America's Cup Oracle big data : Mapping the wind

Today, real-time weather data has enabled yacht speeds to leap forward.

With months of sailing around Bermuda, Oracle Team USA has leveraged weather data to map wind patterns and plot optimal race playbooks. 

From Oracle 

A New Generation of Racing

High-speed yacht racing is never as simple as catching a breeze and running with it.

For hundreds of years, seasoned sailors sought to increase their speed by observing weather and sea conditions to optimize their course.

 Maps of Bermuda with the GeoGarage platform, UKHO

This required decades of experience and an almost instinctual connection with the elements.

Yet even with advances in satellite imagery, reservoirs of historical data, and sophisticated predictive analysis, ORACLE TEAM USA found a way to create wind maps of the 2017 America’s Cup race course in Bermuda in super-high resolution.

Oracle Team USA uses super-high resolution wind maps.

This wind data is crucial.

In San Francisco, home of Oracle headquarters and the 34th America’s Cup, winds are seasonal and predictable.
In Bermuda, breezes off the Atlantic Ocean are far less certain.

Any insight into what to expect, and how to optimize the yacht for those variables, is a significant competitive edge.

Millions of data points are collected by sailing in the Bermuda Sound.
Oracle Exadata and Oracle Big Data Discovery were crucial in wind mapping.

A Few Days, a Few Million Data Points

By sailing through the Bermuda Sound, the team is able to collect weather information like local wind speed, local wind direction, wind gradient, and wind shear.

Within a few days, the team has collected millions of data points.

Oracle team USA collects up to 500 GBs of data every time they sail.
Learn how OT USA optimizes this data for boat building, race playbooks, and weather analysis.
see Big data for the win 

Within a few months of training, the team has a map of data dense enough to begin detailed track planning.
Linking this cumulative wind data with the data from yacht performance is a classic big data challenge.

Patterns emerge, causations are identified, and the result is more accurate playbooks that help the team literally navigate the race course.

Crunching Wind Data

Of course, crunching hundreds of millions of data points is no small feat.
Oracle Team USA partnered with Oracle and Airbus for technology and expertise, leveraging Oracle Exadata, Oracle Big Data Discovery, and R Advanced Analytics systems for the heavy processing.

Oracle is no stranger to big data solutions.
With both on-premises and cloud technology available to crunch the largest workloads, organizations worldwide trust Oracle technology to uncover the insights that provide their own competitive edge.

For Oracle Team USA technology has enabled data-driven design with real-time analytics.
see Analytics for performance

At Oracle Team USA every facet of the yacht and its crew is monitored in real time.
Learn how this data is used by OT USA sailors, designers, and boat builders.
see iOT a network of real-time data

Links :

• Oracle blog : America's Cup Boats Draft Moore's Law Technology Curve
• CNN : America's Cup: All you need to know about sailing's showpiece