Frederick Courouble joins Kernan Yacht Design

by Media Services on 18 Dec 2007 Kernan Yacht Design LLC is pleased to announce the addition of Frederick Courouble the design team.

President, Tim Kernan commented, 'Fred brings many years of experience having worked in top design offices such as Frers, Joubert-Nivelt, and most recently Andrews. We're very excited about his groundbreaking research which has recently proven its effectiveness in the 32nd America's Cup. Fred's ongoing research with the aerospace department at Cal-State Long Beach will allow Kernan Yacht Design to offer our clients capabilities that few other design offices can match.'

Hailing from France, with a degree in Naval Architecture from the Southampton Institute in the United Kingdom, Courouble began his career with the World's Windsurfing Indoor Championship Circuit. As part of that team, he was responsible for designing new systems and jumps.

Later, he was a part of the shore and sailing crew for Marc Thiercellin's Open 60 Vendee Globe campaign. This experience with Open 60 yachts introduced him to Joubert-Nivelt where he became a consultant running the tank testing program to optimize the performance prediction for new Open 60 designs.

In 1997 he joined the German Frers office in Milan where he was responsible for the International Measurement System (IMS) optimization and the Yacht Velocity Prediction (VPP) analysis for all the racing designs during the America's cup for the Prada campaign. And for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, he consulted with the Bruni's Brothers in performance optimization for the Italian 49er Olympic Team. After the 2000 Olympic Games, Courouble relocated to the United States where he collaborated with Alan Andrews until 2007.

Courouble also continued his education and in 2007 received his Masters of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering with an emphasis in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Aerodynamics from California State University Long Beach (CSULB). In the spring of 2007, Courouble was awarded the 'Outstanding Master's Thesis' in Aerospace Engineering from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of CSULB.

The award was for his research in the Application of Constructive Neural Networks to America's Cup Racing Yacht Performance Optimization which was based upon his two-year collaboration with the South African 'Shosholoza' syndicate's challenge for the 32 nd America's Cup. He was only one of five to receive the award out of a class of 187.