SYRF receives major new donation to support the Science of Sailing

by Dobbs Davis on 8 Jun 2015 The Sailing Yacht Research Foundation (SYRF) is pleased to announce a major new donation from Mr. Terry Kohler of Sheboygan, WI, which will provide significant assistance in SYRF’s mission to support the science of sailing. Mr. Kohler’s donation is his latest in a long history of support for the sport of offshore sailing.

“Terry’s donation is a new milestone for SYRF,” says Chairman Steve Benjamin. “It represents Terry’s strong belief in the role that science and technology should play in the improvement and development of offshore sailing. Specifically, these funds will help SYRF support continuing research on improving the ability of VPP’s to more accurately predict the performance of offshore yachts. This is an important field of study, and we’re very pleased Terry has expressed his ongoing support for this and other SYRF scientific research projects.”

Among SYRF’s recent studies has been the Wide Light project, a study that examined the hydrodynamics of modern offshore racing yacht hulls using both tank testing and CFD validations. A report on the Wide Light project from principal researcher Andy Claughton at the Wolfson Unit of the University of Southampton will be published soon.

SYRF has also funded the development of the SYRF Online Library, where published works in the aero- and hydrodynamics of sailing are collated into a searchable database. Both new and old published works are continually being added to this library, with hundreds of papers and datasets currently in the collection.

With the generosity of Terry’s donation, the SYRF Board of Directors is now able to fund several new proposals under consideration to enhance the scientific knowledge of sailing. Two studies recently approved are as follows:

- David Egan of Ennova Technologies has been approved to examine the effect of bow waves in CFD computations using selected data points from the Wide Light project for validation.

- Another project using this dataset is being conducted at the University of Michigan by Dan Kowalyshyn, who will make an Aegir panel code comparative analysis of the model hull used in the Wide Light study. Jim Teeters says “This is exactly what we want to happen by disseminating the Wide Light data to the public: new analyses and studies to deepen our understanding of the problem.”

Other SYRF news is that Myles Cornwell has been elected to the position of Executive Director, Stan Honey has been elected as President, and Jim Teeters is now in the Technical Director position. This new team line-up will be highly effective in managing the technical details of ongoing SYRF projects, evaluating the merits of proposals for new projects, and exploring new sources of funding support for SYRF.

And Jay Hansen has been welcomed as the newest member of the Board of Directors. Hansen is an avid sailor in a variety of types of boats, and recently has been asked by US Sailing to be responsible for US Offshore.