The development and production of superyacht sails is not much different from working with much smaller sails. The difference is that the extreme size, the enormous loads and the customised design sometimes cause numerous problems that do not exist with smaller yachts. The design process begins with the determination of the sail size and with it the challenges - the size of the sail laminates has a direct effect on the forces in the sail and rig and on how such large surfaces can still be handled by a crew. There is also the question of whether we can still produce them at all and, if so, how are they laminated? In addition, due to the high development costs and the immense amount of material used, the sails have to fit the rig perfectly from the very first attempt. These laminates are too large, too expensive and too complicated to install for the design and production process to be approached piece by piece, as is the case with small sails.
In order to design sails for superyachts, modern design software, a lot of large yacht experience and detailed planning are essential. Flow analysis and strength programmes such as CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and FEM (Finite Element Method) are among the main tools used to assess sail designs.
The growing fleet of giga sailing yachts has managed to break numerous records in just a few years. As the sail area increases, so do the forces that the sail transfers to the rig structure. Today, loads of 50 tonnes and more are not uncommon in the clew, sail head and tack. The clew of the "Sailing Yacht A" mainsail can take loads of up to 90 tonnes. In order to be able to withstand such forces, it is important to determine these loads accurately during the design phase.
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