Volvo 70 Design Rule-- 2011-2012 Race

The conditions are appalling and this talk of tough Whitbread boats is BS; there were heaps of failures and their average speeds would have been half the Volvos - greater speed = much greater loads.
I've sailed in 58 knot winds off New Zealand ... in a multihull, but in seas nothing like what the VO70's are in, even so, for a few hours, (not day after day) that got your attention.
Dare I suggest the obvious suggestion: the "heavy" monohulls are not suited for this fast sailing, but Dantesque stuff. With say, a 70 foot ocean racing multihull, they would be so fast they could Ma'a Nonu-like sidestep the brutal stuff, either by outrunning or detouring, like Banque Populaire 5 and Groupama 3 did during their record breaking runs around the world. And they wouldn't, because of their light weight, be covered in dangerous white water a large percentage of the time, nor pound their bow interior structures into shattered carbon and foam pieces. Okay, blaze away.

 

Even in multihulls the crews would drive them to pieces in their desire to win.

 

vor

Race tracker: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html

 

vor

Groupama-almost in lead-breaks mast and is out: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/5767_Groupama-mast-breaks-with-victory-within-their-grasp.html Five of six boats are now out for
at least this leg. Incidently the mast broke in only 20 knots of wind after the 60 knots they had earlier.....

picture from VOR site:

 

vor

Great match race developing between Telefonica and Puma with the blue boat much faster ,as of now ,and only 23 miles separating them. Tracker in post 93....

 

vor

Telefonica is 1.1NM behind Puma now and going .7 knot faster.....

 

vor

Puma wins leg five-by a hair! Congratulations Team Puma!

 

Volvo open 70 rule 2003

hi
do you have "Volvo open 70 rule 2003"?

thanks

 

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No, sorry--why?

 

Vor

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

VOLVO OCEAN RACE - A VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE
By Ryan O'Grady, Sailing World
So what has changed in this race to account for the extra damage? There
have been two major cases of failure in the current Volvo. The first is
mast failure, and the second has been structural delamination of the hull.

Right now, there have been four mast failures in the race; Abu Dhabi Ocean
Racing (Future Fibres), PUMA Ocean Racing (Hall), Sanya (Future Fibres),
and now Groupama (Lorima spar, Future Fibres rigging). Of those failures,
the only public comment has been from PUMA, where they seem to believe that
a metal fastener failed, causing the rig to drop. From the other teams, we
can only infer that the failures were due to the rigging, since both Abu
Dhabi and Sanya have changed out their rigging packages.

This is the first race to allow carbon standing rigging (VO 70 Rule
10.16.1), an area where Future Fibres has been working to push the limits
on continuous molded carbon rigging. While teams have been busy exploring
new rigging, mast designers also have had the opportunity to now work with
high modulus carbon fiber (392 GPa verses the previous 300 GPa for you
engineers out there) (VO 70 Rule 10.15.7). By using higher modulus
materials, mast tube sections can be made smaller but with the same amount
of stiffness, or greater overall stiffness can be achieved.

Since none of the failures seem to be caused by mast tube compression
failure, the most likely cause of the mast issues is in the carbon rigging.
I don't expect to see carbon rigging banned in the next race, but I do hope
the manufacturers all release engineering assessments of the failures so
that everyone's product offerings can be improved.

When addressing the issue of hull delamination, things become far more
complex. Both CAMPER and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing pulled into Chile to fix
damage to their hulls due to delamination. Telefonica had a similar issue,
but the damage was less widespread, requiring just a short pit stop to pick
up more material to reinforce their hull.

Already, the Volvo 70 rule requires boats to be built above and beyond the
requirements of every international insurance rule. (ABS, Lloyds, ISO) So
why are the hulls breaking? -- Full report:
http://www.sailingworld.com/blogs/racing/and-then-there-were-4-3-2

 

Because, repeat, apologies, the VO70's are too heavy and too powerful for the own good - their bows bury deep at 35-40 knots boat speed (unheard of speeds for a monohull) - what do you fargo trucking expect? You know the answer ... so I won't bother repeating it.

 

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VO 70's have not yet(because of the rule) been able to take advantage of lifting foils like, for instance, the fastest round the world boat has. Open 60's are another story: some of them use lifting foils and could ,potentialy,use DSS since it was made legal in the class.
I think it is a good bet that well designed foils would improve seaworthiness and improve handling. Is that what your were thinking?

 

Foils of various sorts would help keep the bows up, yes ... but imo, the real problem is the VO70's high weight, 16 ton; not high in terms of other monohulls of proportionate sizes but too much on a 70 when driving through giant waves downwind at peak speeds of around 40 knots (gasp) and enveloping the whole boat in white and solid green water - or beating through same at 12-15 knots boat speed upwind; the weight is what makes the fronts fall off.
So (whispering) lighter weight, more than one hull???

 

In some of the videos you can see the guys trying to sure up the delaminated areas of the hull - the skin is intact it has just seperated from the core material. This would suggest a mode of failure that wasnt an ultimate strength problem otherwise the damage would have been more catastrophic. The effected areas would appear to be in the front 1/3 of the boat, around the static waterline area of the hull.

I would seem that the localised loads in this area werent adequately enginneered for, or the composite materials used could not cope with the types/duration of adverse loads in these areas - ie a 70ft yacht slamming thru waves at 40kts...

These loads must be incredibly difficult to calculate... but i dare say they will change something in the layup of the new boats to experimentally solve this problem...

 

Groper, I sense (of course I don't know, wasn't there) the problem is that the bows are driven deep into solid, big wave, water ... at 40 knots - with 16 ton boat momentum plus high loads produced from the rig; the compressing (crushing?) loads have to be more than minor (understatement) - even steel would buckle and ding. But of course, a steel boat would never reach half the VO70's speed.
If you watch the fantastic videos of Bank Populaire 5 and Groupama 3, the bows stay high; yes, the foils help this ... but the boats are also very light.