PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF CRUISING SAILING YACHTS AS A DECISION SUPPORT PROBLEM

摘要

The primary objective of a racing yacht is to win the race, so the design process is dominated by performance without considering the cost of construction. In contrast, the design process for a cruising yacht is dominated by consideration of the cost, internal space, aspect of aesthetics, etc. Traditional design procedures such as a parametric study are usually employed to determine a technically feasible sailing yacht design. This method takes considerable time and cost so it is better to find an optimal solution quickly using a mathematical optimisation technique at a lower cost. This paper describes the development of a mathematical model for determining the principal design parameters of a cruising sailing yacht at the preliminary design stage. The conflicting demands require a compromise solution that is obtained by formulating the problem as a compromise decision support problem and applying the decision support problem technique. The model is tested for a set of owner's requirements and sensitivity analyses are also carried out.