Inside the ESTECO and Luna Rossa collaboration: journey to the 38th America’s Cup

The America’s Cup is as much a race between engineering teams as it is between sailors on the water. As the Luna Rossa Design Team sets its sights on the 38th America’s Cup in 2027, the stakes for developing the ultimate AC75 foiling yacht have never been higher.

In an arena where physical testing in wind tunnels and towing tanks is strictly prohibited by class rules, design teams must rely almost entirely on numerical models and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). To turn complex design spaces into winning boat performance, Luna Rossa relies on ESTECO modeFRONTIER software.

We sat down with Simone Bartesaghi, CFD Engineer for the Luna Rossa Design Team, to discuss how automated simulation workflows, design space exploration studies, and a long-standing partnership with ESTECO give them the competitive edge.

The three core challenges of AC75 development

Developing an AC75 foiling yacht forces the engineering team to balance extreme performance requirements against rigid constraints. Bartesaghi highlights three fundamental pillars that shape their daily work:

1. Time is the ultimate constraint: development windows open and close very fast. It’s necessary to methodically explore every single option, making early, decisive design directions essential;
2. Dependence on proven tools: reinventing available software solutions on the market is impractical. The team relies on established technologies with demonstrated reliability in demanding engineering environments;
3. Rigorous design space exploration: to find fractional gains within the class rules, engineers need tools that are fast, accessible, responsive, and extremely accurate.

Tackling the class rules with numerical simulation

The 38th America’s Cup rules present tight boundaries. Key components like the foil arm and foil cant system are standard across all teams, and hull and mast geometries are carried over from the AC37 campaign. Furthermore, with strict limits on the number of physical foils and components that can be built, virtual testing is the primary path to innovation.

To maximize efficiency, Luna Rossa uses modeFRONTIER to build a structured, automated optimization-driven design process:

• Parametric definition: defining geometry parameters and rule-based constraints;
• Model selection: integrating appropriate simulation models to evaluate key metrics;
• Execution: driving algorithms to screen design spaces, train response surface models (RSM), and perform optimization;
• Validation: re-running detailed CFD calculations on the most promising pareto-optimal candidates.

By automating this entire loop, the team dramatically reduces turnaround times, directly solving their most critical resource shortage: time.

How Luna Rossa uses modeFRONTIER daily

For Luna Rossa, modeFRONTIER isn't just an optimization engine, it's a daily environment for data-driven decisions across both aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.

1. Platform and component optimization

• Design space screening: identifying valid design zones for component positioning and dimensions while ensuring strict rule compliance.
• Design of experiments (DoE): using reduced-matrix CFD points with algorithms like uniform latin hypercube (ULH) and SOBOL to map complex design spaces efficiently.
• Multi-objective optimization: running algorithms like MOGA and PilOPT coupled with fitted response surface models (RSM) to minimize overall race-course time across varying boat speeds and sea conditions.

2. Wing and foil optimization

Foil design requires navigating extreme trade-offs between lift, drag, structural weight, and cavitation limits. Through:

• Managing over 15 geometrical parameters simultaneously.
• Enforcing strict class constraints on trapeze dimensions and weight.
• Evaluating cavitation limits and flap system behavior.
• Running full 2D section and 3D wing multi-objective optimizations through fully automated workflows driven by modeFRONTIER to identify optimal design solutions.

3. CFD methodology tuning

Optimization isn't restricted to the geometry itself. The team uses modeFRONTIER to tune CFD mesh and solver settings, balancing numerical accuracy with computational speed to squeeze maximum utility out of every simulation run.

A unique partnership built on trust and reliability

The relationship between ESTECO and Luna Rossa goes far beyond off-the-shelf software deployment. It is a long-term collaboration that took place across multiple America’s Cup campaigns.

As the Luna Rossa Design Team prepares for the 38th America’s Cup, modeFRONTIER remains an essential part of their daily tasks. By combining process automation capabilities, optimization algorithms with responsive technical support, ESTECO helps the team make fast, confident design decisions, ensuring every simulation hour delivers maximum value on the water.