Flow Solutions assists with designing and predicting performance of water borne vessels both above and below the waterline. We have experience with submarines, powered surface vessels and sailing yachts. Supporting this work we have two in-house developed tools specifically for marine applications. They are used for consultancy work or supplied to customers for their own use:

• The NEWPAN Free Surface module provides a capability to predict the unsteady, fully nonlinear response of a free surface to the unsteady motion of a floating or submerged body
• PANSAIL is an advanced vortex-lattice code that has been optimized for use in the design and analysis of yacht sails. It has been integrated with the structural analysis code RELAX (written by Peter Heppel) to produce a system that can predict the flying shape of a sail in response to sheet tensions, mold layups, etc.

Studies using semi-empirical/analytical techniques are also undertaken as these previous projects that Flow Solutions has been involved with indicate:

• Calculating power, resistance and fuel load estimates for very fast vessels
• A study conducted for Ed Dubois Naval Architects on the design of the canted daggerboards for the Formula 40 trimaran `Full Pelt'
• Design of the `Blue Arrow' foiler boat for the America's Cup of 1988 - Steve Fiddes was a principal consultant for the project. The work also involved the development of velocity prediction programs for monohulls, catamarans and foil-stabilised sailing vessels. The work on velocity prediction programs was used to help define the rule for the new America's Cup class vessels.

PANSAIL itself has a large customer base including many America's Cup teams as well as sail lofts.