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expensive to get the competitive advantage they crave, the question of shifting to one- design regularly rears its head, often under- standably. In the case of the VO70 class, while savage in terms of performance, they could happily self-destruct if not sailed with utmost care. With more rig and struc- tural failures afflicting the fleet in the 2011/12 edition, something needed to be done and the one-design VO65 was born. In F1 it’s often suggested that certain parts of the car are made ‘one-design’ and, to date, other than the composite side impact tubes, these suggestions have been resisted. Often the smaller, poorer teams are keener for the one-design elements; effectively removing their associated devel- opment costs from the overall package. Compare the IOR 50 fleet of the early 1990s with the current TP52 fleet. I think the TP52 comes close to F1 in terms of close racing within a development class structure, creating ‘one-off perfection’, as Rob Weiland wrote in a recent Seahorse, where modifications to appendages and sails are ongoing and new boats are built every season. There is genuinely interesting design progression in evidence, be it hulls and appendages or clever detailing to sail controls, efforts to reduce windage, con- struction methods or, most interesting (to me) but often least visible, the structural/ composite design.


It’s obvious that the Sky cycling team’s approach, making small incremental gains in many areas, is the name of the game in the TP52 fleet and for me this is where the fascination lies. For many teams progress is enhanced by carrying personnel from one boat into the next; consistency can be priceless – F1 teams have largely learned that keeping a core team in place indefi- nitely is key to success.


Although very engaged in the details, I suspect the TP52 teams themselves are as involved in the development of deck design and controls as the appointed yacht design office. In F1 the team approach is critical; ideas direct from the design office are often successful but tapping into the expertise of the trackside operators brings a touch of reality and can result in a more practical and successful solution.


I remember years ago reading about the deck layout of Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup Class boats being designed by the sailors and thinking that was odd… surely the designers drew the deck plan? But the collaborative approach where all motivations are weighed up is essential. So, back in the early 1990s when the IOR 50s were getting painfully expensive to campaign, moves were made to go one- design with a new non-IOR yacht drawn up by Farr, Reichel/Pugh, Nelson/Marek and Judel-Vrojlk to replace them – even though the IOR 50s were still producing excellent racing. This idea came to nothing and the IOR 50 class effectively died in 1993. One-design yachts in this size range came and went; the Grand Prix 50 from Castro and the 1D48 from Reichel/Pugh –


or formula matures, nonetheless the onward march of refinement and improve- ment goes on in all areas.


Veni, vidi, vici. Brabham’s design genius Gordon Murray was not the first to try an independently powered downforce fan (that was Jim Hall’s Chaparral 2J in 1970). But in 1978 Murray did design the best fan car… Winning on its Grand Prix debut, the car was then withdrawn (not banned) by Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone, aware of the wider implications for his then fast unfolding new vision for Grand Prix racing


both interesting, innovative and modern yachts in their own rights but they didn’t last. Bottom line was there will always be owners interested in developing, in creat- ing their own programmes and designing their way to winning, taking nothing away from the crew of course!


In motorsport there are formulae where the machinery is identical for all and where the skill of the driver is therefore plain for the world to see, but there is never quite the same interest in this compared to for- mulae where the equipment differs, where each team must design and manufacture their own machinery. As a result you can have the Schumacher/Benetton situation where the driver often out-drove the car or the opposite where the superior car allowed a lesser driver to succeed. It goes without saying one-design classes are crucial, in sailing and in motor- sport. The Optimist, Topper, Laser, J/80, J/111, Melges 24, the list goes on and on – all great boats, but it’s arguable what tech- nical


progress is really made in these


classes; in sailing particularly these classes need to remain largely stuck in a time warp to ensure equitable competition. Costs are low, resale values maintained, good close racing – what’s not to like?


Well, to me, again as an engineer there is little intrigue involved beyond the vary- ing levels of class management required to keep everything fair.


Conclusions!


Having written this I’m not sure what conclusions to draw… I think it’s evident that designers and engineers will always flourish when given a new challenge, after all we’re creative types and don’t like being constrained too much.


The best engineers understand the prod- uct better than the rest; to them it’s not just a bunch of boxes to fill with a boat or car – they’re boxes to fill (or not to fill) with innovative and efficient solutions. The best designers and engineers will also get the most out of an established set of regulations; even though the visible progress becomes more subtle as the class


Regulations where anything potentially interesting or innovative is overly restricted tend to turn the real creative types off, so classes such as the Imoca 60 are essential to keep the creative juices flowing. Even if there are slip-ups along the way it can all be considered progress. I’ve gravitated in this article to determining progress in terms of speed or time, essentially because these are easy to understand and the numbers are readily available. The attention to detail on the AC50s and the new (wide-track, big-wing) 2017 F1 cars when they emerge will be impressive, but the level of composite and mechanical engineering each team has lavished on their creations won’t be at all obvious. There will also always be other intrigue; there may well be some lovely engineering and other solutions on the boats that don’t win the next Cup – same goes for next year’s F1 cars. All the best engineering isn’t just going to be found on the Red Bulls or Mercedes, it’ll be on all the cars from the front row to the back of the grid. Again, if we consider raw speed to be the primary progress/performance indica- tor, would we be satisfied to see 12 Metre or IACC yachts race for the America’s Cup in 2017, or IOR Maxis race in the next Volvo Race? Although by now they’d have become even more complex and refined, and slightly quicker, would these boats interest us compared to the foiling AC50 or the high-performance foiling offshore monohulls we now have?


Assuming they wouldn’t(!), it’s interest- ing to note that many consider F1 to be the pinnacle of motorsport engineering and yet in recent years the cars have evolved to go slower, not faster. So rethinking the regulations for 2017 to achieve F1 cars at least as fast as they were 10 years ago seems to be a wise move – assuming just going quicker doesn’t make the racing worse, but that’s a whole other subject. In broad terms too, in the past 25 years we’ve seen huge progress in the wider areas. Increased use of CAD, then 3D CAD, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) have all made it down from top-end projects to being regularly used as everyday design tools. Ever more complex engineering solu- tions and refinement have necessitated the use of design teams composed of special- ists – ‘the whole being greater than the sum of the parts’ – characterised recently in Seahorse by Mark Mill’s WallyCento project. In Formula 1 teams are comprised of a huge number of specialists collaborat- ing to conceive, design and manufacture an amazingly integrated, optimised and reliable car… often in a scarily short time. It’s an interesting time. In 12 months we might know who’s designed the best AC50 and a good idea who’s made the best of the 2017 Formula 1 regulations. Can’t wait. q


SEAHORSE 47


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