Case Study: Sea Trials on a 65 ft Planing Hull in Waves

SOPHYA – Seakeeping Of Planing Hull YAchts - is a joint academic-industrial research project co-funded by EU through the Regional Administration of Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region (Italy), whose aim is to investigate the correlation between the sea state and the performance of planing hulls in terms of seakindliness, safety and energy performance. The tools adopted by the project are CFD simulations, model and full scale tests in calm water and wavy conditions. The hull selected for these activities is a 65 footer from Monte Carlo Yachts s.p.a. As for the full scale sea trials, some of the partners of SOPHYA project, namely MICAD (design office), Monte Carlo Yachts (builder) and the University of Trieste, in collaboration with the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) and the University of Naples Federico II, planned, designed and carried out comprehensive full scale tests that include the simultaneous measurement of on-site sea state, of torque and rpm at the propeller shafts, of fuel consumption and of accelerations and angular displacements on board. The use of high fidelity/resolution sea-state forecast, running daily at the University of Trieste, allowed to plan the activities in order to carry out the full scale tests with the target significant wave height provided by the end users of the boat. This work describes the full scale tests conducted within SOPHYA Project, in particular those related to ship motions in waves. Some of the results obtained so far from the analysis of the data are presented.