Americas Cup: whats next?

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, Feb 14, 2010.

  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    From Scuttlebutt:

    Designers Focus On New America's Cup Class

    A significant step was taken towards creating the next America's Cup boat when 19 designers met in Valencia. Central to the deliberations was whether to develop a monohull or a multihull for the 34th America's Cup.

    The conference was held at the home base of BMW ORACLE Racing during its successful 33rd America's Cup campaign. "The teams want a new boat; the fans deserve one too," commented Russell Coutts, four time winner of the America's Cup. "It will not be a 'defender's boat'. It will be the product of genuine discussion and dialogue," Coutts added.

    The Valencia meetings were chaired by BMW ORACLE Racing's design coordinator, Ian Burns.

    Around the table was a 'who's who' of yacht design: 10 nationalities were represented, with winning records in every level rating class from Quarter Tonners to TP52s as well as the Volvo Ocean Race, Jules Verne Trophy, classic races such as the Fastnet and Sydney-Hobart and, the America's Cup.

    Structural and performance experts also attended as did those with experience of creating rules for the ACC, Whitbread 60 and Volvo 70 classes.

    Two different multihulls (20m and 25m LOA) were discussed as was one monohull (up to 27m LOA). The new concepts were conceived by eminent designers Bruce Nelson and Morelli/Melvin, creators of previous America's Cup winning yachts. Besides their expertise, Nelson and Morelli/Melvin were chosen because they are unaligned with either BMW ORACLE Racing or the Challenger of Record, Club Nautico di Roma/Mascalzone Latino.

    The World Sailing Teams Association has been asked if it would manage the rule drafting. Non-aligned experts will be used to ensure fairness to all teams.

    The rule-writers will report back to all teams equally and frequently. And teams will have the chance to review the new rule before it is finalized.

    Publication of the new class rule will be no later than 30th September.

    -- Tim Jeffery for the Golden Gate Yacht Club, http://www.ggyc.org
     
  2. captainsideburn
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    captainsideburn Junior Member

    hmm,
    wouldn't it be interesting if the choice was open to multihull 20m or monohull 27m
     
  3. Stephen Ditmore
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    Stephen Ditmore Senior Member

    I want to give my quick 2cents on "box rules." Fine to constrain overall boat length to a specific value (with an allowance for sprits). Fine to constrain sail area, or to specify a few critical sail dimensions. Draft & freeboard, OK. But not beam & displacement. Specify min. scantlings; specify a min. righting moment at 90 deg. and test the boats for compliance. For monohulls (if that's the way they decide to go) have a no hollows in the hull rule (which would effectively prohibit wings or racks that widen the deck beyond the width of the hull, as well as multihulls).

    With those constraints, let each designer decide how heavy to make the boat, and how wide. Something should be left to designers in order that the America's Cup Class of the future is a true development class.

    And oh yeah -- wing sails. Whether they sail multis or monos, let wing sails compete!
     
  4. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ----------------------------------
    I'm not sure about that ,Stephen. Why hamstring designers from using the most modern technology in monohulls? If turned loose designers could right now produce a monohull that would beat a multi around a course. Boy, would I like to see that! Barring that, lets have no holds barred multi's.....
     
  5. Stephen Ditmore
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    Stephen Ditmore Senior Member

    I wouldn't (and don't where the IACC is concerned) have a problem with the no hollows rule. There are some of us who still think close tactical match racing, including tacking duels, should remain what the America's Cup is all about. It shouldn't be a drag race, and that's what it would become with hiking racks.

    But lets say they go for multis or extreme monos. How would you propose to keep the match racing close & tactical? I'm not trying to be rhetorical - I'm genuinely interested if people have ideas re: how this could be done.
     
  6. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ================
    In the monohull Cup races I have watched close racing has been few and far between. Good when it was close, though. And good at Perth.
    I think fast boats can race closely as designers focus in on the rule but I don't think there is any PROVEN way to guarantee close racing all the time except maybe to have very short races and more of them.
    This " close racing" thing has been used for years to keep AC boats less technically advanced than the most advanced boats sailing and that is a shame. Lets try it the other way for a change and ,at least, the excitement level will go up....
     
  7. Paul B

    Paul B Previous Member

    The problem is most people who advocate for "faster" boats do not understand match racing tactics.

    The faster the boat, the better the acceleration, the more difficult it is to control someone in pre-start. If you can put the bow down and accelerate you can escape a tail much easier than in downspeed boats.

    The faster the boat, the better the acceleration, the more difficult it is to lee bow someone. If you can't leebow effectively the post tack boat has little chance to defend their side of the course.

    Having a large difference in upwind vs downwind speed is an issue. If the trailing boat arrives at the windward mark 2 BL behind the leader they can attack downwind in conventional boats. In planing boats the boat arriving at the windard mark first would then accelerate to say 1.5 to 2 times the speed of the trailing boat, so by the time the trailing boat is around and rolling they are now 3 or 4 BL behind, and have less effective attacking presence.

    If the boats sail at high angles of attack offwind while planing, or vastly exceed the TWS, then the training boat cannot blanket the leading boat downwind. In fact, in extreme cases (like the latest AC) the leading boat actually gasses the trailing boat.

    One of the leading match racers in the world recently talked about the boats used on the world match racing circuit. He mentioned using small planing boats at one of the stops. His comment was it was nice to spend a week learning to sail that particular model of boat, but it wasn't very good match racing.

    The Catalina 37 used in the Congressional Cup is probably the slowest, least responsive boat used on the world match racing circuit. It is also the favorite boat among the sailors.
     
  8. Stephen Ditmore
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    Stephen Ditmore Senior Member

    So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. I think I'd like to see them stick with fixed ballast monohulls for the moment - but with rules not unlike (an inshore version of) the Class40 or IMOCA 60 rules (with a little more sail area restriction).
     
  9. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Fast boats can match race and SHOULD be in the AC!

    From SA-Randy Reynolds on match racing:

    Noticed the emails about match racing in multihulls. We were (and still are) match racing multihulls here in Long Beach on a regular basis. Last year, hired by Pete Melvin of MM Design, Reynolds Design was contracted (two identical R33's Turbo's with crew) to race against and race with, the match racing champs that Pete put together to help the BMW Oracle Team...the racing was very close and exciting.

    The starts were so exciting we had bow-sprites going over the heads of the afterguard of the other boat and very fast tacking and jibing at high speeds that broke rudders on the first day. We learned that match racing multihulls requires overly strong rudders because you would be doing 18 knots then slam the rudder over to avoid or get position on your opponent. We reinforced the rudders and solved the problem the next day but no doubt BMW Oracle learned much about the incredible loads that are generated in pre-start match racing maneuvers in large fast multihulls.

    The weather legs were always close with the downwind legs even closer, with passing the lead boat not a hard task. After the first day we re-wrote the match racing books and created new ones for multihulls after we proved there is no safe position due to the acceleration of the R33's in 15 knots of wind. We raced over 20 races and all were very close with one boat usually only 10 seconds ahead of the other boat in a 20 minute windward / leeward course.

    There is no doubt in my mind that match racing in multihulls could be very successful as long as the course was correct. In this years AC you had a 20 mile weather leg with boats only being 27 seconds apart. If they could have agreed to a best 5 out of 9 series on a 2-3 mile course like the 32nd AC, the racing would have been very exciting with lead changes, close contacts and overall a more exciting venue. Add to the element more wind like you have in SF (14 knots to 25 knots) then you will really have some action
    Fast Sailing!
    Randy Reynolds
     
  10. Stephen Ditmore
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    Stephen Ditmore Senior Member

    Interesting, Doug. BTW how's Dr. Sam Bradfield doing? Is he still designing boats? What does he think of the latest BMW/Oracle?
     
  11. Stephen Ditmore
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    Stephen Ditmore Senior Member

    I do and I don't agree. The problem with rules like the TP52 / GP 42 etc. is that they restrict displacement & beam to specific ranges. IACC does this too.

    As far as the IACC rule permiting tradeoffs, the constants by which displacement & length are multiplied have proven to be wrong for boats with 80% ballast/displacement ratios and much deeper keels than the 12s, so the boats all bunch at the long & heavy end of what the rule allows, then go narrow since they don't really need the additional stability that more beam would give them. The "tradeoff" question becomes how big a penalty to incur as designers push into the length penalty zone.

    The tradeoff thing is unnecessary. Just let the designers decide how heavy to make the boats, and how wide, without penalty, so long as they achieve a minimum righting moment at 90 degrees while still meeting structural (scantling) requirements. Designers could be allowed to trade length against sail area, or not.
     
  12. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    AC in Multies

    This is a quote from Martin Fischer-top multi designer- ( here: http://catsailingnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/cs-interview-martin-fischer.html )

    CS- The next Cup should be held again in Multihulls? (Today 6 May, Oracle announced that Multis are one of the options)
    MF:YES, that would the right choice in my opinion. The America’s Cup is the pinnacle of our sport, and the boats it is sailed in should reflect that. Big multihulls are far more spectacular than any monohull, and I am sure it would help to open the America’s Cup and sailing in general to a much wider audience.



    PS Stephen, Dr. Sam is working on the 18' all carbon Osprey and consulting on a project in Hawaii....We haven't talked about the AC but I imagine he's for fast boats,preferably with foils......
     
  13. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    With respect to Martin and Randy, they're not exactly unbiased sources.

    Martin's claim that big multis are more spectacular than a big mono, for example, deserves scrutiny. Yes, multis go faster and fly a hull, but is that more spectacular than the wavemaking and heeling of a big mono? I honestly do not know, but who can claim to have an unbiased opinion?

    Secondly, why would faster boats open up the AC and sailing to a much wider audience? There are many indications that increasing speed does NOT increase popularity. Look at the class Martin often designs to, the F18 - it's heavier and slower than the F18HT yet much more popular. The Hobie 16 is even slower, yet much more popular still. And all the cats are less popular than slower monohulls.

    If speed created popularity, then multis and windsurfers would be more popular than dinghies and keelboats. They are not, therefore it is obvious that in sailing (as in most other sports) increasing pure speed does not increase popularity.

    And even when looking at the public who do not sail, there is no evidence that faster and more spectacular craft create more participation. Windsurfing is the classic example - it's down to 12% as popular (or less) than it was when boards were heavier, longer and had much lower peak speeds. Similarly, in UK dinghy sailing the dinghy boom peaked just when the speed of the average popular boat reached its zenith. From that point on, the number of sailors declined. If speed created popularity, then why did popularity decline as soon as speed had reached its high-water mark?

    We've just had a huge publicity boost for sailing her in Oz, courtesy of a teenage girl who went around the world in a '60s leadmine at an average speed of about 5 knots. The coverage was incomparably greater than any record-breaking circumnavigation over the last few decades; they were lucky to get a paragraph whereas Jessica was front-page news.
     
  14. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Speed on video-saviour of the Cup?

    ==============================
    Why should they be unbiased? They are advocates who believe that they have good reasons for their positions. They believe they DO know the answer-and I believe they do ,too.
    The speed and "diceyness" of a fast boat as shown on video can be several orders of magnitude more exciting than grass growing traditional leadbellies.
    Modern monohulls-even those not using the latest technology can provide an overwhelmingly exciting visual experience-as can multies given the right conditions. Speed,shown on video, is much more exciting than the lack of speed-see the Volvo video on this page and some of the multi videos under "Multihulls".
    ----
    PS I saw a thing you did on SA espousing your theory of the popularity of multihulls. I did some research and found that you way underestimated multihull participation in the US. I'll post it sometime.
     

  15. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    So if you have done the analysis already and know I got it so wrong, why not post it now?

    I assume you are talking about the fact that I took issue with the claim that 25% of sailors in the USA sail multis. Note that a multi rep to US Sailing (John Williams) and others have PUBLICLY stated that the 25% claim is incorrect and some have said that it was only created by class reps inflating a Sailing World survey. Also note that the numbers of class members can easily be examined on the survey results on the US Sailing website, where we see for example that the biggest cat class (Hobie, all types) had 1009 members at the last survey, compared to 1693 in the Lightning, 1050 in Catalina 30s, 1816 in Thistles, 2400 in Optis, 1515 in Flying Scots, 1506 in Sunfish, 1655 in J/24s, and 2400 in J/24s. Therefore, even just in the classes mustering over 1000 members, multis are outnumbered 14 to 1. Given that there are many more monohull associations, there's no way that the 14/1 mono advantage in the major classes is greatly altered in the smaller classes (and in the monos, 'smaller' can mean the 800-member 420s, the 650 member Etchells, the 592 member J/105s, the 506 member Techno 293 boards, the 500-member Daysailers and many others that vastly outnumber the other multi classes such as the Corsair 28 (175 members) or F18s (55 members). Even a small mono class like the International Canoes has more members than the F18s.

    And let's not even get into the mono leadmines, like the 20,000 that had PHRF certificates that same year according to http://www.sailmagazine.com/SectarianDivide or http://www.windchecklis.com/index.p...-long-island-sound&catid=85:racing&Itemid=416

    Note that the cat fleets in the US are not very big, judging from the number who turn up for titles (which to me seems a reasonable measure, and one that is not likely to be harsh on cats). The list below shows the US nationals fleet sizes for 2009 (right hand column) and 2008 (where found) in the left hand column.

    A Class 28 42
    Shark 11
    Wave 17 13
    F 16 23
    F 18 38 28
    Seaspray 19
    Nacra F17 11
    Nacra F20 11
    Hobie 14 35 12
    Hobie 16 56 54
    Hobie 17 21 20
    Hobie 16 Y 6 8
    Hobie 16W 3 8
    Hobie 20 33 25
    Hobie Tiger 12 15
    Hobie 18 9 18

    I can't find figures for any other class on Catamaran Sailor or other searches. As far as I can see, the F18HT, Isotope, other Nacras and Prindles etc no longer run nationals. So, averaged over the last couple of years there's 320 cats doing nationals and 418 sailors.

    For comparison, the Opti and C420 together attracted over 600 sailors to the nationals last year, so those two classes alone seem to outnumber cats comfortably. Then there's the three most popular big dinghies (FS, Lightning and Thistle) which between them attract an average of some 600 sailors to their nationals as well. So just five dinghy classes (out of dozens) attract about three times as many as pretty much all of the cat classes, and we haven't even looked at Lasers, Sunfish and scows yet.

    And the OD yachts attract huge numbers. Over the last three years the J/105s alone got some 370 sailors on average to their nationals - so one yacht class alone is getting about as many sailors as the cats are. The 2009 Benny 36.7s (only one I have figures fore) attracted 250 more sailors; the Tartan 10s average about 190. And that's not counting the 210s, Etchells, Stars, Six Metres, Atlantics, Catalina 30s (about 150 sailors) Melges (160 sailors), yada yada yada.

    If we add in other big boats, the position doesn't improve - for example, there's claimed to be 1600 Farriers WORLDWIDE which is great (they are fantastic boats IMHO) but that pales in comparison with the (edited) 20,000 or so yachts that have paid up for annual PHRF certificates. Do the numbers in the big boat races and you see that in something like Ensenada, multis are outnumbered by over 40 to 1.

    Look, I'm not saying this to be anti cat. By the measure I use, the cats are much stronger than windsurfers, which is what I sail about half the time, so I'm not biased towards this system to hurt cats. Why would I be biased against cats? My dad and mum sailed cats, my wife's a cat sailor and so were the kids and so am I. But it's hard to ignore the numbers, and in sailing racing those numbers indicate that the vast majority of people sail monos, especially ballasted monos (which, to further dispel any claims that I'm anti-cat, are a type I haven't raced myself in years). And sure, some people say a lot of cat sailors are just into cruising - but in that case we also have to count the thousands who just drift around on windsurfers, or those who sail the thousands of Macgregors monos, Catalinas, Sunfish, Snarks, Hunters, Morgans, and other cruising monos.


    PS - according to this SA thread (http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=108712) the Madcat regatta, which MAY get 70 boats, is the biggest small cat regatta in the USA.

    Now, if that is true and assuming most of those cats are doublehanders, that means maybe 120 sailors in the biggest COMBINED CLASS cat regatta, compared to 370 sailors in the biggest OD class (ie SINGLE OD class)in monos, or the 212 mono entries in the Newport-Ensenada (there were only 5 multis) which ranged from maxis to down to 28 footers and therefore probably attracted about 2000 mono sailors.

    So there seems to be little doubt that the claim that multi sailors made up 25% of sailors in the US was overblown, which is what I said.
     
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