Star Sailing
As part of our effort to develop a sensor for the competitive sailing fleet, Nortek sponsored the effort to qualify a Norwegian team to the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao. Unfortunately, the fleet of previous Olympic winners and seasoned America's Cup veterans proved too tough to beat, but we were excited to follow the effort and we learned a lot about professional sailing.
In February 2008, Nortek teamed up with Eivind Melleby and Petter Pedersen, the Norwegian "Loadstar" team. During a week-long
experiment in Miami, their Star was instrumented with a three-axis acoustic Doppler sensor, accompanying electronics, and a GPS. The Nortek electronics included a heading, pitch and roll sensor as well as a data logger.
The Doppler sensor was constructed with three beams which permitted speed measurements both along the fore-aft axis and the cross axis. The two measures provide a means to determine leeway, or the speed at which a sailboat "sideslips" when sailing forward.
Leeway is particularly challenging to measure since it is typically very mild relative to forward speed. Furthermore, the measurements must be measured relative to the water frame of reference since currents are often present and leeway is generally biased if measured with a GPS.
During the three days of testing, we learned much about the possibilities of this type of measurment as well as the not-so-intuitive sailing characteristics of the Star sailboat. We are not only grateful for Eivind's and Petter's cooperation but also their enthusiasm to learn more about the Star from a more scientific standpoint.
