America’s Cup 35 @Bermuda, 4 Days to Go: Short Film on Artemis Racing development

Photo above by Sander van der Borch / Artemis Racing –  This short Film is a perfect way to wait and see for the actual performance on racing for the points at the LV Cup.
Artemis offered the best media material on their series “Road to Bermuda”, with this short Film presented by Altair Engineering  (Artemis Racing collaborator:  designthedifference.com) , they have reached a new level on how to show and promote your work. Sailing itself & the America’s Cup have plenty to give in terms of stories, personalities, tech and special images, this Short takes a good use them.
Footage displays a bit of the process they went through to reach current status quo, which is accepted by all, that Artemis is rather well prepared, fast  and in good shape for what is coming.

Performance development: 
For some months now I’ve been learning to ‘develop’, or better put: to understand how aero/hydro foils sections work, thanks specially to the great help and lectures of an US F18 sailor and Aeronautical Engineer, Sam Carter. What is interesting to see is how little modifications affects or changes performance/polars entirely.

In short film above Artemis design team put emphasis on how a “10th of mm” can do the difference between a good or poor aero/hydrofoil section or simple a fast or slow ‘boat’. Nathan speaks on AC50s being literally airplanes, and for sure they are.

To reach the desired lift/drag ratio I’m making foils mods by bare hand, like sculpting each part of the foil beyhond the usual camber, thickness and other parameters. Once you identify how each part of sections affects its behaviour, you can aim to improvements with a “modify, test, verify” cycle.

Getting a computer to do all the possible mods and auto tests/results is no problem to achieve in current times and  the right resources and is one of the things Artemis engineers are doing (if I understood well, if not someone needs to implment it).
Additionally numerical & CFD tests must be validated on the water, and that is still the beauty of the design process. Those relying only theory, well , we already saw results in SF.

1 more knot
With all the OD framework affecting platforms, wings , dagger case positions and many other aspects, one thought months ago not much difference could be made with the little room left to play, but as we’ve seen thanks to MyislandhomeBDA plus reports from Oracle sailors for ie, there is a great gap among some teams in straight line speed only, not even to start analyzing systems  or TNZ cycling power and else.

I’m amazed on how precise the design process needs to be, if they speak of that 10th of mm final construction is even more critical, as small deformations on molds or final product might reverse the key “10th of mm” gained on the design ‘table’. Good to see Brett Ellis still involved with the swede team.

4 days to go for the Louis Vuitton series.
Since we like Artemis and have deep respect for their work and how they reached this stage, we hope for them to encounter New Zealand in the Finals to have the very best challenger possible to race against Spithill’s & his crew raw determination and Oracle unlimited resources, so we can have the best close match  possible.

Still nothing granted, we’ll find out soon. Louis Vuitton Qualys Schedule: catsailingnews.com/2017/05/ac35-bermuda-lv-americas-cup-qualifiers.html