Sailing World: "The Future Is Here"

Just got the July/August issue of Sailing World magazine. Nice to see a mainstream sailing magazine taking notice of some of the new technology. Here is an overview:
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"Few sports enjoy a stronger relationship with technology than sailing. It surrounds us whether we're sailing a 100 year old one design or chasing the elusive 50 knot barrier. We all want to know ,whats next? What can make us faster, smarter, more competitive? To get a glimpse of the future of the sport we looked at a few emerging developments. Some of which you can try right now, some of which are a few years away."
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Foil Technology Takes Off
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" The career of the French hydrofoiler[multifoiler] L'Hydroptere has been full of stops and starts. But after more than a decade of experimentation the boat is hitting its stride.It recently set a speed reord for a kilometer,averaging more than 44 knots over the course.
The future of L'Hydroptere looks to be secure with a number of new Swiss investors providing Thebault with the funds he needs, plus Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne offering engineering support and Decision SA boat building know-how.-the latter two groups having had similar roles with the Alinghi America's Cup team. Plans are afoot to build a new 60' test boat called L'Hydroptere.ch and a new maxi L'Hydroptere to be used for offshore sailing." See more about Hydroptere on the L'Hydroptere thread under the "Multihulls" forum .
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The Flying Moth
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The foiling Moth went from being a craft of academic interest to a race winner following the introduction of a new model made by John Ilett's company Fastacraft in Australia. A Fastacraft Moth was sailed by Australian Rohan Veal at the Moth Worlds in La Rochelle in 2003 and finnished third. With further developments Veal swept every race at the sbsequent 2004-'05 World Championship." [ as he did this year at Lake Garda in a Bladerider] [Note that the writer-James Boyd-got the flap movement exactly backwards in his description]
"Looking beyond the Moth, sailors in the 14 and 18-foot Skiff classes have also been experimenting with retrofitting foils on their boats. Just how large a monohull{monofoiler] one can fully foil in this way remains to be seen, but will ultimately be limited by the weight of the boat versus the drag of the foils needed to lift it."
See the "60'+ or - 20' Monofoiler" thread in this forum as well as the "Moth on Foils" thread.
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Smart Sails Simplify Trim
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"As the 2007 America's Cup winds down and the syndicates ease their grip on a few of their guarded secrets, a technology is emerging that could allow saiors to capture and analyze trim settings, and then recreate them at any time in the future.
Photonic technology is a by-product of the telecommunications industry.Bill Hefferman and Howard Gibbons, respectively the CEO and GM of LiveFibers, a British startup involved in ocean racing, are installing fiber-optic networks and using a laser interrogator ,built by Intune networks,to provide real-time monitoring of a boats hull,mast, sails and appendages. Sensors called Bragg Gratings are capable of measuring stress,strain,temperature,pressure,and flow, in real-time. These sensors are imbedded in the fiberoptics and the optical fiber network imbedded in the sail.
Once the the noise, or unusable data, has been filtered out, what remains is an incredibly accurate real time picture of a sails shape.
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This technology won't end with the sails. Wiring the spar, sails ,hull,and appendages will allow a team to constantly monitor the critical measurements of each speed producing structure;it will be the ultimate "smart structure".
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Carbon Goes Tubular
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All about the effect carbon nanotubes can have filling in the spaces between fibers allowing greater compressive strength and therefore lighter masts, booms etc.
"This should enable builders to either build a spar with more compressive strength without adding weight, or building a lighter spar without changing the strength."
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Say Goodbye to Recalls
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About GPS transponders used to ensure accurate
calls of boats over early on big starting lines.
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Maltese Falcon-great article with excellent pictures on this fantastic boat...

[yipster]

Smart Sails Simplify Trim
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"As the 2007 America's Cup winds down and the syndicates ease their grip on a few of their guarded secrets, a technology is emerging that could allow saiors to capture and analyze trim settings, and then recreate them at any time in the future.
Photonic technology is a by-product of the telecommunications industry.Bill Hefferman and Howard Gibbons, respectively the CEO and GM of LiveFibers, a British startup involved in ocean racing, are installing fiber-optic networks and using a laser interrogator ,built by Intune networks,to provide real-time monitoring of a boats hull,mast, sails and appendages. Sensors called Bragg Gratings are capable of measuring stress,strain,temperature,pressure,and flow, in real-time. These sensors are imbedded in the fiberoptics and the optical fiber network imbedded in the sail.
Once the the noise, or unusable data, has been filtered out, what remains is an incredibly accurate real time picture of a sails shape.

real live wires eh? simplifying trim, hmm... i get the idea. not directly trim but from what i've seen this year was a lot of imbaresing trouble the boats had with their genakkers ( while other classes i see on sailing channel sock genakkers belowdeck in milliseconds )