America's Cup Disaster

All:

The "America's Cup" has turned into a epic disaster. Both races cancelled due to first too low and next too high wind & wave conditions. These guys won't race in conditions eight year olds will in Optis. It is embarrassing beyond belief that the two boats present in Valencia are so narrowly defined that they can't agree to race in 15 knots wind and 1.3 meter waves.

From a boat design perspective isn't this incredibly shameful? Alinghi wants 3-5 knots wind with no waves, and BMW-Oracle wants 8+ and little kiddie waves are okay. Whiny little babies.

I think the billionaires involved have done irreparable damage to the sport of sailing. Bring back the 12 meters and the real men who sailed them.

--
Bill

 

Hi, there is a thread dealing with this:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/no-interest-ac-30353-6.html#post343567
My last post over there is pretty much in line with your thought, though it is still too early to use the word "disaster", imho.
Let's wait till the end of the week to see what it actually is (but keep the panel with the word "disaster" within reach).

 

Perhaps they should have the same rule I would have in my proposed class.

If any skipper is willing to sail in given conditions (less than, say, a hurricane), ALL must sail in them. Or forfeit that race or heat.

This rule would be a healthy antidote to these inland water keel boats that are nearly too fragile to exist.

The America's Cup, now days, has nothing to do with the sailing community.

Sailors', being the practical folks they are, have long since moved on.

Let the best lawyer win!

 

the Amockery cup

 

Hi!
Is it really that bad? Let's wait and see. Something good might come out of this. At least the structural analysts has been kept busy on these projects.
Regards,
Booster

 

Perhaps the race should be held indoors?

 

Yeah, good idea - maybe in that japanese pool where artificial waves and warm wind breeze can be created with 0.5% accuracy.
That, plus McDonalds at hand's reach would guarantee a big live audience.

 

Actually, this sort of bickering has been going on for as long as boats have had sails and the guy next to you wanted to show that his boat was fastest.

The fact that it has gone nuclear, at last, rather than the usual status of a slow rolling boil, is what has sailboat folks in a dither. Sit back and look at it objectively and ask yourself, "Just who owns the business end of the Cup, who has always owned it and who has always twisted the interpretations of same for their own benefit?"

This mythology that the old timers would be rolling in their graves is a bunch of hooey. Those old dudes tried to pull the same crap themselves and because of the nature of the beast back then, what with limited global press and all, it didn't get to such preposterous perceived proportions.

Forget about the Cup, get on with your life and look to other types of sailing interactions for your pleasure. Let the financially endowed have their fun and giggles while tossing the equivalent of a small city's worth of capital at a "who cares" venture. We have governments of all flavors tossing cash around at foolish ventures all the time and we say and do next to nothing to stop it. Why be angry about fools who are tossing their own money at the shadows cast by their self-construed egos?

There are bigger issues before us as citizens of this planet.

 

I'm sorry to see the America's Cup degenerate to the point where the races aren't even held unless the conditions are almost perfect.

On the other hand, a lot of private, non-taxpayer money and effort has been spent on research, analysis and design, and things have been learned. In the long run, that knowledge will probably percolate throughout the sailing community. So I wouldn't write it off as a total loss.

 

I used to be a very avid America's cup fan, but it's no longer a race between equals (the boats that is) I lost interest when all the legal crap over whether it should be multihulls or monohulls started and who got to hold the next one. Give the damn cup back to Queen and be done with it.

 

I was reading up on the business end of it and they marketed the thing so badly that they lost a majority of their budget

too bad
I grew up on cape cod and the races were just a grand time
you had to be there in order to understand how much fun it really was

High times as the rents used to say
hight times

 

I agree. It's now a race to see who has the best lawyers, not a sport that sailors should be interested in.

 

In 1967 I was stationed on a Coast Guard ship that was assigned to patrol the races for two days. That had to be one of the best duties I ever saw.

 

What we are seeing is to spoilt children fighting over the toy in a cracker jack box.

There is no adult supervision on the AC playground.

The commercialism of the Cup that started in the 1980's has slowly but surely ruined the event. Not to defend the NYYC as saints, but they never let the tail wag the DoG (Deed of Gift) by letting the boat owners control their Club. They made it very clear that you raced for the Cup under their flag.

What we have now is the Clubs (adult supervision) being controlled by the children. The result is 100+ foot boats that cannot sail in conditions that would not phase a 10 year old in an Optimist.

It reflects badly on the sort in general and undermines any stature that the AC has gained over the years.

The international governing body has done nothing to alter the course of this train wreck, in fact they signed an agreement giving the defending club power that no other organizer of a sanctioned event is entitled to.

We have a PRO trying to do a good job and only start races under fair conditions, but the defending club is trying to set ridiculous limits on wind and wave.

IMO the PRO should set a course and go into sequence with no regard to how fragile the boats are. If $100 million boats and highly paid professional sailors decide not to race that day ... they get scored DNC or DNF and they lose to a boat that sails the course.

For the folks from the US ... Can you imagine what the next World Series or Super Bowl would look like if the last winner could ignore the rules or re-write them?

The last 30 months of litigation makes a case for independent oversight of the Cup, but that is next to impossible when the controlling document is a registered as a charitable trust in New York. It worked pretty well as long as their were gentlemen contesting the Cup, the two robber barons seem to think that the law does not apply to them ... so they consider over $500,000 USD per month in legal fees just part of competing in a "perpetual Challenge Cup for friendly competition between foreign countries."

The races being postponed is not the disaster. The disaster is the years of complacence that brought the Cup to this state. The disaster is having people think that close racing between near identical boats is the intent of the trust. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I loved watching the 12's too but that is not what the Cup was conceived to be.

Randy

 

When was that?