Australia II and the America's Cup: The untold, inside story of The Keel - Softcover

Slooff, Joop

Softcover

ISBN 10: 153059023X ISBN 13: 9781530590230

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

Since 1851, the America’s Cup has been the most prestigious trophy in the world of sailing. The America’s Cup scene has always been the playground of the rich and mighty in this world, and characterized by controversial events and intrigues. It was not different in 1983, when for the first time in its history, the New York Yacht Club lost The Cup. The 1983 America’s Cup winner was the 12-Metre yacht Australia II. It was equipped with a radical, innovative, winged keel that caused much upheaval in the summer of 1983. Upheaval that, occasionally, rumbles on until today.This book tells the story of the author’s role in the design of the keel of Australia II. The scientific approach by two Dutch scientists (naval architect Piet van Oossanen and the author), that were involved with the design research, changed the landscape of yacht design. After the 1983 match, Cup campaigns embraced a more scientific way of designing boats. The Dutch scientists played a major role in this important change.

About this title

About the Author:

Johannes (‘Joop’) W. Slooff, born in 1941 in Haarlem in The Netherlands, is a (retired) fluid dynamicist by profession. He worked at the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) and was a part-time professor at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. He is also a cruising yachtsman (not yet retired). In 1981 he became involved with the development of the 12-Metre yacht Australia II for the 1983 America’s Cup campaign. He proposed the concept of the upside-down, winged keel and was responsible for the computational fluid dynamic modelling, performed at NLR, that substantiated the performance potential of the concept. In the 1980s he was also involved in keel research performed at Delft University of Technology by Gerritsma and Keuning. After his (early) retirement in 2001 he wrote a course on the aero- and hydrodynamics of sailing for the Heiner Sail Academy in The Netherlands. He also became involved, as a technical-scientific advisor, in the ABN-AMRO campaign for the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race. From 2008 through 2012 he has lectured on the aero- and hydrodynamics of sailing at an annual special course on sailing yacht technology at the faculty of Maritime Technology of Delft University. He is author of the book “The Aero- and Hydromechanics of Keel Yachts” (Springer, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-13274-7)

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 153059023X
• ISBN 13: 9781530590230
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 133