The Ocean Race 2023 leg 2: Cabo Verde to Capetown

[fab156]

I think it's only logical that the request is granted. I doubt there is advantage being gained here, unless someone knows for sure that the old set is better suited to southern ocean. Even then it wouldn't be intentional as the damage will be clear to prove.

Malizia also swapped out foils late before the start due to damage. Assume they were not repairable and Innovation Couer will get a new set off the production line since it was there's that went to Malizia.

This is obviously cutting edge technology here, no one has pushed a foiling imoca like this leg3 is going to. Maybe they all need to be engineered a bit beefier by regulation?

Assume a set of foils is not cheap, but probably more availability and time that prevents you having 2 sets. Not sure how much has changed and how many manufacturers there are,

Anatomy of the foils, how are IMOCA foils made?

_ Discovery of the manufacture of IMOCa foils with the meeting of Luc Talbourdet, manager of the company Avel Robotics which produces these foils in a fully robotized way.

www.boatsnews.com

Malizia did not get the foils from Sam, they are identical to hers though. See following autotranslated excerpt from an respective article in German Yacht magazine:

"Due to the closest visual proximity, speculation that it was the foils of Sam Davies' "Initiatives Cœur 4" was not long in coming. And they are indeed on the right track. The design is exactly the same, but they are not Davies' foils. Instead, they were intended for a sister ship that has not yet been completed (skipper and boat will be made public during boot Düsseldorf) and are thus completely new.

"Initiatives Cœur 4" is considered lighter compared to Boris Herrmann's deliberately solidly designed and built boat - quite a decisive factor in the choice of profiles. In addition, the two Imocas and thus also the foils come from two different designers. This is astonishing, but there was no alternative, because there is simply no current Imoca from the same design office. While "Malizia - Seaexplorer" was created at VPLP according to Herrmann's special ideas, Sam Davies' boat is a design by Sam Manuard, more precisely a modified replica of "Bureau Vallée" (ex. "l'Occitane")."
https://www.yacht.de/regatta/the-oc...ie-wahrheit-ueber-boris-herrmanns-neue-foils/

And yes, if the foils suffered damage it is ok if 11th is allowed to switch. In such case they should stay with the new foils until the end of the race though. The smaller foils might be favorable in the SO leg and switching back to repaired bigger foils after the leg would seem a bit odd to me. But I don't know what the rules say.

 

[Chasm]

The NOR has not much to say about foils:

6.4 By 1630 on 6th January 2023, IMOCA 60 Teams shall nominate one pair of the foils as the
primary foils. Only the primary foils shall be carried or used on the Boat after the Assembly
Date. If a primary foil suffers serious damage that cannot be repaired before a Leg start, the
Team may apply to the OA for permission to replace the damaged foil with a replacement foil.
Primary and replacement foils with serious damage may, with the permission of the OA, be
repaired or replaced during the Race to their original design and specification.

So replacing foils has been thought about but the actual way it is done is up to the race.

 

[jimmy_81]

Request to replace the foils has been approved:

UPDATE - Request for foil change approved

Race Committee grants 11th Hour Racing Team’s request to replace damaged foils

www.theoceanrace.com

 

[NotSoFast]

The NOR has not much to say about foils:

On the contrary, the NOR you quoted defines what they are not allowed to do:

Primary and replacement foils with serious damage may, with the permission of the OA, be
repaired or replaced during the Race to their original design and specification.

That makes it very clear they are not allowed to fix damaged foils by making them thicker than the original design by just adding additional layers without grinding out any damaged area, even if that would not make them any stronger due to damage deeper from the surface. So no quick fix possible due to the rules, even if that would be a possibility from a technical point of view. (I'm not claiming it is.)

 

[NZK]

Malizia did not get the foils from Sam, they are identical to hers though. See following autotranslated excerpt from an respective article in German Yacht magazine:

Does this mean they're actually from Phil Sharpe's new boat? Isn't his the other Manuard design...?

I'm glad the foil replacement has been granted - with only 5 boats the race can't afford to have non-starters if at all avoidable....

 

[NotSoFast]

11th Hour Racing difficult call. I guess the other boats sponsors and the organisers will want them to carry on as a four boat race is not ideal. So allow them to change foils which would seem to break the rules (one set of foils, otherwise you could change foils each leg optimised for the conditions). They could reinforce the damaged foils in Cape Town in the time they have, but that would make them heavier and probably slightly less aerodynamic.

heavier and less hydrodynamic = not to the original design and specification and thus not allowed by NOR 6.4. as quoted by Chasm in post: https://forums.sailinganarchy.com/t...-2-cabo-verde-to-capetown.240589/post-8220200

 

[NotSoFast]

Request to replace the foils has been approved:

UPDATE - Request for foil change approved

Race Committee grants 11th Hour Racing Team’s request to replace damaged foils

www.theoceanrace.com

Interesting that the permission does allow replacement foil to be used, but it does not also allow repairing the primary foils during the race. According to quoted NOR 6.4. that does also need a permission, even if primary foils is never used in this race again in any leg!
What is the result if 11hr does repair the primary foils without permission during the next leg, and later get caught braking NOR 6.4 by doing so?
DSQ or something less? Hope they read the rules carefully before taking action.

 

[fab156]

Does this mean they're actually from Phil Sharpe's new boat? Isn't his the other Manuard design...?

I'm glad the foil replacement has been granted - with only 5 boats the race can't afford to have non-starters if at all avoidable....

Yes, the new Malizia foils are from Phil Sharp's new boat, which is a sistership of Initiative Coer. Since it will not be launched before July 2023, Phil will have new foils being build before that and Malizia was able to buy the ones that were already build for him.

Britain's Phil Sharp on his new Sam Manuard designed IMOCA

Britain's Phil Sharp will line up with a new zero emissions Sam Manuard IMOCA highlighting hydrogen fuel cell technology.

www.sail-world.com

 

[Zonker]

There does seem to be quite a lot of 'non-impact' foil issues arising with new gen IMOCAs - I don't understand physics or composites enough but it seems to be stemming from leading edge degradation/cracking....

I would guess that (a) these foils are all solid carbon (b) made in precision CNC matched molds (c) glued together after top and bottom surfaces are molded together.

Doubtful you can easily repair them if the damage is on the leading edge. It's not like "get out a grinder, slap on some more carbon and fair with a bit of bog". The shapes are way too critical for that.

Hmm, not the foil in question. But you can see how much solid carbon in them. This one looks like it broke

AC foil ARMs not foils under construction

Wonder if they just lay up a solid rectangular piece and then CNC machine the foil shape afterward. The narrator of a video also spoke of a "wet lap" but it was clear some of the pieces were pre-preg.

OK - found this article from 2020. Surprised there is much foam in them.

Anatomy of the foils, how are IMOCA foils made?

_ Discovery of the manufacture of IMOCa foils with the meeting of Luc Talbourdet, manager of the company Avel Robotics which produces these foils in a fully robotized way.

www.boatsnews.com

What's a foil made of?​

The profile is composed of 5 parts:

• the central barrot [beam/spine]
• the rectangular structural element
• on each side, there are foam block elements
• the leading and trailing edges are made of carbon

The rectangular central element is made of intermediate modulus carbon fiber with the addition of high modulus, but given the cost of the latter, it remains limited!

 

[minca3]

This is obviously cutting edge technology here, no one has pushed a foiling imoca like this leg3 is going to. Maybe they all need to be engineered a bit beefier by regulation?

This is purely speculation on my part but I think the problem with the foils is the dynamic nature of their loads. I assume todays NAs can predict the loads fairly accurately in a static setup (constant wind speed, flat sea, constant boat speed). They might be able to simulate a bunch of scenarios with boats foiling in a not-flat sea state. But apparently that doesn't cover every case that the real foils actually experience. The 11th hour statement says they recorded one single load peak before cape verde. Team Malizias foils broke apparently due to a inverse load direction.

Now the problem for the NA is: design the foils to handle rare load spikes that you don't know for rare load cases that you don't know. And if you add lots of structural margin than your boat will loose because it's too heavy.

 

[jimmy_81]

Of course there’s always been a large element of bad luck involved in breakages on IMOCAs, given the conditions they endure. But the foils do seem to be introducing an extra level of vulnerability.

Will be v interesting to see how the new daggerboard boats perform in comparison.

 

[minca3]

Video from the TOR with some shots of the 11th foils:



Also in the background of the 11th hour CEO interview you can see crew patching up one of the rudders

 

[Norcal]

There was enough damage to foils, or to boats caused by foils, in the last VG to make me wonder how foiled monohulls made sense for this race, as Mad noted above in this thread, especially in the Southern Ocean, and the race isn't even there yet.
Charlie Enright must feel like he is snake bit about now in the VOR/TOR, with a boat on boat collision and a dismasting in the 2917-18 VOR, and now this foil issue.

Conspiracy theorist here, or is Charlie simply using the largest budget in the race to flex some muscle with TOR to change foils hoping that it will bring more speed and a better result after two bad legs to start the race?

 

[Zonker]

Yes. We can design to known loads very accurately. It's the unknown loads that break stuff. (seriously that's why boat design can be hard at the high levels. We're just guessing at wave peak loads).

The first time they put lots of strain gauges on the bottom panels of an Open 60 in front of the keel there was a lot of "Whoa. Fuck me" <in French> because the impact (slamming) events were much, much higher than anybody realized.

 

[allweather]

OK - found this article from 2020.

Do you know if they mean one design foils(or at least smaller series) when they talk about how they could cut down production time if they were "monotype" foils?

It feels like back when keels failed far more often and parts got standardized which the class does not wish to do for foils yet due to how new the field is, right?
Too limiting in spite of the potential savings and easier replacement.

 

[Fiji Bitter]

As far as those wonderfully stiff carbon structures go, I'm afraid it simply is a very unforgiving material.
Indeed it doesn't like peak loads, and that induces a (lesser known) fatigue problem, if it's not breaking like a matchstick before that.

And making it too strong and heavy is an agricultural method for tractors, that's not an option.
So, it's something to monitor as good as you can, but remains a bit of a gamble, like much in sailing. Good thing is they still sail quite well without a board, but much less with a ½ one. Never ending dilemma's...

 

[3to1]

I almost find it hard to believe these foils aren't purposely designed/tuned for significant flex as the loading changes through waves. some here have speculated they're solid carbon, that seems too elementary to me.
with carbon structures, there's all kinds of ways to add strength/stiffness(and some tuned in flex) without simply adding more mass, but more refined layups. the scenario is very complex and unforgiving, there's so many ways to get it wrong.
imo, this weird foiling shit on offshore monos is a little over the top for it's own good, I'm looking forward to seeing what the new daggerboard boats have to offer.

 

[Zonker]

Carbon is actually very good in fatigue. Among the best of materials.

 

[3to1]

Carbon is actually very good in fatigue. Among the best of materials.

yeah, but if you underestimate peak loads or blow the layup it all goes to shit. awesome material when it's properly utilized with good quality control during manufacturing.

 

[dg_sailingfan]

Attention EVERYBODY...

Leg 2 Highlights coming on Eursoport & Discovery+ tonight at 19.30 CET/18.30 UK Time (for European & UK Ocean Race Junkies).

Also available at 2pm ET US/Canada Time for those outside of the European Market.