Bernard Smith (sailboat designer)

Bernard Smith (1910 – February 12, 2010) was a US rocket scientist and speed sailboat designer, father of the "aerohydrofoil" sailboat concept.[1]

Life and background

Smith was born in 1910 in New York City, to Jewish Russian immigrants.[2] He moved to California in 1935, where he worked as a welder for the Fruehauf Trailer company. He died on 12 February 2010. Smith came from a background of blacksmiths and he later was a founder of American rocket science becoming a director of the naval weapons laboratory in Virginia. He is best known today for his writing in “The 40-Knot Sailboat”. After World War II, with an honorary degree in physics from Reed College in Oregon, he started working as a civilian scientist in the US Navy,[3] serving at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and later at the Naval Weapons Laboratory at Dahlgren ,[4] where he served as the technical director from 1964 until his retirement in 1973. He died from liver cancer at age 99.

Bernard Smith’s 40-knot sailboat design

Smith is known for his work in the development of improving the speed of a sailboat exponentially. In his book The 40-knot Sailboat he explains and details a wind-powered sailboat that can achieve remarkable speed by only harnessing the power of the wind. One of the key differences is the design of the hull which is constructed of hydrofoils. Just like aircraft the fabric of the sail is made of tight aerofoil. What is one of the most unusual parts of the design is that it consists of one sail in the air and another sail in the water. This creates what he names an "aerohydrofoil" for its unusual design. The Vestas Sailrocket design was based on Smith's ideas.[5]

Publications

  • Smith, Bernard, The 40 Knot Sailboat, Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., Publishers, New York NY, 1963, 140 pp, 52 illustrations. Library of Congress No. 63-18980[6]

References

  1. ↑ Bernard Smith 1910-2010. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2018, from http://www.sailrocket.com/node/259
  2. ↑ Dahlgren leader Smith, 99, dies Archived 2012-07-13 at Archive.is on fredericksburg.com
  3. ↑ Ex-Dahlgren scientist's designs lead to sailing record on fredericksburg.com
  4. ↑ "Mr Smith's Amazing Sailboats". Archived from the original on 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2010-02-17. on Geocities
  5. ↑ THE BOAT:CONCEPT on the Vestas Sailrocket web site.
  6. ↑ Smith, B. (1963). The 40-knot sailboat. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.


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