Scottish sailing engineers have designs on world speed record

The thrilling world of speed-sailing is responsible for some remarkable engineering innovations.

Back in September 2009, L’Hydroptere, a 60ft trimaran that ’flies’ above the surface on two fin-shaped hydrofoils, set a new world record for D-class vessels of 51.36 knots.

More recently, The Engineer reported on the Vestas SailRocket II, a glider-inspired boat with designs on the outright unpowered 500m record of 55.65 knots.

Now, in a bid to push the performance of extreme sailing boats even further, a team of Scottish engineers is using advanced simulation software to design and develop a bizarre-looking vessel that the engineers believe could soon break the near-mythical 60-knot barrier.

Clarke and his team needed to consider many wing-sail design variables. ’Abaqus enabled us to quickly and efficiently visualise the effects of taking different approaches,’ said Clarke. Early in the design cycle, the team created some of the key models within Abaqus first and used the extensive functionality within the software’s interaction module to simplify those models.