Little America's Cup UK 2013

Lac 2013

Don't have the time to watch it, but I just saw Hydros come across the finish line on foils!-IMPRESSIVE. I hope Magnus and Fred can pull it together. Magnus said in his video that they were really focusing on "skimming" rather than full foiling-that won't cut it against a true foiler I don't think but I wish them well!!

 

So far things are much like the beginning of the AC - it seems like no one has even begun to understand how to handle the boats on foils in a race setting (Except perhaps Franck Cammas). Since there has been no head to head competition no one had a good handle on what constitutes fast and what is slow.

"Fill Your Hands" is so far not competitive with Groupama and the first Hydros boat - but as the AC has shown that could be one night of adjustments away.

The coverage is especially tough to handle after seeing the spectacle in San Fran. One camera and a kid grabbed at random to run it (the proper cameraman showed up at the end of the race day). Block should keep off camera and microphone - the people who should be on camera are actually pretty good. A Steadicam would really help reduce viewer nausea!

All in all an interesting first day with French high speed multihull experience becoming visible. Tomorrow will be very interesting to see how people cope with breakdowns, fixes etc.

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Racing called for the day after three races - Cammas 3 wins, Hydros 3 seconds. Very gusty & breeze peaking over 25 knots. There will be a crash video on Sailing Anarchy of the Hydros II that's supposed to be spectacular. Race Committee decided to give these guys a break to pull their shorts back out - there has been carnage and lots of sphincter pucker factor. The sensible teams were racing to allow their equipment to survive the day so there is a lot more horsepower to see that has not been shown yet. Tomorrow is supposed to be more reasonable wind wise.

It's kind of nice to see these guys out sailing in the breeze instead of being told to go safely ashore, drink weak tea and sit on their hands. Much more like a real regatta. I think most of the shore crews will be busy fixing things - and interestingly those not working on their own boats will be certainly working on their competitor's boats to get them back on the water.

The AC crews will be jealous.

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^^^

Interesting and good summary!

A steadicam is actually not critically important anymore.
I borrowed a non-professional camera last year to tape a hockey game which had an incredibly good stabilize feature, you could zoom in on the action without the picture jumping around, excellent light sensitivity and HD image.

 

Lac 2013

Great interview with the designers including Steve Killing, Martin Fischer, the Groupama and Hydros guys. Steve Clark was missing. Many interesting tidbits, one in particular struck me: Groupama lowered their wing to the tramp to form a a seal and reckon they get a 10% gain(less drag) in light and heavy air-not just from the endplate effect but also from the lowering of the CE. Disadvantge: manouvering is slower for the crew to move side to side.
Thanks to all the guys that took part!! I learned a lot-foils are the big deal, for sure, and will only get better for the next LAC.
Exciting stuff....

 

Well at least we found out that some of the equipment was not too heavy!

lol

Boat damage on Day 1,

from their facebook page:

....


A tweet from VSail/Pierre:

Rather than 'but' it should be 'and'.

Professionalism taking its toll on the C class.

 

Lac 2013

Results:

http://www.restronguetsc.org/results/2013/c-class/ICC Challenge Results.html

 

LAC--Designers Cocktail Hour

Clean did a really good job here--this is terrific-real good information: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/39166438/highlight/416772
>>Apparently, this ustream stuff disappears quickly-too bad!!


Heres a rough sketch of the tips as they were described above. In practice, probably rotate the top of the three illustrated foils a bit to the right to get the sailing configuration-make the daggerboard about the same angle as the TNZ sketch:

click-

 

Lac 2013

Dace Clark's Clarksail Highlite reel of the event so far: (watch the sound)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F50UACkrjY

 

Lac 2013

Reasults thru today: http://www.restronguetsc.org/results/2013/c-class/ICC Challenge Results.html

 

Congrats to all. Nice to see Fredo & Magnus weren't completely blown off the leaderboard. Also great to see how Lars Guck could sail a museum piece "Cogito" to results above anyone's imagination.

Going into this I expected very different results, but you can't deny cubic dollars and highly experienced professionals in what was an amateurs game last time around. Franck Cammas sure proved that French multihull mojo magic is well deserved.

The ICCC has elevated the contest to a level far beyond being a very personal and magnanimous class rescue effort by Steve Clark and Fred Eaton. I hope the level of civility is maintained and the amateur participants aren't scared off by this year's contest.

I always appreciate how Steve is able to create magic in the Lab of Luxury (his home workshop). It gives every shadetree tinkerer the idea there could be satisfaction and respect earned without a firehose of money.

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Interview with Magnus about "Fill Your Hands" performance:
http://vimeo.com/75377499#at=0

 

C Class

It's fascinating that the foilers have dominated the C Class except in very, very light air. And even then Groupama seems ok in 5-6 knots and above.
Going to be great to here more about this from the designers and sailors.

 

Doug:

I've got to agree with you and publicly say between the ICCC and AC contests that "Foils are the Future" for high performance sailing. Knowing our history this is not an easy pronouncement for me. I've always been of the opinion that the operating window for foil superiority is pretty small - but it appears to be larger than I thought.

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Thanks for that, Bill.