34th America's Cup: multihulls!

34th AC-- NZ

New Zealands AC 45 flying the colors:

click on image:
pix by Chris Cameron

 

AC 45 on San Fran Bay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFteNikcxPs

Do these boats need-at least- rudder t-foils?

 

Up elevator!

 

34th AC

Coutts capsizes America's Cup cat on SF Bay

By BERNIE WILSON, AP Sports Writer – 2 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When America's Cup sailors said their fast new catamarans were cutting-edge and exciting, they were factoring in inevitable capsizes.

Monday afternoon on breezy San Francisco Bay, it was no less than one of the most dominant skippers in America's Cup history, Russell Coutts, whose 45-foot catamaran went head-over-heels in a spectacular wipeout.

Grinder Shannon Falcone was thrown through the wing sail and into the chilly water, and another crewman was thrown into the water. Falcone was examined by paramedics on the dock and taken to the hospital for precautionary X-rays. Sailors wear crash helmets and foul-weather gear when sailing the speedy boats.

Coutts, the CEO of defending champion Oracle Racing, was racing skipper Jimmy Spithill as part of a media day to publicize the U.S. debut of the new boats. His boat was bearing away during the prestart maneuver when the bows buried in a wave and the cat lifted into the air and went over before coming to rest on its side.

The catamaran was pulled upright by a support boat.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...ZA1nuw?docId=2fc8de594a0045739ab8f82dfca7f26c
(link from Scuttlebutt)
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To answer my own question: No, they need a small lifting foil on the daggerboard and a small one on the rudder-the combo would work better in preventing pitchpoles than just one on the rudder,inmho.
Seems Magnus Clarke may agree with me: from SA- "I think you need to take the 45 with a grain of salt, it's a great hull shape but it doesn't have the foils it could have, which could go a long way towards making the boat more controllable in mad conditions."

 

That was a very deep bury ... beyond the main beam, and I don't think inverted T rudder foils would have stopped the capsize ... although they would have definitely slowed it down. Once the IT's are clear of the water, you can kiss your *** goodbye. However the few extra seconds, maybe, could have halted the flip. Another reconsideration of the rules might be in order. But there is, perhaps, an undercurrent of anti foil thought amongst the rule makers. Pity. Could save further embarrassment.

 

I was driving an hour or so ago and listening to msnbc on the sat radio when they had a news blurb "about the America's Cup". They said a boat racing in the Cup on San Fran Bay went "head over heels" injuring a crewman. And that "this is typical in the America's Cup". Jeez.......

 

AC 45- Coutts pitchpole video!

This is great video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1MOsI1BfbM&feature=player_embedded

Needed: one foil on the rudder pulling down, one foil on the daggerboard lifting up........


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Page Brooks from the SA front page: ( http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php )

Today was that day – the day that many of us in San Francisco have hoped for, worked for, written about, talked and perhaps had a few too many worrying about. Today was the day where all of those concerns we’d ruminated over were forgotten. Perhaps just for a moment, or for some, not at all… but for me, I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear for pretty much the entire day. I got swept up in the romance. Today was the day, that he AC45s were on the Bay and we (a gaggle of media, politicians and interested parties) were aboard America to watch. America is the gorgeous replica of the AC champion America and she’s been docked outside the Golden Gate Yacht Club for all to marvel at for the last month or so.

Since this was also a media tour targeted more to the mainstream media, my expectations were low. But at the GGYC I had the chance to chat it up a bit with Bob Fisher (the guy is funny), watch the folks from the various YCs trickle in by boat to help out on RC, talk with photographer Tom Zinn, our own Schoonerman, Michelle Slade, etc etc. It was blowing like stink out there, and as we hopped up onto America, we could finally feel the big breeze.

The schooner is remarkable in itself, but that wasn’t what this was all about. Shortly after the crew hoisted the sails (with help from many of the media / sailor types), Russell Coutts buzzed us aboard his eponymously named AC45. The entire group of guests stopped talking, ooohed and ahhhed and the cameras started clicking.

After the last few months of watching photos and videos of these boats, to see one speed by you at arms length is transforming. We didn’t hear the boat coming until it was upon us and the speed is in reality, surprising. The boat itself is silent. All you really hear is the water getting pushed out of the way. There is not the sound of the grinding and creaking like the IACC boats. That they can move like they do in this sort of wind and waves – big ebb and 25 knots at least - and stay flat is a testament to the boat and to the crew. This is the America’s Cup – they are pushing the technology, they are pushing their crew and we (ok I) are being seduced by it all.

There was an old Ranger lurking near us while Coutts continued to sail upwind. I saw the Ranger get hit by a puff while the AC45 stayed flat and stable. I guess he got a bit cocky because this happened about 45 minutes later…

We sailed outside the bridge and came upon even bigger seas and breeze. It finally felt like our boat was hitting her own stride, but a few of the people in suits and skirts (you should have heard Fish’s comments about their attire) weren’t so happy and the skipper bore off. I watched him struggle with the helm and finally gun the engine to get the power he needed to steer off. Once he got control, he handed the helm off to the mayor of San Francisco Ed Lee. Gilles Martin-Raget pulled up on a tender next to us and pulled out his big lens – again the group oohed and ahhed.

There was a group of Optis out that Spithill sailed through a few times…not sure if it was for the photo op or the sheer joy he knew they must feel to see the AC45 whiz by, but it was certainly a Kodak moment for me. I didn’t start racing till I was in college and to imagine these kids with the chance to sail round in the same water of the AC45s…it must have put them over the moon.

Back on land, changing out of our foulies and getting our very cool “party favors,” Stephanie Martin, the Chief Communications Officer for the ACEA held up her VHF toward me and said, “Russell Coutts just capsized.” I’m sure he was relieved that none of us were around to see it….but the ACRM media boat was there, ready to capture the NASCAR style crash. Someone from the OA came out and said everyone was ok, but later news reports said Shannon crashed into the wing when the boat came to a crashing halt. Good thing he had a helmet on. Title rip off by the ed is thanks to The Specials.


06/14/11
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Picture: The future any way you look at it!!

click on image:

 

Those bows certainly keep going in the direction they're pointing- no built in correction there.

 

34th AC

from Scuttlebutt:

LIFTING THE FOG

Since winning the America's Cup in February 2010, the Golden Gate Yacht
Club (GGYC) has held the pedal to the medal with their efforts to reinvent
the series for the 2013 Match. But once the rubber hit the road, economic
reality has forced changes to keep the plan afloat. Here is an update
announced today by the GGYC:

TEAMS: Nine teams remain among the 15 teams that had initially entered on
March 31st. Each of the surviving teams is to have submitted payment for
the AC45 catamaran that will be used in the America's Cup World Series
events that will be hosted in 2011 and 2012. The teams are...

Defender - 1
Oracle Racing, Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA)

Challenger - 8
Aleph-Equipe de France, Aleph Yacht Club (FRA)
Artemis Racing, Kungliga Svenska Segal Sallskapet (SWE)
China Team, Mei Fan Yacht Club (CHN)
Emirates Team New Zealand, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (NZL)
Energy Challenge, Yacht Club de France (FRA)
Venezia Challenge, Club Canottieri Roggero di Lauria (ITA)
White Tiger Challenge, Sail Korea Yacht Club (ROK)
One additional challenge entry to be revealed June 23.

Among the challenging nations, Republic of Korea is new to the America's
Cup, while China is entering for just the second time.

WORLD SERIES: The nine competitors will face-off for the first time August
6-14 at the inaugural America's Cup World Series event in Cascais, Portugal
where a fleet of ten AC45s will do battle in both fleet and match racing.
Oracle Racing will enter two teams in the 2011 AC World Series. The second
stop on the circuit will be Plymouth, England on September 10-18, followed
by the final stop in 2011 in San Diego, USA on November 12-20.

Full report: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-061511

 

lifting the bows

Here is a wacky new foil application. Since these boats are designed to sail through rather than over waves and have demonstrated their ability to act as submarines why not equip the bows with dive planes? Small foils somewhere on the bow up higher that can be controlled to adjust attitude. So instead of crash dive up periscope....on ordinary straight running they would add little drag and take the emergency burden off other foils or help in the task as in rudder t-foils. Remember, you have to finish to win so carry that big sail longer in safety......

 

34th AC--AC 45

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Problem is to set the angle of incidence of those foils-you probably wouldn't want to have to adjust them during a pitchpole. If they were placed high on the hull they might act after the fact-when the pitchpole is beyond the point of no return. If they're placed too low they'll just be creating drag when the "wave piercing" hulls do their thing.
By using a small foil on the rudder and a small foil on the daggerboard the two work together all the time to control pitch so the event, hopefully, never gets started. These foils can have other beneficial attributes-like reducing wetted surface in addition to their pitch control function....

PS-see the thread on SA ,under "multihulls" on rudder t-foils

 

You mean there is a foil application Doug Lord doesn't like? I'd suggest overhangs but they are so unhip these days....(or maybe test against a boat with the overhangs right side up?)

 

Fisher's View: San Francisco is perfect for the America’s Cup

Swap the AC-45s for AC-72s with their wings twice as high and their loadings more than five times as high, and the 34th America’s Cup will be everything that Russell Coutts has promised. Somewhat prophetically he declared: 'The closer you design to the edge, the faster you will go, but please not over the edge.'

And with every crewman ‘miked’ for sound to provide an additional dimension,

Coutts admitted: 'I’m going to have to learn a whole new language.' And that was before he capsized!



Full report: http://tinyurl.com/43x4rdb

 

Kites verses Wingsails

MASTERS OF SPEED
(June 23, 2011) - Oracle Racing's AC45 catamarans, blasting up and down San
Francisco Bay, have inspired a torrent of breathless prose. But are they
fast? Really?

AC45 #4, skippered by Jimmy Spithill, and #5, skippered by Russell Coutts,
have generally used the Golden Gate Bridge as a windward boundary for their
race training, which places their turning point right off Crissy Field, one
of the world's great sites for windsurfing and kiting. And the kite guys,
especially, have been keen to take on the cats. After all, the 500-meter
speed sailing record presently belongs to American Rob Douglas at 55.65
knots. With a kite.

Top gun kiter Johnny Heineken, off today for Silt, Germany and the
Kiteboard Course Racing Worlds - a kiting discipline developed on San
Francisco Bay, by people who sail on San Francisco Bay - checked in with
this:

You got to go sailing on one of the cats. Jealous! I've been close,
though. On two days we lined up with them on kites. Pretty amazing. The
first day, they were racing, so I didn’t want to get too close, but I
jumped in on a downwind leg and paced them for a while.

Later, Joey Pasquali (who will be joining John Craig ((AC34 PRO)) as a
mark-set boat driver), Bryan Lake and I followed them around for an hour or
so on our courseboards. I would say that on upwind angles we were even, but
they had a tiny speed advantage with that not-slowing-down-over-chop thing
they've got going. We get bounced on our 6-foot boards. Their leeward hulls
just drive through it. But it was pretty amazing to sail half a boatlength
away from one of those things, just to leeward, off their bow, and hang
with them.

Downwind we were close, but I can't honestly say I was faster. Once again,
their advantage..hmm...doubling their sail area downwind. If only I could
magically turn my 9-meter kite into a 15-meter kite when I round the top
mark.
Kimball Livingston, read on: http://blueplanettimes.com/?p=7283

 

Reminiscent of when Hobie cats were faster than the 12 meters, now we have cats racing for the cup.......