FLUID MECHANICS FOR SAILING VESSEL DESIGN

The design of sailing vessels is an ancient art that places an ever-increasing reliance on modern engineering sciences. Fluid mechanics shares the forefront of this reliance along with structural mechanics. This review focuses on the application of fluid mechanics in modern sailing vessel design. It is now common practice to predict sailing performance with what are called velocity prediction computer programs. The validity of the predictions is crucially dependent on accurate modeling of the air and water forces on the vessel. This article reviews existing methods of force modeling that include theory, experimentation, and numerical fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. The accuracy and reliability of the numerical methods are considered on the basis of experimental results and full-scale performance in areas for which the information is available.