Known good ocean yacht? A way to get this info?

[Vince]

Hi,

I would like to retrieve information from a parametric study of sailboat regarding good ocean yacht. Basicly, I'd like to obtain a parametric study of good known ocean boat to get a starting point for an eventually new design. I think it would be a better starting point since I orient my preliminary design with toward something closer to what I want. (Better than using the general parametric study I think)

The thing is, I don't know much good ocean sailboat and since not all the data to calculate the STIX # are available in the param study, I need help to get through this learning by suggesting good known sailboat or an alternative to my thinking.

Thank you!

Vince

[Eric Sponberg]

Vince,

I think the kind of studies that you might find interesting are the following. These are just 3 of the many studies that have been done on sailing yachts, and lord knows there is a wealth of information in magazines of the past and of course in design books. But these 3 are pretty classic, and all are available from the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (www.sname.org).

"Performance Criteria and the Design of Sailing Yachts" by Jay E. Paris Jr., presented at the New England Sailing Yacht Symposium, 24 January, 1976.

"Sailing Yacht Design--An Appreciation of a Fine Art" by Robert G. Henry and Captain Richards T. Miller, presented at the annual meeint in New York, 14-15 November 1963.

Now, what is interesting about the next document is that it is an update of that second one, written by Mr. Miller and Karl Kirkman, 27 years later:

"Sailing Yacht Design--A New Appreciation of a Fine Art" by Richards T. Miller and Karl L. Kirkman, published in SNAME Transactions Vol. 98, 1990.

This is now 17 years old and will not cover some of the latest developments in that time, like the open class boats, the Volvo (ex-whitbread) boats, or any of the level racers or unusual keel and rig designs. Also, there are many good books on boat design in general, and you just have to weed through them all to find the nuggets that you need. But certainly the papers that I cite above will give you a good starting foundation.

When you contact SNAME, you can ask about the CD that they have for sale which is a compilation of the best 300+ technical papers on small craft design that have been published by SNAME (they have very many more than that, but these are the most commonly requested for small craft design, and it includes both power and sail). You can buy the CD with the papers on it, and I think these three papers are included.

Good luck,

Eric

[Vince]

thanks! I will surely have a look through these!