34th America's Cup: multihulls!

34th AC on foils!

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Peter, my post 609 has Hydropteres record of 51+ knots over the nautical mile that they still hold. And their peak of 61 knots is also noteworthy.
No point in arguing revolution or evolution-the facts of the situation take care of that:
1) TNZ is the largest sailing foiler to ever foil,
2) TNZ is the FIRST Americas Cup Challenger to ever to fly on foils,
3) TNZ and the Oracle 45 are the first multihull foilers in history to be designed from scratch to fly on just two foils,
4) TNZ and the Oracle 45 have boat flown using "revolutionary" altitude control systems:
a. TNZ appears to use a SINGLE surface piercing main foil configuration which is a first for any two foil boat, mono or multi
b. Oracle uses a fully submerged foil system with no surface sensor which is a first for any multihull foiler.
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Corley, the weights of Hydroptere and the AC 72 are in the above post. Hydroptere is heavier than the 72....

 

Is the listed weight for the AC72 accurate? It's certainly impressive for a 72' multihull. I'm surprised that Hydroptere isnt heavier 2000lbs more for an oceangoing multihull is a great achievement particularly when you consider the increased scantlings and equipment that the boat carries.

 

34th AC on Foils!

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It is accurate as best I can tell-right in the middle of the fairly narrow range.

 

34th AC on foils!

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I had a meeting this morning with a person who is in a position to know this stuff and who I believe does speak authoratatively:

1) The Black Thing- this is an effort to extend the rig down to as close to the water as possible. When racing the Wing will be dropped down so that there is a complete seal down to the bottom of the Black Thing. The Black Thing also pivots to more perfectly align itself with the wing.
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2) The White Thing- this is a temporary seal.
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3) Altitude Control-I've been saying for weeks now that Oracle controls altitude by pivoting the daggerboard F& A about the lower bearing to change the angle of incidence of the "L" foil. Turns out I'm right but theres more: the way they do it is by having a crew member "fly" the boat using a joy stick hydraulically connected to a push rod that moves the board. In other words the boat is flown manually as I have suggested.
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Geez, this is cool especially if this info turns out to be reliable!
PS- Also was told that they expect to fly downwind only.

 

On the subject of nationality of teams, xs racing has it nailed :

"THE BLOWHARD SPEAKS! – As the America’s Cup gets closer and closer the XS Blowhard has really been getting excited about supporting the USA in the America’s Cup. Country vs country in friendly competition on the water! Makes the XS Blowhard feel patriotic to support the USA and its great effort to defend the Cup. But after reading more closely the crew list of Team Oracle USA, reality hit home as Team USA is really Team NZ.

The Blowhard knew that the crew was a mixed selection of great sailors from around the world including the USA. However, hard to believe, but out of the 24 sailors that are listed as team members of Oracle Team USA, only one sailor is from the USA and one other has a dual nationality…so lets call it 1.5 team members are from the USA and 22.5 are from outside the USA (mostly from New Zealand). With all the great sailors in the USA we can’t find at least 50% of the team to come from the USA?

The America’s Cup used to be about nation vs. nation. We love the hi-tech look of the new AC and the fact that most of the boat has to be built in the country defending or challenging. But why try to promote the teams as countries? All of the AC teams have sailors from other countries and nationalities except for New Zealand where they have only one crew member from Australia.

No offense to all the great sailors on Team Oracle from New Zealand, France, Australia, Netherlands and England, just to name a few, but com’n Larry…Oracle Team USA??? Just call it Team ORACLE. Maybe in the next’s America’s Cup they will have a ‘crew rule’ for all the boats.

What do you think? Do you think the boats should be sailed by a majority or ALL her crew from the country defending or challenging? Or does it really matter and that the XS Blowhard’s opinion really blows! Let us know at info@xssailing.com"

I reckon US supporters would do better to support Artemis - T. Hutchinson & Paul Cayard at least have American Accents.. That's more US sailors than Oracle has..

 

Can you or some one please elaborate why there is a rule that only one foil and / or center board down at any one time except in the special allowance periods all about and the logic as to why such a rule?

 

34th AC-racing schedule AC45 World Series

Here is a detailed schedule:

Racing will begin on Wednesday the 3rd of October with the following schedule:
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Wednesday October 3
16:00 Match Racing Qualifiers with live race commentary (until 18:00)
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Thursday October 4
12:20 Match Race Quarterfinals (12:20-13:00) with live race commentary 15:20 EDT
16:45 Team introductions / commentary 19:45 EDT
17:10 Fleet Racing with live race commentary 20:10 EDT----- (until 18:20/21:20 EDT)
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Friday October 5
16:00 Team introductions / commentary-19:00 EDT
16:00 Match Race Quarterfinals with live race commentary19:00 EDT----- (until 16:35/ 19:35 EDT)
16:50 Fleet Racing with live race commentary19:50 EDT--------------- (until 18:00/21:00 EDT)
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Saturday October 6
16:00 Team introductions / commentary 19:00 EDT
16:05 Match Race Semifinals with live race commentary 19:05 EDT------ (until 16:35/ 19:35 EDT)
16:50 Fleet Racing with live race commentary 19:50 EDT------ (until 17:55/20:55 EDT)
18:10 Match Race Final (until 18:25)?????? Apparently they're not going to show the final??????
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Sunday October 7
13:45 Team introductions / commentary 16:45 EDT
13:50 Super Sunday Fleet Race with live race commentary 16:50 EDT------ (until 14:30 /17:30 EDT)
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This was just published in scuttlebutt and appears to modify the above schedule a bit: http://www.americascup.com/en/news/3/news/7242/nbc-to-air-ac-world-series-coast-to-coast

 

34th AC on Foils!

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The scuttlebutt is that the rule makers were trying to prevent foiling. They screwed up.......

 

34th AC on Foils!

This is from SA today-discusses whether or not the vertical foil on Oracle develops vertical lift and the optimum angle of heel:
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Most catamarans are designed with canted hulls to keep the Length/Beam ratio narrow when just flying a hull. "Just flying a hull" is the optimum design sailing angle for a cat. I measured the angle of the daggerboard, in post 1725(see pix below), relative to the hull at about 8.5 degrees(top outboard). I made a quick but accurate sketch representing the "ideal" minimum angle of heel consistent with the windward hull and mainfoil clear of the water and it comes out to 4 degrees*. If you add that angle to the angle of the daggerboard relative to the hull that gives the daggerboard an angle, relative to the water, of 12.5 degrees and proves that Simon is partially right since the board would develop some vertical lift at that angle . The problem is that because the daggerboard is ,in essence, a straight angled foil you would not be able to adjust the angle of incidence of the lifting portion of the daggerboard independently of the lateral resistance portion like you can on TNZ(curved "C" foil). So in order to have controlled foiling it is absolutely essential, in my opinion, that the primary vertical lift will come from the horizontal foil and not the daggerboard because it's angle of incidence is readily adjustable by pivoting the top of the daggerboard fore and aft about the lower bearing using a joystick and some sort of electro-hydraulic interface. And it would be easier to fly then the manually controlled Rave I mentioned earlier.
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*IF they want to keep the windward rudder foil clear the minium angle of heel would be about 9 degrees** and the daggerboard angle with the water would increase to 17.5 degrees. But my theory would still hold since they cannot adjust the angle of incidence of the vertical lifting portion of the daggerboard independently of the lateral resistance portion like can be done with a "C" foil.
My pet theory is that they can control the twist of the platform fairly precisely which means they could control the rudder foil angle of attack fairly precisely simply as a side effect of platform twist. So that means they could legally use the rudder to generate about 2600 lb. of downforce or 117,000ft.lb. of RM. Coupling that with the Daily Sail article which said designers need to go to the heavy side of the weight range to have enough RM, one can see that Oracle may have found a way to increase RM while keeping the boat very light.
** If they sail at this angle they sure would want to cant the mast because they're pissing away a bit of sail power(That TNZ won't have to). I'm still not convinced they can't cant the rig.......

click-

 

The pivoting of the dagger-foil is really the only thing that made sense for full flying with the straight-straight L shape.

Manual control sounds like the "least likely to fail" type of option that makes sense for a boat this size.

I am still waiting to see the results of full flying vs. not. The manual control also gives them the option of dialing in any amount of "assist" they want, and could potentially be used to actively control pitching.

Having big money sailing push technology forward is great. There is however a dark side. I am sure they will learn a lot, but I am not sure how much they will share with the general sailing public.

Any bets on how much we find out after the big race is done?

 

34th AC on Foils!

I think we'll learn a lot. One thing to watch for over the next few months is which team adopts the others foil system! With two distinctly different approaches to altitude control one is bound to be better than the other. Thats where the multinational make up of the Oracle team comes in : somebody will know somebody who will spill details one direction or the other-its going to be fun to watch.

 

34th AC on Foils!

Rumor has it that Oracle just flew for the first time-no pictures yet.....

 

34th AC on Foils!

For those interested the up to date AC Rule and amendments can be found here: http://noticeboard.americascup.com/governing-documents/ac72-class-rule/

 

34th AC on Foils!

Interesting Oracles statistics page for the AC45 World Series:
http://oracle.com.edgesuite.net/demo/teamusadashboard/races.html

 

34th AC on Foils-Oracle sorta flies

Its a begining but nowhere near as impressive as TNZ. However, this is just the begining and if Oracle get it right their system stands a chance of having less drag than TNZ. But Oracle has a ways to go......
Pictures here, first posted in the Oracle thread on SA AC thread:
http://acworldseries.blogspot.com/2...2/10/oracle-team-usa-news-usa-flys-today.html

May be pictures here soon: http://www.facebook.com/americascup/photos