Far left: proof of the pudding… a recent graduate of one of the successful Oakcliff Sailing marine industry programmes, Robyn Lesh does the scanning prior to creating a precise 3D model of one of Patriot’s AC75 foil arms in order to check for permanent deformation following a long day on the water in early testing. The white dots are pressure taps which produce the data that allows the hydrodynamicists to accurately model the waterflow. Aside from scale and robustness for racing in the open sea, the overall foil configuration on the new Mark Mills IRC foiler (above) is quite similar to the AC75 with the exception of the inclusion of a single fixed keel to meet stability requirements – and to give the crew a measure of comfort if salt water fries the electronics. Left: 30 people to go this slowly? If all goes to plan then Roberto Lacorte’s new 62-footer should be capable of being raced by just five crew (but maybe not to begin with). Who’d be a measurer…
find in the Equipment Rules of Sailing (yet). Flying by wire should then allow this 62ft boat to be raced by a
minimum of five crew as if fully crewed, the computer tirelessly doing its job taking input from potentially dozens of sensors. Con- trolling ride height is typically a function where I feel a computer soon outperforms human effort. Without computers a helmsman has to combine trimming the foil with helming, communication with tactician and trimmers, watching instruments, sails, waves, and so on; while if this control is left to other crew they do not have the same feel for what is coming that a helmsman enjoys. But the consequences of permitting a computer to do any actual
Same for helming a boat unless specified differently, in other
words specifically allowing the use of an auto-helm. Both the Rolex Middle Sea Race and Rolex Fastnet Race now allow the use of auto- helms on all yachts, not sure I understand the reason why for fully crewed yachts… What I do see is that once on this slippery slope it will become increasingly hard to stop connecting more and more functions to a computer. This will take quite a few years to get it right, but building from the level of sophistication already achieved in the professional singlehanded sailing community eventually the computer will do a better job combining helming and trimming functions than almost any team will be capable of. Human effort and marine businesses will then focus predominantly
on designing, building, calibrating and maintaining these systems. I do not see this as the way to go for our sport. I firmly feel that it should be primarily human sailing skills that are tested, ranked and rewarded. The role and use of computers should be firmly regulated to provide a level platform in all forms of sailing and they should always enjoy wider use in reduced-crew sailing than if fully crewed. Reading the Lacorte/Mills announcement it states, ‘Powered
controls and winches assisted by a flight augmentation system reduce the burdens on the five-man crew, allowing the helm to focus on steering without also having to directly control ride height.’ My immediate thought is that this boat will be partially sailed by
a computer. Later releases are less clear on this perspective; I am sure clarification will be sought. But who to ask? Modifying RRS 52 is permitted but soon opens a can of worms,
certainly if equipment components are allowed to take direct instruc- tions from a computer. At America’s Cup level this resulted in about 10 pages of class rules just covering control systems, hydraulic control circuits, electrical and electronic systems, electronic control circuits, instrumentation and logging systems and crew information systems. This and the introduction of many terms that one will not
sailing shall not be taken too lightly. Once established it will be very hard to stop this trend and even harder to climb back up the slippery slope again. In the interest of ideology (‘what is yacht racing?’), fair- ness and consistency I feel this deserves worldwide co-ordination and urgent consideration. I did a bit more reading up on Vendée Globe rules and boats
since last month’s column. I was quite amazed to read that onboard Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss 350 load sensors are distributed throughout the boat, from the appendages to the hull, rigging and foils. Alarms are then triggered when load thresholds are reached. The autopilots used in the Vendée Globe are indeed of the artificial
intelligence type, self-learning based on extensive data collection and processing. The autopilot not only registers data like yaw, pitch and roll (so the boat’s movements), but also translates these to its helming. Imagine if ‘flight control’ and certain elements of sail trim can be hooked up as well, so far not permitted in the Vendée Globe… I also learned that new systems have indeed been developed
to reduce the chances of hitting unidentified floating objects. Like Oscar, a box installed at the top of the mast comprising three cameras, two of which are thermal cameras linked to an advanced artificial intelligence programme, making it possible to detect an object up to 600m in front of the boat. In the current Vendée Globe 18 Imocas are apparently equipped with Oscar. Then three boats have an experimental Pinger system installed
on their keels, to scare or if you wish warn whales. On the Imoca class website I found a sustainability page that is certainly above par when compared to many others… and with the content I was looking for and expecting when visiting the Vendée Globe site earlier on. Would be little effort to link the Vendée Globe website to
www.imoca.org/en/sustainability/programme. I really like the Imoca approach – anything can be improved of
course but this class has energy, vision, respect, speed and fun in a sometimes not yet perfect but mostly very healthy mix. Hats off! Rob Weiland, TP52 and Maxi72 class manager
q SEAHORSE 37
INGRID ABERY
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