America's Cup yacht keel beam — 4340 steel welding procedure

Tom's consulting case with Prof. Jerry Ingram (MIT Course 13) on a David Koch–funded America's Cup yacht. Four-inch HY-80 centerboard was bending in sea trials; Tom developed a 4340 welding procedure with 600°F preheat. Used to teach the cost/weldability tradeoff in high-strength alloy steels.

I don't think I've told you the story of Professor Ingram — I think it was Jerry Ingram, who I think is retired. This is back when we had a Course 13, which was the ocean engineering program, Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering. He was working on one of the America's Cup yachts. In fact this was the year that two MIT professors in Course 13 were designing the competing yachts for the America's Cup. I had to lock their offices from each other, I guess. This is also I think the year that David Koch — David Koch got a degree from the chemical engineering department, he and his brother inherited Koch, inherited a couple of billion from their father, and they've turned it into a couple of tens of billions, so they've got a fair amount of money.