34th America's Cup: multihulls!

[Doug Lord]

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=ddZNDavV4Y4

these boats need more lift from the foils-up on the daggerboard-down on the rudder, in my humble opinion.....

[Doug Lord]

News tidbits from Scuttlebutt tonight:

BRAVE NEW WORLD*

Two of the most anticipated reports for San Francisco to host the
America's Cup in 2013 are on pace to be made public in July. Both the draft
of the America's Cup environmental impact report and the city's People Plan
documenting how it will handle throngs as large as 350,000 people a day
will be available for review. -- SF Business Times, full story:
http://tinyurl.com/SF-Biz-050111

* Sail-World's NZ Editor Richard Gladwell spoke with Stan Honey, one of the
key players behind the development of the remote umpiring systems and
television systems intended for the America's Cup World Series and then the
America's Cup itself. In this video interview Honey explains how the
graphics being developed for the AC45's and 72's will differ from those
that have gone previously: http://tinyurl.com/SW-050111

* With the first America's Cup World Series event in August in Cascais,
Portugal, there is wide range of work being done to prepare the teams, race
managers, and broadcast partners. A video update following last week's test
sessions in Auckland sheds light on how different this next America's Cup
will be: http://www.americascup.com/blog/brave-new-world_121

[Doug Lord]

For those that think match racing in cats won't work(hold your breath): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGJm...layer_embedded

[Doug Lord]

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

AMERICA'S CUP: DEFINING THE LINES
By Rebecca Hayter, Yachting World

The 34th America's Cup is bounding ahead like a giant kangaroo - from
monohulls to catamarans, soft sails - who even knew that term two years
ago? - to wingsails, from intensely guarded designs to - gasp! -
production-built AC45s, from one design rule to two: the AC45 and AC75, a
youth series and now, well, if they keep this up, we are going to need
soothing cups of camomile tea served at the press conferences.

Here is the latest: you've all heard - and perhaps even contributed to -
serious concern that the AC72 catamarans may end up being two extremely
fast boats racing a million miles apart, which will be about as exciting to
watch as, um, a pair of 80ft, 25-tonne monohulls drifting about a million
miles apart. What we really want is these big cats missing each other by a
whisker.

So AC regatta director Iain Murray and his team have delivered - there will
be virtual boundaries down each side of the course; their separation
distance will be varied for strong or light winds.

The boundaries will be depicted on screens mounted one in each hull, in
front of the skipper. The electronics can measure the yacht's position
accurately to within 2cm, updated 10 times a second. As the boat approaches
a virtual boundary, the screen bleeps and gives a countdown, expressed as a
positive in metres - for example, +20m, +15m....+5m.

If they cross the virtual boundary, the countdown becomes a negative in
metres and the umpires - in a shore-based booth - will issue a penalty of
four boat lengths: 60m on the AC45, 100m on the AC72.

To enforce the penalty, Murray says, "We tack them electronically. We set a
line across the wind and when they fall back on that by sixty metres,
they've cleared the penalty." The red penalty light on the boat's screen
changes to green to show it is cleared. It carries a text message service
so when a boat calls for room on another boat or protests, it comes up as a
text.

Murray says the race rules have avoided the traditional 720 or 360 penalty.
"We want to penalise the boats, but we also want to keep them in the race.

"Given time, this will develop into a proper chart plotting type thing
where you see the course, the ocean and everything else," Murray says.
Television audiences will have the same view as the umpires. -- Read on:
http://tinyurl.com/YW-050211

[Doug Lord]

Two news tidbits from Scuttlebutt tonight:

TESTING, TESTING, TESTING

The two week testing period for the AC 45s is almost over in Auckland, New
Zealand. SailBlast caught up with John Craig, PRO for America's Cup Race
Management, who had nothing but positive things to say about the progress
made on the water over the past few days. Here is an excerpt of the
interview:

SailBlast: Has this testing helped clarify what it may mean for the
spectator fleet in San Francisco?

JC: Yes, it's definitely put some shoulders around what it'll look like.
We're experimenting with all different types of courses - we're looking
forward to the next three days as we're not anywhere close to having
anything locked down to what the course will look like. Once that gets
firmed up, then we should have a better idea of what the spectator fleet
boundaries will look like and then what the virtual boundaries will look
like from that.

SailBlast: The 45s stop and start pretty quickly - how much can they handle
in the start, and what will the start sequence be?

JC: I was kind of skeptical. In all honesty I thought, "It's going to be
catamarans match racing. It's not going to be like it has been." But, it's
been amazing. The first day they just fully locked up and got at it and
started chasing each other - it's been really, really good. The quality of
what these guys are able to do and how quickly the boats can stop and start
lends itself really well for match racing. Right now, it's a 5-minute
sequence, the starboard end is coming in at 3 minutes and the port end
comes in at 2:50. They're fully locking up and it's very cool to watch.

SailBlast: What's your safety plan on the water?

JC: We've got two, jet-driven purpose built medic boats which will each
have a medic team on board. Additionally, the teams have really taken it on
as a concern. We're finding that a lot of the team boats are much better
equipped to deal with medical emergencies than previously, for example,
Team NZ had a medic on their RIB yesterday. Teams are wearing life jackets,
helmets in some situations and we see that developing more as the racing
heats up. It's something we have a concern about and trying to address with
as many resources as we can put at it.

SailBlast: Will extra wings be easily accessible to teams in the event of
crashes?

Full interview: http://tinyurl.com/SailBlast-050411


=================================


DEFENDING NZL GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY

Nelson, New Zealand (May 4, 2011) - Grant Dalton doesn't expect the people
of Nelson to understand why he accepted $36 million of taxpayers' money for
the 2013 America's Cup, but for him, it was a simple decision.

Dalton, the head of Emirates Team New Zealand, has taken flak in recent
weeks after it was revealed the team has been given the money from the
Government to fund its campaign to try to win back sailing's greatest
prize.

The deal was made with the previous Labour-led government and National has
backed the plan, despite many saying the money could be better spent,
especially after the Pike River mine disaster and Christchurch earthquake.

Dalton, in Nelson this week to speak to the sailing community as part of a
nationwide tour, said the millions made up less than 20 per cent of their
income, but without it, they could not operate.

"To a certain extent I can't defend it and say `yeah, it would have been
better off here or whatever', because I could never understand what those
people have gone through.

"But one thing I know is that if I hadn't gone ahead with it, my first
conversation would have been with the first 100 people that work for me as
they would have been made redundant.

"My second conversation would have been with the boatyard that makes our
boats.

"He would have had to make about half his staff redundant. He's got 45.

"The next conversation would have been with the spar maker, and so on and
so on.

"I chose the one that wasn't making people redundant. We're the arrowhead
of the industry, and it's a big industry, I think it's New Zealand's second
biggest export industry.

"I can't expect the people of Greymouth, Nelson and Christchurch to
understand that, I wouldn't, but the Government understood it and made a
tough decision."

Dalton said America's Cup sailing was often perceived as a "rich boys"
sport, which was true elsewhere, but in New Zealand the way they operated
had not changed, despite the increasing budgets. -- Read on:
http://tinyurl.com/Stuff-050411

[Doug Lord]

from Scuttlebutt tonight:

FINANCIAL HURDLES MAY THIN THE HERD

(May 10, 2011) - The 34th America's Cup has 14 entries as of today, with
one of the undisclosed challenge entries filed by the March 31 deadline
being declined by the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

The process is now underway to vet the $200,000 Performance Bond
submissions, which were required of each team to post by April 30th. How
many of the 14 entrants have made this submission? "An announcement will be
made in due course about the teams which have successfully met the bond
requirements," explained Stephanie Martin, Chief Communications Officer for
the AC Event Authority. Here is the current count:

Defender - 1
Oracle Racing, Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA)

Challenger - 13
Aleph-Equipe de France, Aleph Yacht Club (FRA)
Artemis Racing, Kungliga Svenska Segal Sallskapet (SWE)
China Team, Mei Fan Yacht Club (CHN)
Emirates Team New Zealand, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (NZL)
Energy Challenge, Yacht Club de France (FRA)
Mascalzone Latino, Club Nautico di Roma (ITA)
Team Australia, Multihull Yacht Club of Queensland (AUS)
Venezia Challenge, Club Canottieri Roggero di Lauria (ITA)
White Tiger Challenge, Sail Korea Yacht Club (ROK)
An additional four challenge entries remain confirmed but unidentified.

There are more financial hurdles that may thin the herd. An additional
$100,000 Entry Fee is due by each team on June 1st. And for any team not
participating in the first event of the America's Cup World Series in
Cascais, Portugal on August 6-14, there is a forfeiture of $150,000 of
their Performance Bond. And to participate in the ACWS you need to have one
million dollars (plus GST) to buy an AC45. The four teams that have
purchased and are sailing their AC45s are:

Artemis Racing, Kungliga Svenska Segal Sallskapet (SWE)
China Team, Mei Fan Yacht Club (CHN)
Emirates Team New Zealand, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (NZL)
Oracle Racing, Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA)

Standing by for the next entry update. As Kenny Rogers said in his song
'The Gambler', "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

[DaveJ]

Originally Posted by Doug Lord

For those that think match racing in cats won't work(hold your breath): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGJm...layer_embedded

Awesome stuff, reminds me of my hobie days joslting for the start. Even though they both blew the start, hats off to the Artemis team to get inside of the Oracle team even though they had them most of the time until the 1:01 mark where Oracle had to wash off too much speed and Atremis was able to stall the boat and get inside of them.

Which brings me to the rules, if i was Oracle at the 1:01 mark, i would drag my legs in the water to act as a brake and thus keeping me on the windward of Artemis and would be able to push them into the coarse boat (if i was so mean). Am i guessing correctly what i was doing was against the rules but the club i sailed with just ignored it, or is legit to use part of crew to stall the boat.

[Gary Baigent]

Quickly now Cecil, jump into the scoop and then over the side, hang on though mate, we're still doing 10 knots.

[Paul B]

The COR, The Latin Rascal, is out.

Doesn't matter. They could not win anyway. That was the opinion of AC Legend BenBob (as printed in Seahorse Magazine).

[Doug Lord]

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

MASCALZONE LATINO DROPS OUT OF AMERICA'S CUP

(May 12, 2011) - It was revealed today that the team representing the
Challenger of Record (COR) for the 34th America's Cup has quit. Italian
Vincenzo Onorato and his Mascalzone Latino team, which was designated to
compete for Club Nautico di Roma (CNR), announced that they were unable to
reach a budget that would allow them to field a competitive team.

"In our sport, men in blazer have overcome by now those in oilskins," said
Onorato. "I'm a man in oilskin and when I go in the sea, I want to win. I'm
not interested in a hopeless challenge, I would lie to the sponsors, to our
fans and last but not least also to myself."

Just over a year ago, when the space-age trimaran BMW Oracle completed a
two-race sweep on February 14, 2010 to win the 33rd America's Cup from
two-time defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland, team owner Larry
Ellison's Club - Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) - announced that a challenge
had been accepted from CNR to be the Challenger of Record for the next
match.

In the Deed of Gift for the America's Cup, entries are submitted by Clubs,
not teams. However, in the modern era of the America's Cup, the Club is
often forgotten, with the team taking the leadership role. And since the
challenge was accepted, Onorato's stewardship as COR had been questioned.
With so many changes occurring with the format of the next event, many
arguably in favor of the Russell Coutts (NZL) led Oracle Racing defender,
it was felt that the interests of the challengers were not being
sufficiently upheld.

Onorato had said this past February that the role of the COR was in part,
"to try to keep the Defender (which is a very rich team) sensitive to the
problems of the others teams in search of sponsor and consequently to keep
the costs low." For Onorato, who had competed as a challenger for both the
2003 and 2007 America's Cup, the challenge for funding was real. At the
time he admitted that "If, in the next few months, I won't be able to find
the economic resources to make my team competitive, then I'll quit." And
today he made it official.

What happens next is not clear, as no announcement has come yet from the
GGYC or CNR. If desired, CNR can continue as COR without a team, as had
occurred in three prior America's Cup events (1970, 1992, and 1995). If CNR
declines the role, it would be offered to the next Club that had entered,
which would be Kungliga Svenska Segal Sallskapet (SWE), represented by the
Paul Cayard (USA) led Artemis Racing team.

If KSSS accepts the role of COR, the situation would seem eerily similar to
when Coutts and Cayard announced in February 2007 that they were launching
the World Sailing League (WSL). The plan, which failed to gain traction,
was to launch a global series at venues in the Mediterranean, Northern
Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North America and South America, and that
teams would compete in ... state-of-the-art 70ft catamarans.

Feb. 9, 2007 - WSL announcement: http://tinyurl.com/SBUTT-3591
June 15, 2009 - Cayard interview: http://tinyurl.com/SBUTT-061509
Feb. 3, 2011 - Onorato interview: http://tinyurl.com/SBUTT-020311
May 12, 2011 - Onorato announcement: http://tinyurl.com/ML-020311

ENTRIES: With entrants required to post a $200,000 Performance Bond on
April 30th, it is expected that more teams will drop out. It has not yet
been announced what teams failed to submit the bond, so the current count
is now one defense entry and 12 challenge entries.=======================

LOCAL NEWS: While it is unclear if Oracle Racing's winning trimaran from
the 33rd America's Cup will ever splash in San Francisco Bay, locals will
get an early look at the AC45. The team will be on the bay sailing the new
catamaran, which will be the platform for the first season of the America's
Cup World Series, probably by the second week of June. --
http://tinyurl.com/BJ-051211

[Doug Lord]

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

AMERICA'S CUP CHANGES CONSIDERED
By Stuart Alexander

Changes to the format of the America's Cup preliminary events are being
considered in San Francisco by the holder, Larry Ellison's Oracle Racing
Team, the sponsoring Golden Gate Yacht Club and the organisation they have
set up to arrange regattas over the next 48 months, the America's Cup Event
Authority (ACEA).

Already having had to hold up the announcement about which of the 14
challenges received for America's Cup 34 can meet the qualification and
financial requirements, ACEA, in conjunction with its sister organisation,
America's Cup Event Management ACEM), has seen timetables slip as a search
continues for the venues to host the 2011-12 America's Cup World Series
(ACWS).

ACEA has consistently been saying that it does not expect all 14 of the
original hopefuls to make it into the world series. The Challenger of
Record, the Rome-based Club Nautico di Roma and its Mascalzone Latino team,
has already dropped out. One of the 14, believed to from Germany, was
rejected by the scrutineers in San Francisco.

But, while the new Challenger of Record, the Royal Swedish Yacht Club's
Artemis and the New Zealand Yacht Squadron's Emirates Team New Zealand, are
seen as certain runners, only the Team China challenge has been looking
viable.

Another Italian team claims to have paid its $200,000 initial performance
bond and San Francisco has been talking up a team from South Korea. The
Australian team has yet to be substantiated.

An announcement is expected on or about 1 June which will finally name the
participating teams for this season, but Iain Murray, CEO of ACEM, has
already said that some of the penalties and forfeits over payment by the
deadline of 31 March this year may have to be reviewed. Many believe the
number may have dropped from 14 to six or seven. -- Full story:
http://tinyurl.com/3t2fgba

* Scuttlebutt spoke with ACRM on Thursday afternoon to shine some light on
reports that are circulating with regard to the many issues that Stuart
Alexander raises, and feel none the wiser for their response. Here's what
they said: "America's Cup Race Management is continually working with the
teams to produce the best possible outcome for AC34. ACRM will hold a
Competitor Forum on Monday May 30 where several proposals will be discussed
and voted on."

[redreuben]

Heh heh, thats our Bob ! was it he who said " You know when the Italians are going to

tack, the cigarettes go over the side" LOL

RR

[Doug Lord]

from Scuttlebutt tonight:

UPDATED AMERICA'S CUP PROGRAM TO BENEFIT TEAMS
San Francisco, CA (June 1, 2011) -

With the newest generation of America's Cup boats exceeding
the expectations of event organizers and the teams, the
AC45 wing-sailed catamaran has now been selected by competitors for use in
all America's Cup World Series events.

Using the AC45 in all AC World Series events instead of switching to the
AC72 in season two was one of several changes voted on by America's Cup
competitors on Tuesday. This move also provides teams with another
opportunity to manage competition costs.

The larger AC72 will now appear on the water from July 2012. Teams will work
up their AC72's and race the AC World Series leading into the Louis Vuitton
Cup, America's Cup Challenger Series, and the 34th America's Cup Finals in
San Francisco. The extended time-period for the debut of the AC72 allows
teams more time for development of the boat.

The race format and scoring for the 2011 AC World Series have also been
released. The format will include a combination of Fleet and Match Racing
with winners for each as well as an overall winner that will be determined
on the final Sunday of the regatta. The AC World Series starts August 6,
2011 in Cascais, Portugal.

Other updates agreed by the Competitors today include:

- Teams to launch AC72s starting July 1, 2012 (there is a limited exception
to launch and sail earlier for any proven pre-existing contractual
obligations)

- Teams have the same limited number of testing days in the AC72s in advance
of racing.

- The first Performance Bond for the AC World Series is eliminated and
replaced with an Entry Fee ($100,000 USD).

- Updated late entry procedure - Teams can enter late at discretion of the
Defender.

- Competitors must sign an AC45 purchase contract with a 50 percent
non-refundable deposit paid by June 10.

- Teams will consolidate their websites into www.americascup.com by July 1,
2011. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/43ecrb7

* Scuttlebutt spoke today with America's Cup Race Management to get some
edification on some of these revised items, as follows:

Teams originally could not sail AC72s prior to January 1, 2012; there will
be no update on number of teams entered until after June 10, the date by
which Competitor's now must sign an AC45 purchase agreement with a 50%
non-refundable deposit. Clearly this new item swings both ways. There may be
teams who don't/can't come up with the $$$ for whatever reason which puts
them out, while there may be late entries who pony up and join the show,
particularly now that Teams can enter late at the discretion of the Defender
and a late entry fee is not automatic. It's rumored that there'll be an
announcement regarding final team numbers at a press conference in San
Francisco on June 15. Finally, race format and scoring info for the 2011
World Series events is athttp://www.americascup.com/documents/regatta-notices_33. Stay tuned.

[Doug Lord]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qal2F...layer_embedded

[Doug Lord]

from Scuttlebutt tonight-

* (June 2, 2011) - If you've been planning on playing hooky anytime in the
near future, you might want to save it for next week. Oracle Racing will
have two AC45s on San Francisco Bay starting next Monday. After some
practice time through June 10, they'll be used to test the regatta
operations and media side of the event for the ensuing couple weeks. Events
for local media will be held June 13 and 14, and should make for good
viewing off the Cityfront. -- Report at: http://tinyurl.com/3lxmhsj