As the first student team to participate in the prestigious Little Cup C-Class World Championship, team ‘Rafale’ of Montreal’s École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS) has come a long way in a short time to design and build a C-Class catamaran. These are high performance multihull sailboats with a maximal length of 25 feet and 14 feet width of width. The sail area of the rigid wing sail must be smaller than 300 square feet. The team of students challenged themselves to design a second boat which is 20% lighter than their previous one while maximizing its rigidity.
Primary Topics:
- Challenges and technology
- Composite optimization of the boat elements
- Implementing additive manufacturing techniques in the design process
Presenters: Louis Chevallier and Karl Blouin
Louis Chevallier, team co-captain: Student of ÉTS and French university ENSAM, master’s degree mechanical engineering. Currently writing his thesis about C-Class boat structure design. Passionate about foiling boats, Louis joined the team in last autumn to improve both his composite design and manufacturing skills.
Karl Blouin, team captain: Student from École de Technologie Supérieure, bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, passionate about sailing and anything touching the water, Karl joined the team in 2014. Based on his experience in the past Little Cup, Karl presently works on CFD analysis to optimize the boat’s aero-hydrodynamics.
