34th America's Cup: multihulls!

Perhaps the monohull sycophants need some counseling to get over their inadequacy issues, most of the sailing world don’t care if you sail a mono!
There, fixed it for you, plus spelling.

 

34th AC

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Yeah, lets keep this on the Americas Cup-if anyone wants to discuss something else PLEASE start another thread.
Gary, do you think TNZ forgot anything when they left NZ? Do you think they can win without it? Huh?

 

They are great feats of engineering, but are blue sky designs. They should be on a sheltered waterway or inland lake in the trade winds. And I suspect to most people they would be even more boring to watch after the first 5 minutes. At least currents chop and gusts add to some excitement as they lose control of these craft.

Potential challengers pulled out when the type of craft was announced, one publicly stated they wouldn't compete because the type of craft was wrong for the venue and too risky for the crews !

So far they have had numerous capsizes, one craft written off and one requiring a new wing. The design doesn't match the SOR, it's all very well blaming the venue but that's like blaming the Southern ocean for the debacles that have occurred there in ULDB craft with insufficient stability.

Now it's become all too apparent that they are abysmally unsuited so the SOR has been changed to try and suit the crafts very apparent limited ability.

The images of bodies tumbling off, or clinging tenaciously several stories above the water have dominated the press and done more damage for public perception of multihulls than a lot of people seem to realise. And where are the glowing accounts coming from the crews for these boats, the poor sods trying to master these edgy skittish designs are in an unenviable place IMO.

Why is it that whenever any criticism is leveled at a design which happens to have more than one hull that elements on this forum try and turn the thread into a mono-multi debate ?

 

Going back to my post 1379, was it only 24hours ago? where I said

"The SOR for the Americas Cup has always been:

Stupidly expensive
The ultimate in boatbuilding and design
The pinnacle of MATCH racing"

I think we can agree that it is likely that the match racing will be more like it was in the late 1800's rather than the late 1900's

Furthermore, it is no longer the pinnacle of racing. That is definitely now the Olympics for AC sailors. After all, the likes of Ian Percy and Ben Ainslie gave up the AC and went back to the Olympic circuit when their AC sabbatical year off was over, which is why the AC was carefully designed to avoid the build up to the next Olympics

I think one can also agree that many of the AC innovations, never mind the builders/designers, came from the Vendee and offshore multihull racing scene. Thus the pinnacle of yacht design is no longer just the realm of the AC. Nor are the boats the most expensive vessels sailing. Plenty of superyachts cost more.

So it seems to me that the SOR is no longer being met

My solution:

Go back to the J Class.

After all they are twice the size and there are already more of them sailing than AC72's. They will be easier to moor and maintain, and are more seaworthy, so can be used more. They will LOOK more expensive, even if they are not.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

34th AC-the greatest yet!

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Wow! Richard, I can't believe you wrote the whole thing........

 

Sorry for contributing to thread drift, but it seems that the drift, like most, is caused by people who start throwing blanket insults at those who dare to have different taste in sailing..... and continued by those like me who rise to the bait.

PS Gary re post 1423 I never said that a boat like Sunstone should be in the AC, the point was that it's not a simple case of heavy being boring and unenlightened and light being fast and fun.

And I'll spare you the "lectures" when you stop insulting other sailors and the boats they love.

 

As much as I'm impressed by the scale of the AC72's and their performance I still think that there was a missed opportunity with the AC45's. Take the AC45 platform and open it up in the area of wings and appendages. There would still have been room for development and a hell of a lot more teams competing and the logistics would not have been as ridiculous and expensive.

Obviously none of the above is going to happen for this edition but the AC45 platforms exist are not stupidly expensive to own, maintain and transport and would mean more teams competing for the Cup.

 

Hi Corley,
I agree and if the AC45's continue I suspect that foiling AC45's would become the norm since its a trainer into the AC72 (if that still exists soon). I think the only difficult bit about the AC72 is the rigid wing, perhaps that could be made into a half soft sail big wing rather than a full rigid wing and it would be much more managable and less tender? Probably go the same speed? Cheers Peter S

 

is the real problem the size that was chosen? may be they may have been better of with 60 foot, as it it would have been a known quantity interms of imposed loads.

 

34567th AC

I like the 72's and the vision it took to propose such extraordinary boats in the America's Cup. I hope they continue to be refined to be faster and safer-they have already made extraodinary contributions to wing technology and foil technology despite the so-called no foil "intent" of the rule makers-about as good as the no-foil "intent" in the A Class Cats.
Variations of the new foil technology are being adopted by at least one production small catamaran ,the Flying Phantom. And there is more great stuff to come. Imagine how incredible these boats will be if they are allowed to be refined and developed into the most extraordinary America's Cup class in history!

The Flying Phantom-inspired by AC 72 development-the first of many, I hope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5doBIv3TVbA&feature=player_embedded

 

I once watched the development of one AC boat in detail, the SOR early on, looked at weather and sea conditions in the geographic location as any SOR should, and the hull was optimised for expected conditions. I'd be surprised if that wasn't the design procedure for every AC monuhull in modern times. But it appears that this time the foiling requirement has driven the design as the principal SOR, not any other consideration.

And as for stupidly expensive, I think we could contract for a basic fast cargo sailing ship of around 500 Tons GRT in Alloy for the cost of one of these challenges. And these craft are destined for a hazardous landfill site within 10 years, one already on its way there. To Paraphrase Marchaj again "The march of progress up a blind ally with only a stage at the end".

We got a terrific amount of useful data from AC monohull development over the years and it's been very useful for displacement hull sailboat designers.
A lot of work at institutes such as Delft was carried out from AC funding spin offs. Now with these craft it's more in the realm and scale of aeronautical engineering. The result was a very marginal platform for the sea and wind dictated by the original SOR. The craft have very apparently failed that requirement and it's not only the committee but the participants who are unhappy with the 'boats'. Seems a few people posting so far don't get that bit.

 

A lot of people say the 72 is too big, but I don't think so. Is the Mod70 too big? Its lighter than an AC72 and can be sailed in any conditions around the world. Its just the logistics of the rigid sail that makes it different and more "difficult" then the MOD70. Hopefully the AC72 continues and develops further now everyone knows what they are about. Peter

 

The cost of these AC Challenges is less than a decent F1 grand prix team spends in a year and its marginal to argue that F1 contributes anything these days to domestic automobile use. The AC created a lot of knowledge for displacement sailing, now it will create a lot of knowledge about foiling. The AC Deed of Gift says nothing about expense, boat building elitism etc. It simply says "its for friendly competition between nations" and sets out a box rule for the boats. Competition always costs money ask Mr Lipton or Mr Bond if the game was cheap at the time. Talking about failures some of the Round the world events have had a string of failures every time they change the rules. We engineers are asked to to go as close to the edge as possible to provide winning designs. Its the nature of racing to have failures. If I'm asked to design a mast for cruising around the world its a totally different approach to asking me to design a sheltered waters racing mast. I don't think anyone in the AC "family" as they like to be called at the moment is unhappy with the rules or the conditions. They all signed up at some point in time and knew exactly what would happen, including the possibility of injury or worse. The LV and 34th AC will be just like all the rest, the best of the best duelling for a piece of silver. Peter

 

I've often wondered whether it would be possible to "reef" an AC72 by making the top wing segments removable? May have allowed them more options in high wind strengths?

 

was it not part of the rules to be able to remove a section of the wing sail? or was it removed at some point.