Hydraulic System Design of a Research Sailboat

Regard to the need of the Oceanography Department of the Santa Catarina University (UFSC) to have a specific watercraft for classes and research, the Mechanical Engineering Department of the same university started the ambitious project to build a 60 feet research sailboat. The watercraft shall be used to environment education classes, undergraduate and graduate students training besides professors retraining. The sailboat has to navigate in extreme conditions and it must be equipped to enter in shallow waters, mangroves and low temperatures zones. This paper presents the design of a hydraulic system to attend the specific requirements of this research sailboat. The project requires three automatized winches, one thruster, one vertical windlass, a helm and, in order to allow the sailboat to enter in shallow waters, one centerboard. In addition, the design of the system must consider the possibility of centerboard knock, which occurs when the centerboard has to automatically retract after hitting a submerged obstacle. A free CAE software was used to simulate critical system conditions. Technical and financial viability of using biodegradable fluid were also analyzed.