Wing sail manufacturers

My take on how the "beasts" evolved is that when the rules were set they had no idea that, to be competitive, boats would have to keep their hulls out of the water for the entire race in almost all conditions. The restrictions and crew size didn't comprehend main foil control which occasionally took super human strength to grind like crazy and prepare for a bus crash. Knowing what the result is likely to be in AC 35 it would be negligent to not make provisions for safer control with less power per crew.

Less power for foil control would allow more power for wing control. My opinion is that AC35 will not see big radical changes to the wing (it is plenty big and expensive) but will see major changes to the form and control of the foils. Passive foil control? Energy storage for foil control? or just more grinders. Do you think there is more to be done below the waterline than above? Will AC 35 press up against cavitation speed limits?

By the way, you may know a little about this Tom Speers guy's work history, but you left out the important fact -He is American! and as such his accomplishments must be due to corruption linked to the military complex not hard work and intelligence like on other teams!

 

Can't get enough of the last cup

Boy,

I can't get enough of the last cup. I have seen everything over and over again.
Is there a maximum on wings per team? I thought it was three.

 

Technically, for the 34th America's Cup, the limit was 6 half-span wing spars. The wings were required to be made of an upper and lower half so they could be split apart for shipping. Only the main structural spar was restricted in number. There could be any number of shells surrounding the spar or any number of flaps built.

In principle, a team could have built, say, two lower halves and 4 upper halves of different design. That might have given them the ability to adapt the wing configuration for different wind ranges, although the planform shape was also very constrained.

OTUSA's first wing was basically destroyed in the capsize. Boat 1 returned to sailing using Wing 2. Boat 2 was launched with Wing 3. Wing 1 was rebuilt to its original design configuration using enough of the old wing structure that the measurers did not consider it to be a fourth wing. All three wings were of the same shape and came from the same tooling. Originally, Wing 3 was to be of a different shape, but the resources for making the tooling were reallocated to capsize repairs. The rebuild of Wing 1 was necessary to provide a spare for two-boat testing so that a failure wouldn't put an end to being able to test one boat against the other.

 

But for the 35 th cup?

Hi Tom,

Nice talking to you. More inside information isn't available.
Are the same rules in numbers of wingparts and structural spars applicable for the next cup or is that a pending subject?

 

Pending subject.