Americas Cup: whats next?

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From what you've gleaned from the recent discussion do you think there is a good chance of a multihull being the next Cup boat?

 

It is way too early to make a guess.

I suspect that they will get a location sorted first, and spend a few months talking about possible designs with the interested teams. The choice of location will probably have effect on the final design choice.

Rather than to say that there is good chance of seeing multihulls in AC34, I'd say that the chances are much greater than I thought they were 3 months ago. It is a very hot topic and a question that gets asked repeatedly. I would have said that the chances of the next AC being in Mono's was very high, but the press seems to want to keep the topic alive and I think it is notable that no one has said they are *not* considering a mutlihull option. The major players that have offered public opinions have not spouted the "Mono's are traditional, mutli's are heresy" line at all. That alone shows more open minds than I had given them credit for.

R

 

Everyone should remember that BMW-O is 115 feet or so overall, yet her full wing rig is twice that measurement. Tell me of any craft that has those proportions. It is huge and a world first in hyper sail overpowering, tall rigs. So with the possibility of the Xtreme 70? AC design arriving, and Jimmy is very enthusiastic about multihulls with soft sails now, (and people have to listen - he's so famous) I envisage the wing masts will grow towards 50/50 mast/soft sail combinations. BMW-O showed they could lasso their monstrous rig and moor the boat in quiet nights - so a 110 foot wing mast would be simplicity itself.
A multihull class would be far more interesting and exciting than the oxymoron skiff-type leadmines with motors that are being bandied about.

 

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Unless such "so-called" monohulls had hydrofoils, on-deck movable ballast and were designed to sail on just two foils as I proved to Mr. Hough some years ago-IF such a thing could be built. That boat at 60' had great numbers against an ORMA 60 with curved foils and was self-righting! An AC version wouldn't be self-righting and could be 1/3rd lighter.
But don't get me wrong-I realize that I might not see my 60 or 90' Moth this time around but it is comfort enough knowing that such technology is coming-so a multihull class this time is just fine. For God's sake lets not go back to sea hugging leadbellies!
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Image below by NFlutter-for imagineering purposes discard the 110 degree canting keel:

 

Doug: you'd have to call it the Atlas moth ...

 

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Hah! Or "Atlas Shrugged"........

 

Nice Ayn Rand reference. Miss Rand wasn't bound by a non-fiction classification.

It is not even worth bringing up the unbridgeable gap between fantasy and reality that goes on here. We just had an America's Cup where design fragility and insurance carrier concerns limited sailing conditions to such a narrow range that would make eight year old club racers in Optis ashamed. Although the performance boundaries were pushed dramatically, the resulting sailboat racing was shameful in it's narrow range.

We've seen where ridiculously extreme designs take us, and it isn't sailboat racing or sport anymore. Why don't we eliminate the risky human element entirely and go full on radio control? That way when Doug's 60-90 foot Moth crashes there is no risk to fragile humans.

To support the Disney-esque fantasy discussion, the silly cartoon company word "imagineering" is now being used in design discussions. This frees up from the nasty realities of physics, material sciences and cost. Why not go all the way and make the America's Cup a video-only special effects extravaganza like Avatar? The Doug's 60-90 foot Moth could compete on a virtual sailing venue without worry about nose dives, capsize and million dollar breakages in 10' seas. The boat could be crewed by Na'vi! You could have all the drama and romance without actually having to build and sail the boats!

There are a lot of questions regarding the future of the America's Cup that need to asked and answered. It would be nice in a design forum to limit the discussion to the possible and practical. I prefer my fantasy adventures to be accompanied by popcorn in a theatre.

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Bill

 

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I think it is humorous to note this reaction to the inclusion of a technology that is yet to be fully developed into a rule whose whole purpose is(or should be) to allow the maximum development of technology! And to suggest that because the technology is not fully developed it shouldn't even be discussed on a DESIGN forum is preposterous.
Nevertheless, my previous post was in support of multihulls in the next Cup with the hopefull inclusion of more advanced technologies as time goes by.
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Imagineering: a fusion of imagination and engineering that helps learners visualize problem solutions using existing scientific knowledge.http://www.syberworks.com/glossary/i/i1.htm
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Imagineering: The art or science of using imagination to intuitively make practical applications from knowledge.

Imagination and intuition are the foundations of all improvements and advancements made by humankind.

If someone had not imagined it was possible for man to fly, no one would have attempted to fly. If no one had intuitively reasoned a propeller shaped like an airfoil could be used to power aircraft, no one would have attempted it.

Imagination or intuition is the basis for all advancements and new designs. The design of all prototypes is based solely on intuition. The designer intuitively reasons or imagines the design and designs changes that result in the working prototype. Only after testing does the design cease to be intuitive or imaginative, instead becoming scientific fact. Until then it only existed in the designer's mind or imagination.

Imagination is the process by which the human intellect travels beyond the limitations of his or her senses; imagination opens doors to an abstract world that is governed by the same rules as the physical world.

The science of Imagineering is based on intuitively applying the laws of the physical world to an abstract imaginary world in an orderly and consistent manner to make predictions. These processes give scientific credibility to imagination and intuitive reasoning.
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http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sa...acing-monofoiler-design-discussion-15143.html

 

So long as it doesn't crash into a boat that I'm on!

 

Just went back and re-read the Deed of Gift, and all subsequent amendments.

This was a document written by and crafted for yacht racing enthusiasts, to create a structure for an international sailboat race contest between countries. Could not find anything about it being a contest of technology and continually pushing the state of the art from previous contests.

The consortium holding the Cup has a fair amount of control in defining the boats and venue - allowing the race to reflect the times and adapt to evolving state of the art. An interesting point is that the boats have adjusted "down" at times to bring costs in line with the current economic conditions.

My read on the Deed of Gift is that the current holder of the cup uses these provisions to create a contest that favors the defense.

All things being equal, innovation and risk favor challengers, and limiting innovation and controlling risk is in the defender's favor. It is far easier to prepare for a controlled set of circumstances than it is to prepare for unknowns. This idea is well supported by Alinghi's defense failure - there was enough room in the risk-optimized design definition by SNG for GGYC/Ellison to create a challenger that outclassed them completely. The worst case outcome a defender can expect from a tight definition of the boat is a fair contest where the boat is not the difference.

I can't see GGYC allowing or even entertaining a no-holds-barred contest where a challenger can present a boat that has the potential to do to them what they did to Alinghi. By all evidence Ellison isn't that stupid.

If the Deed of Gift was intended to be the ongoing catalyst for elevating the arms race, it would have been written as such. Therefore I believe Doug's interpretation (rule is or should be a technology contest) is far off the mark.

Race series everywhere ratchet down top end performance when risk and cost get out of proportion. Making a series unaffordable to competition can kill a series and force the sponsor and advertiser dollars to go elsewhere. Alinghi did a pretty good job of sucking the sponsorship life out of the America's Cup, rendering the contest laughable in the face of other sports vying for the same attention. No broadcast TV, no television advertising dollars and little venue prestige to sell to the next location.

Clearly, the SNG formula of a high risk technology contest isn't all that sensible.

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Bill

 

Good stuff.

Like you, I've been looking for evidence that the AC was meant to be primarily a wide-open design contest (or a contest of national technology) rather than a contest between the best sailors in a conventional tight class. So far, there's no evidence that it was meant to be anything but a pretty standard contest in development-class boats.

Like the fixations that the Cup 'has' to be sailed in the biggest or fastest of yachts (which just isn't true) it's probably something that has evolved from over-hyped coverage in the weekend papers.

 

Larry Ellison is right now talking about multihulls around the 50 foot mark, a fleet of them racing short courses - whadyersayter that you jokers? But I'd prefer 60's, or 65's, maybe 70. like the ORMA's anyway but stripped down, and that would satisfy all the whingers here re high winds, Optimists, etc. The ORMA's were fantastic boats - which did not deserve to die. Well, they haven't, the Scandinavians have most of the old fleet - and there's one here in Auckland, the ex-Geant - which is blowing everyone away with its outasight performance.

 

50 or so foot multihulls that can sail in reasonable wind and waves have got my approval (not that it is worth anything). The ORMAs were great.

My preference is for something that can make a sympathetic connection, however tenuous with the people watching them. Watching 50' multihulls is something that you could imagine as possible - most people can afford a F18, and imagination (or recreational chemicals) can bridge the gap. Watching BMW-O and Alinghi in the current iteration was an unimaginable leap for me. Knowing the price tags and cubic dollar hoses necessary to keep them running made them unobtainium to me.

Much as I liked the wing sail, it's need for full time 24x7 baby-sitting is a bit of a downer.

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Bill

 

If we're talking about the Americas Cup the boats should be this big, multihulls and or foilers and the essence of sailing technology for our time:

 

The American AC perspective

I started following the America's cup as a kid of course and lived around 100 or so miles down the coast from Newport. In 1970 I was helping sail a boat from Maine to Connecticut and we spent a night in Newport harbor while the 12 meters were there for the 1970 cup. After mooring our boat we went sailing in the dinghy and that memory shows how much things some have changed, although other things haven't changed much at all.

In that cup the boats were left in the water and we sailed right up to the slip where they were tied up. I guess we could have sailed slightly closer and reached over and touched one as we went by. Certainly no one was keeping us away from the boats. This has certainly changed. Kind of like seeing the pictures from the same era of a couple guys in blue jeans and no shirts working on an F1 car that was sitting on stands on the grass next to a lorry.

The level of expenditure, the size of the teams and the uniforms have all changed since then, but even then Americans tended to interpret the cup as some sort of symbol of sailing, technological and national superiority, whether any part of that was true or not. But, we were particularly proud of the fact that our boats were faster, like the schooner that won the cup originally. Or favorite AC quote goes something like "Your majesty, there is no second". You can quote that to us all day and we never get tired of it. We also liked the fact that the best sails were American and all that. It was conceit on our part, but but it was easy for us to ignore the tactics we tended to use to extend that winning streak.

I think though, that from the very first defense, having the fastest boat was the aim, so this contest has always been about speed and innovation. Sure we were proud of our sailors, but we expected the boats to get faster and faster, challenge by challenge. Not necessarily about the fastest possible boat, since the contest did move from J boats to the 12's, but it did assume the very best designers and the highest technology. Even for the 12's, there was more computer modeling of AC boats than for US nuclear submarines.

I don't think the next AC has to allow the highest performance boats, just the most advanced and best developed of the type that will generate the most interest among the target demographics, which can be assumed to pretty much be the Louis Vuitton customer.

Peter Raymond