Sail boat foiling on water

SailGP’s new F50 launches in NZL

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Posted on: 30 October, 2018

Artemis Technologies has supported the design and development of SailGP’s new F50 wing-sailed catamaran, which launched this month in New Zealand.

The F50, a development from the AC50s used in the 35th America’s Cup, is predicted to break the 50-knot barrier and will feature in a global series of five races, featuring six international teams, beginning in Sydney in February 2019.

Artemis Technologies has provided a range of engineering and design services to SailGP including:

  • Participation in appendage design
  • Performance prediction
  • Hydraulic system design and testing
  • Control system architecture and complete software design -Electronics – instrumentation design including bespoke Can Valve Driver.

Simon Watin, Naval Architecture Lead at Artemis Technologies, said:

When we started working on the F50 appendage concept, the one resource that was scarce was time on the design phase. To meet the ambitious sailing schedule of the F50, we have had to heavily rely on our tools and experience in high performance foil design to deliver appendage designs that would meet both the high performance, and series production standard, set by SailGP.

Eventually, with the light and heavy air foil concepts, combined with their dedicated rudder, the F50 will cover a wider range of sailing conditions than its predecessor, with increased performance on both ends of the spectrum.

.We are confident these boats will be reaching speeds over 50 knots, while still being able to race and foil downwind in as low as 6kts of breeze.

Artemis Technologies engineer, Dr Alex​ ​Reid,​ continued:

.The electronics design, in terms of the hardware and software engineering, is a significant step forward from the previous America’s Cup. The enhanced system architecture produces a robust yet high performance system with weight saving benefits.

Artemis Technologies worked closely with SailGP to produce an instrumentation and control system package to match the unique performance of the F50.

During this process Artemis Technologies also developed custom hardware and software in the form of the CAN Valve Driver to allow a low latency and high accuracy valve control solution.”

For more information on SailGP's website