Imagine you’re a competitive sailboat racer, about to go into the richest and most storied of all sailing races with a squillion-dollar boat and a razor-sharp crew. Now imagine somebody hands you a device that can quite literally map out the wind activity up to a kilometer out in front of you, showing wind speed, direction and turbulence – and giving you the almost superatural ability to adjust your sails and take maximal advantage of a wind pattern before you even reach it. It’s almost an unfair advantage, isn’t it? Well, this is the situation that BMW Oracle Racing’s Russell Coutts finds himself in as the team gears up to take on defending champions Alinghi in the 2010 America’s Cup.
The device is called a Racer’s Edge laser wind sensor, and it’s built around a technology base that’s being used to optimize wind power generators. We caught up with Phil Rogers, CEO of Catch the Wind, Inc, to find out more.
