Alinghi The Anatomy of a Breakup Vittorio d'Albertas Quantum Sails Italy describes what happened ENG

Alinghi The Anatomy of a Breakup Vittorio d’Albertas Quantum Sails Italy describes what happened ENG

Vittorio d'Albertas, of Quantum Sails Italy, recounts the Alinghi 75 breakup in detail. Speaking alongside Mozi Xu, who has witnessed the incident firsthand during training with Alinghi Red Bull Salt.

What happened during the Alinghi breakup?

Vittorio d'Albertas delves into the anatomy of the breakup, highlighting how it occurred while executing a gybe maneuver in Barcelona. Describing that everything was clear regarding what led to the event.

Technical insights from Vittorio d'Albertas

During the gybe, there was a collapse of the mast system. The immediate thing you notice is that at a certain point, light was created between the sail and the mast

He compares it to a previous incident he experienced involving his beloved dinghy where he installed a new jib with an excessively wide slot compared to the leach of the sail. This resulted in the mast acting like an extension, pulled up approximately one-third of its length by a single attachment point.

With wind conditions and the sail moving from being sheeted to having full tension right down the slot, eventually that slot was relatively distributed with some creases

This experience led him to believe the Alinghi Red Bull Racing mast failure may have been caused by similar circumstances where a previously distributed load concentrated into one point and resulted in bending. Vittorio describes his analysis on this as it corresponds with Mozi Xu’s perspective and their shared impression of how this could be linked to potential issues within that area.

Sail tension during the breakup

Vittorio notes a crucial factor, the sail's inability to withstand excessive horizontal or diagonal loads from being unevenly distributed in this case, causing significant impact. As shown by footage, there was strong force stretching between the gooseneck and the masthead around the top of the spreaders where failure occurred later.

This load initially distributed along that section of the boom eventually started concentrating only on the upper and lower parts, freeing up this part of the mast

This led to possible initiation of a compression failure within that angle caused by either the internal sail or possibly the forward mast head. In any case, it’s evident from looking at the mast section diagram that this is not an ideal structure design for a sudden 90-degree bend.

The failure continues

Eventually, compression initiated in one spot leading to detachment of the sail presuming that main sail. The mast was allowed to continue moving forward and crush itself until breaking further into pieces due to a rapid collapse.

A call for reassessment

Vittorio emphasizes considering modifications in how boats are sailed, potentially revisiting some aspects like reefing, designing, and sail curvature radius or even slight adjustments such as having less tension developing through certain sections of sails prone to critical areas risking mast issues.

Key takeaways

During this incident, all teams have been using standard masts for the 75s without experiencing similar breakages under identical conditions. The main takeaway from this accident may likely influence further improvements in sailboat protocols and procedures during race events or training sessions.