35th Americas Cup: Foiling Multihulls!

35th Medium America's Cup

WF, I couldn't be more disappointed in the actions taken by the AC Authority starting with blowing San Francisco-the perfect venue for these new boats. Then changing the boats down to 48' -I'm disappointed because of the work I did to promote a radio controlled Americas Cup AC62 RC cat-I can't imagine how the guys feel that have been working on a full size 62 for over a year.
Not to mention breaking their word to TNZ. It's gross mismanagement ,in my opinion. But these same people did give us the most spectacular Americas Cup in history-at least since it was first televised. How they could blow the good will that generated is beyond me.

 

Nacraman seems like a nice guy. However, there aren't enough Nacras to run a regular nationals in the UK and it seems that they rarely get more than half a dozen to major cat regattas. It seems that he is very much in a niche market and therefore even if he gets an upsurge in interest, it does not indicate that sailing is achieving the growth that the hypemasters said it would.

Looking for accurate details for Nacra did show that the foil-assist Nacra 17, with all the cachet of being the new Olympic class, saw just 6 boats built in 2014 and a total of just 256 boats have been sold since 2012. That doesn't exactly show a huge interest in foil-assisted cats.

 

I said I'd not respond to CT's twisted nonsense ... but here I go, breaking promise.
So, to be brief: CT is very, very negative, appears to enjoy being so. Who would want to sail with the miserable turkey?

 

By the way, I won't post in SA since Block/Clean made that revolting comment about Bart Simpson's widow, so I won't discuss the points there. However, I see that Soma commented "The author cites some "equivalent" classes to what's on offer now but the comparison isn't apt. The D35 was very regional (Swiss lakes only), the F40 was the 80's. We have, simultaneously, the Extreme circuit, the M32 circuit, the GC32 circuit, soon to be g4 circuit, all global and all concurrently. This is unprecedented."

Actually, it doesn't seem to be unprecedented, but merely a return to what's been seen earlier.

The GC32 may be great boats, but the class is tiny. Six boats in the inaugural event, 3 at Cowes 2013, 4 in Marseille 2014, four boats (two local, two Euro) in the USA last season. There's five events scheduled for 2015. The M32 in 2014 had 15 boats sailing. The G4??? Who knows? The ESS? Eight boats.

In comparison, the Formula 40 series had more boats at regattas; my info shows 17 boats early on in the Euro circuit of '86 and 16 in the UK event in '87, with half a dozen one-design Prosail F40s doing the US circuit and isolated boats racing out of class elsewhere. That means that the total numbers of 40 footers was similar to the number of 32-40 footers racing today. There was also a bunch of KT25 footers in France used for the Trophy Clairefontaine (although I know very little about them), a bunch of radical "lake Garda" multis and dozens of Micro multis.

The other thing is that when the F40s were around, they were just part of a much bigger multi scene. There were 85-75 footers like Royale, Formule tag, Jet Services, Fleury Michon, Novanet, Poulain, Ker Cadalac, Roger et Gallet, Elf Aquitaine, Cote d"Or II, Ericsson, plus the emerging 60s like Apricot. And the cruiser/racer scene at local level was stronger - there were about 4 times as many cruiser/racer multis at the biggest UK race than there are now, for example. A bit later, in the mid 2000s there were 20+ M2 high-performance cats (around 30') on the Swiss lakes as well as the D35s, Seacart etc.

So any claims that big multis are more popular than ever before because of the "new AC" don't appear to be borne out by the numbers. And even if the numbers of multis is increasing slightly (which would be a fine thing) it doesn't affect the main point, which is that the "new AC" and the new high-performance craft have NOT caused a massive growth sport in sailing, as many people claimed they would.


2- One thing that is striking when looking back through old mags for research is how similar the rhetoric is. In 1987, Seahorse was saying that the F40s were "beginning to attract sailors far beyond the multihull scene"*. In 2015,
Soma is saying basically the same thing; "We are seeing traditionalists moving into the scene, too."

Just about everything that is currently being said about high performance sailing is an echo of what was said decades ago. Back in the mis '80s there was televised racing, classes with self-contained media units, prizemoney, and designs that reached new frontiers of performance. And just about all of these classes (Formula 40, Prosail 40, Ultimate 30, F1, Ultra 30, Open 30, F2, F28, 18 Foot Skiffs, World Cup and D2 windsurfing) pretty much died within a few years.

We can't just accept what people are saying today about the future of sailing when people just like them were proven wrong when they said the same things years before.


3- And the sad thing is seeing how one-eyed and insulting some multi sailors are. Soma's quote above goes on to say that three owners "all come from the monoslug yacht club scene but have jumped into multis with both feet. The same "monoslug" crap came in the 2004 forum posts I wrote about earlier.

Jeezers H Christ. If anyone knocks multis, lots of multi owners howl and whine like dingoes, but they seem to think it's fine for them to knock monos.

 

No, actually I'm VERY positive about sailing. It's people who call boats "monoslugs"; who insult those who like older boats or slower boats, and who say that such classes have no future who are the negative ones.

I'm putting you on ignore now.

 

Hopefully, since I'm on your precious ignore list, you won't be reading this, CT249, but in case you do, (and for information to others) ... if you are implying that i have used the term "monoslugs" - then you are making things up to fit your fantasyland viewpoint. It is a term I dislike and have never used. And if you are also saying that I dislike older boats and their owners, and they have no future, that too is silly defecation emanating from your fevered mind.

 

I have never seen an online personna(CT) who is so right and everybody else so wrong.
Is "leadbelly" acceptable as a loving description of a keelboat?

 

Monoslugs ?
I know Nico Boon, inventer of the Texel Rating.
The Texel Rating is the only practical Rating for Multihulls , used at the famous Texel Race , used in the Netherlands, used in South Afrika and in Australia.
Nici is very old, always when i met him, we spoke about multihull's performance.
He sufferered Parkinson. He took is calculater , an ancient Texas Instruments, his Finger was whirling around, but he always pushed the right button.
Once during a regattaseries at the IJsselmeer ( Netherlands) i saw him there , staring to a "Jacht" . It was a Lemsteraak , an ancient class of formerly fishimg barges. Flat bottomed , gaff rig , two outer centerboards. A class which has evolved thru centuries . Marvelous ! On with marine background can see what's IN and ABOUt and WHY with those " dated" heavy steel ships .
Nico told me :
" I love al ships. Look at this one , look at ...."
I don' t wanna repeat details now...
I think i better give one link for manifastating ( right word ? --i know , my english...) the cleverness of our grandfathers.
( I don't know if the link works, it is about a race between a pimped steel 30 ton Lemsteraak with carbon mast and high end sails , deck gear and a 7 ton 40' X- Yacht. Astonishing result !
http://www.yacht.de/yacht_tv/reportage/aak-gegen-x--ein-unmoegliches-rennen/a79535.html

Juan Baader
He was a german Designer who moved ti Argentinia. He wrote several books .
two of them can be regarded as bibles . The real bible is about Motoryachts .
Till today there ain' t no better explanation about prop calculation, relative speed, different planing modes, practical design for seaworthiness , and so on...
Even we, those bloody amateurs can follow his explanations.
Concerning this post, this topic , i wanna repeat one sentence from Juan Baader
: There is no Boat, even the worst one, from which we can learn anything"

Or,
Messing about with* boats .

That's it .


Messing around in boats ?
Dunna , my english




pogo

 

Re the quote above;

I did not say that Gary called anything a "monoslug", The point is that many others have used derogatory terms for "conventional" boats, and said that only "high performance" boats are "the future of sailing", and yet they do not get abused for being negative about the sport.

 

Doug;

Can you please stick to actual discussion of the issue, such as providing numbers to show that the sport has grown as some claimed it would?

 

Ja ja, is' ja gut.

Sturm im Wasserglas

Storm in a glas of water.

 

=============
Speaking of sticking to the discussion-in my opinion,this thread is not about the subject you've been discussing-it's about the 35th Americas Cup-the boats, crews etc.
It's not about trickle down from 34-though there is a lot of that and a thread called "34th Americas Cup". It's not about boat sales or the history of the cup it's about the NEXT Cup. If you want to continue along the lines you are you might consider starting another thread, something like: "The Philosophical Implications of the America's Cup in Terms of Boat Sales, Multihull Only Participation and the Corrupting Influence that has on "Normal" Sailors, Their Families and Decendents".

 

April 20, 2015

Latest 20 -04 - 2015

AC news, Bermuda has been confirmed as the only venue ( no Auckland qualifier) and Ben Ainslie has a couple of his team running the London Marathon for charity.

OC

 

35th America's Cup on Foils-Japan Enters!

From Scuttlebutt tonight:

Japan to announce America’s Cup bid

Published on April 23, 2015 |
by Assoc Editor

(April 23, 2015) – The long-heralded announcement that Japan is to challenge again for the America’s Cup is expected finally to be made by the end of next week and will see not only a Japanese skipper but the appearance of former Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker in the lineup.

Barker was controversially dumped as helmsman by Team New Zealand who have placed their faith in Australian Glenn Ashby and rising Kiwi talent Peter Burling to take the wheel. Barker’s experience in the foiling catamarans and 20 years in the America’s Cup game would be a huge boost to any new syndicate.

With several one-design elements featuring on the new 48-foot catamarans, a lot of the technology advantages have been evened out, bringing the racing more into the hands of the sailors.

The team will be sponsored by Softbank for the Kansai Yacht Club and is expected, like the French team, to be offered some support by the cup holder and defender Oracle, which represents the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

It is expected that Oracle boss Larry Ellison and his sailing team boss Sir Russell Coutts will attend the signing ceremony along with Masoyashi San. Earlier this week Coutts, the America’s Cup Event Authority boss, suggested the current lineup of five teams, including Team New Zealand, were set to be boosted by late entries.

It is not known whether the late entry will compete at the warm-up regatta being staged in Portsmouth in May and organized by an associate company of the British challenger, Sir Ben Ainslie’s BAR.

- See more at: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2...nnounce Americas Cup bid#sthash.4xN0UgMv.dpuf

 

Latest

"The remaining America's Cup teams have agreed on the format for the upcoming racing in 2017.

Dated April 21, 2015"

"The America’s Cup competitors have agreed the format for racing in 2017 with all racing taking place on the waters of the Great Sound in Bermuda, the home of the 2017 America’s Cup.



“At our Competitor Forum meeting this week, the teams agreed on the details of our race program in 2017,” said Commercial Commissioner Harvey Schiller.

All teams will compete in a double round robin format for the America’s Cup Qualifiers, which will be sailed in the new America’s Cup Class foiling catamaran.

The top four challengers from the Qualifiers will advance to the Challenger Playoffs which consist of a match racing semi final and finals. The winner of the Playoffs will meet the defending champion, ORACLE TEAM USA, in the America’s Cup Match.

Racing will take place in June, 2017. A detailed race calendar will be determined by the Commercial Commissioner in consultation with the competitors and Regatta Director and published in due course."