time for a new ACC rule?

[nflutter]

Is the ACC rule archaic yet? Fixed keels w/trim tabs. Kites flown from spinnaker poles. Displacement sailing. Long bow and stern overhangs almost reminiscent of the j class. Have we progressed from yachts like this or are the current boats the true pinnacle of yacht design and high performance sailing? Is there sufficient room for development within the current rules?
has the time come for a whole new ACC boat?

[xarax]

As an example:
LOA=24 m
Draft=4 m.
SA= 576 square m.
Ballast ratio=0,50
As for the Bmax, if we like lean ladies, 4 m, if we prefer medium, 6 m, if we are seduced to a broad type, 8 m. One can even imagine having three women at the same time...

[marshmat]

I would hardly call the current AC class the "true pinnacle of yacht design". AC design is not about finding the best new technology or shape. It is about letting a team of lawyers with fine-tooth combs loose on the rulebook, and paying big bucks for engineering and testing work to find the best way to exploit whatever loopholes they find.
There isn't much, if any, room for development within the current rules. They have been carefully designed to make all the boats look and perform in a similar fashion.
I for one think the AC would be a lot more exciting (and maybe worth watching in the eyes of the media bosses) if it were opened up a lot. Set a few maximum dimensions and safety regulations, and let the designs find their own optimum.

[Crag Cay]

I totally disagree. The ACC rule has certainly entered a mature stage where all design teams have ended up at the same point in the trade -offs. This makes total sense as they are all trying to maximise speed using the same variables and the same predicted conditions. Any rule at this stage of its life will be the same. Radically different designs only occur if the racing conditions are highly variable or there is still some uncertainty about where the beneficial trade offs might lay. For the box rule advocated above, they would all look identical from the word go . (- Lwl max, Bmax, SA max, Displ min, Draught max)

The fact they all look the same is therefore not a function of the rule but a reflection that all the gross variables have been eliminated. However this means that real in depth research is being done on the fine detail, such as boundary layers, appendages, loadings, etc. The researchers actually like this reduction in variables so they can have some control over their trials and as such this event is still the driving force for most research being done in yacht design.

Whether this all makes it a great spectator event is another matter. But the cup has only ever been a real passion for those actually taking part. Interest by the public over the years has been patchy at best. Most people wouldn't care if it was still sailed in 12metres. But then, most people wouldn't care if it was sailed at all.

So the only real gripe I have with the staging of the whole show is the ludicrous control over the TV rights. Instead of seeing this as a cash cow, they should be giving the coverage away in the hope that it generates interest. Making money from the TV rights can then come after they have generated the demand.

[yipster]

a search for inflatable battens lead me to http://www.alinghi.com/en/32ndac/rules/
at page 29 rule F 34 http://www.alinghi.com/multimedia/do...4/accv5___.pdf inflatable battens are surprisingly within -restricted- rules
so on tv i saw them using a bicycle pump and valve in the batten, not the full lenght mast furling remote cup making type i thought
was impressed seeing the air batten in the rules but i rather see the ruling book -most of it- trown away and a good race

[RHough]

Originally Posted by Crag Cay

The fact they all look the same is therefore not a function of the rule but a reflection that all the gross variables have been eliminated. However this means that real in depth research is being done on the fine detail, such as boundary layers, appendages, loadings, etc. The researchers actually like this reduction in variables so they can have some control over their trials and as such this event is still the driving force for most research being done in yacht design.

Yep, the only people that want to change the rule are those that don't understand what the AC is about. The AC is about match racing. Any good match racing rule will generate boats with similar performance that sail in displacement mode.

Speed is relative, there is no need for faster boats. Indeed, boats that can plane would ruin the racing. AFAIK, the only reason that they changed from 12's is to use bigger, more visually impressive boats. Some of the best racing was the 12's in Perth ... they managed quite a show for TV and no one cares what boats they use as long as the racing is good.

[yipster]

after posting above i felt this coming becouse indeed i didnt really understand what match racing was about
not my favorite racing style but still; fastest of the two boats over the lines wins so why not full battens etc

[gggGuest]

Originally Posted by marshmat

I for one think the AC would be a lot more exciting ... if it were opened up a lot. Set a few maximum dimensions and safety regulations, and let the designs find their own optimum.

There was an AC sailed on that basis that not so many years ago. It was not exciting.

[xarax]

No. America s cup in not about match racing, just as formula 1 championship in not about match racing. Would you truly believe that formula 1 cars would have been so fast, so safe and so popular if they were technologically archaic and almost identical, as ACC boats are ? It is against the power of the elements and the weakness of our mind that we sail, not against each other. But some people just never grow up to understand it...

[DGreenwood]

Originally Posted by xarax

No. America s cup in not about match racing, just as formula 1 championship in not about match racing. Would you truly believe that formula 1 cars would have been so fast, so safe and so popular if they were technologically archaic and almost identical, as ACC boats are ? It is against the power of the elements and the weakness of our mind that we sail, not against each other. But some people just never grow up to understand it...

Huh??!!

[RHough]

Originally Posted by xarax

No. America s cup in not about match racing, just as formula 1 championship in not about match racing. Would you truly believe that formula 1 cars would have been so fast, so safe and so popular if they were technologically archaic and almost identical, as ACC boats are ? It is against the power of the elements and the weakness of our mind that we sail, not against each other. But some people just never grow up to understand it...

No one with a weak mind ever won a match race.

You may sail against the elements and a weak mind, but most of us sail in harmony with the elements using the power of our minds.

Just so you know ... technology in F1 ... all engines the same displacement and configuration (V-8's), all teams run the same tyres ... sounds like the same size sails and all from the same sailmaker? F1 cars today are more alike than different, just like ACC boats are more alike than different. This approach seems to work very well for F-1

Care to try again?

[xarax]

Sailors were always modest about the power of their own minds against the power of the elements. If one is alive today, it is because he is probably a descendant of a modest sailor. Arrogant sailors were used to serve as part of the fish, not the human evolution process. Today, the technological innovations of modern society endow the survival of even the weakest minds. Now, this is something we should really be proud of, not the one sixteenth of knot that our vessel goes faster than some other people s vessel. Especially when both vessels, although built with the help of the most powerful computers and space age materials, manage to sail with a lamentable speed, as they pathetically obey an incomprehensible complex set of bureaucratic rules.
If one is determined to discover elements of human mind strength, it is advisable not to seek it in wrestlers around cranks and lawyers around conference tables, but in engineers around computer screens, on desks covered with fluid dynamics handbooks. And as everybody should know by now after the evaporation of the infamous dark "Sameness Empire", engineering ingenuity flourishes in freedom, not sameness. "Same tyres, same engines, same sails, same sail maker..." So, why not the same boats, sailed in the same conditions, in the same harbour, in the same day of the year...? Rules of the game is one thing (and a useful one), bureaucratic totalitarian equalization is something totally different (and frightening). A mind blinded of the delusion of its own power usually fails to see the obvious difference. "F1 cars today are more alike than different; just like ACC boats are more alike than different". Who is really proud of this? If the sameness of the boats were a mere outcome of something that has reached the end of its evolutionary potential, we wouldn’t t discuss the whole thing right now. For people that supposedly enjoy the harmony of sailing, the sad fact is that modern technology and ACC class rules are in no harmony at all...
We are fed up with sameness. Sameness of the same people that are elected in the same public office for dozens of years, sameness of same yacht clubs that hold the Americas cup hostage for centuries...Let there be simple box rule posing reasonable limits that any one can understand and follow, and then let the best man win. Unless some bad losers lost their "powerful mind" after the Australia 1983 defeat...

[gggGuest]

Originally Posted by xarax

Would you truly believe that formula 1 cars would have been so fast, so safe and so popular if they were technologically archaic and almost identical

I suggest you read the formula 1 rules and regulations. http://www.formula1.com/insight/rulesandregs/ They are far more restrictive and prescriptive than the ACC rules, and very many technological advances have been banned over the years.

[xarax]

"I suggest you read the formula 1 rule and regulations. http://www.formula1.com/insight/rulesandregs/ They are far more restrictive and prescriptive than the ACC rules..."
A formula 1 car is a far more complex machine than an ACC boat, it is moving with a speed almost a hundred times greater. The dangers of dozens of cars full of high flammable gasoline moving one next to other with the speed of airplanes, in close proximity to thousands of spectators, fatal accidents that happened over the years, all these are factors absent on a ACC match race.
"Very many technological advances have been banned over the years."
Technological advances that may pose a danger to the sport, or raise the cost of a to disproportional levels, so that the teams can not follow it, is quite reasonable that they have been banned. The use of airplane get engines and their fuels, for example, is quite reasonable to be banned. A formula 1 car should still be a car, resembling, albeit remotely, the cars we use on the streets. This should supposedly be the case with an ACC boat also. We don’t want an ACC sailing boat be a glider, neither do we want an ACC boat whose cost will prohibit the participation of a handfull of teams. The use of very expensive or radioactive materials from the keels, for example, or kites extending dangerously from the boats, many technological possibilities that pose dangers ore excessive costs to the sport should be banned.
So what? Anyone who believes that the rules of the ACC boats are written with the sole purpose the prevention of dangers and excessive cost, has not read the rules themselves, or has not understand them.
The simple fact is that formula 1 cars are the most technologically advanced cars, and some of these technological advances reach, sometimes, the level of everyday cars, while the ACC boats are not. The reasons of this sad fact have to do with the ACC boat unreasonable restrictions. It is also a sad fact that there were always some people, (and there will always be some people) that are proud of these restrictions, and of as many restrictions in as many sections of life whatsoever. They are usually the people that are proud of their own powerfull mind and afraid of other people s freedom.

[bcv99]

Hello everybody,
this is my first post on this site! I followed the discussions of this forum for quite a while, and I think now is the time to break the silence

The ACC are often compared to the formula 1 race cars. But even with all the restrictions in the F1, there are still the fastest cars around a track by far. This is what the ACC lacks IMO. Just imagine you could beat a F1 car with your standard Porsche (or whatever). I definitely think the class would loose its fascination. This is why I think the real F1 on water are the C class catamarans!

Bernd