Renishaw Offers AM Support to Yacht for 37th America’s Cup

As a technical partner to INEOS Britannia, global engineering technologies company, Renishaw, is supporting the team by providing them with products and solutions to maximize the performance of their latest race boat. After two and a half years of development, INEOS Britannia has now revealed its AC75 race boat—Britannia—to the public for the first time in its bid to win the 37th America's Cup. 

As part of the development of Britannia, Renishaw offered its expertise in position measurement, manufacturing process control, metal additive manufacturing (AM) and Raman spectroscopy. It is supplying position encoders to provide digital position feedback and providing AM support to optimize the design and manufacture of bespoke lightweight structural components for the boat.

Renishaw's additive manufacturing team has worked with INEOS Britannia to develop a variety of optimized AM parts, including an outhaul sheave box, flap fairings, the bowsprit end detail and a runner beam end-fitting. Each of these parts, built on Renishaw's RenAM 500Q quad laser systems, were designed and produced to reduce the weight of the boat to help improve speed, efficiency and other performance factors.

“Renishaw's long-standing collaboration with INEOS Britannia makes our team incredibly proud,” says Chay Allen, customer applications manager for Renishaw. “This year is particularly exciting as it has given us the opportunity to contribute to the manufacturing of the boat in the UK and provide support from our subsidiary in Spain. From our AM Solutions Centre in Barcelona, we can provide a rapid response should the team need additional support with additively manufactured components once racing has started.”

“We have been keeping Britannia under wraps for such a long time that it's almost surreal to see her out of the shed and in public view here in Barcelona,” explains Sir Ben Ainslie, INEOS Britannia team principal and skipper. “Thousands of hours of work have gone into this boat and so it's great to finally reveal her to the world. We're incredibly grateful to Renishaw for their support and the invaluable technology they provide.”

INEOS Britannia will race Britannia at the Preliminary Regatta August 22 to August 25 in Barcelona, Spain. The five challenging teams will then battle it out in The Louis Vuitton Cup—the Challenger Selections Series between August 29 and October 7—to win the right to take on the defenders, Emirates Team New Zealand, in the Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup match in October.