34th America's Cup: multihulls!

The cool factor was sailing... sail handling, tactics, match racing.


" Thus the boats reached the bottom of the third and final beat to windward in the same position. This was one for the record book.

Conner threw 55 tacks along with two false tacks in an effort to break away. The New Zealanders covered each move in one of the most exhausting and tense beats to windward in America's Cup history.

The result was a win for the Kiwis, and a match series now close, with Stars & Stripes up by a single race, 2-1. "

http://

 

Randy, the big difference in this case is that no-one (except the cunning, underhand, "cheating" ETNZ gang) thought the 72's would be ... true, flying FOILERS (sorry, unmentionable word) ... and that introduces a completely different and unexpected reality - like, apparent wind jump by around 5-10 -20% compared to old world displacement wind in your face. Totally different "wild" animal now.

 

Ist not the boats its the crew.back in the 80's wind sufers went very quickly from 12 ft 60lb. boards and roachless soft sails to 8-12lbs boards with very rigid sails.It was a very steep learning curve.I came to the bay area as a big fish small pond sailor.i'd won most of the races and had been sailing monos and cats since early childhood.Well I got slammed,but I kept my mouth shut and learned from the best on the bay. Within a couple years I was sailing with the rest.I too could handle the 40-50 knot gust that sent everyone else to the beach [the Gorge] I had the best gear and the experience to use it.I was never as great a sailor as these guys,so i'm not judging, my piont is;very shortly these guys will be shreading pushing limits that will make this all seam very small pond

 

There were quite a few that saw that the foil package was going to be the difference between being competitive and not.

This late in the game changing a basic design parameter like upper wind speed unfairly penalizes those that got it right and rewards those that did not.

Then again the AC does not have a reputation for fairness.

 

Very nicely put.

But we all know what the predictable 1-dimensional riposte shall be from the naysayers of "...but it'll ruin our "risk" and "fun".." be to professional and competent in such matters.

A friend of mine is a professional mountaineer. He once told me, the difference between an amateur and a professional mountaineer, is that a professional knows when to stop....an amateur doesn't; and they usually pay for it with their lives.

This is not to suggest that "Bart" was anything but the consummate professional (as he was, world class at that too)...however, it is those that beguile them and their acolytes, that are...and don't know when to stop until "someone" or "something" tells them too...with of course the predictable cries of "baaahhh humbug!"

 

Ok you heard it from me first, word got out that Team USA had the fastest boat in light airs, so they changed the rules and lowered the max wind speed in order to give the home team an advantage.... its an outrage i tell you...

 

34th AC

Comment by the DNA company-premier A Class Cat builder- (Arno, I think) on the windspeed reduction in the AC:
AC overly prudent with new proposed wind limit

I do welcome all new safety measures after the tragic death of Andrew Simpson. (see the AC site for the full list) but one: reducing the wind limit with more than 10 knots (from 33 to 20 later 23 kts).
Both the experience of the AC and ourselves shows that the foiling boats can handle more breeze. The A-class wind limit is 22 knots and Mischa and I were cruising in 24 knots.
A smaller drop of the wind limit to say 27/28 knots seems more reasonable. That would mean that the boats can race in Beaufort 6 instead of 5. We do race our beachcats and dinghies in 6 bft so should the AC cat to be a real sailing boat and not an odd sailing project. The whole fun of the current AC is that is like dinghy racing on big boats.
We should realize that the accident was probably caused by structural failure of the main beam and the ACRM has already suggested new testing procedures of the structural integrity of the cats.
Lowering the wind limit a bit is OK as we do not want a demolishing race and it is sensible to keep the AC boats under cavitating speeds (<50 kts="" p="">Last AC lacked relevance as it were light wind monsters. This AC has brought the whole sport to a new level, but as beach cats start to foil too and keep on sailing in 6 beaufort the AC cannot be seen any longer as the pinnacle of our sport if they indeed set this low high wind limit.
I cannot see that this drop of wind limit is supported by the AC sailors themselves.

You can compare this measure with setting a speed limit of 200 km in the F1.

 

^^^

Let me go find what Dalton was quoted saying yesterday:

This wind limit issue in the LVC may perhaps be partially a question of what concessions have to be made to keep Artemis from withdrawing?

 

Some people might want to draw parallels with this story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/motorsport/22684974

Richard Woods

 

That's a rather strange thing to say, because F1 has an enormous amount of restrictions specifically to slow the cars down in order to improve safety, and they race on tracks that are littered with devices like chicanes that slow them down even further. So F1 cars effectively already have very stringent "speed limits" (albiet not to 200 kmh) and therefore could be seen to actually SUPPORT the case restrictions on the AC boats.

 

34th AC

Mr. Dalton speaks: (from Scuttlebutt)

“So my guess is that a ridiculously reduced event (34th America’s Cup) with three boats because it’s too expensive is about to become an even more ridiculously reduced event, two boats, us and Prada. I just don’t even know how (Artemis Racing) get a boat. I mean they’ve got a new boat but it’s all got to be put together. The wing was smashed so they’ve got to get another wing, which I know they’re building but that takes time. They haven’t even had it out in the water.” – Grant Dalton, manager of Emirates Team New Zealand

 

^^^

The goddess for whom the team was named never appears to have had the slightest interest in boating, but she did have a habit of punishing any and all suitors.

...

About 1'20'' into this video, Oracle does a kind of belly flop when the skipper does a gybe while the crew are opening their sandwiches and beers...

(pre-embedded link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaH6OpJi4AU )

 

It's become an expensive farce alright.

Following the very apparent failure of these type of craft to cope with the conditions they only had two choices; either restrict the sail area or set a max windspeed limit.

I don't think it's even a great spectacle for most of the gongoozlers. Sure it turns a few people on, but they are usually specifically interested or even infatuated with the technology.

For the other sailors, tactics have sadly left the game. Now it's the tricky complicated manouevre of changing course at the end of each up and down drag.

Bertrand was saying recently that it's very likely that they will return to monohulls and that the crews on these large foilers are not happy with their vulnerability and the poor control they have over the boats. So I suspect they ( the sailors aboard these boats) are very happy with the wind speed limit.

 

Brave new world, Michael - why not just sit back and enjoy the show; check the SF videos.

 

Just a poor choice of craft for the SOR. Nothing else.

As for a brave new world; we could have had ULDB multihulls on foils in the 80's. What Marchaj referred to as:
Evolutionary blunders only of use in select conditions that temporarily dominate the stage of civilisation. Habitabilty seaworthiness and valued characteristics sacrificed in such craft for the sake of speed at all cost

And as I just said, people interested or even infatuated with the technology get a kick, but the failure of the chosen type of craft as a racing platform in SF is palpable to everyone else, including the participants.