mast and sail configuration. These did not include viscous separation effects so I had to make judgments as to how the different pressure distributions would behave in real airflow. I then had to do some sailing tests with small sections on my own boat, a Ranger 23, in order to see how the shape would affect flow separation. This was followed by sailing tests of full scale sections on a larger boat to demonstrate the flow improvements of the new mast shape. For Kialoa III, S&S would furnish the mast strength requirements (moments of inertia) and any manufacturing requirements.
As we talked I realized that the next
question or two from Jim
Kilroy would be, “How much is this going to cost?”
That was the very next question! I really was not prepared to answer it. I had
to buy computer time from a third party on the McDonnell Douglas big mainframe
computers to run the flow calculations. I considered my studies as
research rather than production work, and research takes lots of time which I
did not expect to get fully paid for (things were different in those days). I was not
in this for financial gain. It was more of a hobby, but I didn’t want it to cost
me too much.
The conclusion of the meeting was "yes", I would give the Kialoa III mast problem a try and the meeting was concluded.
My computer runs indicated that I did have a new design that would probably have better flow characteristics than the elliptical section already planned. However, with the Courageous work still underway, it soon became obvious that I would not have time to do any mast sailing tests to prove my new Kialoa III design and meet Kilroy's development schedule. Without the owner being able to actually see the flow improvements in a sailing test, I was unwilling to recommend my new design. I had to stop the Kialoa mast design work. Kialoa would have to go with a conventional mast shape.
However, as my Courageous mast work ended, Kilroy came up with another task for me. He wanted to know if I would be interested in participating in the Kialoa III sailing trials in Florida. That sounded like a real interesting exercise. I would learn a lot and also get to sail on a big Maxi ocean racer.