America's Cup declining?

Tom definitely was. I'm not sure whether the others were involved with Oracle.
See:
http://oracle-team-usa.americascup.com/team

 

funny... this ellison guy - the only one not dressed in this nice cat-suit - is mentioned here being "afterguard"...
looking after the others poop?

he for sure is standing on a pile of it... because he was the one driving force which ultimately brought the switch to multihulls...

happy pitchpoling to all of them!

 

Thanks to Doug, I have been able to download the AC72 design rules.

Much of what I have read makes sense.

It seems clear to me that one of the reasons the competition moved to multihulls was to make the boats more portable.

The foiling isn’t all that bad either, IMHO. What is bad (IMHO) is the wing sail requirement, which is found in ‘rule 5.2’ This is what I think really needs to be changed.

I would replace rule 5.2 which says:

“5.2.) The AC72 Yacht shall have one wing and the only permitted soft sails are jibs, code zeros and gennakers as defined herein.”

With this.

5.2.) The AC72 Yacht shall be allowed to have a wing sail, or wing sails, providing it/they can pivot 360 degrees on its/their vertical axis.

Requiring these boats to have wing sails with stays is just plain stupid. They are in effect mandating unsafe boats.

Since you cannot reef or furl a wing sail, the only thing you can do to de power it is feather it into the wind. From what I have read, this de powers the sail almost as effectively a striking it would, if not more so.

It appears to me that both boats that capsized were temporarily overpowered, with no way of de-powering, at a crucial moment in which they needed to. It’s like having all gas peddle and no brake.

I’m no lawyer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the family, of the unfortunate crew member who was killed, ended up suing the organization that wrote these rules, as the hazard in them should be quite obvious. It could possibly be seen as grossly negligent.

If, for example, the boats had soft sails, there would have been the choice of reefing or not reefing them.

If the accident happened then, and the crew had chosen not to reef the sails, they would clearly have been to blame for the mishap.

If they had a freely rotating wing sail, they would have had the choice of feathering it, as they could have turned the the luff straight into the wind. The existence of shrouds made that impossible, when sailing down wind.

Had they had this choice, but opted for more speed instead, they would have then been responsible as well.

As it is, winds are by nature unpredictable. A gentle breeze can quickly grow into a fresh breeze or even a gale in a very short time. So I don't think it is practical to expect the skipper and or crew to anticipate the full range of conditions when embarking for even a day sail.

And the design rules should reflect this reality.

 

Oh My God!!! Another luddite.

 

As I understand it, the boats have effectively sidestepped the rules requiring them to be dismantled quickly and therefore they are probably no more portable than a big mono.

 

How did they do that?

Never mind. Just checked out section '4', 'amendments'.

 

Me?
No - i just don't like multis very much and ellison btw...

And as sharpii2 pointed out - the rules make no sense at all...
A wing which must be able to pivot 360 degree AND stays... That's plain nonsense in the very meaning of it - no sense...

 

OK I'll accept that.
A real advancement would be doping out how to have a wingsail without stays. :
But that would be like inventing an antigravitic device.

 

It depends on the strength and rigidity of the mast. The slow but steady progress of the materials science will sooner or later get us there.

 

Nah, just another one of those guys envious of success ....



Go Orcl!

 

OK, now who was the luddite?

We went without stays shortly after going monowing in the 30's .... It is a matter of materials, science, and time.

 

===============
I'm not sure but I think I've seen unstayed wing rigs-can't remember on what.
I know there are many unstayed wing mast rigs.

 

Yes, unstayed masts have been done, I think Eric Sponberg has done things in that field too. However, weight (and hence cost, for the same material) comparison still makes them non-competitive respect to conventional stayed masts, until better materials are available.

Once these problems have been sorted out (won't be easy!), I do believe they will be the future of sailing.

 

http://www.ecolutions.nl/en/ecolution-84/rigging

And then there are some winged rigs, but I didn't see any photos out there for those, but the difference between stayed and unstayed is engineering, weight, and cost.

Stayed rigs are a lot cheaper, lighter, and engineered as weaker masts.

IMHO.

 

I've seen them on trimarans, which are a logical choice, as their wide Beam precludes the sail swinging into a neighbor's boat.