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HIGH-SPEED SAILING PROFILE AN ELITE dramatic racing that the Cup has However, lessons in control ever seen. systems and even foil section But there was also a stark design could have an influence in reminder as to the risks involved other areas of yacht design, be it and the level at which the new the methods of draft reducing technology was being pushed. lifting keels on cruising boats, or ENTREPRENEUR Seven months after Oracle’s more refined high-lift/low-drag capsize, tragedy struck when foil sections for keels, rudders and British Olympic sailor Andrew even roll stabilisers. RETRACTED CANTED NO CANT Simpson was killed aboard When it comes to the solid wing sails, it is less likely that this Artemis Racing, one of the Retracted Wind David Braben FREng technology will trickle down into position other challengers, when the Downwind boat capsized and broke up mainstream yachting. Despite position their impressive efficiency and Wind during training. Windward hull Upwind their ability to reduce loads in the position A multi-million pound business that develops computer control lines, the wings are Wind games had its origins in David Braben’s schoolboy hobby FOILING AND complex and expensive to build. Leeward hull WINGSAILS Stepping (taking down) and of programming a simple PC. Three decades later, his The future for sailing hydrofoils is removing such wings is also an exciting one. The fast-paced difficult and potentially risky, company, Frontier Developments plc, has successfully Under America’s Cup rules: racing of the America’s Cup not particularly in windy conditions - No moving surfaces allowed floated on the London Stock Exchange. Braben has only highlighted the thrill and when the wing still wants to fly - Foil cannot extend outside maximum beam, hence the ‘L’ configuration - Boats are not permitted to have both daggerboards lowered for more than 30 seconds speed of sailing on foils, but it has whether it is attached to the boat been instrumental as a co-founder of the Raspberry Pi also enabled a greater or not. Stepping an AC72 wing Foundation, helping to bring to thousands of schools a understanding of how such takes around 30 people, and like BALANCING ON FOILS configurations may work without modern equivalent of the hobbyist computer that got him other teams, Emirates Team New The curvature helps to align the ‘L’ shaped foil into more of a ‘V’ as conventional moving control Zealand have had several the daggerboard is lowered, but this can be increased by canting started. He talked to Michael Kenward at Frontier’s HQ surfaces. There is also a greater alarming moments when the the daggerboard in towards the centre of the boat as well. In the understanding of how much in Cambridge. wing has overpowered them absence of any control surfaces on the foil, this ‘V’ configuration more stable a fast-moving boat is during the stepping process. provides a self-levelling effect. when it is riding on its hydrofoils. For the future of wingsails, As the boat accelerates, the hull rises and the amount of foil As a schoolboy, David Braben loved writing The company, Frontier Developments Given the problems of practicality is the limiting factor. in the water reduces as does the amount of vertical lift that is programs on an Acorn Atom. This was a plc, employs more than 250 people, encountering waves at high Throughout the history of the generated until an equilibrium between the downward force of time before personal computers provided with around 100 programmers working speed with conventional, non- America’s Cup, technology has the hull and the upward lift of the hydrofoils is reached. sophisticated programming packages to alongside 100 designers. The business foiling boats, hydrofoiling always played an important part For controlling the ride height when the self-levelling effects manage all aspects of life. It was certainly develops computer games that sell in continues to offer the possibility elsewhere in the sport. From before computer games rivalled feature films their millions. of increased speeds in otherwise electronic wind instruments of the ‘V configuration’ were not available, the angle of attack of in their visual effects and complexity. These games have large and devoted challenging sea states. developed in the 1930s to the the bottom ‘L’ section of the foil could be altered by raking the The Acorn’s attraction for this youngster followings. Last year, nearly 27,000 fans But foiling is not the future for wing keels and Kevlar sails of the daggerboard fore and aft, again using hydraulic rams manually with an interest in science and engineering opened their wallets on Kickstarter, the all. While the America’s Cup has 1980s, the America’s Cup has operated by the crew. The boat maintains its fore and aft trim was that he could easily teach himself how to crowdsourcing site, to raise £1.25 million for always provided a trickle down always had a greater influence with the T-foil on the rudders, which hold the stern down. Under write programs as all the tools and languages the development of the latest version of the for technology, foiling is unlikely than has at first been apparent. the rules, these were only adjustable when not racing. were provided with the machine, from BASIC Elite game, now one of Frontier’s flagship to be used on typical cruising For all its radical changes, the to full assembly language programming. products. It will cost a lot more than that boats of the future. The heavy immediate benefits of this BIOGRAPHY “I found the whole learning process extremely to develop the game, says Braben, but keels of monohulls and even the America’s Cup cycle may be Matthew Sheahan is racing and technical editor for Yachting compelling,” he says. These days, Braben runs crowdsourcing also offers “a fantastic, novel relatively heavy structure of difficult to see at present, but the World magazine and has covered every America’s Cup since a software business based in the Cambridge opportunity for bringing a game to market cruising multihulls, make it 34th America’s Cup will doubtless 2002. He previously worked in the marine industry at Proctor Bell and Braben’s Elite broke new ground when Masts before which he had studied yacht and boat design at it was published in 1984. It was published by Science Park with a game development without using a publisher and building a extremely difficult to generate provide key developments and Acornsoft for the BBC Micro and the Acorn studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia. community around the game.” sufficient power-to-weight ratios technologies for the wider sport what is now Solent University. A keen racing sailor himself he Electron computers and the necessary righting in the future, just as it has during has sat on various main and technical committees in the sport. moments. the last 162 years. 42 INGENIA INGENIA ISSUE 57 DECEMBER 2013 43 David Braben FREng PROFILE This was not, though, the end of his interest in astronomy. As a games designer, he would indulge his interest and design his own universes, galaxies and planets as central elements in a series of successful games Braben continued to develop his computing Elite’s arrival on the market coincided with compares what games writers do with how RASPBERRY PI skills during his undergraduate years. He and the end of Braben’s undergraduate days. “My architects work. Both work mostly on a One of Braben’s recent ventures is about Bell managed to complete work on the first university work became my hobby. Essentially, computer, creating buildings that someone as far removed from the cutting edge of version of the Elite game during this time, else will realise. “I see engineering in the by the time I left university I was running computer hardware as it is possible to but did not know what they could do with it. virtual world as no different from engineering a business.” get. He was one of the six founders who Who would sell it for them? in a real world.” This did not stop Braben from toying devised the Raspberry Pi, a mini computer Computer games were primitive in the Games software also requires with the idea of staying on to do a PhD. He that harks back to the Acorn Atom and BBC early 1980s, as was the business around them. heavyweight software engineering, with had already applied his computing skills to Micro – the computers that first appealed to “It was very amateurish,” says Braben. unique requirements for reliability and the astronomy – looking at gravity and planets Braben and thousands of young people like ”Most games makers set out to mimic ability to work on different hardware. around binary stars. He thought about him and helped to create a generation of arcade games. It was focused on what the accepting an invitation to turn his work into computer enthusiasts. He says: “In the early industry called the coin drop, with the a PhD project, but, with a business to run, GAMING IMPROVEMENTS 2000s, I noticed that at Frontier the number goal of extracting another coin from the Braben went on to become a freelance game Braben does see signs of growing of people getting through to the interview player’s pocket.” designer. This was not, though, the end of his appreciation of the sophistication of stage for our jobs was decreasing. That was Braben saw little point in forcing the same interest in astronomy. As a games designer, gaming software. This is helped by the fact quite worrying. We wanted more people, four or five minute experience on games for he would indulge his interest and design his that many of today’s engineers are, as the not fewer.” At first, he wondered if it was the the home market.

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