whose designs are regularly tested in wind tunnels, over the past decade sail designers have increasingly turned towards wind tunnel testing as a valuable experimental tool. This method is advantageous because it provides an objective test environment: the actual forces can be measured on the sail; test model sails cost considerably less than full-scale equivalents; multiple model runs can be made in a short time and thus many different shapes can be explored.

To read the remainder of this article please go to the March 2003 edition of Seahorse, available at selected newsstands or by calling: + 44 (0) 1590 671899 or by email at: info@seahorse.co.uk

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