The Wide and Light Project was promoted by the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation (SYRF). Its purpose was to provide an insight into the accuracy of existing simulation codes to predict the performance of typical modern wide and light sailing yachts, and to equip handicapping systems and box rules with information to better address these types of designs.
This study engaged five different groups of CFD specialists who carried out blind Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses on an identical test matrix using their preferred computational codes and approaches. The same test matrix was run by the Wolfson Unit at the QuinitiQ towing tank in Gosport, UK. It consisted of 120 runs for combinations of canoe body only or fully appended configurations with one or two rudders, for upright resistance, heeled resistance, and heeled and yawed resistance. The CFD results were then compared to the tank tests, and a comprehensive report was presented (see Report). Moreover, this project provides a comprehensive set of data against which researchers may develop and validate their own numerical tools in the future.
Cape Horn Engineering participated using the flow solver STAR-CCM+, showing a very good agreement with the tank data. The analysis of the results showed that Cape Horn Engineering was able to deliver the closest data to the tank, using much lower mesh resolutions than the other groups, demonstrating that CFD can be used as a very valuable tool keeping the costs down.
