34th America's Cup: multihulls!

34th AC

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

MODIFIED ACWS FORMAT REWARDS CONSISTENCY

San Francisco, CA (July 26, 2012) - After a variety of formulae were tried
out in the first season of the America's Cup World Series, the format of the
events has been modified for the next season beginning August 21-26 in San
Francisco confirms Iain Murray, Race Director. First, unlike last year, the
format will stay the same at every leg: five days of racing finishing with
the big final on Super Sunday. Second, the races raced before the big final
will have a higher weighting in the overall rankings. "In short, the impact
of each race in the fleet racing and match racing has been increased in the
season's overall rankings", explained Murray.

At each leg, racing will begin on Wednesday afternoon with the match racing.
Over the following three days up until Saturday, two fleet races will be run
with points counting towards qualification for the match race semi-finals.
On the closing day, Super Sunday, the top four teams in the match racing
overall rankings will meet in the semi-finals and the winners will face each
other in the final big duel.

Finally, all the teams will compete in the final race in the Fleet Race
championship. Just one small adjustment has been made to this schedule,
which will reward consistency: for the first event in San Francisco, the
semi-final and the final of the match racing (which will usually take place
on the Sunday) will be raced on Saturday afternoon, in order to make the
most of the best weather conditions, as if racing began too early on Sunday,
there would be the risk that the match racing would take place in light and
variable conditions, before the sea breezes had time to develop.

Racing will be shown on TV from Friday through Sunday, with the highlights
of Thursday's racing also being shown. -- Full story:
http://tinyurl.com/bpl9726

 

Interesting dwgs you posted there Gary.

Made me look back to an illustration I had cut from a mag long ago when the first cat raced in Americas Cup.

 

AC72 first test sail put up by crew.org.nz also a pic of a bit of hull flying

 

Ac 34

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Wow! Thanks, Corley!

 

We have leading edge twist. From dalenz and hoom, SA.

 

34th AC

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Gary, anything worth noting about the foils?

 

They appeared to be sailing with only one lazy S foil in starboard hull, no port foil (unless it was hidden somewhere - but where? - nothing down below on this platform). But it's interesting that for the very first sail, they're not using more conventional foil(s).
Check out the quite distinct twist in the low sections of the leading wing element.

 

34th AC

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Hey Gary, keep your eye open for a pix of the "s" foil-can you get near enough to take one?

 

From ETNZ site, enlarged section. Interesting they're sailing on starboard, yet we think there is no port foil??

 

Ac 34

Thanks Gary-thats wild!

 

Looks like Energy Team (the French entrant) have pulled the plug on building an AC72 and wont be competing in the next AC due to budgetary constraints.

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Americas-Cup---Energy-Team-will-not-go-ahead-with-AC72-build/100494

 

Ac 34

From Scutllebutt tonight:

AMERICA'S CUP 2013 PROGRAM RELEASED

San Francisco, Calif. (August 2, 2012) - The program for the 2013 America's
Cup season in San Francisco will include up to 55 days of racing in the
Louis Vuitton Cup, America's Cup Finals and Red Bull Youth America's Cup as
four teams take up the challenge against ORACLE TEAM USA, the defender.

With the passing of the challenge deadline at midnight on August 1, the team
line-up for the Louis Vuitton Cup is set. The challenging teams for the 34th
America's Cup are a formidable foursome and collectively as strong a group
as any Defender has faced since the beginning of the multi-challenger era of
the Cup in 1970. Artemis Racing (SWE), Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL), Luna
Rossa Challenge (ITA) and Team Korea (KOR) will battle each other in the
Louis Vuitton Cup, the America's Cup Challenger Series, for the right to
face ORACLE TEAM USA in the America's Cup Finals.

Running from July 4 through September 1, the Louis Vuitton Cup will provide
two full months of racing on San Francisco Bay. In parallel to the
challenger series, ORACLE TEAM USA will hold Defender Trials to strengthen
its bid to defend the Cup. Jimmy Spithill, the skipper of ORACLE TEAM USA
when it won the Cup in 2010, will helm one of the boats, while Ben Ainslie,
multiple Olympic Gold Medalist from the UK will helm the other. They will go
head to head on the same racetrack and on the same days as the Louis Vuitton
Cup challengers.

The America's Cup Finals, with ORACLE TEAM USA against the winner of the
Louis Vuitton Cup, will run from September 7 to September 22 and features a
new format with nearly twice as much racing. Previous Cup Finals have seen
the teams race in a 'first to five' format, where the winning team needed to
collect five victories.

In 2013, there will be two races per day, with nine victories required to
win the America's Cup. In between the Louis Vuitton Cup and America's Cup
Finals the future stars of the sport will take to the water in the Red Bull
Youth America's Cup. -- Read on: http://tinyurl.com/co7etrx

* Download AC34 2013 program: http://tinyurl.com/cqgqdc8

 

While I love the racing, the politics of AC has left me cold. When Team Oracle USA has only a single US crew member - and he's the tactician - it would be more rightly called Team Oracle Antipodes.

I would like to see a return to passport, rather than chequebook racing.

NZ has been gutted by big-money team owners taking our best and brightest.

The whole deed of gift was based around a race series by nations. What we have is a race series by teams, ostensibly based in a particular country.

If it wasn't for big wallets, Ailinghi and Oracle would never have won their challenges.

It makes a mockery of the 'Nation' part of the competition.

 

For Doug's (and other crazies') eyes; Luna Rosa's 33 foot cat testing in Sardinia. They have a wing also - which broke during a capsize. T rudder and C main foils. These shots from our friends at SA.

 

Actually I don't think the cat is 33 feet long, maybe 28? And the main foils are lazy S, not C?