Imagine a boat made from plastic bottles removed from the ocean and recycled glass fibers. Danish builder Rand Boats envisions fleets of such boats in major cities throughout the world. “Actually, I’m mostly a sailboat person,” says Carl Kai Rand, founder and chief designer at Rand Boats. “But I’m also a designer and...
When complicated stuff happens fast, you need help. New systems put the technology right in front of your eyes. Hefty America’s Cup budgets allow teams to use both virtual and augmented reality. If you are into investing, you might want to look at virtual and augmented reality. And if you are into sailing, you should...
Forget the rumors. There’s no ban on the horizon. Copper was recently EU approved as an active ingredient in antifouling, and there are interesting biocide-free alternatives on the market. Keeping marine growth off our hulls without damaging ocean life is a real dilemma. And the problem is getting worse, as the...
What factors will determine the outcome of the 35th America’s Cup? Where is the sport actually heading in the wake of the foiling revolution? Trimmer Christian Kamp from the Swedish sailing team Artemis Racing shares his thoughts. “We start out every morning with two hours of grinding. That’s basically all we do on...
The oceans are suffering from overfishing and plastic, oil, chemical and other pollutants. Thought leisure boating is not the biggest source of these problems, the boating community has a responsibility to evaluate and optimize its environmental impact. First on the agenda is a look at how marine activities strain the...
Additive manufacturing turns into a powerful tool for designing and building components. America’s Cup teams lead the way, as an Artemis engineer explained to us. The America’s Cup has always been a laboratory for new technological developments, even more so since the foiling catamaran revolution. Nowhere else in...
You’ve probably seen them: loops of Dyneema rope, so called “soft shackles,” or blocks in which certain elements are textile rather than metal. Even textile deck fittings are entering the market and becoming increasingly popular. This quiet revolution—the movement from hard steel toward soft materials—has been going...
