Yacht velocity prediction

Abstract

A velocity prediction program or VPP attempts to predict the performance of any arbitrary yacht in arbitrary wind conditions. The aim of this work has been to develop a fast and accurate VPP for use in yacht design. The modelling of the yacht is discussed in detail and some different approaches to this which have appeared in the literature are reviewed. Yacht velocity prediction is formulated as an optimisation problem and a number of different nonlinear programming routines are investigated to compare how they perform on this problem. Some new applications for VPPs are investigated. Optimisation is applied to yacht design which could be especially useful for determining the best tradeoffs where the yacht designs are subject to complicated design rules. The VPP is configured to calibrate its own model to correspond to observed yacht performance.