SGI again backing Team NZ

By ADAM GIFFORD

SGI has reaffirmed its commitment to Team New Zealand for a third America's Cup campaign, supplying more than $500,000 of hardware and support for the boat designers.

"SGI started helping us in 1994 when no one else wanted to know, so it's part of the family," said syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg.

Schnackenberg has used computers for yacht design for more than 25 years and said designers would use whatever power computer makers could throw at them.

"The first time I used a CFD [computational fluid dynamics] program for sails was in 1977," he said.

"I got a nice program going but we were hardware bound, we couldn't afford to run the program - doing a run cost $100 an hour for the processor and another $100 for RAM, and each run took about an hour.

"North Sails was just a little company then, so the research and development budget didn't expend to more than one or two runs."

The same program now would take seconds to run on a standard PC, or on the 11 high performance Unix workstations SGI has supplied the design team.

The workstations are used to design items like rudders, hinges, sails and mechanical devices and to model how much load can be put on the structures.

SGI has also installed a system in England, where hull designer Nick Holroyd is working, and a server to manage Team New Zealand's entire computer network.

Schnackenberg said that although increased power meant designers could ask more of the Machines, good design still came down to instinct and experience.

He said that where the computers came in handy was to win group buy-in on proposed design changes.

Designers create pressure maps over a boat's hull, keel, wings and sails, which allow them to see the effect of any design changes.

"With 3D visualisation, a group made up of different disciplines can see and understand exactly what is being proposed and why.

"Fluid flow is a good example of this. Without visualisation, we can't see the movement of air and water, just the effects of disturbance. By colouring areas of high and low pressure, we have a visual analysis of what is a very complicated phenomenon."

Although many boat parts are now totally computer designed, for some key parts, such as the hull, there is still no substitute for the traditional method of physically building models and testing them in tow tanks.

SGI Australia and New Zealand managing director Bill Trestrail said CFD and visual analysis was a big market for SGI, particularly in the aircraft, automotive and shipbuilding industries.