Can kiwis fly?
Michael David Myers · Communications of the ACM · 1996
international perspectives H ow did the America's Cup come to be won, and won so convincingly, by Team New Zealand in 1995?The event requires a combination of the best yachting technology and sail-ing skills in the world.For a remote country of 3.5 million people to produce a winning team was a stunning achievement.Information technology (IT) played a significant role in that victory.Team New Zealand's manager, Peter Blake, says the traditional reliance on wind tunnel and tank testing of hull and sail designs had been a big factor driving up the cost of a serious America's Cup challenge "to astronomical figures."However, Team New Zealand had used Silicon Graphics' supercomputers and workstations to do exhaustive computer-based testing of various hull and keel shapes against simulated sea and wind conditions.Blake believes the extensive and innovative use of computer-aided design probably raised the competitiveness of the New Zealand challenge "by a factor of three" [1].Not only were the boats designed using IT, but a New Zealand software company developed a graphics animation package used to provide analysis of the races for television.This innovative application of IT to yachting provides a clue to understanding the use of IT in Can Kiwis Fly?