34th America's Cup: multihulls!

Gooday there cobber. I sailed with Brian Leverton on Mystery (Crowther 'B' class design - modified) wing-masted cat for several years. Brian Leverton, myself & Locky worked together to redesign Locky's 'A' class hull shapes &
Brian went of to win many race series in both the 'A' class cat's we built. The highly modified hull shape had much going for it that I don't see being used today. After assisting Bill & Jan Hollier - got busy building 'Sundancer' with David Barker.

I'm not so sure all the 'really-smart' dudes are as far out in front - as they think they are. Good - yes - - Great - maybe - - Super-great - not so likely. IMHO - Ciao, james PS - Hey bloke got any more pics. Gawd I can find even 1 of Mystery, My-way or Nine lives. Darn. jj

 

Hi Doug,
Yes this is Artemis's first wing and will be conservative. Wait till boat #2 and wing #2 which should be the real boat that takes them into the LV series. Similiar to NZ and perhaps Oracle. Only a few weeks till we see the first AC72's sailing!! Been waiting over a year for this... will be exciting. Doug did you get the video to work? We could put some $'s in and buy NZ, Artemis' or Oracles No1 boats and turn up of for the LV! I'm sure they would be looking for some return on the test boats. Regards Peter S

 

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Hey, Peter! I haven't got the player to work yet. I'm having e-mail trouble with the thing(damn computer) as well. Artemis did a smart thing by doing the wing first-brilliant!

 

34th AC

RACING AGAIN IN NAPLES! http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup I almost forgot about this-sorry......

Lots of wind and waves-one shot in the above video shows a 45 jump 100% clear -and keep right on going!

Schedule: see pdf below-dates and times:
Note: Naples is 6 hours ahead of EDT. Start times are 1:30pm and 2:15pm which is 7:30AM EDT and 8:30EDT

click on image(from SA) :

 

34th AC

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

FULL ON
Naples, Italy (April 11, 2012) -
the AC World Series - Naples opened in
spectacular fashion on Wednesday as winds up to 25 knots and lumpy waves
provided harrowing conditions for the two fleet races. The AC45 catamarans,
powered by their powerful wing sails, were leaping out of the water,
launched into the air by the heavy sea state.

"It's cool, the sailing is pretty awesome, you can't complain when you're
sailing in conditions like that," said Emirates Team New Zealand skipper
Dean Barker, who sits at the top of the leaderboard after two fleet races.
"But it's very challenging for the boats and very taxing for the crew. The
goal was to get back to the dock in one piece, which we did - it's nice to
be back in good shape."

Not surprisingly in the difficult conditions, there were teams who finished
the day less content. Terry Hutchinson was leading his Artemis Racing team
to a solid second place in the first race when both bows buried in
impressive fashion as he rounded the top mark. The front of the boat kept
going down, the wind pushing the wing over, until they capsized.

"It was a balance between racing the boat hard and not putting ourselves in
a position of risk," Hutchinson explained. "I don't really feel like we put
ourselves at risk but still we ended up on our side. It's just very
frustrating... Luckily no one's injured, but the wing is absolutely
broken... It's a real bummer, the boat was so well prepared and sorted for
the regatta, and we've been going well in training, so all in all a pretty
big disappointment."

The program for Thursday starts with Match Racing, the pairings determined
by today's results, followed by two Fleet Races. Racing begins at 1330 CEST
(04:30 PDT).Provisional Standings after Day One:
1. Emirates Team New Zealand (Skipper: Dean Barker)
2. ORACLE Racing - Spithill (Skipper: James Spithill)
3. Team Korea (Skipper: Nathan Outteridge)
4. Energy Team (Skipper: Yann Guichard)
5. Luna Rossa - Swordfish (Helmsman: Paul Campbell-James)
6. Luna Rossa - Piranha (Helmsman: Chris Draper)
7. ORACLE Racing - Bundock (Skipper: Darren Bundock)
8. Artemis Racing (Skipper: Terry Hutchinson)
9. China Team (Skipper: Fred Le Peutrec)

Full report: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-041112A

Race schedule: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-040612
Sailing instructions: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-041112B

Online viewing: http://www.youtube.com/americascup
Television viewing: http://www.americascup.com/en/Discover/AC-On-TV/

 

34th AC

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

* The America's Cup World Series heads to Venice, Italy with racing on May
17-20. The format has been compressed to four days, with adjustments to the
match and fleet racing schedule to improve event scoring. The daily
broadcast will focus on fleet racing for Thursday through Saturday, with
the Sunday broadcast to include both the match and fleet racing finals.
Details: http://tinyurl.com/ACUP-042612

 

Doug - thanks for that info. The web coverage out here is worse than very bad - it's introverted grade 1 **** - I think I'm trying to say - it's not very good at all. I have not found any TV coverage at all but then we don't have 'pay-TV' & live out in the country.This whole AC 45 racing is of great interest to me personally as it is to many K1W1 people, but the corporation behind it is not doing a good job of promoting the image. In fact if Larry knew just how terribly it was being delivered I'm sure many heads would roll. It's such a shame as they have such a captive audience & could be worth lots of dollars yet it is so short of the mark that in the end it is just a blinken waste of time trying to find out how to watch it - especially from a sailors point of view. I've spent many hours trying to get in touch with them to give them some valuable feed-back but there is no way of doing that at a high level of management. DAMN !!!!!!

Thanks again though. Ciao, james

 

Core boatbuilders in NZ have shipped their first completed AC72 wing for Oracle. Found on Carbon Clubs FB.

Another article from stuff.co.nz

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/boating/6987933/Winging-Away

 

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I bet thats the lightest load that truck ever carried....

 

34th AC Artemis wing break

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

BEING CLEVERER

The 34th America's Cup has a lot of rules. Most are to minimize the cost to
compete. But anytime you have a lot of rules, and the stakes are high
enough, you have a lot of effort to find ways around the rules. Or, as
Artemis Racing CEO Paul Cayard describes, the focus is "to be cleverer than
our opponents".

Cayard's team took the first scalp in the 'cleverer' contest when they
retained an ORMA 60-foot trimaran for training. The rules preclude training
on catamarans over 10 meters (other than the AC45 or AC72), but say nothing
about trimarans. The rules also preclude training on AC72s before July 1,
but say nothing about putting an AC72 wing on their 60-foot trimaran.

So Artemis Racing did just that, and began sailing with the AC72 wing on
March 15. A big head start by anyone's measure. But after accruing valuable
hours of load testing and 12 days of sailing time, Artemis Racing's AC72
wing suffered significant damage while training off Valencia on May 25th.

So what happened? Journalist Bob Fisher reports...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
What actually happened was that the wing snapped in two and the whole
structure fell on to the boat - "nothing got wet," said Paul Cayard, the
team supremo. "One minute after it happened, Terry [Hutchinson] was able to
call for a bow tow and 20 minutes later the trimaran and its broken wing
were on their way back to the shore."

"Yes, it's a set-back," admitted Cayard, "but better it happened in May
2012 than in May 2013. We have time on our side now that we wouldn't have
had if this had happened later. We were the first team to have an AC-72
wing up for testing (and we carefully read the Protocol to see if what we
proposed doing was within the rules) and in the 12 days of sailing we
learned an awful lot. Even the breakage can be construed as part of that
learning curve."

The break has been across the main spar, around which the wing elements
pivot, and as such requires a great deal of repair work. "We haven't even
started wing No.2 yet," said Cayard. He did say that there was "a pile of
work" caused by the breakage, but that it had provided the opportunity for
the internal engineering staff and external consultants to add to the
requisite technical knowledge before completing the repair and building the
next wing. (There would, incidentally, be at least three wings constructed
- "You wouldn't go to San Francisco Bay with any less.") -- Sail-World,
read on: http://tinyurl.com/SW-060512

 

Thanks for that Doug. Very interesting. There is going to be a lot of that "Stuff" before May 2013

 

lesson learn + 6 M usd gone ! oops..
next !
cheer's
bertho


www.fusionschooner.blogspot.com

 

34th AC

From Scuttlebutt Europe this morning:

Coutts Returns to Helm at ACWS - Newport

ORACLE Team USA will continue its crew rotation for the America's Cup World Series later this month in Newport, R.I., as Jimmy Spithill pushes to win the 2011-'12 season championship and Russell Coutts returns to helm boat No. 5.

"The rotations are fundamental to our long-term plan of building a really strong in-house racing program to be ready for the 2013 America's Cup," said skipper Jimmy Spithill. "Newport will be a fantastic event, and it will be great to see the America's Cup back in town."

The changes will see wing trimmer Dirk de Ridder and bowman Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen, who both sailed with Spithill for the first four events, return to Spithill's boat in Newport where they'll rejoin tactician John Kostecki and trimmer Joe Newton.

Championship racing at ACWS - Newport is scheduled June 27-July 1. In the season championship, Spithill holds a 4-point lead over Emirates Team New Zealand. Third-placed Artemis Racing of Sweden is 13 points behind.
After having skippered the first two ACWS events last year in Portugal and the UK, Coutts handed the helm to double Olympic medalist Darren Bundock for San Diego, Naples and Venice. Coutts re-joined the crew as tactician in Venice, and now returns to the dual skipper/helmsman role with Bundock resuming his previous coaching role.

While ORACLE Team USA Spithill reverts to its original line-up, ORACLE Team USA Coutts sees a new face in Matt Mitchell joining Coutts, Kyle Langford (wing trimmer), Simon Daubney (headsail trimmer) and Simeon Tienpont (bow). Another new face, Sam Newton, will alternate with Tienpont during practice racing.

2011-12 America's Cup World Series Overall Standings (After five of six scheduled events)

Team (Country) Match - Fleet - Total
1. ORACLE Team USA Spithill (USA) 38 - 46 - 84
2. Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) 36 - 44 - 80
3. Artemis Racing (SWE) 43 - 28 - 71
4. Energy Team (FRA) 32 - 33 - 65
5. Team Korea (KOR) 30 - 26 - 56
6. ORACLE Team USA Bundock (USA) 29 - 24 - 53
7. Luna Rossa Piranha 18 - 16 - 34
8. China Team (CHN) 13 - 15 - 28
9. Green Comm Racing (ESP) 11 - 12 - 23
10. Luna Rossa Swordfish 11 - 10 - 21

www.oracleteamusa.com
americascup.com

 

AC 45 Flying!!

From voilesetvoiliers.com on SA:

Fantastic-but is it faster!

click on image:

 

AC 45 on foils

Just noticed: no apparent altitude control system (like a wand) and the foils are definitely fully submerged and not surface piercing like Hydroptere-so what gives? Manual? Electronic?

UPDATE- I'm a little suspicious: the lee daggerboard seems almost as high above deck as the windward daggerboard. Could this exciting development be a photoshop joke??