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Sail GP: how do supercharged racing yachts go so fast? An engineer explains

Head of Engineering, Warsash School of Maritime Science and Engineering, Solent University

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Jonathan Ridley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Sailing used to be considered as a rather sedate pastime. But in the past few years, the world of yacht racing has been revolutionised by the arrival of hydrofoil-supported catamarans, known as “foilers”. These vessels, more akin to high-performance aircraft than yachts, combine the laws of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics to create vessels capable of speeds of up to 50 knots, which is far faster than the wind propelling them.

An F50 catamaran preparing for the Sail GP series recently even broke this barrier, reaching an incredible speed of 50.22 knots (57.8mph) purely powered by the wind. This was achieved in a wind of just 19.3 knots (22.2mph). F50s are 15-metre-long, 8.8-metre-wide hydrofoil catamarans propelled by rigid sails and capable of such astounding speeds that Sail GP has been called the “ Formula One of sailing ”. How are these yachts able to go so fast? The answer lies in some simple fluid dynamics.

As a vessel’s hull moves through the water, there are two primary physical mechanisms that create drag and slow the vessel down. To build a faster boat you have to find ways to overcome the drag force.

The first mechanism is friction. As the water flows past the hull, a microscopic layer of water is effectively attached to the hull and is pulled along with the yacht. A second layer of water then attaches to the first layer, and the sliding or shearing between them creates friction.

On the outside of this is a third layer, which slides over the inner layers creating more friction, and so on. Together, these layers are known as the boundary layer – and it’s the shearing of the boundary layer’s molecules against each other that creates frictional drag.

A yacht also makes waves as it pushes the water around and under the hull from the bow (front) to the stern (back) of the boat. The waves form two distinctive patterns around the yacht (one at each end), known as Kelvin Wave patterns.

These waves, which move at the same speed as the yacht, are very energetic. This creates drag on the boat known as the wave-making drag, which is responsible for around 90% of the total drag. As the yacht accelerates to faster speeds (close to the “hull speed”, explained later), these waves get higher and longer.

These two effects combine to produce a phenomenon known as “ hull speed ”, which is the fastest the boat can travel – and in conventional single-hull yachts it is very slow. A single-hull yacht of the same size as the F50 has a hull speed of around 12 mph.

However, it’s possible to reduce both the frictional and wave-making drag and overcome this hull-speed limit by building a yacht with hydrofoils . Hydrofoils are small, underwater wings. These act in the same way as an aircraft wing, creating a lift force which acts against gravity, lifting our yacht upwards so that the hull is clear of the water.

While an aircraft’s wings are very large, the high density of water compared to air means that we only need very small hydrofoils to produce a lot of the important lift force. A hydrofoil just the size of three A3 sheets of paper, when moving at just 10 mph, can produce enough lift to pick up a large person.

This significantly reduces the surface area and the volume of the boat that is underwater, which cuts the frictional drag and the wave-making drag, respectively. The combined effect is a reduction in the overall drag to a fraction of its original amount, so that the yacht is capable of sailing much faster than it could without hydrofoils.

The other innovation that helps boost the speed of racing yachts is the use of rigid sails . The power available from traditional sails to drive the boat forward is relatively small, limited by the fact that the sail’s forces have to act in equilibrium with a range of other forces, and that fabric sails do not make an ideal shape for creating power. Rigid sails, which are very similar in design to an aircraft wing, form a much more efficient shape than traditional sails, effectively giving the yacht a larger engine and more power.

As the yacht accelerates from the driving force of these sails, it experiences what is known as “ apparent wind ”. Imagine a completely calm day, with no wind. As you walk, you experience a breeze in your face at the same speed that you are walking. If there was a wind blowing too, you would feel a mixture of the real (or “true” wind) and the breeze you have generated.

The two together form the apparent wind, which can be faster than the true wind. If there is enough true wind combined with this apparent wind, then significant force and power can be generated from the sail to propel the yacht, so it can easily sail faster than the wind speed itself.

The combined effect of reducing the drag and increasing the driving power results in a yacht that is far faster than those of even a few years ago. But all of this would not be possible without one further advance: materials. In order to be able to “fly”, the yacht must have a low mass, and the hydrofoil itself must be very strong. To achieve the required mass, strength and rigidity using traditional boat-building materials such as wood or aluminium would be very difficult.

This is where modern advanced composite materials such as carbon fibre come in. Production techniques optimising weight, rigidity and strength allow the production of structures that are strong and light enough to produce incredible yachts like the F50.

The engineers who design these high-performance boats (known as naval architects ) are always looking to use new materials and science to get an optimum design. In theory, the F50 should be able to go even faster.

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SailGP Teams, Back at Full Strength, Power to the $1 Million Prize

Japan is the leader as racing begins in Cádiz, and with crews back from the Olympics, boats now have their A-teams.

By David Schmidt

With $1 million and a season’s title up for grabs, attracting some of the world’s best sailors to SailGP was easy. But, with the allure of the Olympics and one star sailor’s paternity leave, keeping them on the boats for every race has been harder.

SailGP’s second season began in April in Bermuda, where eight teams from as many countries competed aboard identical F50 catamarans. The 36th America’s Cup had just concluded, so crew members who had competed in that regatta had time to return to their SailGP teams for the start of the season.

But then came the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and some SailGP teams were stripped of their best sailors as they headed for Japan. The Great Britain SailGP Team also lost Ben Ainslie , its driver, who had won an America’s Cup and five Olympic medals, for two events when he took leave around the birth of his son.

The absences caused the racing in Italy in June and Britain in July to be less competitive.

“The fact of the matter is, in any sport, if you don’t have your best athletes who you can field on the field, you’re more than likely not going to get as strong a result,” said Russell Coutts, SailGP’s chief executive and a five-time America’s Cup winner. “You can’t just sub a good sailor in that hasn’t had the training on a F50. The teams that have tried that this year, it hasn’t worked, it’s failed.”

But the top talent, including Ainslie , returned before the regattas in Denmark in August and France in September, and now — with just three left in Season 2 — competition is stiffening ahead of the regatta in Spain, which will take place at Cádiz on Saturday and Sunday.

The teams will be seeking to increase their chances of qualifying for the season finale in San Francisco next March. Only the three highest-ranked teams will advance to the Grand Final, which comes with the championship title and that $1 million.

Ainslie’s team is in fourth place. Asked if the absence of top sailors had made a difference in the level of competition, he said, “How much of a difference, that’s arguable, but definitely [it] would have made a difference.”

Instead, Ainslie points to the teamwork needed to sail these boats at top form as more critical. “That’s just as important, if not more important, than who’s steering the thing,” he said.

Teamwork may be crucial aboard boats that race on hydrofoils at highway speeds, but losing a significant percentage of A-listers early in the season was still challenging.

“The positive parts of having so many Olympians on your team is that you have an incredibly high level of sailing talent in the group,” said Peter Burling , driver of the New Zealand SailGP Team , which is in sixth place. “We had five out of our team competing at the Olympics.”

This group included Burling and Blair Tuke , the team’s wing trimmer. They arrived in SailGP after helping Emirates Team New Zealand win the America’s Cup, but left after Bermuda for the Olympics, where they won silver .

“The Olympics ended up right in the middle of SailGP season, and there’s a lot of us on the team [for whom] the Olympics and Tokyo had been a goal for a long time,” Tuke said. “So that was where the priority lay, but now that’s fully shifted and everyone is focused.”

Focus matters, but so do results.

“You could say it was definitely difficult,” Burling said about maintaining leadership continuity throughout the season. Despite the team’s standing, he sees its Olympic involvement as a positive. “It really does help sharpen your skills.”

Coutts did not agree and said the Olympic timeout had “been a disadvantage.”

“You’re racing against the best guys in the world,” he said “If you give them more time against you, you’re going to get hurt, aren’t you?”

Time matters greatly. SailGP’s rules restrict each team’s on-the-water practices. Unlike Olympic-class boats, F50s regularly see 90-knot closing speeds, so learning curves are steep, and experience brings results.

“The biggest thing is really, how consistent can you keep your roster?” said Jimmy Spithill, a two-time America’s Cup winner and the driver of the United States SailGP Team. “This fleet is very short time as it is — there’s not very much practice, you can’t really train between the events — so the time you spend together is very important.”

The boats, which cost about $4 million each, are identical. Larry Ellison, a two-time America’s Cup winner and the founder of Oracle, is the majority owner of SailGP. Ellison also owns seven of the teams, Coutts said. The boats may be the same, but how each team sails them is not. So much of practice is spent developing a playbook of choreographed maneuvers.

“We feel a lot more competitive now than we were in Bermuda,” said Rome Kirby , an America’s Cup winner and the United States SailGP Team’s flight controller. It is “time in the boat, time together as a team.” And time spent polishing the playbook. “You need to do it together. There’s no cheat code.”

Each boat is equipped with electronic sensors that constantly gather data and send it to an Oracle-run cloud where it is available — along with onboard video footage and audio from microphones worn by the crew — to all the teams.

“It speeds up the learning and therefore the competitiveness,” Coutts said about the shared data.

Teams also receive the same hardware and software upgrades. “No one can completely dominate, because you can’t get every decision right,” he said. “The fact that the boats are so close in performance, even with the technique differences, means that we see different winners at events regularly.

“The design teams are just continuously working on improving the performance of the boats, and also we’re looking at the racing and seeing how” it can be enhanced it, Coutts said.

So the boats constantly evolve, but if sailors miss events, they can find themselves and their team less competitive. Spithill said the entire fleet was more competitive now because crews “have more races and more time on the boats.”

Japan is currently on top of the standings, followed by the United States and Australia, which are tied. Those three teams are separated by just two points.

“All of the teams are acutely aware that we’re halfway through the season and every race is critical,” Coutts said. “There’s definitely an added dimension to that.”

This awareness and the bolstered rosters mean that racing in Spain, and beyond, should intensify.

“We’re at a point now where we’re very similar to the crews that people sailed with in Bermuda,” Burling said. “And I think each team had their best foot forward in Bermuda.”

While having stronger teams is great for fans, it is telling that even some teams that are led by America’s Cup- and Olympic-winning sailors have not even managed to finish in third place this season.

“SailGP is probably one of the most competitive classes or circuits” in the world right now, Kirby said. “I would say that it’s probably more competitive than the America’s Cup.”

SailGP also puts something else in play: serious money.

When asked what was the bigger motivator — the title or the cash — teams had different answers.

“The prize purse is something that would be very nice to split around the team, but for us, the focus is definitely on trying to win the competition,” Burling said.

Others are more pragmatic.

“I mean, how could you not be motivated for a million dollars?” said Spithill, whose team has battled adversity this season, including collisions, a capsize and a serious injury, yet is still in second place. And if other teams do not care about the money, “then no worries, we won’t give them the million dollars.”

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Worrell 1000 Race - Coming again in 2026

Worrell 1000

50th Anniversary - 2024

"The Spark that Lit The Flame"

~Join us again in 2026~

The 2024 event came to an amazing close May 24th, 2024 in VA Beach, with all the remaining 11 teams finishing within minutes of each other! Please see our Facebook Page for recorded videos of not only ALL of the finishes for each leg, but the Awards Banquet (in its entirety!) held Saturday, May 25th, 2024.

We already miss everyone involved, including our online community!!!!!! But don't fret - we've already begun planning the 2026 event.....Stay Tuned....

If it wasn't for that liquid-courage-fuelled bar bet between the Worrell brothers, the race would not be in existence. And although the first organized race wasn't until 1976, it was that fateful trip between Mike and Chris Worrell in October of 1974 that really lit a fire in Michael Worrell to make this race a world-wide sensation.

  “The Worrell 1000 Race” is an offshore long-distance beach catamaran sailboat race to be held in May 2024 in the Atlantic waters between Florida and Virginia Beach, VA. The race will cover approximately 1000 miles with overnight stops at multiple locations along the East Coast of the United States. The Organizing Authority (OA) for the 2022 Worrell 1000 Race will be “Worrell 1000 Race Reunion Race, Inc.”, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, (dba “Worrell 1000 Race”).

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The main purpose of the new F18 Evolution design was to build upon the unique pedigree of the Nacra F18 Infusion MKII  as the previous best-in-class allrounder. Taking all the best parts from its predecessor, redesigning its flaws, improving where we could, we’ve created a worthy successor.  The main visual difference is of course a completely new hull shape, but the real improvement is 

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CONFIGURABLE SAIL PLAN Next generation sailing performance.  Close collaboration with the aerodynamic sail design of Performance Sails has ensured an optimized sail plan which features the regatta proven Pentex™ Decksweeper mainsail and an optimized jib design tailored to the new mainsail. A tough polyester spinnaker, available in 3 colours and 2 types of different strength cloth, completes the sail plan.

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Local News | ‘Infamous’ Worrell 1000 catamaran race returns…

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Local News | ‘Infamous’ Worrell 1000 catamaran race returns to Outer Banks next year

Michael and Chris Worrell owned the Worrell Brothers Restaurant and Raw Bar on Atlantic Avenue and both were into skippering Hobie 16’s at the time. Liquid courage kicked in and Michael Worrell bet his brother that he could sail his Hobie all the way from Virginia Beach to Miami. Non-stop. And if Chris Worrell joined him on his own Hobie, Michael bragged he’d beat him there.

It is a dangerous and daring offshore trip, but the two made a deal. A few months later, the bet made at the bar hit the water. Only one would make it to Florida — and it wouldn’t be Miami. Michael made it to Fort Lauderdale — battered, bruised and exhausted with a boat that needed significant repair.

But the experience lit a fire in Michael Worrell and he spent the next two years planning to expand the sibling-rivalry race into an actual regatta. He was certain he could make a legendary race sought out by sailors around the world. He wasn’t wrong.

For those familiar with the story, they remember the early days when the race was run under different names: Worrell Brothers Coastwise Race, 1976-1978; was shortened to Worrell 1000 in 1979 when it was a continuous, 24-hour format on Hobie 16’s. Some only recall the more current format of racing daily from checkpoint beach to checkpoint beach, as is done today with two checkpoints on the Outer Banks.

Michael and Chris Worrell are both gone now. But the Worrell 1000 marks its 50th anniversary next year with 15 teams representing five different countries.

Returning champions, Team Australia, will return along with multiple teams and individual sailors from the 2022 event also coming back for more. There are some new faces, too.

“Although we have lost both Michael and Chris Worrell to that eternal, never-ending regatta beyond the sea, I am certain they would be thrilled to see how much the Worrell 1000 has become loved. Revered. Infamous. Sought-after. And above all else, alive and well,” wrote Beverly Simmons, Worrell’s communications director.

The organizing authority and race committee for the Worrell 1000 this month announced official dates and checkpoints for the event’s 50th anniversary, including two points on the Outer Banks at Hatteras and Kill Devil Hills.

The teams are expected to stop overnight in Hatteras on May 22 and Kill Devil Hills on May 23.

The United States will have 12 teams in next year’s race; Australia three teams and the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden will each have one.

The event will be run on boats in the Formula 18 class, launching from Hollywood, Florida and ending 1,000 miles away in Virginia Beach.

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Local News | Western Reserve Model Yacht Club event to draw…

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Local News | Western Reserve Model Yacht Club event to draw sailors from several states, Canada

The club will hold pairs “match races” from 9 to 11 a.m. followed by fleet racing from 9 to 3 p.m., according to a news release.

Boats used for both events will be Soling 1 Meter one-design RC sailboats, 40 inches long and weighing 10 pounds. They sail by wind alone — no motors or propellers — and races are won by skill and tactics, since all boats are essentially equal, the club noted.

Match racing is most well-known as the format used for the full-scale boats’ 37th America’s Cup series finals. The America’s Cup is to be contested this fall, in Barcelona, Spain, after a traveling series of fleet races to select the two finalists.

“Normally, we race as “fleets,” where as many as 16 boats race at the same time. Match racing is where just two boats race, over much shorter course.” Mike Wyatt, sailing director of the club, stated in the release. “We will have likely have as many as 120 pairs — “matches” — in just two hour, each race is about 5 minutes long.

“The America’s Cup is now held using foiling single-hull boats,” he added. “Our model boats are model keelboats, sailed in ponds and lakes, by one skipper using a radio transmitter to control the boat.”

The event concludes with a fleet racing regatta through the afternoon. The same competitors will race using a single start, and longer races, usually lasting around 10 minutes each. Fleet races use the entire 5-acre SPIRE pond, while match races use a far smaller area of around 250 square feet.

The Western Reserve Model Yacht Club races from May to October every Tuesday evening, as well as two Saturdays a month, also at SPIRE, 5201 SPIRE Circle in Geneva. Spectators are welcome at those or the Sept. 21 event.

For more information visit the club’s website at www.wrmyc.org. Interested people can also call the club at 440-478-8208.

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