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By Joe Lemire

The defending champion of the America’s Cup is given wide latitude to establish the design parameters for the next competition’s sailing yachts, with strict limits on testing and prototyping. That “can limit your ability to take big technology risks, because you’re going to make sure that you’ve got a boat that works,” said Mike Cazer, CEO of the American Magic, the US entrant in the global regatta.

In order to explore new ideas within those confines, American Magic contacted a dozen engineering firms specializing in AI and simulations and partnered with Altair to build a digital twin of the AC75 yacht to serve as the basis for prediction models on how the boat will perform and how it can be sailed most effectively.

“Coming out of the last America’s Cup, we saw a huge opportunity in the area of advanced simulation, high performance computing and AI,” Cazer said. “We had some experience, particularly on the on the simulation side, but it was really more rudimentary. We thought that this could be a big part of this campaign and especially going forward.”

Altair has deep experience with the America’s Cup, dating back to 1995 — it most recently supported the Italian boat, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, in its runner-up finish during the previous competition. Altair technical manager of simulation and design Julien Chaussee said the inputs are “all-encompassing” and include historical data from prior America’s Cups, design tools, fluid dynamics, structural analysis and also digitally-generated simulation data. (Altair has also done significant work in golf manufacturing, among sports ventures.)

Cazer noted the complexity of the challenge with the sailing yachts that must contend with the environmental conditions of both wind and water, which requires pulling from the fields of both aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. The AC75 can hit speeds of 55 mph and briefly become airborne.

American Magic has a simulator at its training site in Barcelona, (where the races began last week), which enables the sailors to test the boat in all conditions. They can complete an entire race in the simulator under the precise details of that day’s weather and that opponent’s typical strategy. The simulations can also help brainstorm new tactics through artificial intelligence.

“When we use the AI bot to sail 24/7, it’ll start exploring areas of data that the sailors may not intuitively go to, and it’ll start recommending, ’In this condition pattern, here’s a way for you to sail the boat differently and potentially better,’” Cazer said. “A lot of times it’s wrong because the algorithm doesn’t quite have it exactly right, but a couple of times it’s pushed their thinking on how to actually control the boat and maneuver differently. And so then we start exploring that on the water, and ultimately it helps us get to be a better sailing team.”

The Preliminary Regatta was last weekend in Barcelona and it will be followed by the Challenger Series and final, best-of-13 series taking place between October 12 and 21.

“From a technical point of view, I always like to say, ‘There’s only one way to find out if you’re the best, and it is to go measure yourself with the best.’ You can’t just hide in an environment like the America’s Cup,” Chaussee said. “It’s really enabled us to push the tools and push the technologies and, in some cases, uncover limitations that we were able to overcome.”

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

An Industry Insight Series Podcast brought to you by our Partners

“Innovation isn’t about what we know; and defining it would be challenging everything we know,” says Ben Williams.

“One thing I do believe is: to harvest a culture of innovation we need human engagement and we need collaboration.”

Williams, who serves as the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team’s Integrated Performance Lead and the Ineos Britannia sailing team’s Head of Human Performance, is our very special guest on this Science in Sport Industry Insight Series podcast.

He sat down with SiS Director of Performance Solutions, James Morton, to discuss his varied professional background and the approach to innovation he has cultivated in each of his roles in sport and beyond.

Also on the conversational agenda were:

• The need to normalise ‘silly’ questions inside your organisation [12:30];
• Why the America’s Cup could be sport’s most unique performance challenge [15:00];
• His transition into cycling (combining his work in sailing) [19:00];
• Whether the next gains will be made in ‘training science’ or ‘equipment science’ [23:30].

James Morton LinkedIn | Twitter

Ben Williams: Twitter | LinkedIn

Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

By John Portch

Ken Lynch, the National Performance Pathway Manager at Australian Sailing, is explaining to the Leaders Performance Institute why long-term thinking is a relatively new concept in sport.

“Previously, annual or short-term funding for sports largely disabled longer term thinking,” says Lynch. “In tandem with short-term funding there were short-term targets. And while many understood and believed more strategic, longer term thinking and approaches were required, the reality was that the focus remained on the ‘now’ for the most part.”

As investment models have evolved so has the thinking around high performance strategies. “More balanced approaches to investment and the value placed on sustainability has unlocked more strategic thinking and promoted longer term planning,” continues Lynch. “The announcement of Olympic and Paralympic Games locations further in advance has also been a contributing factor to a more serious look to the future in terms of sport systems.”

Lynch, a former schoolteacher, has worked at a number of sports organisations, eight years at High Performance Sport New Zealand and five years at the Irish Institute of Sport where he served as Team Manager for triathlon.

In the first of two instalments exploring the space given to talent pathways in sport, Lynch hones in on the importance of integrating long-term and short-term planning as well as learning through evidence-based practice.

Ken, what are some of the factors that can hinder forward thinking in high performance systems?

KL: My sense is that we are still organising ourselves in blocks of time as opposed to perceiving the movement of athletes, coaches and staff into and through systems as constant ‘flow’. After all, people aren’t born every four years! The embedding of longer term thinking into strategic plans and working across two or three concurrent timelines is a sign of system maturity. The complexity can be navigated in the design and structure of the organisation and work. One temptation I have learned to avoid is using Olympic and Paralympic locations as end points of strategies. People tend to work towards that point in time with many not thinking beyond it – not the type of thinking we want to promote. Perpetual motion in advanced planning and that concept of flow through multiple horizons is, in my view, the healthiest view to have in promoting forward thinking.

How can performance systems look to develop that ‘flow’?

KL: Building platforms to support the flow of people underpinned by good process is key to better enabling sustainable, repeatable performance. The value of good quality systems and processes, while some people view them as onerous, is that once complete, they free people up to concentrate on performance. Well-constructed process can be actioned simply and easily and not add clutter to valuable work. Getting clear and accurate on targets, gap analysis and planning a logical sequence of moves to execute a robust, well thought out plan gives people and organisations the confidence to drive forward and minimise the distraction a lack of clarity can present. Identifying what it will take to win, being clear on what is required to deliver that, for example, certain types of athletes and coaches, generates focus and efficiency. Often people or sports that are not clear have large numbers of people involved in the system for fear they may miss somebody. This can dilute resources and remove some of the edge required to deliver world class performance. You need to be accurate, identify clear targets and simplify action and process. These are conditions for success but also enable effective tracking, reporting and support of performance, current and future potential.

Can you think of examples when organisations have found that balance?

KL: When I worked at High Performance Sport New Zealand, when establishing the performance pathway pillar, the future became embedded in the system. It can’t go away, it becomes a constant and that flow becomes a constant. Investment meetings, reviews and decisions are based less on retrospective performance and more on potential performance, which makes more sense. ‘We’re going to invest in you for how you do in the future not just reward you for how you’ve done in the past’. I think that shifts the dial and the thinking around how investment is executed while noting that the ability to demonstrate you can deliver performance is still an important ingredient.

Earlier you mentioned gap analyses. What is the best process for identifying those gaps?  

KL: You have to ask: how many athletes and coaches do you need capable of delivering what and at what stage of the pathway? Where have you got gaps, how do you fill them and ensure the system minimises the chances of gaps appearing in the future? Have you established what it will take to win this cycle and the following two? This can be easier to track in more measurable sports, with team or more strategic sports, it is critical to understand the direction the discipline or game is going and creating a clear view of what approach will be most likely to beat key competitors in the future. Aligning recruitment and development to that intelligence while probing to check and challenge the theory is essential. The closer we get to targets the more clarity we gain and can tweak accordingly.

With that check and challenge comes learning. How significant is that?

KL: An ability for a system to learn and understand – that is a real string to their bow because it shifts away from anecdotal thinking; and a small country like New Zealand may be more likely to be able to do it because the population is smaller and it is more manageable to capture and see everybody. A system learning from itself is important to support the check and challenge strategy that planning requires. Applying that learning quickly and effectively is vital to optimal system evolution. If the right amount of rigour was applied to the development of strategic and operational plans, these learnings should just result in tweaks to approaches or plans. Learning and moving on; learning faster than key competitors can be the difference between delivering performance and not. Smaller countries with the ability to be agile and move quickly have a distinct advantage here. If set up well they can move on learnings quickly, adapt and look for new opportunities. This learning can take many forms beyond tracking progression, for example learning from and responding to athlete feedback.

This approach sets the foundations for evidence-based development.

KL: It must be linked to evidence. The rigour applied and understanding behind identifying what it will take to win in the future provides you with a significant amount of evidence and enables you to chart a course to performance. This chart along with the type of regression modelling mentioned earlier provides a program with milestone markers that enable reporting back on progression from individual athlete tracking through to an aggregated program view. Again, this is an important step in enabling a program or organisation to give confidence to stakeholders that the gap to performance or repeatable success is closing. In centimetres, grams, seconds (CGS) or more measured sports this type of progression mapping may be easier to achieve. Other sports, like sailing, rely on more subjective assessments of progression in tandem with results data. Having the right people around the table to give credibility to those processes is an important factor in ensuring accuracy but also to promoting confidence for stakeholders.

It also enables teams to focus on the now while casting an eye towards the future.

KL: A big challenge for the next wave or generation of athletes and coaches is remaining visible and staying integrated with the parts of the system above and, to a degree, below. There can often be a gap between what could be labelled High-Performance (HP) and High-Performance Development (HPD). This can grow or shrink depending on a combination of factors, with strategy and operation being two of those. Time of cycle can create opportunities to either widen or close that gap. Intense focus on the ‘now’ athletes and programs can cause constriction for the future side of the business with either a reduction in resourcing or attention, or potentially both, come the run into pinnacle events. In some sports, the utilisation of integration to create valuable internal competition, effective critical mass and learning opportunities for future athletes and coaches in understanding and experiencing the lead into pinnacle performance is valuable. It’s important too that that exposure and experience is debriefed and translated into applied learning.