Domin servo valves embark with INEOS Britannia for America’s Cup

Jerome Carson, product owner at Domin, said the company’s servo valves will be used on the main sail and traveller, extending potentially to the jib sheeting. Taken together, they will help the team to reduce weight and improve aerodynamics.

The 37^th America’s Cup takes place in Barcelona, with INEOS Britannia one of the six sailing teams competing for the world’s oldest sporting trophy. Held every four years, the teams will take to the sea in boats classified as AC75s and built without a keel. Instead, the boats are kept upright by electronically controlled foil cant arms that move under the boat. Foil wings on the end of the arms provide the stability, lift and speed when racing.

The teams build one AC75 and purchase at least one AC40, a multi-use foiling monohull designed and built by Team New Zealand that INEOS will use at Preliminary Regattas before being handed over to the Youth and Women's America's Cup teams. A third boat – an LEQ12 - can be built, which gives the teams that opt to build one a testbed for the technologies that will go onto the AC75. INEOS Britannia dubbed their LEQ12 ‘T6’.

“Domin and INEOS Britannia have tested the valves on the T6 Test boat successfully with the first round of testing completed in Palma, Mallorca. Since the launch, we have worked with INEOS Britannia to develop a higher-pressure valve that will be used [during] AC37,” said Carson. “T6 is going back onto the water…at the America’s Cup venue in Barcelona for the next stage of testing.”

Carson added that Domin’s valves are much smaller and lighter than the previous servo valves used, so INEOS Britannia were able to develop a more compact system for T6 which will have positive knock-on benefits to overall form of the boat.

“Hydraulic system efficiency is a key metric on the boats as the energy is harnessed from batteries and human power – the Domin valves have a low pressure drop for a given flow rate, and also displays lower levels of internal ‘leakage’ between the high- and low-pressure circuits,” he said.

Carson added that depending on the system on the AC75, some valves will be working on a quick step response to move the system whilst having low loses when not operating, and other valves will be used for accurate control.

“So tracking signals in the 1-2Hz range whilst trimming the sails at very high pressures,” he said. “The valves are capable of >100Hz and < 3ms [so] step responses to the latency in the system compared to the frequency of the systems moving will be negligible.”