Olympic technology transposed

North Sails One Design division open a new loft where one project is a new Enterprise sail, reports Gerald New

North Sails One Design and Sailcare divisions have recently relocated to a new, larger facility at Gosport from the old Hamble loft. The new purpose-built 6000sqft loft, with large, waist high layout tables, will allow the rapidly expanding section to build on their success in the Olympic classes and spread this expertise to other one-design classes.

It may seem mundane to move from the development of sails for Britain's Olympic team to one of the oldest one design classes in the UK, but North, under the direction of Dinghy One Design Sales manager, Paul Hobson, have already demonstrated, with recent successes in the Solo and OK classes, that they can spin-off their expertise gained on the rigorous Olympic circuit to the dinghy heartland. The Enterprise class is next on the list to get the North Sails make-over.

North 3DL technology has been developed in the hot-house that is the America's Cup and international grand prix and ocean racing circuits, where the big sails and the ever bigger loads imposed on them drive the requirement for accurate measurement and analytical tools. With the computer programmes developed there they are able to construct an elaborate 3D model of the sail with its mould shape and material thread patterns to predict the flying shape.

These programs allow them to closely control the shape and predict the performance of the sail and to be able to quickly reshape the sail to incorporate information from on-water testing. Through their development of sails for Iain Percy and Shirley Robertson and major development programmes for all the Olympic classes where a choice of sail is allowed, they have compiled a rich information database.

By bringing this big-boat technology to dinghy sails North are looking to provide a significant performance gain from building sails with extremely close tolerances and panel layouts that maintain designed shape and draft characteristics over a greater wind range.

The North design programmes also allow them to take moulds produced for one class and transfer that known shape to another class. Thus, the Solo sail used by Jim Hunt to win the last Nationals and the OK sail used by Nick Craig to win the Inlands were based on the mould developed for Iain Percy's Gold Medal Finn sail.

Enterprise sail development continued page 2...