America's Cup Projects

Courageous, 1974. All of the America's Cup projects took lots of time. On Courageous that was not so bad since part of the effort involved actual sailing tests required to supplement the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) work. That was fun as we were learning new things about sailboat aerodynamics.

One problem was the cost. I had to buy computer time from a third party in order to run Douglas CFD codes. The syndicate would cover that, but not much more as I found out later. When I submitted an invoice for my own time (at minimum salary rate) I was told that they would pay me only one-tenth, "since I would probably sell up to 9 more copies of the mast shape in the future." At that time it was obvious that this was not a money-making proposition. If I was to do this in the future, it had to be for fun and to be a small part of sailing history.

For more information on the design of the Courageous mast use this link: Courageous Mast.

Cup Defenses in San Diego   Dennis Conner brought the Cup back from Australia in 1987. Boeing was heavily involved in the defense efforts for both the 1992 and 1995 races. This time the work was fully funded by the company and an excellent team was assembled to do the work. For 1992, the effort was part of the Partnership for America's Cup Technology (PACT) that had been organized by John Marshall.

The Boeing team was organized and directed by Ed Tinoco. I worked on the project only part time supporting Ed Tinoco and providing analysis tools with AGPS for use by the other researchers. An interesting wind tunnel test of a keel/bulb/winglet combination for the new America's Cup Class (IACC) of boat was run at the University of Washington to validate the CFD codes.

In 1992 the work for PACT was made available to all of the American defending boats but the most direct involvement by Boeing was designing the appendages (keel/bulb/winglets) for Team Dennis Conner.

In 1995 I spent a few days in San Diego visiting the Young America and Dennis Conner teams and attending the unveiling of all of the keels on the boats. I was also able to watch some of the defender trial races from the beautiful 117 ft. yawl Timoneer. That was a tough Boeing assignment!

For 1995, Boeing teams had appendage design responsibility for both the Young America, and Dennis Conner syndicates. The photo at the right is of Boeing's keel designers, Winfried Feifel (left, Young America), and Paul Bogataj (Team Dennis Conner).

 

Eagle, 1987   I really did not want to work on an America's Cup project for the 1987 races in Australia. However, I relented and studied a number of different possible keel shapes for Eagle. Later, the designer specified the general profile shape of the keel and wings and it was my job to put the best shape that I could within the profile. Not knowing specific weight requirements, I designed 3 keels for Eagle with different chord lengths. With 2 weeks to go, I was told by the designer to use the lowest wetted area keel and to increase the thickness of the airfoils up to 15% if necessary in order to meet the new weight requirement. He wanted lots of stability for the expected high winds. There was no time left to investigate how this would affect drag. The boat turned out to be slow.

However, I ended up with a $20,000 VAXStation computer of my own (that I suddenly had to pay taxes on!). For more details see  EAGLE, 1987 .

Liberty, 1983  Early in 1980 my boss at Boeing told me that "Someone at Corporate wanted to know if Gentry was working on anything critical to the Boeing Company. Is he available to work on sailboat problems for Dennis Conner?"

This was followed by a couple of calls from Dennis. I was in the midst of getting our new surface geometry program (AGPS) built and did not want anything to interfere.  However, Mark Kirchner, the Chief of Aerodynamics, had another idea. He proposed starting what became known as the Flight Research Institute (FRI). FRI would provide free access to Boeing supercomputers and I could work for Dennis in my "free" time.

Thus started a three year effort spanning a series of 3 new boats, designing a new mast section and keel for the 1983 Cup defender, Liberty, and also some great sailing experiences on board the boats. Unfortunately, we lost the Cup to Australia!