Sydney-Hobart: CBTF wins!(prediction)

[D'ARTOIS]

I did that in all fairness Doug, of course, the boat is sailing. It is just the unfairness done to the other boats that do not have the means nor the financial supplies/back up for adding a canting keel to their advantage.

I remember very well that an Agari design from Van de Stadt came as a good second in the Sydney Hobart some long time ago, end 80's? A 40 ft yacht.
That is sport. That is sailing! And that has gone now! In favour of those huge maxis's.

And what is funny? The whole S-H topic is already down end SA - so fast are those events forgotten!

[Chris Ostlind]

And here's the post race interview with Crichton, the skipper of the Alpha Romeo which lost the closely contested race.

He's got the whole thing on rolling boil, just below the explosion point. You see the futility in the process of spending mountains of money on stuff that can just blow-up in your face?

Summation from the article:

"Both Wild Oats’ Bob Oatley and Crichton concur that their boats, worth about $10 million each, designed by the same designers and both built by McConaghy’s yard in Sydney, are almost identical. Crichton launched Alfa Romeo six months ago. Wild Oats XI first hit the water in December.

So is Crichton disappointed about being beaten by an almost identical boat?

“Maybe they’re smarter than I am. Maybe if we had had someone we could have copied with a perfect boat we would have done the same. I would rather they hadn’t copied the boat but they’ve done it. That’s life unfortunately.

“They sailed a good race and they beat us.”

And will he be back with Alfa Romeo next year? “Right now not in a million years, but who knows…”



Yikes! That smarts.

Chris Ostlind

[RHough]

Originally Posted by Lorsail

The diesel does what diesels do in so many other applications: it moves a heavy weight from one place to another-nothing more,nothing less. To say that a boat that uses a diesel to do that is "not sailing" is absolutely ridiculous.....

Every tug that passes my office window is using a diesel to move a heavy weight from one place to another. As does every trawler. They aren't sailing either.

Randy, you probably should have quoted the whole post so I'll help out:

Originally Posted by Lorsail

Well,if you guys want to try to perpetrate a myth that Wild Oats wasn't sailing that's your business. I don't think you would feel that way if you ever sailed on the boat or even talked to someone who has. Look at the picture D'Artois posted or the other pix on SA: that's not sailing?! The absurdity of a "not sailing" comment reduces your argument to just plain siliness.
The diesel does what diesels do in so many other applications: it moves a heavy weight from one place to another-nothing more,nothing less. To say that a sailboat* that uses a diesel to do that is "not sailing" is absolutely ridiculous.....

* clarification

[CT 249]

Originally Posted by Lorsail

Well,if you guys want to try to perpetrate a myth that Wild Oats wasn't sailing that's your business. I don't think you would feel that way if you ever sailed on the boat or even talked to someone who has. Look at the picture D'Artois posted or the other pix on SA: that's not sailing?! The absurdity of a "not sailing" comment reduces your argument to just plain siliness.
The diesel does what diesels do in so many other applications: it moves a heavy weight from one place to another-nothing more,nothing less. To say that a boat that uses a diesel to do that is "not sailing" is absolutely ridiculous.....

How can you logically say views would change when people sail CBTF boats, when you have never sailed a CBTF boat yourself?

If (as you assert) views are only valid after you have sailed a CBTF boat, your own views are invalid.

And there ARE people who have sailed CBTF boats (or other boats with powered movable ballast) who think it's wrong.

[RHough]

I predict that this boat could win the Sidney-Hobart.

It uses water ballast. Two 500HP pumps have forward facing water ballast intakes and transom mounted ballast dump exits.

If conditions require that the ballast must be shifted continuously for the 628 miles of the race. It will burn about 750 gallons of fuel and finish in about 10 hours.

LOA is 38' and the rig has the same dimensions as a known offshore racer, the MAC 26X.

I'm just using the engines to move ballast, so it should be legal?

CT, you don't know what you're talking about, again ; your logic is strained and a deliberate distortion of what I said. I've sailed a half dozen CBTF prototypes as well as having talked to guys that have sailed Wild Oats and that have been directly involved in the design of all the latest CBTF boats.I've spent countless hours discussing technical details of the CBTF system with the inventors.
But I'm not the one saying that what Wild Oats has done is "not sailing" which is laughable in light of the performance of the boat and still suggest that such ridiculous assertions might be modified if they had experience sailing on Wild Oats. I haven't had the privilege of sailing on any of the latest full size CBTF boats but am in awe of their incredible sailing performance. I've been told that sailing on a boat like Wild Oats, Alpha, Pyewacket or Morning Glory is one of the most incredible sailing experiences you can have in the sailing world. I doubt that someone who says what these boats do is "not sailing" would say that after a ride from Sydney to Hobart....

[RHough]

Come on Doug,

When the ballast is not moving by engine power the boats sail.

When the engine is moving the ballast the engine is being used to increase boat speed.

To claim a sailing record you need to sail all the time. Not use the engine to increase speed at any time during the race.

It is exactly the same as allowing boats to use the engine to get through the doldrums. In both cases the engine is used to increase boat speed, either directly with a prop or indirectly by shifting ballast.

The fact is that the CBTF boats used their engines to increase boat speed during a sailing race. As impressive as the boats are, it is not fair to compare their times to boats that do not require an engine to compete.

People have died in attempts to set sailing records. Giving those records to boats that need engine powered shifting ballast is pissing on the graves of some good sailors. It is not right.

[CT 249]

Hmmm, OK, Doug, I may have been wrong in saying you've never sailed CBTF boats; I couldn't recall you saying previously that you had.

If I was wrong I apologise; they way you treat people who disagree with you means that I get rather irate and it shows in my posts at times.

I believe the main point still holds - you say that people would change their minds if they had sailed CBTF boats or spoken to those who have. But that is not always true- there are people who have sailed CBTF (or other boats with power-assisted movable ballast) who do NOT agree that such boats should be allowed to race with conventional boats.

[RHough]

Originally Posted by Lorsail

The guys sailing these high performance, technologicaly incredible, sailing machines are in the tradition of the greatest sailors of the past-to fail to see that is the worst kind of "purist" blindness; to fail to realize the new horizons of performance upwind and downwind intrinsic to these technologies is to intentionally deprive oneself of understanding one of the greatest revolutions in SAILING in the last two hundred years. Take the blinders off and open your eyes to the incredible, risky, exciting, beautiful new world of sailing technology unfolding right in front of you!

If America had tried to use powered winches to trim her sails there would be no America's Cup.

You are the one that can't see past your love of CBTF. Crew induced RM ala skiffs does not scale well to 98 ft boats. The limiting factor of large boats and high speeds has always been a human limit. Using an engine to trim anything on a racing sailboat is wrong. Any idiot can rig an engine to move ballast. The challenge has always been to create boats that humans can sail without the use of engines.

As soon as you rewrite the rules to allow engines to trim the boat, you have lost the essence of sailing.

The use of engines allowed a 14.7 knot average to win the S-H. Averaging 14.7 knots for 628 miles is not stellar performance for a boat that has an engine running.

Since you have ignored this point before, I'll try one last time ...

Why not use the wind and water to power the ballast system?

If the answer is that it takes more power than the boat can generate with power from the wind, then the boats are junk racers.

If the answer is that it would slow the boats down and remove some or all the advantage of moving the ballast, then the idea of moving the ballast has less merit.

Anyone can use an engine to go faster. Sailors use only the wind.

According to Scuttlebutt, Wild Oats is confirmed as the winner of the handicapped Tattersalls Cup in addition to setting the course record and winning line honors. I congratulate her and the crew and everybody that helped to make it possible. This is a first since the inception of the Sydney-Hobart in the 1940's.
--------------------
"The oldest boat in this years fleet, Ray Whites Koomooloo, which was overall winner in 1968 has been the closest competitor to threaten Wild Oats all day" according to Commodore Lavis of the cruising Club of Australia. "It shows that any well sailed, well founded boat has a realistic chance of winning the race."
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Seems like the Sydney-Hobart management has a pretty fair handicap system if a boat that old was a contender right up to the last minute for overal winner. Kinda puts a damper on all the BS about canters not being handicapped fairly,huh?

[RHough]

Originally Posted by Lorsail

According to Scuttlebutt, Wild Oats is confirmed as the winner of the handicapped Tattersalls Cup in addition to setting the course record and wining line honors. I congratulate her and the crew and everybody that helped to make it possible. This is a first since the inception of the Sydney-Hobart in the 1940's.
--------------------
"The oldest boat in this years fleet, Ray Whites Koomooloo, which was overall winner in 1968 has been the closest competitor to threaten Wild Oats all day" according to Commodore Lavis of the cruising Club of Australia. "It shows that any well sailed, well founded boat has a realistic chance of winning the race."
=====================
Seems like the Sydney-Hobart management has a pretty fair handicap system if a boat that old was a contender right up to the last minute for overal winner. Kinda puts a damper on all the BS about canters not being handicapped fairly,huh?

LOL Doug,

I was just going to bring this up.

Winning on corrected time holds much more value to me than the outright speed.

There is another side to the coin however, one could argue that spending $10 million dollars and getting rules changed to beat a 37 year old boat is pretty silly.

One can also argue that having to use an engine to beat a 37 year old boat makes moving ballast laughable.

I won't make those arguments, I only point out that they could be made.

The overall average of only 14.7 knots puts Wild Oats about 11th in the ranks of fast ocean races. Just behind Fujicolors's 1999 Fastnet average of 14.96 knots.

14.7 knots is dead slow when compared to a 17.21 knot Trans-Pac by Explorer in 1997.

14.7 pales to insignificant when compared to a 25.78 knot average for a 2925 mile Trans Atlantic passage by PlayStation in 2001

Lets face facts, CBTF boats just aren't that fast, and they need rule changes just to race at all.

Let's spend $10 million and get the rules changed so we can post the 11th fastest ocean race speed and beat a 37 year old boat. That's progress alright.

I'm just kidding you Doug, all in good fun on my part.

[Chris Ostlind]

When the only tool one owns is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail.

Chris

[Willallison]

While all you blokes were busy arguing about what's a sailboat and what's not, I just back from looking at all the boats down at Constitution Dock.
Very blood sexy is all I can say - and that's from a guy who wouldn't step five feet from sure without at least on engine running!
On another note, my brother-in-law was navigator aboard peklejus - they won on handicap - not IRC - the other one. So I'm claiming victory by association!!

[yipster]

Originally Posted by yipster

"5 tonnes of lead" seems a lot even on these maxis
what volume is that in kilograms to liters?

density of lead in my book is 11,3 against water 0,998 and seawater 1,024
so 5000 kg lead gives bout 442,47 liter displacement right?