Making SpeedDream a reality

Designer Vladislav Murnikov talks us through the nuts and bolts of his radical creation

Aside from the AC72s, prize for the coolest boat to be launched in 2012 must go to SpeedDream. While the project aspires to build an ocean-going maxi, in October they launched a 27ft long prototype.

SpeedDream’s concept comes from US-based Russian Vladislav Murnikov, who first came on to our radar as a designer of Fazisi, the Russian entry in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race. Since Skip Novak and the Russian crew got their radical maxi around the world, Murnikov has since taken up residence in the USA where from time to time he has conjured up new designs, most notably the MX-Ray singlehanded skiff. The common thread though from Fazisi through to SpeedDream is that Murnikov’s boats have been decidedly radical.

Initial inspiration for SpeedDream came Murnikov says came when he was following Team Russia in the 2008-9 Volvo Ocean Race, a race during which Ericsson 4 set the present monohull 24 hour record of 596.6 miles.

“With Fazisi our biggest day run was 386 miles,” he recalls. “I was watching on the computer how Ericsson 4 made 600 miles a day - for a monohull it was unbelievable, more than 50% faster than what we did 20 years before. Then I thought, if progress continues the same way, then in 20 years time a monohull will be able to cover 900 miles. Then I thought, I will be too old by then - why wait another 20 years?! So I started sketching...”

While SpeedDream as an overall concept is one radical-looking boat, Murnikov points out that if you look at each of its individual component parts, most have been tried before in other areas of yachting or powerboating: “What we did is analyse everything going on in multihulls and powerboats and we took what is best, combined it and developed it into a unique package. As a whole, the concept is revolutionary.”

Fundamental to the design is the canting keel. While the keels on VO70s and IMOCA 60s typically can be inclined to no more than +/- 45°, on SpeedDream the aim is for the keel to cant by almost twice this amount, thereby allowing the bulb to exit the water and ‘fly’. This of course sheds considerable drag while at the same time either achieving substantially more righting moment or a lighter bulb.

“Roughly the same time as I started thinking about the flying keel, other guys - Reichel Pugh and Jo Richards with his lake racer on Lake Garda [were also thinking about it]. Sometimes it is mind boggling how thinking comes to several people at the same time...” says Murnikov, referring to Ian Oatley’s R-P designed Q and the Jo Richards-Guy Whitehouse penned Stravaganza, both boats 42ft long.

Above: Q. Below: Stravaganza

However Murnikov was well aware of the profound technical issues with a flying keel: “Structurally it is a nightmare. It is very difficult to resolve it technically.” For example Q had keel issues during last year’s Audi Winter Series on Sydney Harbour, falling over on its side.

To help him with the project, Murnikov has gathered a ‘design team’. Rodger Martin and Pedrick Yacht Design have come in on the design, while the vital engineering work is being carried out by Gurit plus Steve Koopman, Dirk Kramers’ partner at SDK Structures, Doyle CFD and various others.

Stepped hull

Before we look more at SpeedDream’s keel, we should point out that her hull has a step, which we first came across on sailing boats with Yves Parlier’s revolutionary catamaran Mediatis Region Aquitaine and is regularly used in powerboat hulls. We believe SpeedDream is the first monohull sailing yacht to have this feature (although some Open class boats in the past, like Hunter’s Child, have featured tiny steps through which air is drawn, supposedly creating a similar, but smaller effect).

“The step was part of my initial concept,” says Murnikov. “With it you separate your planing surfaces into two areas and you reduce your contact with the water. You also move your centre of hydrodynamic lift forwards.”

In addition to reducing wetted surface area Murnikov says the step also serves to stabilise SpeedDream fore and aft to reduce pitching and so removes the need to alter longitudinal trim as achieved on VO70s, and particularly IMOCA 60s, through the use of water ballast tanks.
R&D and simulation work on the step was carried out by Doyle CFD who work included investigating how it worked on different types of powerboat hull.

“It’s true that its biggest effect is when the speed is above 18-20 knots for our size of boat,” says Murnikov. “But the bad side of the step diminishes very fast. Just 10-15 years ago, when Volvo and IMOCA boats started to have submerged transoms, in light winds there would be extra drag, but everyone found that even at low speeds – 5-6-7 knots - the water started separating from the transom. Even at low speeds, like 6-7 knots, there is no visible disturbance to the water behind the step, so it doesn’t feel like the step is any kind of hindrance at low speed.”

Murnikov also points out that the stepped hull on Parlier’s catamaran has a more marked difference in the angles between its forward and aft planing surfaces, more akin to a hydroplane (which Parlier indeed modelled it on). In comparison on SpeedDream it is substantially less, more akin to the stepped hulls of powerboats.

“We will see how it works - my biggest fear was that it would be bad at low speed and that doesn’t seem to really be the case, but it is too early to say,” says Murnikov.

Keel

Cunningly, the step also works as the forward mounting point for the substantial pin around which the keel cants.

Achieving a keel that will cant through almost 180° is no mean feat. Q has a giant lateral slot running across the underside of her hull and up her topsides. On Stravaganza the solution is more radical with a keel mounted on a massive ‘doughnut’ that in order to rotate has to be circular in shape, but which in turn dictates the hull shape in this area.

For SpeedDream Murnikov says they have come up with a number of solutions. While he won’t divulge the others, the one that is public allows the keel a cant angle of up to +/- 82-3 degrees through a very much more conventional set-up - possible through a combination of having a very flat hull shape and the keel axis point slightly proud of the hull.

Whereas on IMOCA 60s and VO70s the top part of the keel foil, protruding inside the boat, is small to keel the centre of gravity low, this in turn creates a short lever arm and so considerable force must be applied via a hydraulic ram to cant the keel. On SpeedDream the solution is much simpler - the axis pin for the foil simply extends forward through the step in the hull, where it attaches to a relatively much longer lever arm.

So on the 27ft prototype, the keel is 10ft long and carries a 160kg bulb. Inside the boat the lever arm is 2ft 6in. “So the forces inside are only 4x higher and in our case the canting arm goes all the way to the top of the deck,” says Murnikov.

As a result the force required to cant the keel is relatively small, and on the 27, the keel is operated by a line via a Harken ProTrim, driven by an electric motor.

“The interesting thing with this canting keel is that you don’t need that much energy, because when you cant the keel you let it fall down by gravity before you tack or gybe. And you also don’t need to cant the keel very fast. We developed a system where we can the keel in 6-8 seconds, but we found we don’t need it – it’s too fast,” says Murnikov, who adds that he imagines in the future a self-sustaining system whereby the power required to cant the keel is derived solely from solar panels.

The concept drawings of SpeedDream show it as having a keel that not only cants but also lifts. This doesn’t feature on the 27ft prototype to avoid this additional complexity at this stage, but is something Murnikov plans to investigate in the future.

Hull shape

Aside from the step and the ‘flying’ canting keel, the most obvious radical feature of SpeedDream is her hull shape. “If you look at our boat, people say it is upside-down. Either we are right and everyone else has been wrong for 1000s of years or we’re wrong!” quips Murnikov.

He describes the hull shape as being narrow (which with the 27ft prototype having a BMax of 3ft, it certainly is) and triangular in shape along its waterplane, so that when heeled it is like two catamaran hulls joined at the bow. “It is like a modern boat or an IMOCA 60/VO70, but they have too much beam, so they have this area around the mid-section which we don’t need because our stability comes purely from the keel. With the 1:9 beam:hull ratio, it is coming close to a multihull in its characteristics and we could go narrower, but for the moment we thought ‘let’s play it safe’,” says the designer.

More radical is SpeedDream’s reverse shear wave-piercing bow, strongly resembling the floats on modern day racing trimarans. “They have used them on multihulls for quite a while, but to my knowledge no one has used them on a monohull,” says Murnikov.

As to criticisms that having such a bow will encourage SpeedDream to bury its bow and pitchpole, Murnikov maintains that quite the opposite is true. The 27ft prototype he says needs to be thought of as a 22 footer with a 5ft bowsprit, only where the space between the bow and the end of the bowsprit has been filled in (again something that has been done to the main hull of trimarans since Ellen MacArthur’ B&Q up to the modern day MOD70s).

“So technically I am not taking volume off the bow, I am adding volume to it,” argues Murnikov. “Even though we have a sharp slender bow, in fact it has more buoyancy forward, not less.”

As to the upside-down shape of the bow section, where the widest part is low, tapering up towards the deck, the idea is that if this bow does bury then its shape will offer less resistance to popping out. Compare this with when a classic V-shaped bow buries, and water being scooped on deck can cause it to pitchpole. Murnikov adds: “The chance of this hull really going underwater is much smaller than a traditional hull. We haven’t tested the boat [the 27] at high speed yet, so I can’t say that with 100% confidence, but in the computer it is a case of 'so far so good'.”

DSS foil

The concept drawings also show SpeedDream as having a Dynamic Stability Systems-style retractable foil to leeward to create righting moment. However the SpeedDream lateral foil has a giant hook on the end of it which doesn’t feature in Hugh Welbourn’s design. However the DSS foil has been left off the 27ft prototype. Murnikov is keen on the idea, but remains to be 100% convinced of the benefits of the Dynamic Stability Systems foil arrangement.

He explains: “I come from Russia and Russia was one of the pioneers of hydrofoils and there were tonnes of commercial ferries and military craft, patrol boats that were on hydrofoils. Then they found that when you go faster, efficiency drops and you would be better... if you look at today’s military patrol boats they are not hydrofoils, they are just planing hulls.

“The problem with the foil as I see it, and it might be solved in the future, is that there is always the big risk that you will fly, you will leave the water. And if the boat jumps into the air, she will inevitably crash. I really praise what the L’Hydroptere guys are doing - that is a beautiful feat, a huge achievement - but they have had a lot of trouble and at some point the boat does jump into the air and crash down. So I am not truly a believer in hydrofoils.”

However the lateral foil it is something they are still contemplating. As the SpeedDream prototype is roughly the same size as the Quant 28 DSS boat that has been racing with great success on the Swiss lakes and is currently going into production in the UK (an update on this follows next week), Murnikov hopes that the two boats will get to line up so that they can see the differences.

The reality

Built by Lyman Moores in Maine in smart clear coated carbon fibre, the 27ft prototype was launched in October partly to bring some reality to the SpeedDream project, but also to have a scale model with which to verify and refine their CFD. But they obviously want to learn about the characteristics of the boat and its state of the art features so that these can be refined in future larger models.

To date the boat has been sailing just three times in light winds with notable multihull sailor Cam Lewis on the helm. “I estimated that she was easily doing 1.5x wind speed after just putting up the sails. And the keel came out of the water. We have had comparatively little sailing time, but everything works pretty much as we expected and we look forward to continuing the testing and developing,” says Murnikov, who hopes that speed-wise the boat will reach the high 20s, possibly as much as 30 knots eventually when they sail her in stronger conditions.

“One thing we found, which was a hugely pleasant surprise, is that we haven’t noticed any kind of jot or unpleasant behaviour when the keel drops back into the water. You don’t feel anything, it goes in smoothly.” But this is also the case with catamarans when their weather hull drops back into the water. “When a catamaran hulls drops back into the water, it is a long stable hull. In our case we thought there would be some disturbance, like a twisting moment that might affect the steering, but you don’t feel it at all.”

At present with the 27 they have achieved +/- 80° of cant on the keel, a few degrees short of maximum, however this has been enough to lift the bulb clear of the water. Obviously the heel of the boat to the wind also assists in this and the 27ft SpeedDream is designed to be sailed with 17° of heel to minimise wetted surface area.

There have a few breakages. The line controlling the canting keel broke and they were using a Harken ProTrim to operate the keel which also needs to be beefed up before they go sailing again. They will continue working up the boat when they head for Florida in January while the plan is to bring the boat to Europe next summer.

Partnering a Russian giant

An interesting development with the SpeedDream campaign is a company called Yandex coming on board as ‘technology partner’.

Yandex is a Russian search engine that at present has a larger share of the Russian market than Google and has designs on extending its reach beyond its domestic market (check out its English version here). As Murnikov describes it: “They have different algorithm with is optimised better, so if you search for something it doesn’t give you thousands of options, it will give you hundreds, but they will be closer to what you are looking for. The company is young, but it is huge - it is a technology giant.”

Murnikov says that they aim to get Yandex to assist them with CFD work, as the company will be able to offer them 1,000-10,000 times the computing horsepower than they have been able to use up until now. “So it will be much more accurate and we can do CFD much faster.”

However they are also helping to harness the power of a Yandex optimisation algorithm. With SpeedDream having so many performance features over and above what a conventional yacht might have, this algorithm will be able to chew through all these variables to help determine an optimum solution.

The ultimate aim of SpeedDream remains to build a full scale 100ft ocean-going version to establish a fully crewed non-stop around the world record for monohulls (one of the few records out there that no one has yet achieved) and other records. However the 27 has also drummed up considerable interest and there are thoughts of turning it into a one design once they have ironed out its bugs.

SpeedDream’s marketing manager Brian Hancock is currently working on a new race format especially designed for the 27 called Speed Way, that would be appropriate for a boat like this.

In the meantime it is great news that Murnikov has launched his first SpeedDream boat. He now needs to ensure his creation becomes SpeedDream reality. “Even now when we have taken countless photos and videos, people are still saying it was just done in Photoshop...” he muses.