DSM has been working with the Dutch Olympic Team to make the best rowing boat possible for the London Olympics 2012. To achieve this they used carbon reinforcements. The result is a faster boat as a direct consequence of reduced weight and increased stiffness.
Edwin Hendriks, Project Manager Building, Infrastructure and Sport at DSM comments:
To improve the performance of the Dutch Olympic rowing boat, we used TeXtreme carbon fabric in combination with DSM’s styrene-free Turane resins. The interaction between these two is exceptionally strong. This resulted in an increased rigidity (25% more stiffness) and a lower weight of the boat, allowing for a different construction that increased the stiffness even more. The new boat deforms less in the water at every powerful stroke of the rowers, and as such can better maintain its speed.
DSM cooperated with the Dutch Rowing Federation and the Olympic Team Netherlands in developing this special eight man rowing boat “Olympic eight”.
Using their experience from previous Olympic creations such as the 470-class sailing boat for Beijing 2008, DSM partnered with German boat builder Empacher. By using each other’s strengths together with the mechanical properties of TeXtreme, they developed the best boat possible.
One important goal was to improve the stiffness of the boat, making it better equipped to handle the rigors of a race. By combining it with TeXtreme Spread Tow carbon fibre fabrics the stiffness of the hull has been increased up to 25%, reducing the energy loss of each stroke and thus increasing the speed.
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