High Performance Sailing in Olympic Classes - a Research Outlook and Proposed Directions

The purpose of this paper is to explore research opportunities in Olympic sailing classes. Olympic classes provide high-performance sailing using a diversity of equipment, with the understanding that the equipment, individual athletes, and the knowledge relating to those two factors impacts performance. Thus, the Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger”), governs everyday life for many engineers. During the last few years, Chalmers has supported a project that focuses on the possibilities and challenges for research combined with engineering knowledge in the area of sports. The initiative has generated external funding and gained great acclaim within Chalmers, among staff and students, in the Swedish sports movement, and in large companies, as well as within small and medium sized enterprises. The project focuses on five sports: swimming, equestrian events, floorball, athletics, and sailing. The contribution from this paper describes an outlook identifying eight areas containing research opportunities: sailing dynamics, how to sail in Olympic classes, fluid structure interaction, surface structures, turbulence induction on the rig, equipment in Olympic classes, and applying game theory to sailing