The Nissan Leaf isn't the automaker's only zero-emissions vehicle. Recently, Nissan Design America (NDA), based in San Diego, California, designed a Catamaran that will take part in a championship sailing race this month.
Matt Struble, who led the design and modeling team at NDA, will be racing in the 2011 Class A Catamaran ("A-Cat") World Championship from August 13 through 20 in Skødstrup, Denmark. Originally from Michigan, Struble took up sailing after moving to Southern California. It wasn't long before he competed professionally and earned his current A-Cat U.S. Championship title.
When he's not setting sail, Struble is a Model Realization Lead at Nissan, where he creates three-dimensional realizations of designers' ideas for future Nissan and Infiniti products. Matt was given the rare opportunity to design a race boat for the upcoming championship race himself and build it while training his relatively new team of modeling specialists based at NDA's Mexicali, Mexico facility at the same time.
"We weren't trying to create something that already exists, but something groundbreaking," Struble said. "This has truly been a great experience and great project for us. This one in particular was quite unique because you have to create it in your mind, but also physically manufacture it and follow through. It was great for our team to see the project from start to finish."
For Nissan, the design and construction of the catamaran proved to be a valuable training exercise. Designers gained knowledge of new materials, spraying techniques and model finish applications and learned how to achieve more accurate models.
“This has been a great opportunity and experience for the Mexicali team, whose core business is model building, data development and digitizing. The goal for the team is to timely achieve accurate models to enhance the overall business of design," said Rich Plavetich, General Manager, Design Business, NDA. "The knowledge and skills acquired from this experience will be incorporated into the future Nissan and Infiniti vehicle design development process."
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