Maths and the America’s Cup
Dan Bernasconi, Head of Design at Emirates Team New Zealand, explains the significant role mathematics plays in sailing, boat design, and the America’s Cup. Click on the image for more info:
Dan Bernasconi, Head of Design at Emirates Team New Zealand, explains the significant role mathematics plays in sailing, boat design, and the America’s Cup. Click on the image for more info:
In 1851, a team from New York Yacht Club won a race around the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. They beat 15 British boats to take the Hundred Guinea Cup, a silver trophy valued at £100. Of course, the British were ‘not amused’! Subsequently named the America’s Cup after the victorious […]
Team New Zealand is the crew sailing against America for “The Old Mug”, a rather ugly trophy that represents the Formula 1 of yachting and is the oldest international sporting competition. It was initially sailed in large sloops, but is now hi-tech in catamarans than lift off the ocean on complex “foils” – thereby providing […]
Following our earlier post is this update on how Mathematics gave the American boat the speed edge to win one of the most remarkable comebacks in sport: “Computer whiz Asim Khan oversaw Oracle Racing’s immense database, developing the hardware and software systems that fed “live” performance data to the crew and helped unlock the secrets […]
The apparent wind direction for sailing boats can best be described by vectors. Notice how the resulting (apparent wind) direction (called “resultant”) is found by joining a line from the base of the first vector to the end of the second (source: oceansail): The lower pic is action from the America’s Cup boats from the […]
The Formula 1 of yachting – the America’s Cup. Outstanding technology where the boats are now sailing over twice the speed of the wind. Also a victory as Oracle came from 1-8 wins behind to beat Team New Zealand 9-8. How did this ‘one of the greatest comebacks in sport’ happen? It was all down […]
“The cat was let out of the bag – so to speak – very early on in Team NZ’s testing programme in the new AC72 class, after a sailing enthusiast and amateur photographer snapped pictures of the team out training, which appeared to show both hulls of the Kiwi boat flying clear of the water. […]