Ska Tecnica started investigations into hull and appendage design for Americas Cup sailboats on a casual basis in the year 2002. We were quite intrigued by the technology involved and we were interested in developing methodology to optimise hull shapes and winged keels and lifting surfaces. This was mostly done using the VSAERO and MSES software supported by Analytical Methods Inc. in the United States and Applied Computing and Engineering in the United Kingdom. Lessons learned there are serving us well for ongoing research and development programme on the Airbus sponsored for the Invictus challenge in the C Class category also known as the Little Americas Cup (LAC). The LAC boats are the Formula One of the sailboat world.

When taken in its entirety, it is relatively safe to say that offshore powerboat racing represents the pinnacle of waterborne sport in that they are the fastest vehicles to be found on this medium. They share virtually nothing in common with sailboats apart from the fact that they are supported by water and even that can be stretching the truth at times. Be that as it may, complex geometry and speeds of up to 255 Km/h present a range of challenging modelling problems, whether for steady-state of free surface CFD modelling.