America's Cup declining?

Yes, the negative brigade continue to repeat themselves - while Doug and the other occasional supporter respond.
Riveting.
The negative believers delude themselves that by repeating their mantras - that this multihull AC will go away. Sorry. Wrong.
But I find the whole foiling/wing rig/cat deal fascinating ... and you turkeys can go and consume your own defecation, if you please.
ps: Strange that everyone I talk to in Auckland, some non-yachties too, are aficionados, can't wait for the finals.
Must be our naive cultural thing ... eh? Cheers.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

Yin and yang are actually complementary, not opposing, forces, interacting to form a whole greater than either separate part; in effect, a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation.​

 

I would settle for foiling multis that had sails that could either be properly feathered or reefed. Let's face it, these are dangerous boats.

It seems that during recent decades there has been not been not only an acceptance of unwholesome and arguably dangerous types, but even a trend toward mandating them in the rules.

I know everyone on one of these boats would have done anything to be part of the crew and they are all top sailors. But there seems to be a 'Roller Ball' mentality here, where billionaires display their ego's at the expense of putting others peoples lives at risk.

Now that they've dumbed down the range of conditions these boats are allowed to sail in, hopefully The series can be successfully completed without any further major injuries or fatalities.

Future AC tournaments, IMHO, should require more sea worthy boats.

The AC 72 type can be kept, but the obviously stupid mandates, such as rule 5.2, which requires wingsails with stays have to go. The rig is way too tall for the boat's weight and length and could stand to be shortened somewhat. Maybe a little more weight can be mandated as well. But the point is, IMHO, the type needs to be made safer.

Lets revel in the high performance of 21st century technology. But let's not forget. Someone paid the ultimate price.

 

Gary, you do yourself a disservice by creating strawmen to destroy and making assertion after assertion based on your personal interest without the caveat or humility to admit as much.

This thread is an airing of opinion and no one is going to convince anybody else of anything! You have your view and I have mine, as gentlemen we can discuss the merits of both and respectfully disagree where our opinions differ.

I to have discussed the cup with plenty of Auckland sailors and most of them want to see the final because the LV and lead up is so dull and boring. They are looking forward to a race. Most are undecided on the technology, love the complexity and foiling etc but cant see it as sustainable or a formula for successful match racing. Some think the cup is a technology war and is not about real racing but just a money pissing competition. In essence I dont agree with you that Aucklanders are all fanboys for the format, rather they want to see NZ win.

Back to the thread title, is the cup in decline? Based on the evidence I would say it is. Low turnout, lack of public interest, poor management, a death, extremely prohibitive costs, lack of national identity etc. However its too early to claim its a definite trend.

I can see your point of view and get a sense of the excitement you have in the cup adopting bleeding edge technology, but I dont agree that its the best direction for the cup nor is it the acme of yacht racing. I dont think the cup really knows what it is at present; Nascar type media driven spectacle, an international challenge, a design competition, a match race, a harbour race around the cans, an inshore event, multi or mono, or a billionaires pissing contest. It seems rather confused, bordering on bipolar and desperately wanting to redefine itself as something but no one knows quite what.

There is no doubt that it has been usurped by the very rich and powerful LE and the projection of his personality deficiencies (small wiener perhaps?)

 

Unless the finals are closer and have a bit more tactical it'll be a flop as far as entertainment goes drag coefficients determine the race, not sailing skill and there's no compensating for a poor hull with brilliant sail handling and a lucky call from a tactician.

From a tech point of view I can't help watching those long fine bows overhanging the foil by such a distance and thinking how vulnerable they are to being driven under. I'm still somewhat surprised that the rule prevented more robust pitch control. It became obvious the designs had failed their original operational expectations wrt sea conditions and unless the design is changed they are forever doomed to the taxiing airliner drag race in benign conditions.

Most people I talk to have been alienated by the drive to the manic edge that sports can become. In this case it's a failure so far as it has been so boring to watch as a race. The thrill is in technical achievement but that's only understood by the few. It's like watching the space station pass overhead on a clear night. When you know whats behind the scenes it's riveting. For the others they have lost interest after the first 20 seconds.

But the original intent still worries me. The manic edge that the corporate sponsers were buying into and the statements of the controlling parties wrt the expected carnage reminds me of the film Rollerball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film) and maybe morally we should avoid the corporations that sponsored these craft with the knowledge that they would be dangerous to operate. I'd like to know what they really thought they were buying into. Sir Keith Mills had a good idea and said so when he pulled the UK team out of the challenge.

The cororate sponsors will exit the stage the foils will be cut off and in all probability the AC will return to the potentially more exciting closer matched monohulls. I just can't wait

 

Americas Cup Ascending!

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But you're going to have to wait and wait and wait a very ,very long time: the times they have changed-out with the leadbellies, up with the flying super boats, now and forever! And so forth and so on........

 

Mike.
History has shown that once a new technology has been introduced and proven effective, there is no going back.
The finest example of that was the the introduction of the monoplane aircraft.
Resistance from the biplane believers was bitter, but the Schneider Trophy monoplane sea planes, even though they were considered to have no effective commercial use, were the peak of fast aircraft technology in 1931. The result was that by the commencement of WW2, biplanes were surpassed forever.
I learned to fly on a Tiger Moth biplane, but even that was considered passe' by1947.
Sure there are still some biplanes flying today in the hands of private owners, in the same way that monohulls will always still be sailed.
But the the bell has tolled in favour of the multihull whenever fast, smooth, effortless, and safe sailing is required, whether racing or cruising.

 

I agree, but a better comparison using your analogy would be between props and jet engines.
Jet engines were invented quite a long time ago and are still not used by the
majority of recreational pilots or in competitions like the Red Bull series.

 

You're surely jesting in the extreme, MJ, when you say there is no skill involved in sailing the foiling cats.
Perhaps it might be better to ask the sailors ... I think they'll quickly put you right.
What they're achieving in skills is light years ahead of anything you or I may know.

 

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Wrong-dead wrong. Time training has been the major determining factor in which boat won. And the last two races had lead changes brought about only by consumate sailing skill of one helmsman. While the team cohesiveness of the other boat allowed foiling gybes almost every time-a direct result of sailing skill on part of the helmsman and the rest of the team working together.
Drag coefficients had very little to do with the outcome-team sailing time was and is the major determinant in the races seen so far. And to the extent "drag coefficients" played a role it certainly wasn't drag due to a hull that was predominant: the boat 100% flys for 50%+ of the race-no hull in the water-and for the other half uses "foil assist" to effectively reduce hull immersion by 30-50%. So the drag of the foils would be far greater a factor than drag of the hull but it would not compare to the advantage(or disadvantage, as the case may be) of time sailing the boat.

 

Far from it I didn't say they weren't skilled I said their skill level doesn't determine the race, that's determined by the boat. Competitors used to be able to compensate for a draggy hull with better skill and in some cases like Australia 2 with better sails although all the psych was on the keel....

 

That is simply not true when we are talking about sporting events.

The world's #1 annual sporting event, the Tour de France, banned 100kph streamlined recumbent bicycles and uses 50kph conventional upright bikes.

F1 has banned fans to create suction, 4wd, 24 litre engines, full ground effect with sliding skirts, ABS, and launch control.

The Red Bull air race uses planes that are slower than the Schneider Trophy winners of the '30s, not Blackbirds. The main events at Reno air races are not for jets.

Swimming, the second most-watched Olympic sport, bans swim fins (which are dramatically faster than bare feet) and the super suits.

Golf puts specific rules to ban new technology and restrict ball flight to specific set distances.

The fact is that most major sports DO restrict technology and therefore reduce the speeds in their major events by 50-25%. There is simply no way to deny that fact.

 

And the term "proven effective" has very little meaning if not placed into the right context.

The technology we are seeing in this year's AC is effective only within well-defined boundaries.
These boundaries are set by the racing rules (when related to the racing event), and by the economy and laws of physics (in a more general context of boat design).

Whoever has some doubts about that fact is kindly asked to design (for example) a foiling cargo vessel or a passenger cruiser, and to try sell the idea to an operator of such vessels.
Or (remaining in the ambient of racing sailboats) to let the AC72 cats race in the open ocean.

Every technology has a context within which it is effective, and that context is not unlimited.

 

I was talking about the foils. And which boats were in the last two races that had these lead changes? You are just looking at the two slowest boats.

It's a drag race

 

It is rare as finding rocking horse droppings that the slower boat has won.