Identifying Potential Racing Yacht Collision Scenarios Using GPS Data

To make SailGP races safer for the sailors taking part in them, the crashworthiness of the yacht used in SailGP, the F50, is under evaluation using physical and numerical testing. To determine load cases for this testing, GPS data from a past SailGP race was analysed using a purpose made extensible tool. Three plug-in extensions were written to identify potentially dangerous sailing events using three different methods; the starting and ending times of these events were used to filter similar statistics generated at every timestep of the GPS log by a fourth plug-in. Analysis of these statistics revealed two unique potential impact scenarios, the first an oblique side-on-side event and the second resembling a “T-bone” style event. The closing speeds of the competitors in these events, the angles between the competitors in these events, and the height difference between the competitors in these events were used to produce load cases for each of these two scenarios. Considerations toward potential crashworthiness improvements of the existing F50 design, as well as an outline of a method to design structures with improved crashworthiness for future iterations of the F50 using the derived loadcases, are given.