Testing the Latest Generation of Sailing Yachts

The Wolfson Unit has developed testing and analysis techniques appropriate for yachts fitted with vertical lifting boards and dynamic righting moment devices. These have been employed on various projects including yachts with DSS, OPEN60s, Line honours vessels such as “Comanche” and foil borne/assisted multihulls.

These yachts bring the demands of testing at high speeds, low displacements, high righting moments and include the deployment of a range of appendage options. New equipment has been developed to allow for the measurements of resistance, sideforce, yaw and roll moments, heave and trim at these extremes over a range of speeds, heel and yaw angles. Furthermore, sweeps of rudder(s) angle, keel cant and tilt angles as well as foils / dynamic righting moment devices incidence can also carried out.

The scaled and analysed data are regressed to model the yacht’s performance over a range of sailing conditions and summarised in files appropriate for running in VPPs such as WinDesign.

Tests have been very successful in the investigation and evaluation of a wide range of design options in calm water and in waves and developments in this area are continuing to meet the demands of our clients new designs.

These approaches are complemented by the Wolfson Unit wind tunnel and CFD capabilities offering clients a complete set of tools to help tackle the technical challenges appropriate to these ultra-light weight, high speed, foil assisted yachts.

For more information on our range of yacht testing services please see our YACHT TESTING PAGE.

Tank testing of a yacht with DSS designed by Hugh Welbourn