- Design World
BMW ORACLE Racing Designs World’s Biggest Wing with Computational Field Dynamics
By Larry Boulden | March 11, 2010
This February, in the picturesque Spanish port of Valencia, BMW ORACLE Racing’s skipper Russell Coutts will take the helm of one of the most technologically advanced – and hopefully fastest – boats ever built, in a bid to capture the 33rd America’s Cup. The most remarkable feature of the trimaran – named “USA” – is that it will be powered by an enormous wing, rather than a conventional sail.
As Mike Drummond, BMW Oracle’s Racing Design Director explains: “A wing of this scale has never been built for a boat. In terms of size, it dwarfs those on modern aircraft. Towering nearly 190 ft (57 m) above the deck, it is 80% bigger than a wing on a 747 airplane.” It was analyzed using a process very similar to CFD, using CD-Adapco’s Star-CCM analysis tools.
In an interview conducted by CD-adapco, Oracle’s CFD Manager Mario Caponnetto explains how STAR-CCM+ was used to optimize the aerodynamic design of the wing, at the expense of traditional wind tunnel testing.
Why this choice of a rigid wing on your trimaran, instead of a conventional sail?
[MC] Rigid wings are not really radically new in yacht racing. They have been used in high performance catamaran races and other racing boats for many years. By the way, a rigid wing first appeared in America’s Cup in 1987. What is radically new is its size: the wing, with its 57 meters above deck, is the largest wing ever, 80% larger than a 747 aircraft wing. No one in our team had designed anything like this before, and this scared us a little bit at the beginning. Starting from white paper and evaluating pros and cons, we decided to move forward and quickly in the project. This project came true thanks to the enthusiasm of our chief designer, Mike Drummond.
What are the benefits and the shortcomings (if any) of a rigid wing?
[MC] The main advantage of a rigid wing is shape control. In other words, depending on the angle and the velocity of the wind, there is an optimal sail geometry that in turn optimizes the aerodynamic pressure field. This makes it possible to extract a maximum propelling power from the wind – to maximize efficiency. On a conventional sail, material works, from the structural point of view, like a membrane and shape control is difficult. Some specific shapes are impossible to obtain and the final shape is a compromise. With rigid sails, shape is much easier to control without compromises. Furthermore, during navigation there is always a feedback between imposed shape and achieved shape, whereas with traditional sails it is already an issue to identify the sail shape during navigation.
What are the aerodynamic benefits of the rigid wing?
[MC] One of the main benefits is shape control, aiming to control lift forces and to reduce drag forces. To do so, the wing is made of a front rotating element and eight independently rotating flaps. This makes is possible to change the vertical aerodynamic load. Between every flap and the frontal element lies a slot that favors air flow between the two sides of the wing. This makes it possible to delay the stall and to dramatically increase the maximum lift. In practice, the wing is able-even with light wind-to lift the central hull of the trimaran out of the water and reduce its resistance, even though the wing lateral surface is less than half of a conventional sail. The wing horizontal sections are more aerodynamically shaped than a thin sail. A sail profile is efficient at a certain angle of attack, more or less when the flow is tangential to the frontal edge of the sail. At smaller or larger angles, a flow tends to separate from the sail, thus reducing its efficiency. The rigid wing, with its rounded front edge, is much more tolerant to variations in the angle of attack. Even at a small angle of attack, the wing will still create lift and push the boat, whereas the sail will beat like a flag and restrain the boat. This is a noticeable advantage during maneuvering, in particular when tacking, and is one of benefits that are most valued by our team’s sailors.
Could you share more details on the aerodynamics simulation aspects?
[MC] STAR-CCM+ is a finite-volume approach to CFD. (It allowed us to) exploit the “client-server” architecture of the CD-adapco software. We could use a remote supercomputing cluster facility located in Italy. While sitting in our offices in Valencia or San Diego, we could check in real time the progress of the simulations running on the cluster. This happened thanks to a lightweight client-or if you like the final user-based on a Java interface, and a C++ server-or if you like the supercomputing cluster.
Second, of course, usage of the supercomputing cluster leveraged the STAR-CCM+ capability to scale well, i.e., to exploit the capability to divide the processing tasks between several processors in parallel. This was necessary since computational meshes for aerodynamics can reach several million elements.
The third success factor was process automation. STAR-CCM+ includes a CFD simulation engine (the solver) but also all the preprocessing phase (including construction of the computational mesh) and post-processing. This means we could build one complete workflow, or pipeline, and implement it over and over again during our optimization studies.
So, CFD is a tool for the happy few?
[MC] Situations like America’s Cup (AC) or Formula 1 require a tremendous accuracy and detail since the engineering situation is pushed to the limit, and the optimization requirements for factors like aerodynamic drag can be orders of magnitude more sensitive than in mass production boats or cars. I think that AC will continue to be one of the best benchmarks for CFD tools that can, in industrial situations, be applied in standard design offices based on small clusters or even PCs. Nowadays, all CFD processes should be automated in industrial situations, whereas AC pushes the application of the code to its limits in terms of physics, computational mesh or hardware resources. This creates a feedback process between the STAR-CCM+ developer, CD-adapco, and CFD teams in America’s Cup or Formula 1, and the feedback has a (benefit) on other sectors.
CD-adapco www.cd-adapco.com
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Bmw oracle racing wins 33rd america’s cup. the us-challenger defeats the defender 2 to 0., 14.02.2010 press release, munich/ valencia. the bmw oracle racing team has won the 33rd america’s cup, dethroning swiss holder alinghi. the challenger’s spectacular trimaran “usa 17”, with its futuristic 68-metre wing sail, defeated the catamaran “alinghi 5” in the waters off valencia on the second day to record the decisive second win. the best-of-three match ended 2-0 in favour of the us crew of owner larry ellison. this deed of gift series saw the holder and challenger go head-to-head in a straight duel., press contact..
Nicole Stempinsky BMW Group Tel: +49-89-382-51584 Fax: +49-89-382-28567 send an e-mail
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Munich/ Valencia. The BMW ORACLE Racing team has won the 33rd America’s Cup, dethroning Swiss holder Alinghi. The challenger’s spectacular trimaran “USA 17”, with its futuristic 68-metre wing sail, defeated the catamaran “Alinghi 5” in the waters off Valencia on the second day to record the decisive second win. The best-of-three match ended 2-0 in favour of the US crew of owner Larry Ellison. This Deed of Gift series saw the holder and challenger go head-to-head in a straight duel.
“Congratulations to Larry Ellison and his whole crew!” said Ian Robertson, BMW AG Board Member for Sales and Marketing. “The goal we have all been working towards for over two and a half years has now been achieved. This has been a fantastic performance by the whole team. As Technology Partner, we have also made a successful contribution to winning the world’s most prestigious sporting trophy. We have positioned BMW as a competent partner in competitive sailing and have firmly established the transfer of technology in the America’s Cup. On the construction side, BMW engineers have set new benchmarks for intelligent lightweight design. Added to which, among the relevant target group, BMW is the highest-profile brand in competitive sailing.”
With 159 years of history, the America’s Cup is the world’s oldest sporting competition and brings together the best professional sailors, yacht designers and boat builders of their generation in the pursuit of perfection. For the 33rd America’s Cup, the BMW ORACLE Racing designers and engineers were charged with one of the most exacting challenges in the long history of the event. The design rules were wide open, and experts from a wide variety of specialist areas, such as materials research, aerospace, composite materials, electronics, data analysis and numerous branches of engineering, have all played their part in the design and construction of the high-tech yacht.
BMW engineers, for example, contributed their knowledge and EfficientDynamics expertise in the area of intelligent lightweight design. The aim was to build a yacht that was as light and torsionally stiff as possible and could stand up to the rigours of the race. In multihull racing, it is particularly important to keep weight low, as the yacht which can raise a float out of the water the quickest has a major advantage. The transfer of knowledge from the BMW engineers was not a one-way street; the valuable expertise gained over the course of the project will all find its way back to the BMW Research and Innovation Centre (FIZ). BMW has been involved in the America’s Cup as a Technology Partner since 2002.
The future involvement of BMW in the America’s Cup will depend on the development and organisation of the competition going forward. As Robertson explains: “We will make a decision on our further involvement in the America’s Cup over the coming weeks. What is already certain is that BMW will continue to be represented actively in yacht racing. We will go on playing an active role in raising global interest in sailing in the future and continue to use projects such as the BMW Sailing Cup and regional events in the various markets as a platform for customer relations and to further strengthen the BMW brand values.”
The BMW Group
The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 24 production facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries. The BMW Group achieved a global sales volume of approximately 1.29 million automobiles and over 87,000 motorcycles for the 2009 financial year. Revenues for 2009 totalled euro 50.68 billion. At 31 December 2009, the company employed a global workforce of approximately 96,000 associates. The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last five years.
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The BMW Oracle Racing 90 trimaran is a lot of yacht
The BMW Oracle Racing 90 trimaran -- one of the largest, and possibly fastest, ever built -- hits the waters of Rosario Strait for initial sea trials. However, an ongoing court battle will determine if the boat is eligible to race in America's Cup.
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ANACORTES — It’s not that easy to make the jaws of old salts drop around Puget Sound, where shipyards have been cranking out boats of every conceivable size and shape for more than a century. But a carbon-fiber behemoth stalking the waters of Rosario Strait this week is getting the job done.
One look at this trimaran — one of the largest, and possibly fastest, ever built — as she lifts her sails and leaps into the breeze off Orcas Island leaves no doubt: This boat wasn’t built to spend a lifetime plodding through seawater.
She was meant to fly.
Not literally, in a Spruce Goose sort of way. Although in early testing, even in light winds, the behemoth BMW Oracle Racing yacht — which, depending on a court decision, may or may not compete for the America’s Cup in 2010 — has lifted her side floats almost as far out of the water as Howard Hughes’ famous seaplane ever rose.
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This is all by design, on a boat that can squeeze 40 knots out of 20 knots of wind and might yet become the fastest racing yacht ever known.
Even to the untrained eye, the boat, officially known as BMW Oracle Racing 90, is an engineering marvel, one that went from blueprints to sails-up in less than nine months.
Her sleek, carbon-fiber main hull is 100 feet long, stem to stern, and 90 feet at the waterline. Her twin floats are 90 feet apart, side to side. If you dropped the boat through the open roof of Safeco Field, it would cover the entire infield.
When the boat is pushed from its dock by four bumper boats, it appears as if a piece of the shore has just calved off.
The boat’s three hulls are connected by sweeping, aerodynamic carbon-fiber beams that look perilously thin. They have a unique droop to them, making the craft, from the front or rear, look a bit like a Klingon Bird of Prey spaceship from an old Star Trek movie.
The carbon-fiber mast, the only crucial part not fabricated on site in Anacortes (it was built in Rhode Island) is more than 5 feet wide at its elliptical base, and 158 feet tall.
The sails are similarly off the charts: a 5,000-square-foot mainsail; a 3,500-square-foot headsail; and 7,000-square-foot gennaker.
The boat will be sailed by about 15 sailors, wearing protective helmets and high-tech garb that looks like it’s borrowed from NASA.
Those are about the only hard facts revealed by BMW Oracle Racing, which will complete initial sea trials here Saturday, then prep the big boat for shipping on a barge to San Diego a week later. There, testing will be ramped up, as syndicate officials await the decision in a court case which might render the boat essentially useless, in America’s Cup terms.
A bitter fight
The pursuit of sporting’s oldest international prize has devolved into a bitter legal fight between two billionaires: Oracle software icon Larry Ellison of the Bay Area and Ernesto Bertarelli, a biotech mogul who runs the Swiss racing syndicate, Alinghi, which currently holds the Cup.
Since successfully defending the Cup in Valencia, Spain, last year (Ellison’s team again did not make the finals), Alinghi, to put it simply, has been unable to reach agreement with all competing syndicates on a fair format for the next Cup races.
Ellison’s BMW Oracle group last year won a court decision that named it the “challenger of record” for the next Cup, meaning they would negotiate the next Cup’s protocol with Alinghi. When Ellison and Bertarelli could not agree, both sides began preparing for the next remedy under Cup rules: a match race between their respective boats with essentially no design rules, other than a 90-foot maximum waterline.
That is the lesson lingering from a 1988 America’s Cup challenge, in which Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes won a legal decision allowing it to race a multihull against a slower, plodding New Zealand challenger in a San Diego race now considered a low point in Cup history. Since then, it has been taken as a given that any Cup challenge without protocols agreed to by the defender and challenger of record would be conducted in multihulls.
That’s what sent BMW Oracle’s design team into trimaran warp speed on Puget Sound, where the team had built four previous conventional carbon-fiber monohulls with Janicki Industries in Sedro-Woolley, and where other useful composite-construction infrastructure exists because of the local aerospace industry.
But last month, Alinghi won an appeal of that court decision, and announced plans to stage a traditional Cup defense, in monohull boats with multiple challengers, in Valencia as soon as 2009. Ellison’s group is making a final appeal of that appeal, with a decision expected in February or March.
$10 million bet
If Ellison wins, the big trimaran could race for the America’s Cup in what by all accounts would be a spectacular best-of-three multihull match race with Alinghi in 2010.
If it loses?
The designers likely scurry to build a new monohull. And the trimaran becomes a big, fast, very cool, black-and-white elephant, with design and construction costs estimated to be as high as $10 million.
This boat is, in other words, not only a hedge on a bet, but something of a guilty pleasure, and the BMW Oracle sailing team, based for now in Anacortes, is treating it as such. Not even the world’s greatest sailing racers have ever seen anything like it.
“We’re not even at 50 percent yet and it’s already pretty impressive,” said helmsman James Spithill of Australia, the former driver of the Seattle-based OneWorld Challenge Cup team in 2002.
Spithill and famed helmsman Russell Coutts of New Zealand both were hired by Ellison after his most recent, unsuccessful Cup effort, and both are now in Anacortes.
Initial driving duties, however, have fallen largely to Frenchman Franck Cammas, hired as a consultant because of his expertise with mega multihulls, which heretofore have been built primarily for open-ocean racing, and reach speeds up to 44 knots.
The new boat has been sailed only in light to moderate winds, progressively increasing loads on its joints and surfaces. But even at about half speed, the boat is a marvel in the water, its speed deceptive because of its massive size.
When its center hull clears the water and the craft seemingly takes flight, riding on only the knife edge of a single float at about 20 knots, it’s a spectacular sight.
Needless to say, the boat, visible from miles away and accompanied by a half-dozen chase boats, creates a spectacle in the otherwise quiet waters in the waning days of summer around the San Juans. Seagulls steer cautiously wide of it. Snoozing salmon trollers are startled to attention and sent reaching for cameras.
And despite the thrill it gives the sailing team, there’s still a bit of tension in the air whenever the big boat lifts off the water. For each voyage, the boat’s tenders carry — in addition to telemetry equipment monitoring onboard sensors — a physician and scuba divers in case of emergencies.
Design coordinator Mike Drummond, mindful of the high-stakes poker game with Alinghi, skillfully dodged most questions about the big boat’s particulars this week. But asked what keeps him awake at night during testing, he didn’t hesitate.
“Pretty much everything.”
Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at [email protected] .
November 10, 2009
The Fixed-Wing Is In: America's Cup Sailors Plan to Use Rigid Carbon-Fiber Airfoil on U.S. Entry
The U.S. team for the America's Cup is replacing its boat's mast and cloth mainsail with a hard, fixed wing that is 80 percent larger than a Boeing 747 wing, not to mention difficult and dangerous to maneuver
By Lynn Fitzpatrick
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SAN DIEGO—After more than a year of practicing for the America's Cup, the U.S. team is replacing its boat's lofty 60-meter mast and 620-square-meter cloth mainsail with a hard, fixed wing that is 80 percent larger than a Boeing 747 wing and will tower 58 meters above their giant trimaran's deck. The team, known as the BMW ORACLE Racing Team, will start to practice with and evaluate the high-strength yet lightweight carbon-fiber wing on its 27-meter carbon-composite trimaran later this week. The Americans have been testing new frontiers with the loads that their massive multihull endures while sailing . Crash helmets, personal floatation devices and other body armor have been de rigueur during BMW ORACLE Racing's practices—even while using a mast and a mainsail, which preceded the wing. During a practice session on November 3, the boat's huge mast snapped and toppled into the Pacific. Thankfully, no one was injured. Although the team's research and development unit has been conducting a forensic evaluation of the mast mishap, another unit has been finishing the assembly of the wing under the cover of a huge tent at the team's base in San Diego, in an attempt to keep the technology a secret from competitors. The America’s Cup is the oldest actively contested trophy in sport and dates back to a race held in 1851 in England in which the yacht America beat 15 boats representing the Royal Yacht Squadron. Members of the winning America syndicate donated the Cup via a Deed of Gift to the New York Yacht Club on July 8, 1857, specifying that it be held in trust as a perpetual challenge trophy to promote friendly competition among nations. According to an Allianz Economic Report conducted in co-operation with Tom Cannon, dean of Buckingham University Business School, the America's Cup ranks just behind the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in terms of worldwide direct and indirect economic benefits that accrue to the winner and the event's host city. It is the largest inter-club sporting event in the world in terms of economic scale and impact. The only other time that a multihull and a wing have been used in the America's Cup was in 1988. Back then, the U.S. team defied tradition when they unveiled an 18-meter catamaran equipped with a wing to compete against New Zealand's 27-meter monohull. Burt Rutan , whose company Scaled Composites went on to win the Ansari X PRIZE for SpaceShipOne , and who worked with John Ronz, David Hubbard and Duncan MacLane on the 1988 wing, reflected on that achievement: "The wing-sail designs were more challenging (than aircraft wing applications) because they needed high lift in both directions and because we had a requirement to vary the wing twist to account for different wind gradients above the sea. An aircraft wing lifts in only one direction and does not have any twist control. On the wing-sail we twisted the third element and thus had to make it torsionally flexible." The scale of the 21st-century sailboat and wing is astronomical compared with the 1988 vintage. The 1988 wing height was slightly over 30 meters, and its area was approximately 165 square meters. The new wing's main element is a monolithic box with an aerodynamic nose along its leading edge. Hinges at different points along the main element's trailing edge can be adjusted to change the gap between the forward and the aft elements to adjust airflow depending on the wind velocity. The sections of the trailing element can be moved independently to induce camber (the asymmetry between the top and bottom curves of an airfoil), making it possible to flatten and even induce negative camber in the top section as well as camber in the opposite direction in the lower sections. According to BMW ORACLE Racing, "the primary advantage of the wing over a soft sail is that it is easier to control and does not distort. This makes it easier for the trimmers on board to maintain an optimum aerofoil shape in a wide range of conditions." Unlike conventional monohull and multihull sailboats , the BMW ORACLE team's trimaran sails upwind and downwind at apparent wind angles less than 30 degrees (Monohulls typically sail at between 30 and 40 degrees upwind.) On board the racing machine it always feels as if the wind is in the sailors' faces. The wing technology will improve the trimaran's apparent wind angle, and may enable the multihull to exceed two to 2.5 times wind speed. The upcoming America's Cup challenge will be the first time ever that an onboard engine will be used to assist trimmers in controlling the massive foils by powering hydraulic controls for the wing and the forward sails. Mark Ott, co-founder and executive vice president of Seattle-based Harbor Wing Technologies, the first company to employ a wing that rotates 360 degrees and uses a multihull as a platform, commented, "BMW ORACLE'S boat represents the pinnacle of race boat design; however, the nature of this design limits the wing sail's range of motion due to the shroud and forestay wires used to support it. This design limitation causes these wing sails to be impractical for use by the average sailor. By not allowing the wing full 360-degree rotational capability in everyday sailing conditions, it is bound to it be held on a shroud wire by the wind and damaged, or worse, possibly causing the boat to capsize." All eyes will be watching to see how BMW will store the boat and the wing, because the latter is not nearly as easy to take down and stow as a cloth mainsail. The America's Cup showdown is set to take place in February 2010 in Valencia, Spain.
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Syndicate relaunches trimaran
- Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- From San Diego Bay to Lake Geneva, it's going to be a busy week for the bitter rivals set to sail for the America's Cup in February.
The challenger, BMW Oracle Racing of San Francisco, relaunched its massive trimaran on Monday after the carbon-fiber boat was significantly modified during the last four months.
The space age-looking craft, which is 90 feet long and wide, was moved by crane from a temporary boatshed to its berth on San Diego Bay. It will be refitted with its mast before being load-tested to make sure it's seaworthy. Sailing on the Pacific Ocean is scheduled to resume later this week.
"This is cutting-edge technology and sailing. We look forward to testing how fast is fast," helmsman James Spithill said in a statement.
BMW Oracle Racing is scheduled to face two-time defending America's Cup champion Alinghi of Switzerland in a best-of-three series starting Feb. 8 for the oldest trophy in international sports.
Whether this boat, known as BOR 90, is the boat that will face Alinghi remains to be seen. BMW Oracle Racing, owned by software tycoon and sailor Larry Ellison, has refused to confirm or deny reports it is building a second boat. Ellison is believed to have spent between $10 million and $20 million on the boat that was relaunched Monday.
If BMW Oracle Racing is building a new trimaran, the current one would at least serve as a sparring partner.
Early Wednesday morning, with the Alps as a backdrop, a giant helicopter is scheduled to lift Alinghi's equally exotic-looking catamaran from a boatyard in Villeneuve and launch it on Lake Geneva. The Swiss cat, which has been described as resembling a praying mantis, is 90 feet on the waterline and reportedly has a bowsprit that makes it 120 feet overall. It's believed to be not quite 90 feet wide.
The rare one-on-one showdown is the result of a convoluted two-year court fight in which the American syndicate's backing yacht club was declared the rightful Challenger of Record.
Alinghi gets to pick the venue. A decision is due by Aug. 8, six months before the first race. The Swiss are reportedly considering Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, apparently feeling their catamaran would excel there in light wind and flat water.
With the size and speed of the giant multihulls, it could be the most spectacular racing in the 158-year history of the America's Cup.
BMW Oracle Racing's trimaran is capable of sailing two to 2½ times the speed of the wind. Its mast is as high as a 16-story building and the mainsail is twice the size of a Boeing 747's wing. The boat's three hulls would cover the diamond on a major league baseball field and are just shorter than an NBA court.
Boats that size can be lethal, too. BMW Oracle Racing's sailors have been cautious while sailing their big boat, including wearing crash helmets and life vests, hardly the normal America's Cup attire.
BMW's sailors are en route to San Diego to resume testing the trimaran. The outer hulls, or floats, appear to have been significantly reshaped.
"We are really excited to get out on the water," Spithill said. "We still have plenty to do to complete sea trials and be ready for the America's Cup in February so every day counts. It is only seven months until the America's Cup so we are now in the home stretch."
The trimaran was launched late last summer in Anacortes, Wash., and underwent initial sea trials on Puget Sound. It was barged to San Diego and underwent two testing sessions on the Pacific Ocean.
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From the Archives: Wing Sails Return to the America’s Cup
- By Stuart Streuli
- Updated: July 14, 2015
Towering over Dirk de Ridder’s head is the largest single airfoil section ever built. It’s 190 feet tall, up to 30 feet wide and 6 feet thick, and weighs almost 4 tons. It represents nearly 40,000 man-hours of work, millions of dollars, and is capable of producing more power than perhaps any other single sail. Mounted on BMW Oracle Racing’s 90-foot trimaran, it could be the key to winning the 33rd America’s Cup. De Ridder is the wing’s primary trimmer. That would seem like quite a load on one pair of shoulders, even if they happen to belong to a sturdy veteran of three Volvo Ocean Races, two America’s Cups, and one Olympic regatta.
Actually, says the 36-year-old Dutchman, compared to the traditional-a.k.a. soft-sail configuration the team used previously, the hard sail makes his job easier. With the soft sail, de Ridder would spend his day clutching a mainsheet carrying 20 tons of load and, in many respects, the structural integrity of the multi-million-dollar craft.
“With the wing, you can do everything with two very small winches and four very small hydraulic rams,” says de Ridder. “[With the soft sail] you were sort of in charge of the loading of the boat because the mainsheet transferred all the load to the headstay. Now navigator Matteo Plazzi and tactician John Kostecki are more in charge of the actual loading and how the mast sets up. So in that perspective my job has gotten a lot easier.”
For all the science and technology in this remarkable sail, it is, in theory, a tried-and-true concept. “The two-element wing, I’m not sure when it was invented,” says BMW Oracle Racing design coordinator Mike Drummond. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was in the 1920s or thereabouts. Within the first 10 to 20 years after the Wright brothers flew, there was an enormous explosion of people developing the math and theory of airfoils and wings. Most of that is still applicable.”
The basic design-looking at a transverse slice of the wing-is a forward section (the main element) with a hinged tail (the flap element) and a small gap in between. Angling the flap to one side or the other creates camber. That, combined with the angle of attack-the difference between the apparent wind angle and the centerline of the forward section-creates lift.
“With the two-element wing with the slot, we can achieve much higher lift coefficients [compared to a soft sail],” says Drummond. “So we can have a smaller sail area, if you like, and achieve the same power.”
The wing has slightly less “sail” area than the mainsail used on BMW Oracle Racing’s tallest conventional rig. And while the soft main was always accompanied by a head sail, the wing will likely only need one in very light air. Less sail area, of course, means less drag. Less drag means more speed.
No matter how basic the theory behind the wing; building it involved breaking a lot of new ground. No one had ever attempted to build a foil of this size and complexity. The rigid wing for Dennis Conner’s catamaran challenge in 1988 was 108 feet tall. The rigs for the C-Class catamarans of the Little America’s Cup top out at 40 feet. Outside the sailing world, the blade for the Enercon E-126 windmill measures 206 feet in length. But the chord is much shorter and the blade doesn’t contain any moving parts.
“One of the significant problems to solve was how we were going to assemble it,” says Drummond, “the logistics of figuring out how to build it, what order to build it in, and how to assemble the flaps onto the main wing, how to even assemble the ribs onto the spars.”
Even something like the white skin covering ribs-which an average person could probably step through, says Drummond, “at least in high heels”-involved a lot of thought. “We weren’t sure how much tension would be required to maintain a reasonable shape and that had quite an impact on the design of some of the elements where they get quite thin.”
And like everything with the America’s Cup, time was a factor. Theoretical work began in September 2008, but the project wasn’t given the green light until February 2009. “We designed it and built it at the same time,” he says, “So there was very little time to do design iterations..”
Because there is so much less load, trimming can be more dynamic than with the soft sail. De Ridder uses the traveler winches from the soft sail set up, with a 2-to-1 purchase, to change the wing sail’s angle of attack. The rest of the trimming is done via a small eight-button remote control. “It’s like a garage-door opener,” de Ridder says with a laugh.
The remote control adjusts the sail’s camber-equivalent to tightening or loosening the outhaul of a soft sail-and twist profile. The flap element is divided, vertically, into eight independent sections. But to change the twist takes only one button; and the twist profile will tack with the sail. The remote can also adjust the position of the top two aft elements and to offset the twist profile a bit to generate extra power when needed.
Setting the camber, says de Ridder, is largely a by-the-numbers operation. He wears a small display on his forearm, which displays both the actual camber of the sail at each hinge point as well as the optimum angles determined by the design team. “For now I really have to trust the targets,” says de Ridder. “[The design team] spent months and months designing this wing, making sure what shape we wanted.”
But, it’s not as if trimming this sail is completely a scientific process. “The art is still there because the wind [at sea] is not perfect two-dimensional wind tunnel wind,” says Drummond. “Even if you go testing in a wind tunnel or a computer wind tunnel, you don’t have what the boat’s requirements are. You can set the wing perfectly, but that may be wrong for the boat: the rudder load is too high or there’s too much leeway or not enough heel. The art is still in combing all those elements and the information to get the best performance out of the boat.”
Carrying more weight aloft has made the boat pitch a little bit more says skipper James Spithill. “But then again, it’s so efficient,” he adds. “When a soft sail pitches it creates a lot of drag, where as the wing doesn’t. I think the bigger feeling is the available power. With the soft sail it takes a bit of time to trim on. With the wing, the flow attaches and it’s just ‘Bang’!’ it’s on.”
As he gets more comfortable with the sail-and he’s able to spend less time watching the loads-Spithill says the act of steering the boat won’t be a lot different: “It’s still a real similar loop, where you’re looking at the targets, the numbers, the wind, obviously the hull, how high you’re flying and just doing that circle. From that side it hasn’t changed.”
There is one thing Spithill has changed. Once the team made the decision to build the wing, the 30-year-old Australian pursued his pilot’s license. “I just made it one of those things I had to do,” he says. “Like anything you’ve only got so much time. I figured if I had a better understanding of wings it wouldn’t hurt.”
For de Ridder, the key has been to remember that, hard or soft, it’s still a sail. “The first day, when we came in, [appendage designer] Michel Kermarec said, ‘It’s very simple. You set the camber, then you close your eyes and go sailing like it’s a soft sail: twist when you need to twist and let the sheet out when it feel like you need to let the sheet out.’ That’s the best advice I got. At the end of the day it’s just a power source and you have to keep the boat at a good heel angle and a good rudder load and match up as close to target as you can.”
This article first appeared in the February 2010 issue of Sailing World.
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USA17 (BMW Oracle Racing 90)
In 2007 Russell Coutts approached VPLP to design USA 17 , the fastest racing sailing boat to contest the America’s Cup . Little did the team know that the project would take three years of relentless modifications, improvements and developments to produce a trimaran featuring 35 m floats and a 68 m pivoting wing mast! Proof of the pudding came in 2010 with victory over the Swiss catamaran Alinghi in both races of the 33rd America’s Cup in Valencia (Spain).
For VPLP, it was the most enriching and intense investment of time and energy that the firm had ever known. Winning the America’s Cup justified VPLP’s approach of continuously researching and testing hypotheses. It also vindicated the firm’s policy of optimizing weight, power and simple yet efficient sail plans, a policy applied to each and every boat designed by VPLP.
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BMW Oracle Racing : P ress Release America's Cup Trimaran Coming Home
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| BMW Oracle Racing Trimaran Heads for Golden Gate
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The giant trimaran that won the 33rd America’s Cup for Larry Ellison’s Oracle Racing team is heading home to San Francisco. USA 17 has only ever competed twice, but she sailed the races of her life to dominate the Swiss defender, Alinghi, off Valencia, Spain, last year and win the 33rd America’s Cup. The extraordinary carbon-fiber machine is being loaded onto the freighter M.V. Star Isfjord this week for the long delivery trip to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. The freighter carrying both USA 17 and her extraordinary 223-ft wingsail is scheduled to leave Valencia on January 29 or 30 for the 7,900-nautical-mile passage to the Bay Area. The estimated arrival in San Francisco, dependent upon on-time loading, sea conditions en-route and transit time in the Panama Canal, is March 1. The trimaran’s arrival will mark the first time that USA 17 visits the city that Oracle Racing calls home. She was launched in Anacortes, WA, in August 2008, and after initial testing there moved to San Diego, CA, for a further period of training before being moved to Valencia for the 33rd Cup Match last February. Measuring more than 100 feet long and 90 feet wide and powered by a 20-storey tall wingsail, USA 17 is the fastest yacht to ever win the America’s Cup. It has been in storage in Valencia since winning the Cup on Feb. 14, 2010. With the Oracle Racing team fully focused on laying the groundwork for its 34th America’s Cup campaign in 2013, the provisional plan is to continue to keep USA 17 in storage after unloading. An announcement about the vessel’s sailing plans will be made later this year. “The handful of us privileged to sail on USA 17 would love to sail her again in an instant. I dare say all those who never had this chance would like to as well,” said Oracle Racing skipper James Spithill. “But the stark reality is that every aspect of the boat, every component, was built right to the limit so that for every hour’s sailing USA 17 required 20 hours of painstaking and rigorous maintenance. For the time being the team’s focus will be on the America’s Cup ahead.” Additional Links and Info: Visit Golden Gate YC website Visit Oracle Team Site CupInfo Home Introducing the ground-breaking AeroLock™ Synthetic Connector (888) 525-8488  Oracle Team USAThe Challenge When the Oracle Team USA sailing team decided to move their revolutionary 2010 America’s Cup winning trimaran to a landlocked lake outside Oracle’s corporate complex, they knew it would require a difficult skycrane lift. At 120 feet long by 90 feet wide, the boat would provide numerous challenges during the lift. A 3-point lift was determined to be the best method to keep the boat stable and secure while in flight, and allow it to be carefully lowered into its new permanent display location in between tall office buildings. The Solution Cortland was called for their expertise in challenging lifts, and for their relationship with Oracle Team USA. To safely execute, engineered high performance synthetic slings would be needed. Cortland recommended, and delivered, three (3) 20mm Plasma® Lifting Slings with soft eyes on each end, approx. 50m in length each. They were used to execute a 3-point lift and helicopter transfer of the boat from the wetlands outside of Foster City to its new home outside of Oracle headquarters. The Project Team USA is a two-time America’s Cup winning professional sailing team that has revolutionized the sport with their high-speed boat designs. The boat lifted – using Cortland’s 3-point Plasma® sling solution -was their 2010 winning entry called USA-17. It had been stored in a San Francisco Bay warehouse since its successful return from Valencia, Spain, where the regatta took place. At the time of the event, USA-17 was the first of a new generation of giant racing multihull sailboats created by Oracle Team USA in association with BMW for the America’s Cup. The enormous trimaran design truly pushed the limits of both man and technology to previously unseen levels. USA-17 easily defeated the Société Nautique de Genève’s yacht, Alinghi 5, in to win the 33rd America’s Cup challenge of Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Understanding the historic importance of the USA-17 design, it was decided that the boat would be moved to a new permanent outdoor display for all to see. This meant the boat needed to be relocated from a San Francisco warehouse to its new display location in a lake on the Oracle corporate headquarters campus in Redwood Shores, CA. To achieve this unique relocation of the 120 foot wide by 90 foot long trimaran, a helicopter skycrane lift was required to lift and transport the boat to the landlocked lake. The boat was then crane lifted onto a new set of piers that had been previously installed in the pool. Cortland custom engineered three (3) lifting slings to execute a 3-point lift used during the helicopter portion of the move. The lift and relocation of USA -17 went as planned and this significant piece of sailing history is now in position on the Oracle campus as a symbol of technological triumph.  Privacy Overview OUR EXCLUSIVE BRANDS Upcoming Events ORACLE MARINEc/o Premier Marina, Swanwick, River Hamble, UK +44 (0)7477 959 695  Oracle Marine is the exclusive dealer of the world's leading multihull yachts - Makai Yachts and Advanced Wing Systems. Sailors First The most exciting power catamaran launch of the decade! Built in Europe with inboard engines and disruptive design. Available in 3 models: the M37, M37 Open and the M45 Cruiser. The first M37 splashed June 2021. Exclusively available through Oracle Marine  Advanced Wing SystemsThe Advanced Wing Systems Semi Rigid Wing (SRW) sail is the optimum combination of performance and practicality. It is the result of extensive research, modeling and practical testing. It provides a practical combination of aerodynamic performance and robustness in design. The AWS system is suited to almost any sized yacht, from off the beach craft to super yachts. The simple and robust design means it can withstand the rigors of ocean sailing and racing |
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USA-17 [a] (formerly known as BMW Oracle Racing 90 or BOR90) is a sloop rigged racing trimaran built by the American sailing team BMW Oracle Racing to challenge for the 2010 America's Cup. [3] [4] [5] Designed by VPLP Yacht Design with consultation from Franck Cammas and his Groupama multi-hull sailing team, BOR90 is very light for her size being constructed almost entirely out of carbon fiber ...
Oracle Team USA is an American yacht racing syndicate initially formed to compete for the 2003 America's Cup. ... USA 17, trimaran. Sailing with a rigid wing sail, she won the 2010 America's Cup, in a Deed of Gift match against SNG/Alinghi Valencia.
This February, in the picturesque Spanish port of Valencia, BMW ORACLE Racing's skipper Russell Coutts will take the helm of one of the most technologically advanced - and hopefully fastest - boats ever built, in a bid to capture the 33rd America's Cup. The most remarkable feature of the trimaran - named "USA" - is that it will ...
The new BMW Oracle trimaran preparing for the America's Cup against Alinghi doing sea trials off San Diego. BMW ORACLE RACING 90Length: 100 feet, stem to st...
Munich/ Valencia. The BMW ORACLE Racing team has won the 33rd America's Cup, dethroning Swiss holder Alinghi. The challenger's spectacular trimaran "USA 17", with its futuristic 68-metre wing sail, defeated the catamaran "Alinghi 5" in the waters off Valencia on the second day to record the decisive second win. The best-of-three match ended 2-0 in favour of the US crew of owner ...
Even to the untrained eye, the boat, officially known as BMW Oracle Racing 90, is an engineering marvel, one that went from blueprints to sails-up in less than nine months. Her sleek, carbon-fiber ...
Sea trials with BMW ORACLE Racing's 90-foot-trimaran.
Oracle's monstrous trimaran is the first trimaran in AC histrory that raced for, and won, the America's Cup. Oracle's 100-foot trimaran raced Alinghy's (form...
The team, known as the BMW ORACLE Racing Team, will start to practice with and evaluate the high-strength yet lightweight carbon-fiber wing on its 27-meter carbon-composite trimaran later this week.
BOR-90 moves fast. Frighteningly fast. Especially when she's is coming right at you. Zero-to-gone in a moment. That's the biggest takeaway from the media day at BMW Oracle Racing's compound in San Diego, the sheer magnitude, the mammoth size and power of this trimaran dubbed "The Beast" -- and the team's healthy respect for that size and power.
Genius or lunacy? BMW Oracle Racing team set to wing it ...
America's Cup - USA 17 trimaran back home. by Oracle Racing on 1 Mar 2011. 0650 PST was the time the America's Cup winning trimaran USA 17 touched American soil again. At least that's when the mooring lines secured the M.V Star Isjford alongside San Francisco's Pier 80 with USA 17 aboard. OracleTeam USA www.oracleracing.com.
BMW Oracle's monster multihull is a marvel of innovation and technology, capable of mind-bending speeds The crew looked like they were preparing to jump out of. ... The trimaran's dimensions are staggering: 90 feet on the waterline and 90 feet of beam, 100 feet of overall length. ...
BMW Oracle Racing's trimaran is capable of sailing two to 2½ times the speed of the wind. Its mast is as high as a 16-story building and the mainsail is twice the size of a Boeing 747's wing. The ...
Franck Cammas and Bruno Laurent commenting on their first hands-on experience aboard the brand new BMW Oracle 90ft trimaran. The most interesting part is the...
Mounted on BMW Oracle Racing's 90-foot trimaran, it could be the key to winning the 33rd America's Cup. De Ridder is the wing's primary trimmer. That would seem like quite a load on one pair ...
USA17 (BMW Oracle Racing 90) In 2007 Russell Coutts approached VPLP to design USA 17, the fastest racing sailing boat to contest the America's Cup. Little did the team know that the project would take three years of relentless modifications, improvements and developments to produce a trimaran featuring 35 m floats and a 68 m pivoting wing ...
The trimaran's arrival will mark the first time that USA 17 visits the city that Oracle Racing calls home. She was launched in Anacortes, WA, in August 2008, and after initial testing there moved to San Diego, CA, for a further period of training before being moved to Valencia for the 33rd Cup Match last February.
A trimaran (or double-outrigger) is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls ... Competing with a giant trimaran the BMW Oracle Racing team won the 2010 America's Cup for the Golden Gate Yacht Club on February 14, 2010, off Valencia, Spain.
Flying two hulls:Sea trials with BMW ORACLE Racing's 90-foot-trimaran.
When the Oracle Team USA sailing team decided to move their revolutionary 2010 America's Cup winning trimaran to a landlocked lake outside Oracle's corporate complex, they knew it would require a difficult skycrane lift. At 120 feet long by 90 feet wide, the boat would provide numerous challenges during the lift. ...
ORACLE MARINE. c/o Premier Marina, Swanwick, River Hamble, UK. [email protected]. +44 (0)7477 959 695. Oracle Marine is the exclusive dealer of the world's leading multihull yachts - Makai Yachts and Advanced Wing Systems. Find Out More.
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