No Interest in the AC?

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by RHough, Nov 30, 2009.

  1. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    RHP
    lol
    yes your right,
    Even using boats with assy kites is a joke as whoever goes around the top mark first has won.
     
  2. RHP
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    RHP Senior Member

    I would fly from Brazil to be part of your crew. I volunteer to be chief bottler opener.
     
  3. jehardiman
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    jehardiman Senior Member

    My take is that the race will not even be as close as the NZ mono/ Stars & Stripes cat matchup....


    one of them is going to break.


    The AC was never about better sailing, and really people, the AC has just become a circus in the last three decades. The boats right now have as little to do with general sailing as Space Ship One has to do with general aviation. Actually that's not right, SS1 has more relevence.
     
  4. RHough
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    RHough Retro Dude

    The reason the AC exists at all was the intent to foster improvement in sailing vessel design.

    That ideal was gone by 1900. The Cup became a contest for the fastest racing vessels with little regard for seaworthiness.

    What the Cup was never about is who has the better sailors. Sailors (and Skippers) were hired help from the beginning.

    The post WWII era is what many people think the Cup is all about ... nothing could be farther from the truth.

    It was intended as a Design competition, the race was incidental.

    Hence my original question. I find it odd that there is little interest on a design forum.

    R
     
  5. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    Good point RH
    I enjoy the cups for the development in all the areas, hull, mast, rigging, sails rope, etc etc which all flow down to the average Joe.
    Wait till you see the wind tool BMW has, comes from another industry but it will wake up a few companies
    I love the match racing but that only works if the boats are the same.
     
  6. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    The current boats ,despite the legal wrangling, represent the highest level of modern sailboat design. There have never been any boats anywhere at any time that come remotely close to the technological level of the Cat and the Tri in an Americas Cup. And like Mr. Hough says that is the essence of the Americas Cup.
     

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  7. jehardiman
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    jehardiman Senior Member

    Actually, it was for the fostering of relationships between yacht clubs (read the power brokers) of different nations; see the deed of the cup. http://www.a3.org/ac2000_DeedofGift.html

    The whole race concept was not originally about design or fairness and suffered early and lately because of that. The Idea of it fostering design improvement was only a miniscule thing attached to the 12 meter class era, and as soon as Ben Lexcan killed that idea, it was back to the barely disguised underhandedness of the likes of Stevens (who hoped to gull the wagering English with the first America), Ashbury, Sopwith, and even Bertarelli and Ellison.
     
  8. jehardiman
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    jehardiman Senior Member

    While they are very high in tech level, I doubt they "represent the highest level of modern sailboat design". Their sole purpose is to only surpass the other boat in the narrow court decided conditions of sailing. From my point of view this, and other shortcomings they have, render them quirks (like Cascade) of no real relevence. Compare that to Dorade, the Pearson Triton or Williwaw
     
  9. RHough
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    RHough Retro Dude

    I am intimately familiar with all three versions of the Deed of Gift. :)

    America sailed to Europe to prove that US designs were the equal of or superior to those in England. America's hull shape and sails were shown to be superior. The Cup was gifted to the NYYC to allow the USA to continue to show the world that the US could build the best vessels. How anyone can deny that competition for the Cup did not foster better design until the 12 Meter Era is a surprise.

    Early on (Read Lawson's History if you haven't), it became obvious that the cost of building unlimited 90ft LWL vessels was prohibitive. Nothing has changed. The two vessels we hope to see racing on Monday are as extreme as Reliance was in her day. The adoption of the Universal Rule and the J Class were cost cutting measures as was the change to little boats in 1956.

    I beg to differ that the 12's fostered design innovation compared to the open 90ft rule. All the 12's gave us is shoal draft production boats with "winged keels" that look and function much like mushroom anchors when taking the ground. :)

    The International Rule has no more relevance to boats that are sailed today than the monster multi's do. Even for a 300 D/L cruising boat, no one wraps an International Rule hull around it, although several 12's served well as cruisers.

    The IACC rule from 1991 - 2007 saw some nice rig development, but the boats were too fast for 12 Meter style "Match Racing" and too slow to be considered cutting edge design.

    When you give a designer a clean sheet of paper, a rule that says 90 feet LWL, 22 feet maximum draft, and an unlimited budget, you don't get a 12 Meter or a J Class ... you get a fast boat ... just as you did in the late 1800's.

    Rather than have the rich guys spend $$$ to find .005 knots of extra speed, we have rich guys looking to break 40 knots in course racing boats. I think it is about time for the Cup to return to the absurdity that made it great to begin with! :D

    Randy
     
  10. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ==================
    In order to be assured of doing that in a contest where 99% anything goes
    don't you thing the designers would have to utilize the "highest level of modern sailboat design"?
    I think the catamaran may surprise a few with really high performance but I'm hoping the tri wins....

    pix by Giles Martin-Raget:
     

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  11. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    Actually, the Cup did not start in absurdity, but with fairly normal racing among boats that were, while large, pretty normal for their day. Almost all of them fitted into the normal mainstream yachting scene of their time.

    Even America was, for her day and place, conservative when compared to Steven's other yacht, Maria.

    The AC has always been representative of the big, high tech end of the monohull keelboat mainstream, with a short and small diversion for part of the 12 Metre era - but even then the boats could easily move into the mainstream. And most of the calls for a new class in the middle of the 12 Metre era were suggestions that the AC be moved to CCA/IOR maxis, which were very mainstream.

    The current boats are a complete departure from the AC tradition, apart from one mismatch we often try to forget.
     
  12. jehardiman
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    jehardiman Senior Member

    I doubt most Englishmen said that after the race with the whole course sailed issue.

    Perhaps in the rest of the world, but not in america. The fact that the US could reach into a deep stable and pull out many boats that could beat the challangers with ease shows that the Cup was not the driving force in american superiority

    J's were not a cost cutting measure but rather an attempt to stifle accuzations of cheating and lead to the most blatent attempt to "buy" the Cup until NZ showed up.

    So you concur that AC design has never really been about technical excellence. What the 12's did was to drive analyitical technollogy rather than physical development. Without that stage setting, I doubt we would see the plethora syndicates that think any designer with a CFD & FEA program is capiable of building a viable contender.

    No, they were just poor boats because the rule forced them to be too extreem and illrelevent, just like sandbaggers 100 years previously. In that way, the 12's were better for sailing overall.

    Ok, given the limited environmental envelope they were designed to, the IACC's may have been fast in the conditions of the race, but they would never have been able to cross oceans as their progenetors did. In that evaluation, the IACC boats were clearly "limited" and inferior technicly to their "unlimited" ancestors.

    I say the money spend developing the tools to improve a useful design is better seeing how much safety factory we can cut out of pier queens who's raceable locations are severely limited.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2010
  13. jehardiman
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    jehardiman Senior Member

    Maybe, maybe not. Is an F1 car the "highest level of modern automotive design"? It doesn't have a spare, can't handle driveways or speed bumps, won't run on 95e, and you can't dock your i-Pod. Give me a Aston Martin DB9, a far better example of great automotive design. These boats are one trick ponies that wouldn't last a typical summer weekend on San Francisco Bay (hell, not even in November). Is that the "highest level of modern sailboat design"?
     
  14. Zed
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    Zed Senior Member

    Well kinda... the bleeding edge trails down, the DB9 is probably a better car for what has been learned in F1.

    AC innovation was a sure route to the courtroom in days gone by! Especially if it looked like working!
     

  15. TTS
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    TTS Senior Member

    Well, it does not matter in which version of history and development you choose to believe today because in 33 hours we will see these beasts on the starting line. Time to get excited about which ever boat and team you like or support. I for one believe that the trimaran USA-17 will be faster around the course. I also think that they have not been showing their true low wind speed, sandbagging it in winds under 5 knots.
     
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