America's Cup declining?

Why, it is very different now?

 

The big multis wont survive the present cycle. They are much to expensive and they dont promote close match racing.

All I hope is that when the Kiwis take the cup back home, they reject this failed fast and furious facebook formula and bring the regatta back to close match racing between world class crews.

 

America's Cup Ascending!

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The next Cup will be sailed in a foiler-perhaps ones that foil upwind as well because Oracle will win and allow this great adventure to be refined and expanded. Leadbellies aren't coming back ,michael- the world has changed-at least the America's Cup world and I'm thankful I'm here to see it!

 

"Leadbellies arn't coming back, michael- the world has changed-at least the America's Cup world and I'm thankful I'm here to see it!"

AMEN.

 

Whatever one may think of any format for any event, surely it is reasonable to expect the reality to come reasonably close to matching the claims made by the organisers and hypsters. Given that the organisers got the city to kick millions in by saying that there would be 2.7 million spectators, can it now just be said "oh well, people from the USA don't watch sailing."? Surely if a group of people propose a plan that they say will get 2.7 million viewers then that plan can be criticised if it falls short?

I agree that the profile of sailing in the USA is low. My personal experience was back in 2000, when I was in Newport RI when the OSTAR finished. I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Frank Cammas and crawl over three of the first 4 finishers, shooting multiple rolls of film on those amazing boats. There were, I think, 2 english speaking journos in the press centre and about 5 full crews from France, beaming interviews back live to France from their vans.

One local RI film crew finally arrived and walked over to PR head honcho Marcus Hutchinson. I overheard a conversation that went very much like this;

Reporter - "where are the rest of the boats and crews?"
MH - "the sailors are out there (pointing to Frank etc, being interviewed by more French media), the boats are there, and more boats are due to finish today."
Reporter - "Oh, we're looking for the Tall Ships Race and we saw the masts and thought it was here. Bye!"

And so the only local media walked away, completely uninterested in the amazing ORMA tris and the pros, looking for a bunch of square riggers. When the media can't tell the difference between ORMA 60 wingmasts and the spars of a square rigger, and when they are more interested in tall ships than the fastest offshore racing sailboat class on the planet, it says a lot to me about the impact of sailing in the US and on the interest in high performance craft.

By the way many of us can't agree that only the AC matters. The LVC has been a significant event for years. Didn't the South African challenge matter? Didn't the Kiwis matter in '87 and '92, when they didn't make the AC? Haven't the French and Italians, who have never made the AC, mattered? If the number of entries doesn't matter then why the organisers make a point about how many of them would be attracted by the new format?

Saying the LVC doesn't matter is like saying that only one match matters in the football World Cup. Millions of fans of "minor" teams like the Socceroos or Bafana Bafana would not agree that their World Cup efforts don't matter.

 

Dead right. The times that I have watched it from shore (rather than gone out on my boat or raced aboard someone else's boat) I have eavesdropped the conversations around me. Most watchers can barely tell a brand new canter from an old RORC racer. In contrast if you take a sailor who hasn't done the race out to watch the start on the water, they will say that they would love to race the Hobart on anything they could get on. Sadly with the smaller fleets of bigger boats these days, it's a tough ask to get a chance to learn the ropes. To me that says a fair bit about how unimportant it is to make boats obsolete by bringing in bigger, newer and faster designs.

All the comparative data I can collect from other sports, all the data I can collect from sailing and all the surveys and studies show that increasing accessibility is the key to improving popularity, not increasing performance.

 

I like to watch regattas. Particularly the start and make roundings. As a crew you never actually see the start or a rounding because you are concentrating on your task.

Being a spectator allows you to learn valuable lessons.

 

This is when I used Myark folding barges to have the front seat in style at the gateway of the Americas cup challenge in NZ.
The confetti gun was from a Myark barge split into two units.

 

From Penny Haire of 'Tidetech' (http://www.tidetech.org) the analysis of the Oracle capsize from the consultants to the AC in a public statement and even a Utube video of the analysis:

"Strong westerly winds of between 20 and 30 kts collided with the strongest tide of the year, causing short, steep waves to form just East of the Golden Gate Bridge just at the time the giant cat was turning downwind. The boat's bows buried themselves in just such a wave, causing rapid de-acceleration and consequently the boat pitchpoled . "

And from Oracle themselves:
With winds blowing at 25 knots against a strong ebb current a bear-away at about 3 p.m resulted in a pitchpole. Said Tom Slingsby

 

It is simply infuriating to think that a fine gentleman and great sailor lost his life because his team did not take into consideration one of the most well-known phenomena on San Francisco Bay. My God.

Earl

 

No Earl that was the earlier Oracle incident (above), the Artemis crash killed Simpson. Interestingly the Artemis boss was quoted as saying this:

Paul Cayard Artemis Racing CEO warned that the new class of super-charged yachts slated for this year's America's Cup were prone to capsizing.
"It will be a miracle if we get through the summer without it happening to somebody, we're going to start pushing harder, we are going to race, and those kinds of boats tip over."

 

Memo to self: No posting after second martini or first coffee

Apologies to all.

Cheers,

Earl

 

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Mike, I still think it was crew error and wouldn't expect Tom Slingsby to say so. Those conditions could have been anticipated and avoided if they had made the decision to do so. To say the conditions resulted in a pitchpole is just not true, in my opinion. The decision not to avoid the conditions played the central role as did the fact that the windward foil could not be lowered at max AOI which would have had a real chance of preventing the pitchpole. I watched the video many, many times and they had the time to do that ,just not the plan and, apparently, not the hydraulic capability.
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The original pitchpole video. Just before the lee hull was up on foils. When it started looking bad if the port main foil had been jammed down at max positive angle of incidence I'd bet the pitchpole would have been stopped-and they had the time. Notice in the video that the port foil stays fully retracted :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drgglIebuQY&feature=player_embedded

 

The accident was “a classic capsize situation,” said Loick Peyron. He said the yacht capsized, as has been reported, while the Artemis crew was executing a bear-away maneuver: a downwind turn away from the breeze that has been a particular challenge in this class of Cup boats.

“There was a bit too much wind", "And the boat itself in our case didn’t have enough lifting force from the foil or from the dagger boards and that’s why all the bear-aways since the beginning were quite tricky”

Peyron said. that, contrary to some reports, the boat did not break before it capsized. “We read a lot of false stories about that,” he said. “The boat breaks after, or should I say during the capsize" .

 

Doug,

Since you looked at the video so many times, did they ever release the main sheet?
Classic catamaran drill is to release the sail power when it starts to nose dive.

I don't believe they ever even tried to release the main, I agree it was crew error, even if you don't worry about initiating the maneuver itself.

At some point it wouldn't help, but that boat is specifically designed to reduce the tripping pressure of the bow being under water.

Oh no, someone will remember I said that long ago.