The Sailboat Race that Outpaces the Wind [Sailboats]

Re-adjust what you imagine whenever you think about a fast sailboat. Forget the floppy sails, majestic prows, and guys scurrying around in silly caps. Those would fly off on a C-class catamaran. Hell, the boats even fly.

C-cats, as they’re affectionately known, are the best wind-powered vessels on water. They’re light, weighing about as much as their two-person crews. And, because they’re designed by aerospace engineers, they leverage every hydro and aerodynamic trick possible to make speed. Rather than one hull, you get two; and rather than a sail, most of these boats boasts a rigid wing sticking straight up from the deck. No surprise, then, that they’ll fly on the water. Literally.

The wing sails, usually about 40 feet tall, can convert even the weakest breeze into impressive nautical thrust. But when there’s high wind, you should hold on on your life.

Fred Eaton, the Canadian who helms the defending champion, Canaan, explains: ” At 10 knots, it’s a shockingly smooth and happy experience on the boat. At 15 knots, it’s a whole handful. At 20 knots, you simply would like to go home. At 25 knots, the boats take off-physically take off-from the water.”

The predicted conditions this for this week’s International C-Class Catamaran Championships off the coast of Newport, RI? Some rain with finishes up to 25 knots. [Editor's note: As of straight away, the winds are too strong for racing, and the event has been postponed to forestall the boats from going so fast that they travel back in time and totally screw up history.]

Winged sail boats are seeing something of a popularity boom recently. The ship sailed by the BMW Oracle team in this year’s America’s cup, USA-17, used a behemoth 223 foot wing in competition. And the Sauter Formula Zero Solar Hybrid Megayacht has solar cells attached to its gigantic rigid wings.

C-cat races had been around since the 1960s, and rigid sails started to emerge within the early 70s. Over time, designs have improved, and diverse international races had been held. The massive prize, which one lucky team will take home at the top of this week, is named the Little America’s Cup. It’s skipped worldwide between teams from Britain, Denmark, Australia, the u. s. , and Canada. And the glory of who has the craziest, most over-engineered boat, is sort of as desperately sought.

The great thing about the C-Class is that there are very few design constraints, leaving engineers room to experiment. The catamaran should have two identical hulls and be sailed by two people. It have to be 25 feet long, 14 feet wide, and the world of the sail ought to be 300 square feet. But that’s it. There isn’t any minimum weight, no material that’s off-limits. The remaining is open to interpretation.

That’s where the wing came from. Because engineers had no rules, their thought process went something like this: We’d like the lightest hull possible. We want the tautest sail possible. DRAT! To make the sail hold its shape within the wind, we’d like a heavy mast and a host of high-tension wires (forestays, whenever you’re inside the know), which would put too much pressure on our super-lightweight hulls. EUREKA! We will combine the mast and sail into one rigid piece-a wing!-that holds its shape end result of the nature of its materials and construction, eliminating the will for a heavy mast or forestays. Woop Woop!

Norman Wijker, head of the British team Invictus, explains that winged sails feel substantially less drag than conventional canvas. This lets C-cats sail attack the wind at sharper angles as they tack, zigzagging upwind. And sailing downwind in a C-Class is right aerodynamic magic. Usually, a boat with the wind at its stern (back) simply catches the wind in its sails, never moving any faster than the rate of the gusts. But in a C-cat, sailors deploy flaps (similar to on an airplane wing) to keep air flowing fast even when apparent wind (the breeze you’re feeling) is low. Sailing directly downwind will never come up with much speed, he says, ” but by tacking downwind, we will be able to sail faster than the wind.”

But it’s not just wing design that wins races. The crew’s familiarity with the boat and the wing’s controls are crucial for performance. This race’s underdog is the British team, that may be using this event to debut its new, more aerodynamic wing. That said, Wijker believes his team has spent more time on the water than his competition. This might count for rather a lot in a race where split-second decisions and precise handling of the controls are crucial.

Indeed, C-Class catamarans are beyond responsive, says Steve Clark, leader of america team, mentioning that small differences in wind velocity across the race course have larger than normal consequences. ” Large leads can vaporize in seconds,” he says. That’s something Clark knows rather a lot about: His squad’s new boat, the Aethon, was damaged during pre-race testing, so america team was forced to enter an older boat, the Cogito, into the competition. It’s no slouch, having won the Cup in 2004, nevertheless it’s only 1 more piece of evidence leading to the belief that sailing-regardless of what sort-is a fickle sport.

Whether your boat is old or new, ” you’ll be able to’t see the wind, and it doesn’t blow consistently,” says Clark. ” Try to be in a position to select the clues that inform you what’s going to happen next and position yourself to exploit it.” ” Keeping the boat going fast and getting into the proper direction is the challenge of all sailboat races.”

Kate Greene is a science and technology writer based in San Francisco

Photographs courtesy Team Invictus Ltd.

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This post is tagged: Outpaces, race, Sailboat, Sailboats, Wind