How sailor morphology affects Olympic windfoil performance?
Résumé
The Olympic windfoiling class consist in a windsurfing board that flies above the water with a hy-
drofoil. The sail is held by the sailor whose weight and position are key in the balance with aerody-
namic and hydrodynamic forces. Therefore, understanding performance relative to sailor morphol-
ogy is crucial. Windfoil performance is complex to model due to factors like aero-hydrodynamics,
cavitation [1], and/or free surface effects [2] and fluid-structure interactions [3]. To assess the per-
formance of a windfoil, the use of a Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) is a conventional approach
[4] for sailing boat.
This work presents the development of a 5DOF VPP tailored to windfoiling, optimizing sail an-
gle, sailor position, and kinematic orientation. A simplified biomechanical model of the sailor is
included to evaluate the impact of the sailor’s morphology on performance. The numerical flow
model uses the Vortex Lattice Method (VLM), without considering structural effects, to minimize
calculation costs.
The results show that the VPP converges to different optimal positions and orientations for sailors
with different morphologies. This work is part of the project ”Du Carbone `a l’Or Olympique” and is
funded by the Agence Nationale de La Recherche (ANR) through grant n°ANR-19- STHP-0002.