America's Cup declining?

[upchurchmr]

Michael,

I have to apologize.
I asked about your opinion about the AC40's. An obvious mistake.

What about the AC 45's?

Doug calculated about 240 races for the current series.
Does that count in the evaluation of significant accidents?

Before you and Earl say it, yes they are 45 and not 72, but they are cats, with foils, and wingmasts and also in what passes for "close" racing for these boats.

I have to agree the leadmines were inbred and insignificant.
But they are pretty. Actually some of the much older boats were even prettier.

 

[daiquiri]

I have to agree the leadmines were inbred and insignificant.

No they were not, and that's not what Michael was saying.
Those magnificent boats were the result of the cutting-edge hydrodynamic research and optimization of that time, within the rules of that time.

 

[upchurchmr]

So pretty in 1992 does not equal "no new blood"?

Seems like we have plenty of new blood - that seems to be what many are whining about.

What can be more new than cats on foils with wing masts after how may years of monohull leadmines?

Does "another Fiasco" refer to the checkered history of what AC calls "fair play"? Or do you refer to the endless focus on lawyers and rules both before and during the competition which is the major legacy of the cup?

I think I will tune this out. Maybe I will have time to pay attention to the sailing.

 

[CT 249]

We have had this discussion before.

There has not been enough history to treat this as a statistical subject - multihulls in the AC - by your own numbers.

Deaths and accident naturally occur in the early stages of a new development.

Especially when you significantly up the speed and power involved in the event.

Few people get knee injuries while walking, but the numbers go up when you start running or playing contact sports.

I agree that due to the fact that we are in the early stages, the numbers are dubious - always have. We are dealing with such low numbers that the stats are not conclusive - so please tell that to the people who keep on bringing up the one death in IACC boats.

If one death in a few months in the 5 AC72s does not prove that they are dangerous then how can one death in some 17 years in the 95 or so IACC boats prove that they were in any way comparable in terms safety, which seems to be the underlying argument?

Having lost friends and family in those deaths that some appear to regard with such equanimity, I feel very strongly that they should not be regarded as natural. The Wright Brothers realised that dead people don't pass on their knowledge and therefore they worked out a safer way to learn how to fly. Lots of other major advances in technology and sport have good safety records.

People who go on about sailing keeping up with the times should also accept the fact that sports these days no longer accept deaths in the way they used to. If some parts of sailing want to be like F1 then shouldn't they be like F1 in their attitude to safety as well?

Violent and horrible death is not exactly the same as knee injuries. Sports that suffer such deaths due to significant increases in the power and speed of the equipment have normally reduced the power and speed of the equipment as a result. Sporting bodies have introduced major performance-restricting rules as diverse as the ban on turboes in F1 to the change in rules in javelin design, the end of F1 offshore multis and design restrictions on Tour de France bicycles so why not the AC?

I would be interested in getting information from you about other sports that have seen a similar accident rate recently and have not changed rules dramatically as a result.

I can understand you don't like whining. Please note that some of the pro-AC72 crowd here have been complaining for many years about monos and mon sailors and the AC and insulting them.

I would be interested in getting information from you about other instances in which a major prize was taken from one discipline and given to what is (according to leading competitors and organisations) another discipline. If you can find a comparable incident I think that there would also have been many complaints about it.

 

[daiquiri]

The Wright Brothers realised that dead people don't pass on their knowledge and therefore they worked out a safer way to learn how to fly.

Of course. And that is a natural and logical process which will happen to these boats too.

Violent and horrible death is not exactly the same as knee injuries. Sports that suffer such deaths due to significant increases in the power and speed of the equipment have normally reduced the power and speed of the equipment as a result.

Of course. And that is a natural and logical process which will happen to these boats too.

 

[sharpii2]

My main quarrel with the AC72's is that they are too extreme.

To give a slight idea of how extreme they are, I will scale them down to the size of a Hobie 16.

For a Hobie 16 to have the same D/L as an AC72 it would have to weigh only about 120 lbs. Maybe about 140 lbs, after the crew was added.

The sail area would have to stay the same (as a standard Hobie 16), but the reefable and strikeable soft sails would have to be replaced with wing sails, which are neither. (any unfurlable wing sail should be required to have 360 degree swinging arc, IMHO, which the ones on the AC72 don't)

Just as the previous IACC mono's were, these boats are ridiculous to the point of being dangerous.

The IACC boats were heavily ballasted egg shells which, though structurally adequate (just barely) for their intended purpose, one failed spectacularly when given an unforeseen load (using a main sheet winch for the jib, IIRC).

I think a credible case could be made that an old 12 could cross an ocean on its own bottom (something the original AC winner did and, I believe, most of the challenging 'J' boats had to as well).

As dog slow as the old 12's were, they seemed sturdier and more sea worthy than what has replaced them.

Severely limiting the range of wind conditions the boats race in is, IMHO, an extremely stupid idea (which will lead to even more ridiculous extremes in design).

Real sailboats should be able to sail in a wide range wind conditions, ranging from no less than force 2 to force 7.

Any boat that can't do that, IMHO, does not deserve the dignity of being called a real sail boat, especially if it's that size.

 

[El_Guero]

And I still LOVE ORCL!

 

[Doug Lord]

America's Cup Ascending!

My main quarrel with the AC72's is that they are too extreme.

To give a slight idea of how extreme they are, I will scale them down to the size of a Hobie 16.

For a Hobie 16 to have the same D/L as an AC72 it would have to weigh only about 120 lbs. Maybe about 140 lbs, after the crew was added.

The sail area would have to stay the same (as a standard Hobie 16), but the reefable and strikeable soft sails would have to be replaced with wing sails, which are neither. (any unfurlable wing sail should be required to have 360 degree swinging arc, IMHO, which the ones on the AC72 don't)

Just as the previous IACC mono's were, these boats are ridiculous to the point of being dangerous.

The IACC boats were heavily ballasted egg shells which, though structurally adequate (just barely) for their intended purpose, one failed spectacularly when given an unforeseen load (using a main sheet winch for the jib, IIRC).

I think a credible case could be made that an old 12 could cross an ocean on its own bottom (something the original AC winner did and, I believe, most of the challenging 'J' boats had to as well).

As dog slow as the old 12's were, they seemed sturdier and more sea worthy than what has replaced them.

Severely limiting the range of wind conditions the boats race in is, IMHO, an extremely stupid idea (which will lead to even more ridiculous extremes in design).

Real sailboats should be able to sail in a wide range wind conditions, ranging from no less than force 2 to force 7.Any boat that can't do that, IMHO, does not deserve the dignity of being called a real sail boat, especially if it's that size.

===============
The apparent wind on an AC boat will be between Force 8 and Force 10. Your "real" sailboat definition ignores that ,it seems to me. These boats are specifically designed as race boats and therefore,in my opinion, it is ludicrous to attempt to hold them to the same criteria you might hold an ocean cruising boat to.
These boats are highly engineered ,state of the art sailboats the likes of which have never been seen on this planet-to fault them for being new and state of the art + is shortsighted because you're faulting progress and new development at the same time. If these magnificent sailboats have the time to be refined, the improvement in all areas of their performance will be startling-and not much time either-another 4 years should see modest improvement/refinement in every area of the design.
I think the vision behind this America's Cup is a positive, magnificent vision of a new way of racing for the greatest trophy in sailing and probably the most sweeping change ever to be brought to the America's Cup-and I like it-and so do a lot of other people.

Go Flying 17er's!

 

[El_Guero]

Go ORCL!

 

[oldsailor7]

Quote "My main quarrel with the AC72's is that they are too extreme." Quote.

So was the De Haviland "Comet".
It was a whole technical leap ahead of the "C 47". but suffered from structural failure. The lessons learnt from that failure enabled the successful development of the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC8.
Jet travel then became the safest method of transport ever devised by man.
The AC catamarans have to be recognised as a similar leap in sailing technology. Nat Herreshoff would be proud.

 

[SteveMellet]

CT 249 wrote :
"Sports that suffer such deaths due to significant increases in the power and speed of the equipment have normally reduced the power and speed of the equipment as a result. Sporting bodies have introduced major performance-restricting rules as diverse as the ban on turboes in F1 to the change in rules in javelin design, the end of F1 offshore multis and design restrictions on Tour de France bicycles so why not the AC?"

I don't think the above can be used as an argument for what we're discussing here. Yes, the AC72's are dangerous, mostly only if they capsize. Since you can't totally ensure a catamaran that is designed for performance will never capsize, the efforts in making the boats safer must be in ensuring structural integrity of the platform while capsized, and developing quick methods of retrieving crew trapped under the overturned platform. Concentrating on total capsize prevention is not really the correct direction to follow, unless you limit the design so much that it is impossible to capsize. I don't think we want to see slow boats on the course again after seeing what can be achieved.

Your comparison to F1 and Tour de France is not convincing me - F1 is going back to turbo engines next year. Their focus on safety has been in providing the driver with a safer protective shell in the event of an accident, not limiting performance to the point where an accident can't happen. If they did that we would see 35mph limits on their top speed.
The speeds that the cyclists do on the Tour through the mountain passes is enough to kill someone who falls off a motorcycle with full protective gear at those speeds, a bicycle helmet and lycra shorts offers far less protection. The limit on what bicycles can be used has little to do with safety.
It isn't the javelin that makes the sport unsafe, it's the ridiculous practice of having folks with tape measures standing in the field where the javelin is being thrown.

The AC72 class could be much safer if they had 6 crew per side of the boat, that remain in their stations at all times, and don't cross the boat in tacks. Perhaps even with seatbelts on. 2 helmsmen, one for each tack. In the event of a pitchpole or capsize, they are in a safe position and have quick release systems to eject from their station when their hull lands in the water. With 10minutes of bottled air as they already have, it should be relatively easy to get out of the boat. The danger is mostly being pinned under a 50ft x 50ft trampoline, which could be eliminated as the boat won't need to have one. Safety problem solved, now we can see if we can make these boats faster for the next Cup.

Sharpii wrote :
"To give a slight idea of how extreme they are, I will scale them down to the size of a Hobie 16.

For a Hobie 16 to have the same D/L as an AC72 it would have to weigh only about 120 lbs. Maybe about 140 lbs, after the crew was added."

I don't believe that you can scale these ratios as you have, as it brings about some weird comparisons. Quite correct, the crew would weigh 20lbs if you work it your way, but another conversion method (11 crew at 85kg each = 935kg, 16/72 x 935 = 207kg, more realistic if not overweight ?
Also, the AC72 at their top speed is doing one boatlength per second, so by your comparison, the 120lb Hobie 16 with 20lb crew and 200square foot wingsail will have a top speed of 9,5knots. Oh yes, and if the wind limit set for racing is scaled the same way, they would be doing all that in a maximum wind strength of 4,4knots.
That right there, is pretty safe !

 

[CT 249]

Of course. And that is a natural and logical process which will happen to these boats too.

So why didn't it happen with the Formula One multis? The shorthanded F1 multis had a death rate of 10% per annum at some times. They are no longer around because they were too big, too expensive and too dangerous.

 

[pdwiley]

===============
The apparent wind on an AC boat will be between Force 8 and Force 10. Your "real" sailboat definition ignores that ,it seems to me. These boats are specifically designed as race boats and therefore,in my opinion, it is ludicrous to attempt to hold them to the same criteria you might hold an ocean cruising boat to.

That's all very well, but - they can be beaten by a 60 year old AC monohull in a F7 wind. Your argument that this is irrelevant is frankly making excuses for an observable fact. You can't even compare them to other racing vessels in any sort of wind & seaway or at least you won't because you'd have to acknowledge their weaknesses.

As the sailing equivalent of drag racers, they're a superb technical achievement.

PDW

 

[CT 249]

CT 249 wrote :
"Sports that suffer such deaths due to significant increases in the power and speed of the equipment have normally reduced the power and speed of the equipment as a result. Sporting bodies have introduced major performance-restricting rules as diverse as the ban on turboes in F1 to the change in rules in javelin design, the end of F1 offshore multis and design restrictions on Tour de France bicycles so why not the AC?"

I don't think the above can be used as an argument for what we're discussing here. Yes, the AC72's are dangerous, mostly only if they capsize. Since you can't totally ensure a catamaran that is designed for performance will never capsize, the efforts in making the boats safer must be in ensuring structural integrity of the platform while capsized, and developing quick methods of retrieving crew trapped under the overturned platform.
No, there is another obvious avenue.Concentrating on total capsize prevention is not really the correct direction to follow, unless you limit the design so much that it is impossible to capsize. I don't think we want to see slow boats on the course again after seeing what can be achieved.

You may not and that is fine, but where is the proof that the majority of peolpe, or of fans, don't? Plenty of people on SA, for example, do want to see "slow" boats on the course again.* They may not inspire you, but the fact that something inspires you or I is not proof that it is better, nor is it sufficient reason for it to take over an event created by another discipline, in a way apparently unknown in any other sport.

Earlier you wrote that you didn't think that as many fans would watch a solo 12 M sailing past. For one, witnesses on SA claimed that most of the "fans" were friends and family of the team, IIRC. I'm fairly sure that they would be there no matter what boat was sailing.

Secondly, the very fact that the "race" consisted of just one boat could indicate that there's a big problem....a problem being raised by external media such as Wired magazine and others. If speed in AC boats is important then exactly why have sponsors and sailors turned their back on this one, as evidenced by the difficulty of finding support and entries? Why did they turn up for the slow-boat ACs such as the one in the early '80s recession?

However, I'm perfectly happy to wait until some proper data comes out later. By the way, the Swedish Match tour claimed huge spectator numbers despite the boats being slow. As the IOC data (available on the IOC Olympic Programme Commission site) indicates, there is no tendency for more people to watch faster gear. That is a fact that cannot be denied according to IOC OPC official data for some time.

* by the way, in what sport is gear that is slower than 90+% of gear, as a modern AC mono could be, called "slow"?


Your comparison to F1 and Tour de France is not convincing me - F1 is going back to turbo engines next year. Their focus on safety has been in providing the driver with a safer protective shell in the event of an accident, not limiting performance to the point where an accident can't happen. If they did that we would see 35mph limits on their top speed.

Nothing I wrote said that F1 limited performance to the stage where accidents cannot happen.

The point is that F1 cars ARE dramatically restricted in performance, for reasons such as safety.


The speeds that the cyclists do on the Tour through the mountain passes is enough to kill someone who falls off a motorcycle with full protective gear at those speeds, a bicycle helmet and lycra shorts offers far less protection. The limit on what bicycles can be used has little to do with safety.

Wrong. See for example http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/uci-may-allow-lighter-race-bikes/011428 where in a discussion with journalists about bike minimum weights the UCI president "stressed that safety of riders was of paramount concern". Ask the UCI, read reports on rule changes, or ask the commissaires at our state old farts' championships or at our regional track or road races. They will give you chapter and verse on the safety aspects of design restrictions if you want them to. They won't let me use my fastest bike in "normal" racing for safety reasons. They won't let me use my fastest or second fastest bike in track racing for safety reasons, either.

The limits on bicycles are for safety and to ensure that the gear that the weekend warrior uses is the same stuff that the pros use - see for example UCI rule 1.3.007 and the controversial rules on "lawyer tabs" and crash testing of wheels.
The AC has arguably abandoned the first part and certainly abandoned the second part.

Wiki checks and my own knowledge show 5 pro racing deaths in 14 years in pro ranks.....that's not a safety record to diss considering the number of racers and races. Yes, UCI bikes could be safer. I wish they were....my wife copped 104 stitches in her last bike race and even for a cat sailor (Tornado worlds etc) from Cape Town that's nasty.

The fact is that Tour bicycles are much, much slower than the fastest bicycles, and yet the Tour is an enormous event, vastly bigger than any "fast bike" event and bigger than any sailing event. So when a slow-gear event is so popular - and other slow-gear events are also extremely popular - what does it say about the appeal of "fast gear" events?

If fast gear is better, what are you doing on a Mossie? Lovely boat, but not fast by modern standards. Yet you love it (and one of them could be our next cat) because it's a great boat despite not being fast.

The same "fast is better" mantra was behind the high-wind funboard events that, as you noted earlier, stuffed windsurfing. Surely we can use that experience when evaluating AC boats?


It isn't the javelin that makes the sport unsafe, it's the ridiculous practice of having folks with tape measures standing in the field where the javelin is being thrown.

Sorry, but on what basis of expertise in javelin events can you simply dismiss the rules as having a ridiculous basis?

Everything I can find indicates that it's the fact that to be practical, javelin events have to be run inside stadiums that are used by other events, and that they have to land nose first for measuring. But to just dismiss a major sport as being "ridiculous" I expect that you have some expertise in this area. Please give us more information.....

Javelins, like golf clubs, are simply yet another example of sporting equipment that has performance drastically reduced by rules, which indicates that there would be nothing unusual about AC boats being similarly restricted.



The AC72 class could be much safer if they had 6 crew per side of the boat, that remain in their stations at all times, and don't cross the boat in tacks. Perhaps even with seatbelts on. 2 helmsmen, one for each tack. In the event of a pitchpole or capsize, they are in a safe position and have quick release systems to eject from their station when their hull lands in the water. With 10minutes of bottled air as they already have, it should be relatively easy to get out of the boat. The danger is mostly being pinned under a 50ft x 50ft trampoline, which could be eliminated as the boat won't need to have one. Safety problem solved, now we can see if we can make these boats faster for the next Cup.

Safety aside, I note that no one has yet raised another example of a premier event in a sport being handed from the most popular discipline to a smaller one. I note that when the "Little America's Cup" was handed from C Class to F18HTs, there was quite a bit of bitterness and quite a few people who said that the LAC should stay with the class that created it. If an event cannot be changed from one class to another without bitterness, why should it be changed from one discipline to another?

When the Tornado was dropped from the Games, the Tornado class, UK Cat association, cat medallists etc said that cat sailing was a separate discipline to mono sailing. They decried the fact that cat sailors no longer had their major event to aspire to.

If it was wrong for the cat to be dumped from the Games on those grounds (and I think it was wrong) then why is OK for the mono to be dumped from the AC? Bundy made a speech at the Tornado worlds about the fact that cat sailors had their future taken away by the dumping of cats' major event - why is it OK for big mono sailors to have the big monos' major event taken from them?

If the AC72 was in a stand-alone circuit I would be interested in it. As a class that has taken the major trophy from another discipline, I dislike it - and I have done many more multi races than ballasted mono races over the past few years. Sure, the cats are faster - so what, fully-crewed boats are faster than shorthanded boats and we didn't allow them in our shorthanded multi races. And when just about every other major event in sport (including most catamaran races) is run under rules that dramatically reduce the performance of the gear, I can't see any issue if the AC did the same thing.

However, I'll probably bail out of this discussion and simply wait until some information about ratings, spectator numbers and the course of the Cup is available after it's over. It does seem, however, that the event so far has completely failed to live up to what its proponents said it would be like. When something fails to meet the claims it made for itself I think it's reasonable to note it.

 

[SteveMellet]

Hi CT249,
Apologies if I offended you.

Your knowledge on cycling and javelin is definitely well above mine, so I'll back down on those issues. My point was simply that, I'm sure that most javelin accidents were caused not by the javelin, or by the chap throwing it, but by the hapless sod tasked with trying to catch it.
With regard to cycling, my point was more that at 100km/h down a mountain pass in a large group of cyclists, a crash can have rather entertaining consequences, and a fatality or two is not impossible. It doesn't really matter if your bicycle is faster than the guy who takes you out.
My point was really that, yes, AC72 sailing is dangerous, and rather than focusing on trying to make the boats less prone to capsize by reducing their power or by some other means of slowing them down, I suggest making them safer in the event that they have capsized. Put in context, the AC72 is slower than your Tour de France bicycle going downhill. The fact that they require an extremely skilled group of sailors to handle them, actually makes it worthy of being the boat of choice for the AC. If they were made foolproof, then anyone could sail one. The fact that it requires very good sailing skills to get the boat foiling and keep it well balanced, in my mind, is a good thing.
I sympathise with you and others who feel that they have lost "Their" event. You make it VERY clear that this is the main focus of your dislike of the direction that this AC has gone. I don't see it that way, as it is all still sailing, and the crew on most teams are actually mostly from the keelboat sailing crowd who were AC sailors or match racers before, so I don't see that they have lost their event, they have adapted to it's changes, that's all. Dean Barker, Ray Davies, Jimmy Spithill, Max Sirena, etc, and 90% of their crew have all come from keelboat sailing, we haven't seen an influx of multihull sailors "taking over" the AC, in fact they are few in comparison to the keelboat sailors. (Most crew are actually just very fit, very strong winch gorillas, so not much has changed from the old boats.)
Hey, if you really don't like the catamarans, don't watch them - the next AC will probably revert back to sensible boats and you will only have missed one cycle of the AC, and you have the Match Racing World Tour to keep you entertained.
If the LAC/ICCC event worked on the same principle and the defender and challenger decided it would be sailed on 18ft skiff type boats, I'd still be keen to watch it. If they chose the Star, I'd be less convinced. Maybe I'm in the minority in that I enjoy watching fast sailboats, even if they finish 7minutes apart. Once the old IACC boats had a few boatlengths between them, it wasn't much different, you just watched to see if the lead boat could finish the course.
I agree with you on the poor attendance / low number of competitors, I'm not sure that it is only attributable to the switch to multi's, perhaps it is just the first event after a massive class change, and may have happened if they selected 90ft canting keel mono's. Perhaps if they locked in this class for the next AC, the current boats could be re-used, lowering the costs considerably for start-up teams or teams re-using their current boat 2 as their future boat 1, though I believe the cost of the boats is only a small part of financing a challenge. That will never happen though, since the majority of spectators,seem to want a return to keelboats, and the new defender will surely comply with public opinion in order to get viewership back up, as it's the only way to get sponsors on board.
Oh yes, and I sail a Mozzie because I can afford one, if I had deep pockets it would be on foils and there'd be a wing in the shed hanging above the boat. Soft sails are so last season !