34th America's Cup: multihulls!

Absolutely.


Congratulations to team Oracle USA

Congratulations also to team NZ for a great effort and never giving up

 

How quickly they forget Ellison, every time.

 

Congratulations Tom Speer! Congratulations Oracle Team! Mazel Tov Doug, You Called It Early, Good Job.

 

Fully agree with you there , I think all those boys on both teams did well , they are all winners.

 

Congratulations to Oracle Team on defending the America's Cup and for staging a fantastic comeback from what seemed certain defeat. Commiserations to Emirates Team New Zealand on a hard fought series if just a few more things had gone their way they would have lifted the Cup.

 

It's wonderful to see Tom Speer do so well again!
(On a personal note, Tom helped kick off Michlet > 12 years ago by donating to
the development when I was a student and encouraging me repeatedly to add
new features. I have a sneaking suspicion that the CFD Oracle used is a little
more advanced than Godzilla )

 

I haven't followed other forums on the cup, so I'm not familiar with any other discussions about the control systems for the boards. My understanding is that there are pushbuttons that control solenoid valves that supply actuating cylinders to position the boards (bang-bang servo control).

When Oracle first started getting competitive a couple weeks ago, I thought the obvious change, besides tacking, was ride stability. They have continued to make huge gains in the apparent ease with which the boats are stabilized in flight.

Is there any direct evidence that any control device has been interposed between the switch and the solenoid, or is acting in parallel with the switch?

There is a whole range of mechanisms that could simplify the job that fall way short of an electronic autopilot.

1. Getting the hydroelastic response of the boards dialed in was my first thought.

2. Assuming there are pressure reliefs in the system, a pressure feedback system could regulate the supply valve hydraulically, removing the bang-bang. Now you have an electrically enabled hydraulic over hydraulic system. This could range in complexity from something like your car's power assisted steering system on up to something like a modern automatic transmission on up to a full-on hydraulic analog computer or fluidic digital device. Are there any prohibitions regarding routing telemetry data directly to control mechanisms, as opposed to sending them to a display unit? It would be a bit amusing to find out there were a couple of hacked 4L60's tucked in there running the boards

3. There were several moments in the most recent races where Oracle's boat did indeed appear to recover from an excursion and come out dead on it's normal ride height with no overshoot and perfect pitch. It just didn't look like pushbutton servo control, it looked more sophisticated, more of a targeted, metered control. It looked like a very good PID algorithm mediating a bare-away. And then there was Oracle foiling up wind with half the crew looking like they were looking for stuff to do, and the boat locked at about 6" above the water. (This is your captain speaking, we are cruising at 37 inches and 42 knots. The seatbelt sign has been turned off and you are free to move about the boat).

Maybe somebody closer to the tech can gin up a poll on what sort of assists, feedbacks, and downstream-of-the-man data feeds this bunch feel ought to be permissible. It would be a pretty long list of possibilities. Nobody would object to a limit stop. I would object to telemetry inputs anywhere downstream of the point of manual power production or servo input. Data for display purposes only. Safety circuits pose a dilemma. I suppose they could be required to dump X amount of grinder power each time they fired. But it probably wasn't the grinders' fault. Maybe a special baby grinder for the skipper and make him grind off any safety circuit engagement.

 

There was no collapse. Dean Barker said that even though ETZ got faster over the last week, that Oracle just got even faster. The Oracle crew also learned some of TNZ techniques and possibly improved on them.

Anyone who thinks that these races were boring probably doesn't have a background in sailboat racing. I thought both boats were absolutely amazing. If you have ever raced a slower boat against a faster one, you have to feel for the crew of TNZ as Oracle began to do better in all phases of the courses. Match racing can be very humbling when there is no place to hide and nothing to blame. Call Ellison's money the difference if you want but there had to be a lot of engineering talent working overtime in the wee hours to make that boat better, as well as a crew that refused to give up. The money was there even when the boat was slow.

 

I found some parts of the race absolutely fascinating and enthralling,
(enhanced by the terrific graphics) and some other parts of some races boring.
I don't understand why some people think that there is some imperative to find
every moment of every race exciting without taking it personally if others don't
share their enthusiasm.

 

Tom,

Anyone who knows about Larry knows it is about winning ....



That is why most of the rich IT'ers started with Larry.

 

I don't think people are paying enough attention to the possibility that the Oracle crew was stale when the race started, from basically sitting around waiting to see who their competition was going to be.

You can see the same thing before the Superbowl or the World Series, when an easy winner in one league or conference sits around waiting for the playoffs to sort out who's going to play them. They have to ramp up again, after the lull. Their opponents may come in tired, but they also come at the top of their game.

I'm not saying that's the entire explanation; Oracle obviously also did some tweaking on its boat. The combination of the team gelling and getting its act together and the boat tweaks made an impressive difference...

 

Good points, Troy.
The Orcs also didn't have any opportunity to try out tactics at the start of a
race against another really top notch boat and crew.

 

First Foiling America's Cup: Property of the USA!

A most interesting Press conference-four guys from Team NZ start it off for about 25min, then four guys from Team USA, including Larry Ellison.
A couple of highlights:
1) Ellison and Spithill but mostly Ellison spoke in glowing terms of Russell Coutts calling him "oor leader",
2) A question from NZ asked about the "stability augmentation system" and whether now that the racing is over could anyone look inside and see it or words to that effect.
3) Ellison: "More people watched the first race of the America's Cup than watched all previous Cup races combined."

race replays: http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup
-------
Very much worth watching!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXi4Hc4cLlg&feature=c4-overview&list=UU0gzXt1Ms4WVQ7tyGgjTmqA

 

First Foiling Americas Cup

=================
In the press conference Oracle was asked about their "stability augmentation system" and didn't deny there was one nor did they go into any detail. I can hardly wait to learn about more this.
Obviously, it works within a certain range because it didn't stop Jimmy from stuffing the boat today. Ellison said that it has been inspected and passed on by the measurers.

 

"Do you know what you guys did? Did you know? You just won the Americas Cup."

Larry, only Larry can do that.