35th Americas Cup: Foiling Multihulls!

Hopefully (we live in hope?) the new AC rule is both more liberal (in terms of designing true and unrestricted foilers) and at the same time, a return to purist sailing (meaning no Frankenstein electronic cheating stuff), a return not to super computers but to super skilled sailors and designers.
Actually there is an excellent philosophy to be guided by - and it has been around since the 1960's ... just look at what is occurring with the brilliant C Class cats; scale them up a bit and there's your answer. But allow differing foiler platforms, meaning trimaran or monohull configurations as well.

 

purist sailing?

ELIMINATE FOILS .... and cats .... go back to schooners!

Although, I gotta admit, I have NEVER seen Frankenstein's monster in any AC races .... He might liven things up some.

 

Here's a simple rule:

A.) 7.0 Cubic meter minimum displacement.

B.) 20 meter max length.

C.) 200 Square Meter max Sail Area.

Stipulations:

1.) All sail control, foil control, and ballast shifting, direction control, as well as propulsion must powered be by human muscle or by the wind.

2.) Any capsize (knockdown the vessel cannot recover from on its own), during a race, shall be considered a sinking, disqualifying boat and team from further heats.

3.) Vessels must be able to sail in Beaufort wind forces of 2 through 7. Any vessel may be allowed to opt out of a heat due to sailing conditions, but will forfeit that heat, if the competing team decides to sail, but only in that range of conditions. Heats will not be sailed in winds greater than force 7 or less than force 2.

That's it.

There would, of course be a bunch of other stipulations, but only to make the three I mentioned enforceable, as well as for safety concerns.

That, in turn would be followed by a bunch of advisory "shoulds".

Let the heat and risk be put on the designers and teams to bet on the fastest boat within these six restrictions.

 

Youre forgeting

The bigger the boat, the greater the surface area for advertising

The Americas cup is nothing to do with sailing...that the flintstones generation stuff

The new AC is all about marketing, hype and revenue.

40 meter cats with skyscraper wings covered in logos

Red Bull.......................................

 

I like #1, Wind turbine charged batteries, I wonder how many amps 50 kts will produce? LOL

 

The simple rule already exists:
44-90 ft LWL
Manual power

No need for any more.

Most designers *HATE* rules like that. If offers too many ways to fail. If you look at the history of rules, they are restrictive in the name of close competition, in reality designers want a small boat so if the pick the wrong corner they don't look like an idiot.

Todays designs are driven more by the sailing conditions and the courses than for any other factor.

The 44 to 90 LWL manual power boat for a Transpac will not be competitive on the AC72 stadium course (the reverse is true also).

Rather than start with the dimensions of the boat, define the race course and set the venue. Those are the things that will drive design choices.

R

 

Simply limiting Water Line Length is not enough.

There are three major factors that limit a sailboat's speed:

Displacement,
Sail Area, and
Length

Limiting those three goes a long way toward keeping the competition within reason.

These three limitations are what I call "Strategic Limitations", as they are very hard, if not impossible, to get around and are quite effective.

Very few if any open class design rules have bothered to restrict all three.

Limiting just the Water Line Length leads to boats with very short waterlines and very long over hangs.

By limiting the Length itself, you defeat such dodges.

Naturally, boats designed to my proposed rule would be quite low in the D/L ratio and quite inclined to plane and/or foil. For this reason they would likely have very short or no overhangs.

If a much heavier Min Displ. and lower Max SA were called for, longer overhangs might appear, as the designer would do his level best to get the best light air performance he can out of an underpowered, displacement speed boat.

Since the AC is raced in just one location, which is specified well in advance, the boats can be expected to be specially designed for that location. This is how the AC is different from most sailing competitions.

 

Team New-Zealand's Loss demands more Accountability and Dalton & Barker loss Stats.

Talking about accountability read an opinion in NZ on yahoo sport.


Team New-Zealand's Loss demands more Accountability and Dalton & Barker loss Stats. FROM NZ.

Link at.

http://www.7knots.com/cgi-bin/list_forum.pl?board=Misc_And_Others;view=649

 

An interview by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World team with Tom Slingsby a good read I thought.

Part 1
On the 34th America's Cup

http://www.sail-world.com/go_link.c...ttp://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=116823

Part 2
On the 35th America's Cup

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia...116887&SRCID=0&ntid=0&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0

 

Part 3 of the Tom Slingsby interview on Sail-World

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia...t-the-Extremes-and-Olympics-(Part-III)/117012

 

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Thanks Corley!

 

Iain Murray to lead the Australian HIYC challenge

http://www.americascup.com/en/news/3/news/18574/iain-murray-to-lead-australian-team

 

Glenn Ashby renews contract with Team New Zealand as they seek to retain key personnel.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11166724

 

35th America's Cup-Pete Melvin on the rule---

Here's a ok article-not much to it: http://www.americascup.com/en/news/...ete-Melvin-talks-about-the-next-Cup-boat.html

 

35th AC

Highlights of a video interview of Pete Melvin about the AC 35 rule-published in Scuttlebutt:

In an interview at the A-Class World Championship, Melvin offered a glimpse of what to expect. Here are some of the bullet points:

* Adjustable rudder angle: The AC72 restricted active adjustment of the rudder angle while sailing, which affected foiling efficiency. The new class of boat will allow active adjustment, which will improve foiling ability both upwind and downwind.

* Stored energy: The AC72 allowed no stored energy, and while all systems were human powered, there were peak times on the race course when the grinders were heavily taxed. It is expected the new boat again will again rely solely on human power for the systems, but there may be a provision wherein some power can be held in reserve to lessen the peak periods.

* Manpower: The class of boat is to be in the 60-65 foot range, which will reduce the crew needed to sail it, and the shore team required to launch and service it. Fewer people needed should reduce team budgets.

* Performance: The design brief was for the new class to be no slower than 10% of the AC72 speeds. Tests indicate the new class could be similar in speeds downwind as the AC72, but a bit slower upwind. Melvin expects the speed difference to be visually difficult to discern, and the new class may even appear faster given its smaller size.

* Foiling: Expect the new class to foil both upwind and downwind.

* One Design: In the interest of cost savings, it is likely the wing will have some one design restriction. Of the major components, it is believed the wing provided the least amount of performance gain per dollar spent on design and construction. It is believed that the hull and foil systems will remain open and restricted only by the class rule.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KUJqgTNvW0