Heh, heh!!

What "sponsors" would those be? Every AC has been a Match Racing event since 1871.

What early races are you talking about? Only ONE fleet race was held under the DoG. Every other Challenge/Defence has been Match Racing. Seems you should learn the history before spouting off with nonsense.

Yes, the AC (and all other sailing events where boats are designed to various rules) does rely on design excellence. However, it has rarely, if ever, used the fastest boats available.

That seems to be quite an ignorant comment. TP52s do not match race.

What is so technically wonderous about this? I was doing the same 30 years ago in Hobie 16s. Get it?

 

I agree that the America's Cup should have a strong design flavor. The syndicate that built the America weren't looking for close races. They were looking to make money by cleaning up on bets! So there's been a commercial element to the AC from the start.

One of the moments I really enjoyed during AC33 was the press conference after the first race, when a journalist asked Brad Butterworth, "You've said this competition would be all about design. Do you feel that your design team let you down?" Butterworth had this stunned look on his face and answered, "Did you see what happened, mate? They could not have come off the line in a worse position. They were behind us and they sailed to in front of us. That is Speed, with a capital S."

Where the emphasis on close racing comes from is the desire to make the racing interesting to the public. When boats are in close proximity and the lead is changing back and forth, it's easy to get emotionally involved with what's happening. When it's a chess game with both boats going to opposite corners in light wind, it's hard to appreciate what's going on unless you're a sailor yourself.

GGYC & BOR also have a desire to make the racing interesting to the public. They want to do it by having high-performance boats that can make up differences quickly, resulting in multiple lead changes during a race. They want to do it by having boats that are visually interesting in their own right and clearly at the forefront of sailing technology. And they want to do it by using modern media to take the view onboard the boat and be able to see and hear everything that is happening as if they were riding along.

I think the angst in the sailing community comes from the question, "What does this mean for my own boat and my own sailing?" Especially during the 12M era, the boats racing for the AC were basically high-end club racers. There was a lot of trickle-down of the technology, and sailors could identify with the AC crews and the boats. Especially with wingsails, the average sailor thinks, "Those are really cool. But they are so far removed from my boat that I'll never experience something like that." Instead of watching the AC to learn how to sail their boats better, they lose that connection they used to have.

And there's the fear that sailing in general will go multihull. When the AC was sailed in keelboats, it made keelboats cool, too. If the AC goes multihull, I suspect there's a feeling among keelboat owners that their boats will become uncool. If there is a movement toward multihulls, then they will be left with boats that are regarded as out of fashion as polyester suits and disco music.

I think the way the Moth class has taken off (metaphorically and literally!) with the adoption of foils indicates that high tech can be exciting in its own right and bring in people from outside the sport. Whether mono or multi, I think BOR are on the right track to make sailing a lot more exciting to more people. And even in development classes, there's an asymptote to performance that will soon have the boats performing in a closely matched manner.

 

Paul, no disrespect was intended, if you read that into my post, I apologise. Just to clarify, I agree with you, that the AC was always a "match race". Perhaps our understanding of match racing has become blurred by OD match racing, where because boats are equal, we can expect an "even match" ie close racing. Close racing very seldom occurred in the early DoG challenges.
My point was also that the AC, according to DoG, was always one-to-one, a challenge. No round robins, no qualifying series, just a swordfight between gentlemen (whoever brought the gun, usually won..)
The whole sponsorship, tv rights etc led the AC into something else, trying to satisfy an audience, which was not the original intent. I believe the original intent was that the best boat, sailed by the best crew, would win. In this respect I believe AC33 is the closest thing to a true AC event, not the made-to-measure keelboat classes that have been used for the event for the last 60 odd years.
Having said that I admit that while being an avid multihull fan, I have really enjoyed watching the AC5 series boats racing in close quarters in the LV and even moreso the RC44 series(athough fleet racing), and can understand why there will always be those who believe that that is where the true test of sailing skill lies.
My point is that match racing in multi`s, while employing different tactics than in monos, is still match racing. Even if one boat is a mile ahead. It may be boring to watch, but spectator value was never the design goal of the AC trustees. All that mattered was who won.
I think that whatever craft is chosen, the race officer should begin the start sequence at 10am every day, regardless of conditions. If you brought a wingsailed 72ft cat to the startline, and it`s blowing 35knots, good luck to you. There should be no limit on the conditions.

 

No, it wasn't. You are re-writing history in your own mind, to fit what you think the event should be.

Defender series and challenger series were both held long, long before there was any such thing as sponsorship or TV rights in the cup. Read the history. It isn't hard to find on the 'net.

That's pretty much how it seems to have worked. I think the Swiss had the best designed and sailed boats the last two monohull cups, and TNZ before them, etc...

Technically this is true. With only two boats on the course at a time it can't be anything but a match race. But it isn't a Match Race in the technical sense of the term. Some of us enjoy the strategy and tactics of Match Racing. It seems some others do not.

 

I disagree. When I have been in match racing competitions I didn't care about "the public". I cared about what we were doing to offest the last move by our competition. I cared about what the next move was going to be, and how that would set up the next one.

Good match racing has little to do with the lead changing back and forth.

Boats splitting to different corners is not a chess game, it is a crap shoot.

Given a faster boat and professional teams there will be no making-up-differences-quickly and lead changes. If you have a faster boat and you don't allow leverage to develop you are going to win easily.

If Fred had been able to get off the line without shooting himself in the foot so many times there would have been virtually no lead changes in this year's I4C. Ditto the last AC. If BOR just had even starts with the Swiss and had sailed a loose cover they would have won by a leg in each race.

This has already been done in the past few monohull LVCs and ACs.

Not among the racing sailors I know. Most "angst" (I say concern) is due to our appreciation of Match Racing.

Now you're just being silly. My own boat is now 30 years old. I don't own it because I want to be "cool".

Wingsail multis have been around with the "cutting edge" publicity for 40 years, yet somehow that has not spurred on the general sailing public toward multis or wings. There isn't even much of a niche community for wing proponents.

In fact, the LAC pretty much died in '91, had a brief I'm-not-dead-yet moment in '96 thanks to Steve Clark. At that point it was such a threat to monohulls that it went away for 11 years. If Fred Eaton had decided he liked spending his fun tickets racing vintage cars, or gliders, instead of a C Class Cat it would still be on hiatus.

I have not heard of anyone being brought into the sport by the current Moth advances. I sail out of the biggest dinghy racing club in SoCal, and I think there are two guys (who are yacht designers) who have Moths. We have had no new members join because they heard about foiling Moths.

 

The original race around the Isle of Wight was a fleet race, of course. But it wasn't the America's Cup then.

The first challenge in 1870 was a fleet race of 17 schooners, won by Magic with America taking fourth and the challenger Cambria taking eighth. I believe this was the only America's Cup challenge that was settled by a true fleet race.

The next challenge, in 1871, was also held in a fleet setting, but the defender yacht was named on the morning of each race. Columbia won two races and was dismasted on the third. Then Sappho was designated as the defender and won the remaining two races to hold onto the Cup.

In 1875, the first defender series was held, and Madeleine won the right to defend the Cup against Countess of Dufferin. In race 2, the America was allowed to start two minutes behind the two racers and although she finished ahead of the challenger, she was not officially a competitor.

After that, I believe all the races for the Cup have been 1-on-1 match races.

So the AC has been a match race since 1871. Strictly speaking, the defender selection series and the challenger selection/Luis Vuitton Cup have been held outside of the AC competition itself. With allowance for the first challenge, which was sort of a learning event, I think it's fair to say the Cup has always been decided by a match IAW the DoG.

 

So it wasn't one-on-one, as claimed. When Columbia could not continue they did not hand over the ewer.

There are other instances, such as DC winning the right to defend, then using another syndicate's boat. That isn't exactly the mano-a-mano event claimed in the post.

Though the selection series may be outside the AC, the fact is there has pretty much always been selection series in during all eras of the AC. The claim was the sail-offs only came about as part of advertising and TV, and that claim was incorrect.

 

Match racing? Oh,yeah!

From the front page of SA-from the guys on the water-very experienced racing sailors:

Match racing was in full effect today when two forces collided in Newport, RI for the championship round of the Little America’s Cup (I4C). The Defenders, Fred Eaton and Magnus Clarke, sailing Canaaan faced the Aussies Glenn Ashby and James Spithill, sailing Alpha in a seesaw battle. The story line of the qualifying races has been bigger breeze-Alpha, anything else-Canaan. There was a little bit of both today.

From the onset the action was nonstop. During the two cancelled races of the morning, the prestart fight lasted until the gun, and while Alpha was more aggressive, Canaan attacked when they had the opportunity, pulling their Y-flag during a close downspeed port/starboard cross, and getting a green flag for their trouble. Canaan ended up a mile ahead in the first race by staying in the breeze better than Alpha, although it was rightfully stopped when the Narragansett Bay current was faster than the wind. After Alpha won the second start, the two ended up in the convergence zone between the seabreeze and gradient, and the race was called.

After the seabreeze stabilized at 10-15 knots, racing resumed. Again, the prestart was serious with Alpha continuing to charge and Canaan finding ways to get free. They pushed each other beyond the starboard layline on a wild reach one minute before the start. Fred and Magnus’ tactics worked well until they blew the tack to head to the line. They ended up 38 seconds behind at the top mark as Alpha sped from the line at top speed. Canaan played catch-up for the rest of the race, with Alpha showing their textbook boathandling and great speed. In the end, the margin of victory by Alpha was only eight seconds. Prestart was everything.

The battle raged on in the second prestart with Alpha continuing to attack and Canaan evading. Only in the last 20 seconds before the start did Alpha gain a true advantage, starting underneath Canaan to the left side of the course. Alpha kept gassing the Canadians until Canaan tacked back right. In true match-race style, Alpha tacked straight away and slowly (in catamaran time) rolled over the top of Canaan, forcing Fred and Magnus to tack to the left side of the course. When they met at the top mark Alpha led by 18 seconds. That was the last mark Alpha lead in the race. On the downwind Alpha covered from ahead but Canaan gybed later to starboard for the leeward mark and worked inside with pressure and superior downwind speed and angle. Canaan gybed in front of Alpha at the bottom mark and extended the lead to over three minutes, although the dying breeze after Canaan finished had quite a bit to do with the finishing disparity.

In the end, the prestarts were the key, as Canaan had trouble in the first and stayed clear in the second. The performance differences were minimal upwind, but downwind was another matter, especially in light air. What do you know? Match races with box-rule, technology-driven multihulls, decided by skill. Tomorrow starts in a dead heat, although Canaan has the tiebreak for winning the qualifying round. Look for the prestart intensity to triple tomorrow!

 

This makes it even more evident that you have not seen the racing.

If you had you might find that account as amusing as I do.

 

Match racing

from the front page at SA:

Even with one boat running constantly for its life, the prestarts were full of dial-ups, close crosses, boats going from backwards to forwards in seconds, and great cat-and-mouse episodes. Eaton later pointed out "wait until two real match racers lock up in these boats!" In two days of commentating for OTWA at the Detroit Cup, I saw maybe a half dozen passes in one-design Ultimate 20s, yet two of the four match races for the Little AC title saw four lead changes in four legs, and this was in two designs with huge variations in performance. But at the end, the vastly superior power and downwind speed of the Canaan platform in the light to moderate air of the match racing finals sealed the deal, and sent the Little AC title back to the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, and they are likely to defend it in Weymouth in two or three years' time. When things in wing world will be much, much different.

Could you imagine this type of racing in 70+ foot catamarans? Well, there were a ton of designers and engineers present at the I4C who are indeed imagining it. With Morelli and Melvin taking the lead, there is quite a bit to be done writing the rule. Other designers, including VPLP (designers of many of the fastest multihulls in the world) are poised to draw an incredible piece of sailing art to win back the America’s Cup. With the next AC competing on cats, will we finally see some trickle down effect with cats being more accepted at yacht clubs? Well, if the fact that this Little AC was, according to the NYYC Commodore, the first ever multihull regatta for the storied club is any indication, the times they are a changin'.

Here's a note that John Williams wrote on the Catsailor forums the other day after speaking to Pete Melvin. "He said there were lots of AC people in attendance...it is much more than a rumour that the next AC will be on multihulls; it is a fact. "They" are working out the details of the new catamaran box rule. I was very happy to hear that the design race is still an important part of the equation - Pete said we might see, for example, some bizarre and innovative crossbeam arrangements. The take-away for me was that the boats will not look the same at all, which I feel is more in the tradition of Cap'n Nat's goal of building the fastest boat. I'd hoped to get more time with Pete to ask other questions while he seemed jet-lagged and willing, but it was time to go sailing! He spent the day with Matt Struble, Jay and Pease Glaser, Craig Yandow and Bill Westland in an A-cat tuning session.

 

"Anyone who was even half paying attention could see..."

from Kimball Livingston:

Is it not deliciously ironic that the Little America’s Cup should emerge as the coolest act of the summer of ‘10 and a likely precursor to announcements now promised for September 13 regarding boat type (bet on multihulls), year (bet on 2014) and protocol—everything except the venue of America’s Cup 34. Anyone who was even halfway paying attention noticed that there was some serious match racing going on recently in wicked-fast, wing-sailed multihulls at the Newport, RI station of the New York Yacht Club, the institution whose schooner America long ago won a trophy that now bears her name. And who kept that trophy for 132 years. And who, at one time, personified the phrase “hide-bound tradition.” Apparently, no longer. On its web site, NYYC reports: “The high speeds and almost instant acceleration of cambered foils had members of America’s Cup syndicates, top designers and all sailors in awe.”

Now it’s time to see the America’s Cup dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Old Man Herreshoff—he built a catamaran in 1876 that kicked the pants off the New York fleet and then was summarily banned—oh, he’s out there chuckling somewhere.

http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=4574

 

...might have actually watched the event, unlike one Mr. Lord.

Anyone who is even halfway paying attention might realize who is aligned with what organization, and what ax they have to grind.


I remain amused by your posts, and wonder why you continue to quote a website that has banned you.

 

Heh, heh ... and not only 72 foot winged cats but a 45 foot version too, for LV and junior AC sailors.

 

---
Ain't it sweet!!

(foil assisted as well!!)

 

No, No, it`s just plain wrong. It isn`t real sailing. Real sailing happens when two slow boats try to sail eachother backwards down the course, trying to give eachother penalties, and prevent eachother from even getting to the startline. This new fad with fast boats and wings must go away, it is an insult to the "tradition" of the AC. You can`t have a captain`s hat on and smoke your pipe in 40knots of apparent wind.