Vidmar, Peter; Perkovic, Marko
(Scientific Journals of the Maritime University of Szczecin, Zeszyty Naukowe Akademii Morskiej w Szczecinie,
2012)
The research explained in this paper was carried out to investigate the efficiency of different steering systems on sailing yachts. The steering system of a sail yacht mostly includes a simple steering system and a hydrodynamic shaped single rudder or multiple rudders, depending on boat characteristics. One of the basic design guidelines for fast sailing yachts is to reduce wetted surface to minimum allowed by the dynamic stability and maintaining the sailing performances. Deficiencies of different steering systems are discussed and their influences on total drag and yacht manoeuvrability in different sailing directions is analysed. The discussion is focused on steering systems applicable in practice and accepted by the yacht-building industry, although several innovations could be found that remained on their development stage because of their complexity in construction, maintenance, use itself and reliability. All measurements have been conducted at sea applying on board sensors for position and accelerations acquirements. The purpose of the research was to demonstrate that the use of the bended rudder can reduce the leeway angle, the upwind sailing angle and increase the velocity made good to windwar