INTRODUCTION
By Andy Claughton, Project Leader, Land Rover BAR, November 2015
The modern era of high performance sailing has ushered in a new design paradigm for modern race boats. Compared to past hull shapes, the current in-favor design is both wide and light, it is in this description that the Wide-Light project's name originates.
This project provides insight into the accuracy of existing modeling methods in predicting performance of Wide-Light designs. It is intended for this information to better inform and equip handicapping systems and box rules to address Wide-Light designs.
Five different CFD stakeholders carried out blind CFD analysis on an identical test matrix using different computational codes and approaches. The same test matrix was run as a tank test for both canoe body only and appended configurations as a control for the hull geometry. The CFD results were compared with the tank test control results to determine CFD model accuracy. This project illustrated the accuracy of commercial CFD codes in predicting the forces on a Wide-Light sailing yacht. Additionally, this project provides a comprehensive set of data against which researchers may develop and validate their own numerical tools.
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
Software | Contributor | Affiliation | Type |
FINE™/Marine | Benoit Mallol, Jason Ker | Numeca, Ker Yacht Design | RANS |
FlowLogic | David Egan | Panel Code | |
OpenFOAM | Sandy Wright | Wolfson Unit MTIA, University of Southampton | Open Source RANS |
SHIPFLOW | Lars Larsson, Michal Orych | Chalmers University of Technology, FLOWTECH Int. AB | Combination Panel Code & RANS |
Star-CCM+ | Rodrigo Azcueta, Matteo Lledri | Cape Horn Engineering | RANS |
TANK TESTING
Tank | Contributor | Affiliation |
QinetiQ #2, Haslar Technology Park, Gosport England |
Martyn Prince,
Etienne Gauvain
|
Wolfson Unit MTIA, University of Southampton
|
MODEL DIMENSIONS
Wolfson Unit Model M1108 | Metric | Imperial |
Overall length | 4.88 m | 16.0 ft |
Design waterline length | 4.60 m | 15.1 ft |
Displacement (appended) | 215 kg | 474 lbs |
Displacement (canoe body) | 197 kg | 434 lbs |
Maximum beam | 1.28 m | 4.2 ft |
Draft to datum | 1.15 m | 3.8 ft |
Tank & CFD Conditions: Freshwater at 15° C

PROJECT FILES
Wide-Light Final Report:
Seahorse Article (February 2016 Issue):
Paper from 22nd CSYS:
PUBLICATION
RESULTS
CITATION INFORMATION
If you use any of the data provided on this page, please use the following information for your citation.
Author: Claughton, A.R.
Title: SYRF Wide-Light Project
Date: 2015
Publisher: Sailing Yacht Research Foundation
Electronic Retrieval Location: http://sailyachtresearch.org/projects/wide-light-project
The Wide-Light Project by Sailing Yacht Research Foundation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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