Technical
Driven by real test data
Dock talk is cheap and broken dreams are very expensive. When you need to replicate actual working loads, HarkenLab provides a solution
When grand prix yachts gather in port it’s an opportunity for skippers and owners to check out the latest innovations on their rivals’ boats, and for crews to compare notes on how well the new stuff actually works. At the bleeding edge of sailing, new technology isn’t always subjected to rigorous physical testing in the controlled conditions of an engineering lab. Only a few companies like Harken have the resources to build full-scale prototypes and design test benches that accurately replicate the complex, dynamic load cycles of a regatta or ocean race. It’smore usual for a new customcylinder, winch or traveller design to go from finite element analysis to production and straight into sea trials, tentatively at first and then incrementally towards what has been calculated or estimated to be its theoreticalmaximumworking load. Almost everyone at the sharp
end of sailing is well aware that equipment makers’ claims about performance and durability – and the opinions of other sailors – while often useful, should be taken with a pinch of salt unless they are backed up, validated and proven with real- world test data. Dock talk is cheap and broken dreams can be deadly as well as catastrophically expensive. But in the absence of reliable data that would allow skippers and owners to make informed decisions, empty dock talk can sound as good as the truth. So what’s the solution? For 20 years,many high-end grand prix
58 SEAHORSE
teams have been working closely with Harken and renting its lab facilities to validate new customequipment that they hope will give thema competitive edge. Their investments have helped the company to create HarkenLab, a suite of purpose-built testing facilities for new designs of winches, hydraulics, blocks, travellers andmore, in its factories near Como in Italy and at Pewaukee, Wisconsin in the US. The scale and scope of
HarkenLab is unique within the yacht racing industry. Due to the Lab’s sophistication and wide-ranging capabilities, it has become a crucial R&D resource for America’s Cup teams and an increasing number of TP52, Imoca, Ultime and superyacht campaigns. ‘It started at our winch factory in
Italy where we wanted to validate newly designed winches and gearboxes for the 2003 AC,’ Harken’s head of grand prix and superyacht sales Mark Wiss recalls. ‘We'd always had apparatus to test equipment but what I was learning out in the field back then was that we were actually having a few things break. Through the need to do more endurance testing we came to the conclusion that we needed a really good laboratory – not just for grand prix and megayacht equipment but for all our products.’ ‘Creating the dedicated testing
facilities in our new factory in 2006 was an important move,’ says Andrea Merello, the head of Harken Italy. ‘The test room was designed starting from a blank sheet of paper
Above: the HarkenLab in Pewaukee, Wisconsin has a test bench for hydraulic cylinders that can produce dynamic load cycles of up to 120 tons, accurately replicating the real working loads of any boom vang system, even the largest in the world
and then the rest of the building was designed around it.’ To replicate dynamic sheet loads on a winch shifting through its gears, a three- storey tower had to be built for the long runs of rope and bungee cord that are required. The factory built around the winch
facility has to support immense loads: initially 20 tons on a single test bench and now up to 100 tons on the largest of three. A trench beneath the floor of the Lab turns it into a deck, wheremultiple pedestals can be installed and linked for a full simulation of a team of grinders on a very large yacht. All of Harken’s new winch designs are validated with an endurance test of zero tomax working load over 1,000 cycles. The HarkenLab Hydraulics and
Hardware facility in Pewaukee has just introduced a test bench for cylinders and vangs capable of pulling up to 120 tons. There’s also a test bench with a pedestal for the rotary pumps supplied to AC yachts, Imocas and TP52s, plus dedicated facilities for other types or hardware such as blocks and traveller systems. ‘We recently completed a
thorough R&D project on traveller car and track designs,’ Wiss says. ‘The car went through an endurance test at max working load, at high speed and high frequency to mimic how it is used on the AC75. The result is a new product called Flight Control, specifically designed for 50ft to 100ft foiling yachts.’ Recent R&D has also
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130
