AC 45 World Championship Cheating??

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by Doug Lord, Aug 10, 2013.

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  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  2. SteveMellet
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    SteveMellet Senior Member

    Doug I don't understand your comment. "Mighty Max Sirena-not one to let the facts get in the way"
    I found the interview honest and truthful, from his perspective - remember English isn't his first language.
    From his viewpoint, when asked, his opinion is that 'of course' Oracle was cheating. His opinion is aligned with a lot of people who aren't rabid OR supporters.
    He answered all other questions honestly - of course if given the chance he would like to win the cup. (take it back to the real world, man I cried with laughter, especially after the long pause and the audience giggling..) and his response to the interviewer asking him to elaborate.

    I've just become a Max Sirena fan, I know he won't likely win the cup, but I like his approach to competing for it.
     
  3. Doug Lord
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    ================
    I lost a great deal of respect for Sirena when he accused Oracle of cheating during ruddergate-proven false- and he accused the head guy, whose name escapes me, of being Oracles employee and a cheat. Also proven false.
    For him to come out publically and say that in this AC 45 mess Oracle cheated before even he knows all the facts is just pitifull-and really shameful.
     
  4. Gary Baigent
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    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    Sorry Doug, Oracle has a history now of cheating. Don't turn into a Spinray.
     
  5. Doug Lord
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    Gary, you know as well as I do that it is just plain wrong to convict without all the facts.
     
  6. SteveMellet
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    SteveMellet Senior Member

    I must say, Doug, you now have me very confused.

    YOU started this thread, and gave it it's title - from the title it would appear that you are asking for other folks opinions on whether or not what Oracle have been found to have done, should be called cheating - the question marks in the title lead me to believe that.

    So if my or Gary's or Max's opinion differs from yours, and you don't like that, perhaps in hindsight you should not have opened the question to the floor.

    I would be most intrigued as to how one might come to the conclusion that it was NOT cheating - the facts we have heard are enough to make it difficult to sound like an innocent mistake, unless in their defense they can convince the IJ that the person who did and ordered the mods were completely oblivious to the rule on where they should be placed, and made grossly incorrect assumptions. If they had done it to one boat, it might be easier to convince anyone of this scenario. I actually think that the most plausible explanation would be that they added the weights to balance the boats when they were testing lifting foils on them between events, and simply forgot to undo the modifications before sailing the boats in a class event. They were, after all, sailing the boats outside of the AC45 circuit and were probably testing all sorts of things that were non-class, such as the lifting foils etc, to learn more about how to use them. I actually hope that this is how it works out and the penalty is some sort of fine, preferably only several hundred million dollars, to be donated to children's charities - then the AC will actually be doing something meaningful to society.:D
    And we can then all focus on watching some sailing.
     
  7. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ==============
    The question marks were to indicate that Oracle hasn't been found guilty of anything yet. The idea of the thread was to present FACTS as they become available. Jumping to the conclusions that you and Gary have done is just not right and represents a lynch mob mentality. We need to hear from the jury,
    not a lynch mob.

    UPDATE-- International Jury decision by sometime this weekend-SA speculation
     
  8. SteveMellet
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    SteveMellet Senior Member

    Confused again. Are you saying it is a FACT that there is SPECULATION that there will be a decision sometime this weekend ?

    Sorry I misinterpreted the purpose of the thread, I thought it was to discuss the matter based on the facts we do have. Since no other facts are likely to come to the surface (any new 'facts' will be those fabricated to try and smooth this whole mess over), you could probably close this thread now, although you are probably likely to continue to discuss the matter with yourself.
    If you had read my entire post instead of highlighting bits in red, you might see that I actually believe that it is highly probable that they were NOT cheating, intentionally at least, and could have forgotten to remove weights added to test something outside of the regattas, and simply forgot to remove the weights. The reason I believe this, is that I find it hard to grasp them having taken such a risk to win a series which ultimately does not mean that much. I don't think any sailors or managers or even shore crew would be stupid enough to risk the possibility of a lifetime suspension from the sport they earn their income from, for the sake of a trophy and to make their sponsors happy.
     
  9. Earl Boebert
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    Earl Boebert Senior Member

    Well, if we take as fact just those things admitted to by OTUSA, it is indicative of a configuration management system wholly inadequate for flying machines that proceed at potentially lethal speeds. Accident, cheating, sabotage, it makes no difference: a flying machine was sent out in a configuration that deviated from its specification constraints.

    Cheers,

    Earl
     
  10. Blackburn
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    Blackburn Senior Member

    ^^^

    I've been going through this story today on various sites, not having followed it earlier, and it is most painful to read it all.

    You saw the video where Barclay and Murray laid it out to the press? Murray repeated a couple of times that since the infraction was of such miniscule consequence (his presumption) to boat performance, he couldn't fathom why anyone would bother...

    ... which must indicate that it was done by an inveterate monohull sailor!

    lol.

    Nobody can come up with a good explanation for why such a stupid thing was done, to the prodder strut, except there was a guy on SAAC who had an interesting theory that it reduced flex in the forestay when powering up...

    And then RHough had an hypothesis in the same thread that it must have been sabotage committed by Alinghi!

    Yikes!
     
  11. Doug Lord
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    =====================
    You speak too quickly Earl! In your current use of language ,you have referred to AC 72's that fly on hydrofoils as "flying machines" because your predjudices won't allow you to call them sailboats or,apparently,catamarans. However, the AC 45's DO NOT USE HYDROFOILS when racing as class legal AC45's.
    The amount of weight at the core of this issue is absolutely meaningless in any performance aspect whatsoever-it's the principle of the thing that the IJ is looking into.
     
  12. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Here is a report to the International Jury from Oracle regarding kingpost weights:
     

    Attached Files:

  13. Gary Baigent
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    Gary Baigent Senior Member

    I think you're being too kind, Steve ... because if the 45's were altered for foiling/flying tests, then I would imagine, the normal fore and aft positioning of the conventional daggers, being aft of CoE, would tend, once changed into lifting foils, to make the whole platform rock into a nose down position ... AND by adding weight to the forward king post, this would make the situation even worse. Just imo of course.
    Still believe, just conjecture, that on the stock (but illegally altered 45's) the sneaky weight forward was for trim, get the arse end up a little, because these boats have that tendency to drag plus also they carry additional visual gear weight right aft too.
     
  14. Earl Boebert
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    Earl Boebert Senior Member

    We love you, Doug, but having a dialog with you is like walking into the middle of the Dead Parrot Sketch. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218 for those who don't know what I'm talking about.)

    So let me lay it out in steps:

    My comment about configuration management applied to OTUSA, not just the AC45 effort, and by extension the AC72s.

    I call AC72s "flying machines" to emphasize that they require a significantly different safety culture than a sailboat. Sailboats sink, flying machines crash. Minor problems on a sailboat can often be jury-rigged, minor problems on a flying machine are often catastrophic. The whole discipline and attitude toward safety has to be different and so far I've seen no evidence that anybody in OTUSA or their Siamese Twin ACEA have a clue about that. An AC72 going 45 kt carries the same kinetic energy as an F1 car going 150 mph. To call something with that large a Splat Factor a "sailboat" is like calling a nuclear weapon a "device."

    But then, I always call digital flight control systems "robots" to emphasize how stupid they are. And I once helped build the the things :)

    Cheers,

    Earl
     

  15. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    =======================
    This thread is about the AC 45's and your comment seemed directly aimed at the 45's until you said this in post 40:

    "a flying machine was sent out in a configuration that deviated from its specification constraints."

    Which, because of your use of language, seemed to indicate that you thought the AC 45 was a foiler.
     
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