Mean Machine test sails for Volvo Ocean Race in Auckland University

[Source: Mean Machine] Work within the Mean Machine team never stops, especially when it comes to R&D for the Volvo Ocean Race project. One of the most important aspects is the ever challenging area of sail development.

Auckland University is where Peter de Ridder’s team have decided to carry out their special aerodynamics studies, using the centre’s Twisted Flow wind tunnel under the direction of team skipper Ray Davies.

The wind tunnel is a testing tool which has been developed to help study the effects of the movement of the wind around solid objects. The team have carried out just over 500 tests making numerous adjustments to the sails. The in-depth study means the team can draw some solid conclusions about the direction their sail technology should take, and in the process save hours and hours of testing new sails out on the water.

Mean Machine testing sails in Auckland University's Twisted Flow wind tunnel. Photo copyright Mean Machine

The aim of the tests in the wind tunnel is to find the optimum design for every sail, to get the very best out of every one. During this development phase at the University of Auckland, sails from the previous edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, as well as the latest sail designs, have been used to compare different sail cross overs.

Ray Davies, Mean Machine’s skipper, who’ll be leading the team in the 2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race is pleased with the week’s tests:

“Having the opportunity to use the wind tunnel to work with existing sail designs has been really beneficial for us. It has brought me up to speed with the various combinations teams were using in the last race, it’s given us some valuable information and saved us hours of testing on the water. Now we need to transfer the knowledge we’ve gained in the tunnel to developing the best possible sail combinations for our next generation V70. The new course is going to really test the sail inventories and with the very limited sails allowed, sail development is a key area we need to focus on to win.”

In order to carry out the tests with the different sails, models were made to a 1:15 scale. Thanks to the tunnel’s special sensors, it’s possible to see the reaction of each sail to different wind angles, as well as the force they generate and the optimum sail trim. All this is done to gain a better understanding of the aerodynamic power that each sail can generate, which is, after all, key to getting the very best performance out of the new Mean Machine VO70.