Parametric design of sailing hull shapes

The author presents an original algorithm aimed at automatically generating the hull shape of a sailing yacht starting from an initial set of parameters. The procedure consists of two steps. First one keel line and a Designed Water Line (DWL in the following) are faired according to a set of parameters, say length of water line, canoe body draft, stem angle and some adimensional coefficients. This information is then used to fair the hull surface, which must in turn fulfil more prerequisites (parameters like displaty cement, floatation area and related coefficients). The hull is defined by means of a B-spline surface, the fairing of which is ensured by allowing for all the imposed objectives and constraints. An optimisation technique based upon the gradient method ensures that a reliable solution is obtained in a very short time. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.