34th America's Cup: multihulls!

I used to live in an apartment on the side of the hill in Manly NSW. The view was right up the harbour to Elisabeth Bay.
We had a panoramic view of the start of the Sydney Hobart, while at the same time looking at the scene on the TV, with a lot of the shots from on board the boats themselves.
It was always very exciting watching how the big boats tore away from the crowd, and the smaller boats struggled amongst themselves.
Being multihull sailors from way back we would often wonder how multihulls would make out in the melee.
Alas, multihulls are banned from racing in the SH.
Coming from Canada I found this a bit distressing as the Cruising Yacht Racing Assoc. in Toronto allowed all sailboats to race together, but handicapped in their own divisions. The divisions would start at 5 min intervals. The small monos first, mid sized next, the big monos, and then the multihulls last.
Each one of the 12 clubs would host a race during the three month season, with a party at the host club after each event. There was no animosity , we were all sailors. In Sydney we found the sneering attitude toward Multis here to be a bit disconcerting. I will never forget one elderly club member telling me " Every time I see a multihull I have the urge to beat it to death with a stick." In some people that attitude still exists.
Is anyone surprised that multihull sailors feel that they are being marginalised. :?

 

It would only take a few hundred million dollars.

After the start it looks the same as events we saw before.
It needs a lot more tension and suspense. At the moment it's about as exciting
as an egg and spoon race between unequal opponents.

 

Simple solution: don't hang around with crazy people.

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10910704

Here we go again

 

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Here is the link again: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10910704

Pitiful story-just really unfortunate!

 

Someone got fired ....

 

The report I read said it was actually the lack of lifelines that caused it, and he was just knocked back by the lowered gaff. He was apparently unhurt by the gaff and was swimming strongly calling out instructions but the crew didn't respond well and lost sight of him in the dark. Not the nicest end to a great man. Decent lifelines or an attached harness would have seen him alive but he was getting old and apparently a bit careless.

But I think he's a really good example of a man who was really in touch with the sea with so much experience of both manic and peaceful sailing and he never expressed any of the duality between Multihulls (foiling or not) and monohulls that comes from some people here..... I'd say from observation that the less experience people have across various platforms the more biased the tend to be.

As for formative years for many of us that was in a dinghy then often a beach cat and we worked up from there. But Tabarly had a choice and his personal choice was the form that gets derided by far less experienced sailors here.

As for the AC at sea, I think a big vulnerability of the AC72's in a seaway would be their failure to 'contour' in critical but common wave spectra at speed, something a smaller boat or an even larger boat might not experience. They would need much more robust pitch control and more buoyancy in the bows methinks and reefable sails. But a Trimaran would arguably be a much better form from what I observe and then we are straight back to the refinement of le Hydroptere. Diagonal pitchpole then is not a vulnerability. I'd love to see her sailing against the AC72 in a seaway and I suspect she'd clean them up but that would be far too dangerous for the AC crews !

 

"It is understood lead was found in the dolphin striker "

Lead Ballast

 

Tabarly was exceptional and his loss was very hard to accept.
Imagine him shouting orders from water and the inexperienced crew unable to turn the boat around; nightmare stuff.
He came from traditional yacht sailing yet had a completely open mind to differing craft types; hence his light displacement PD111 and V, way ahead of their time, and then the radical trimarans PD1V and foilers Paul Ricard and Hydroptere involvement.
Agreed the tri foiler would be, have proven to be, better sea boats - but the AC72's were not meant for that type of sailing ... yet they are still astonishing developments.

 

When the holder of the America's Cup is caught cheating in a one design championship it is not "unfortunate" it could be a disaster.

Rule 69 is like Lance Armstrong getting busted for drugs.

That said ... how stupid do you have to be to epoxy lead in a place where it is very likely to be found? That in not something a clever cheat does. I think Oracle can afford better cheaters than that. ;-)

I didn't say they had any, only that they could afford to hire good cheats if they were going to win that way.

R

 

The sad thing is that even the honest will pay a price.

 

I'm not sure if "unfortunate" is quite the word - it was certainly a filthy act.

Are we ever going to learn the names of the cheats so others can avoid using
their services?

 

How about a great big IMAX production after the AC cup races. Set up a round robin in three more venues for the purpose of filming and promotion. Use the IMAX as a foundation for simulators for foil training and maybe have some augmented reality headsets for the IMAX as part of an AR sailing headset development.

I think AR, especially if you could hand off functions to the headset such as rudder foil control and autohelm, would be a real advance. I think getting the bloody electronics out of the boat and into your hat would be a welcome tech trickle-down. It would probably solve most of the NMEA 2000 shortcomings, or at least scare the instrument makers enough to get them to make NMEA 2000's goal of interoperablity a reality (more quickly).

There's a bit of cyberpunk fantasy where you could get a VPP literally tattooed into your arm. Powered by your body and interfaced directly to your nervous system.

<This was intended to relate to a previous post, but I seem to have missed a page or two of posts for some reason. Sorry for the interruption. I posted as the phone was ringing and only just got back to see what posted.>

 

If I were on the Oracle crew I'd be more concerned that an illegal modification escaped my organization's configuration management system. Configuration management, or management of change, is a religion in the flying machine business, and for good reason. The lesson was learned long ago that it is necessary to know the provenance and justification for inclusion of every part that goes into a machine that flies.

From a process safety point of view, this act qualifies as a leading (predictive) indicator of increased risk. Not just firings, but a change of internal culture appears to be called for.

Earl

 

34th AC

Oracle Tactician Kosteki interview: http://vimeo.com/71955688