Breaking News - New America's Cup Class

Mr.gggGuest, we're not talking about encouraging young people to sail, (completely different scene) the Americas Cup is the topic, and the new/old dinosaurs they're encouraging, which IMO is a retrograde step after seeing the astonishing developments from BMW-O and Alinghi in the last AC. Aside from the flat earthers here, many would like to see a similar, less expensive boat type for the next AC.
I sail self designed and built foil trimarans, 6x6 and 11x11metres.

 

And typically, right near the shore, quay, etc. where the action can be seen and heard up close. Lest we leave out the sound factors that excite the human senses.

Ever watch an F1 race on TV with the sound turned off. Can anyone say animated wallpaper?

 

At LEAST yOur POSt GenraTe eXciteMENt

dAnieL

 

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I sure hope so, thanks!

 

Gary, we're not all flat earthers here. I've sailed just about everything, and I like going fast.

But as you point out we are talking AC here. Match Racing. The last event had no entertaining match racing tactics at all. The USA team did some practice in Reynolds 33 cats to see what they could do with match racing tactics. The result wasn't very good.

In fact, the cross in the last race would have been a great opportunity for a lee bow, but that type of boat could not perform that well-respected match race tactic even though they could cross by 2 BL. Not to mention an attempt at a dial up resulted in a boat caught in irons for minutes.

With all the talk about speed, the fact is the boats this time were covering about the same number of boatlengths in the same period of time as the last monohull AC boats did. The multis were slightly faster (BL/Time) if you do the math, but not significantly, and it sure didn't translate on the video screen.

I'll bet if you showed this footage to non-sailors, then showed them footage from 12s in Perth, the non-sailor would bet the 12s were going faster.

 

Is that the reason? I'll bet when the Laser Slalom used to take place off StFYC in the 70s/80s there were as many people watching as currently watch F40s. Was that because Lasers are so fast and furious?

 

Be fair. The start through the first corner can be worth watching.

 

I'd be willing to bet that a fresh shipment of Ganga had just blown into town and the locals were just groovin' on the scene, man. It's easy to get hung-up at the shore, man, when there's fresh weed in the air. ;-)

Truth is... who knows why the San Franner's would come out in numbers for that bit of the trade. There might have been some friendly wagers and there might have been some friendly smack talk to settle. Then, once there are more than ten, the rest of the crowd could have simply been Looky-Loo addicts, expecting it to turn out badly and bloody. It is California, after all. The state where nobody seems to have a real life...

 

There is no real correlation between the pure speed of an event and the spectators it attracts.

As an example, look at one of the biggest spectator shows of all, the Olympics. The IOC broadcasting report for the Beijing Games shows that the most-watched sporting moment in the USA was Phelps' 8th gold medal, where he swam at about 3.5 knots. In Japan, it was the women's marathon, probably raced at about 11 knots. In Germany, women's soccer, where players run at about 17km/h, as a rough average. In Brazil, it was beach volleyball; Italy, men's handball. Africa, soccer. All those sports are much slower than (say) the cycling, so people DID NOT prefer the fastest sports.

There's a breakdown for the Winter Olympics viewer figures. Top sport was figure skating (155,000 viewer hours) followed by snowboarding and nordic combined (113,000 abnd 97,000 respectively. The fastest sports (luge, bobsleigh and skeleton) all recorded 25-27,000 viewer hours, which put them at the bottom of the list. The fastest form of skating was much less popular than the slowest form.

So once again, there is NO preference to faster sports.

Details of the world's most-watch sport event are hard to find, but the Tour de France is always up there and it's run at an average speed of about 40 km/h.

So the facts do NOT show that there is a correlation between speed and viewers. The simple fact is that vastly more people in the home of the AC watched a man swim at about 3 knots than watched any fast-boat racing.

 

Gary, why does it so offend you when I put up a post that simply asks for mutual respect for the choices we sailors make and for the preferences we have? Your boats are fantastic even if they may not be (as far as I understand, forgive me if I am wrong) as quick as some others. Why not apply the same to other craft?

I'm in a development class that gets verified GPS speeds of 32+ knots just among the local crowd, which isn't bad for something smaller than a Laser. It's also newer than multis (foilborne or seahugging), but we don't go around calling your wonderful boats "dinosaurs" or suggesting that foiler tri owners are stuck in the mud. Why can't such respect go both ways?

If pure speed is what matters, why aren't you sailing a kite or a board? If pure speed is what matters, why are Lasers or Sunbursts so popular? And please, let's not just insult all Laser and Sunburst sailors. Many sailors from fast boatws enjoy slow boats, just like Cam Lewis loves his North Haven Dinghy (the oldest OD dinghy in the world that still has its original design) despite sailing G Class cats.

Unless you believe that you are smarter than all the sailors of slow boats, surely you must agree that there are those who find them more fun to sail. Personally, I find my speed boards are as boring as batshit after a short while, and that a Laser has more sensation of speed. That's strictly my own taste and it's great that others differ, but bizarre that some will insult anyonke who is not just like them. I'd have thought that a creative person of your repute would have been able to understand that we can all have different tastes and find different delights, rahter than want to see us all straight-jacketed into one speed-worshipping monoculture.


Doug, the relevance about the oceanic and speed records was that a type of craft does not become "gross" or "a dinosaur" just because a different type owns the speed records.

Whether or not a type holds a record is not what makes a type worthwhile and wonderful. Inshore multis were fantastic boats when boards held the speed record, and in exactly the same way monos are fantastic boats when multis hold the speed record. It's really not a difficult concept.

We were throwing around the idea of getting another Tornado the other day at home, but at the moment it doesn't suit our personal needs and tastes. A mono suits us better at the moment. Many other people are in comparable positions where they are NOT biased but just find that monos suit them better - so why call such craft "dinosaurs" and "gross"?

Multis are wonderful, but the way that some of their proponents insult and belittle the craft of those who dare to have different taste is depressing. The funny thing is that it's the multi people who should surely be rejoicing in the fact that we are all free to like different things, instead of expecting everyone to march to just one drumbeat.

The funny thing is that some multihullers complained for years that they were kept out of some races. Now that multis are welcome at some major clubs, the mono majority and their craft are treated with disdain and insults. That hardly seems to be the way to reward fellow club members for allowing you to race.

If you don't like people "being jumped on", Doug, then why not encourage people not to jump on the type of craft that others prefer?

 

CT. You are going off on a rant again. A behavioural trait you have demonstrated before on the SA forums.

Neither Doug nor I were commenting on ALL monohull sailboats. Just on the AC monohull dinosaurs

I repeat what I said before, where the AC is concerned the ballasted monohull is an outdated 19th century technology which has reached its point of diminishing returns. Engine powered canting keels etc: are the last effort to squeeze the final drop out of the lemon.

We are not talking about ultimate speed here. Rather we are talking about Efficiency. It's not very efficient to drag around a horrible lump of ballast just to prevent a boat from falling over. The Pacific peoples realised this 1000 years ago and sailed their 100ft twin canoes all over the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately Luddites like you can't accept that today, in ALL areas and conditions of ocean sailing----- MULTIHULLS RULE.

 

I get passionate (or rant as you call it) because I love the sport, like and respect most of its followers, and fail to see why insulting them and their craft is worthwhile. BTW, your post spoke of "the superiority of Multihulls in racing", not just in AC racing.


In addition, I get agitated because the failure to respect others may well be holding back the development and acceptance of multis and the sport in general.
People like John Partridge, who got multis into what is (I believe) your local club, went out and worked hard for the multihull cause. Why harm the acceptance of multis merely to sling insults around, especially when some are aimed at someone who has spent several years sailing cats and newer forms of craft and therefore is hardly a luddite?

As regards efficiency v speed; surely the efficiency of a sailboat built for pleasure is the amount of pleasure that it generates, and that does not depend on pure speed.

What this does show, once again, is that BDF is not a place for respectful and informed discussion of sailing craft, but an arena (for some) to insult those who dare to have different tastes in pleasure, and their boats. That's quite sad.

 

oldsailor: if you aren't in favor of resurrection then why did you resurrect this hoary old thread? The problem with this thread is, it is no longer relevant and never had much of a point in the first case. Just how many AC threads do we need anyway?

Dind't read like a rant to me, just a reasonable request for courteous discussion. Your's is the rant.

Multihulls rule. Foilers rule. boarders rule. Monos are dinosaurs

Folks, can you just give it a rest with the testosterone-driven claims of world supremacy please? The dinosaurs ruled the world for millions of years and were far more interesting than the shrunken remnants of nature that slink around the tame jungles these days. I would love to see live dinosaurs, not from too close up though and if the great boats of yesteryear were re-created and raced they would probably attract a great deal of interest; next time the tall ships visit your neck of the woods make a note of the turnout.

 

I'm happy to let it rest.

Perhaps we should talk about the S-H.

A bit off topic here Terry, but I had my car buried in a snowdrift one winter at Alliston. I learned to sail on Lake Wilcox, on a Sailfish. I went on to sail monos for two years on Lake Simco, before I turned to the dark side and built sailed and raced my first Trimaran.

 

CT, I understand your point about my rude bluntness but your analogies are suspect: the top swimmers are swimming faster than any other human being - that's very impressive, same for the top sailors in any class of boat you can think of, top speed and top skills in their class. I have absolutely no argument with that - but we WERE (I'll not comment again) talking about the retrograde (IMO) swinging back to old fashioned lead carriers for the AC, nothing else. By your own analogies these designs are not quick - and a number of us have become impatient with the repetitive ramming down our throats of returning to tight match racing etc. etc in mediocre performing boats - seems oxymoron-like after seeing BMW-O.