How LAVA Competed in the America’s Cup

LAVA adapters have been used in a variety of environments. However, one of the more unique use cases was on a sailing yacht competing in the 2021 America’s Cup.

It all started with an online purchase.

Sailing with American Magic

One business day like any other, LAVA received an online order for the Charge-Plus LAN – a small red consumer SimulCharge adapter that provides an Ethernet connection for a mobile device. Based on the order, it was going to a yacht club.

LAVA’s sales rep Rostyk Wynnyckyj called the club to follow up on the order. He discovered the adapter was going to be used on American Magic, a sailing yacht set to compete in the 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand.

Sailing yachts in the America’s Cup feature manual winches (called coffee grinders) that crew members (grinders) have to continuously turn to generate the hydraulic pressure needed for the yacht’s controls. On most of these yachts, these controls are hand pedals.

Tracking data with a Samsung tablet over PoE

American Magic used Samsung Galaxy Tab Active3 (SM-T577) tablets at these stations for multiple purposes. The tablets displayed a variety of data from sensors and other electronics on the ship. They all connected to a central node on the yacht.

To get this information to the tablets they needed an Ethernet connection to this node. This was why they had ordered the Charge-Plus LAN adapters. However, the yacht had Power over Ethernet (PoE), which allowed for a better solution.

American Magic ended up purchasing PoE SimulCharge adapters that provided the tablets with simultaneous charging and access to network data. LAVA modified the boards as per the customer’s engineering requests so they would work better with American Magic’s setup. The customer also built their own water-tight enclosures for the PCBs.

The ‘Rostyk Adapter’

The America’s Cup’s regulatory body requires competitors to register all yacht parts be for fairness and competition. It instituted the rule to prevent competitors from adding electronics and other systems that would give them an unfair advantage.

As part of the inspection, the parts get entered into a database. This allows all the teams o see what each competitor bought and added to their yacht. As such, each product must have a name in the register.

When asked for the name of LAVA’s PoE adapter, the American Magic team drew a blank. They couldn’t remember the adapter’s official name. Instead, they opted to call it the “Rostyk Adapter” after the LAVA rep who sold them the product.

The America’s Cup returns in 2024 and with that, perhaps the “Rostyk Adapter” will sail again.

Serving the customer’s needs

American Magic is an example of how by communicating with customers, LAVA can help them find the perfect product – perhaps even customizing it to fit their needs.

To learn more about how a LAVA adapter can help you, contact our sales team at sales@lavalink.com or 416-674-5942.

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(YouTube video screenshot of NYYC American Magic Explained)