Description
“Theoretical Estimation of the Influence of Some Main Design Factors on the Performance of International Twelve Metre Class Yachts”, by Peter van Oossanen, Published in the Proceedings of the 4th Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium, Annapolis, USA, January 1979, pp. 77-103 (ID No. 3332).
This paper presents the results of a study of the effect of systematically varying length, beam, sail area, draught and stability on the attainable speed of International 12 Metre Class yachts. A notable conclusion of this study is that the optimum length and displacement in wind conditions similar to those in Newport, Rhode Island, during the months of June through September when the America’s Cup was held there, are considerably smaller than those of the yachts that had previously raced for the America’s Cup. This result of this study, in particular, was adopted for choosing waterline length, sail area and displacement for “Australia II”, the yacht that won the America’s Cup in 1983.
