No Interest in the AC?

I heard the masts are 150+ foot high just so they wont lose sight of each other on the course.
lol

 

They run Euro pump gas with a small margin to mix it differently but only with components already in the pump gas
Same octane

 

In addition to the locations posted in post #34, BMW/Oracle will carry the race live: http://bmworacleracing.com/en/index.html?track.refer= approx 4AM eastern Monday morning.

 

Here we agree. 90 footers were relatively common "big boats" for racing and cruising. The Cup used "mainstream" for the day yachts.

They were also a reflection of the limits of construction and materials of the time. They were the fast ocean able cruiser/racers of their day.

Fast forward to today. Look at boats like the Gunboat 90. This is what a modern fast cruiser looks like. By the time modern construction methods allowed lightweight racing boats to be designed and built, Multi-hulls had been excluded from mainstream racing for almost 100 years.

I agree that the AC should have some relevance to sailing in general and not be sailed in vessels that have no use outside Cup competition. Prior to the IACC era all the design rules could produce seaworthy boats. The J's and 12's that went cruising are evidence of this.

The problem I see is that when the result is based on an inshore race for offshore boats, winning the Cup requires you to build an inshore racer. Big mono-hulls no longer rule as trans-ocean racers as they did in 1850-1900. Today the ocean courses are ruled by multi-hulls. From this perspective, the big multi's in AC33 are only lightweight versions of the vessel types that have proved to be the fastest for racing across oceans ... just as Cup boats at the turn of the century were lightweight versions of the boats that were fastest across oceans.

The Mono-hull guys have decided that using power assisted systems is okay for sailing races, they are still dead slow compared to manually sailed multi's.

90 feet LWL ... what is the fastest boat you can build? In 1900 if was a ballasted mono, in 2000 it was an un-ballasted multi. The current boats are representations of what wins ocean races, just as the boats from 1850-1900 were.

I'd like the Deed to have some scantling rules but it does not. I'd like to see sound, seaworthy vessels (no matter what the configuration) sailing for the Cup, but that will only happen by mutual consent.

If we agree that the AC has traditionally reflected fast ocean vessels, how can anyone say that big multi's in the AC are not part of that tradition?

With equal time and resources spent in development, and with no mono-hull restriction, how would the Whitbread have evolved? Would Swan 65's have been replaced with W60's? or would it be more likely that the Whitbread would have been dominated by ORMA 60's?

In my opinion multi's being able to challenge for the top prizes in sailing is long overdue. The AC used to reflect the same vessel types that set passage records, when mono's stopped being competitive in that case is when the AC should have stayed with tradition and fostered development of what everyone knows is the fast passage solution.

In the context of fast passage making, by what logic are multi's excluded? Why should they be excluded from the AC? Big multi's are "fairly normal racing boats" today.

Randy

 

No, big multis are a tiny minority - great boats, but very uncommon. Despite all the talk, they are not growing much, if at all, as racing boats. Look at the Fastnet - the multi fleet is dwindling. Look at the death of the 60' tri circuit, the death of the F40s, the death of the old F1 maxi multis, the death of The Race.

And the underlying logic is very simple. Sporting events, by definition, exclude some types of equipment and allow others. How much variation and development is allowed is determined by the entrants and organisers, but it's rarely as much as a change from mono to multi.

Almost any sporting contest in the world could be made faster by changing the rules to allow new technology, but most people think that allowing in unrestricted technological changes is a bizarre idea. Swimming just banned the skin suits and it has gold medals for strokes that are slower than freestyle, cycle racing bans recumbents, Red Bull air racing is done in piston engines instead of supersonic jets, F1 is heavily restricted (the second-fastest race ever was over 35 years ago), golf clubs and balls are subject to performance-restricting regulations, etc etc etc.

You could go on for years, listing the way that other sports restrict possible 'advances' - that is, as has been said, the very essence of what sport is about. Hell, the Olympic marathon was inspired by a messenger bringing news of a military victory, and it has stayed as a footrace despite the fact that these days such news would be radioed through. By your definition, the first modern marathon race would have been a competition between telegraph operators.

Almost no one, whether they sail Snipes,Sunfish, Tornado, 60' tri, Hobie, foiler Moth, Formula board or Skiff, cares mainly for ultimate speed. We know what goes fastest, it's MAcquarie Innovation, a speed board, a kite or a 60' foiling tri.

Most sailors, even in high performance classes, are interested in speed AS COMPARED TO COMPARABLE CRAFT. You don't get a Tornado sailor or Moth sailor giving up their craft because they can't come close to the speed of a kite. In the same way, the fact that big multis are quicker than big monos is largely irrelevant. A Formula 1 car is quicker than a racing bike, but that doesn't worry Valentino Rossi. The women's streamlined recumbent HPV record is way quicker than Lance Armstrong can go on his Tour de France bike, but he's not staying up all night feeling that he's missing out. The Olympic butterfly medallist isn't slashing his wrists because the freestylers go quicker. Like compares to like.

This has always been a mono race, and that's the way it should stay. If multis want their own big race, it would be great if they would go out and make one. To take a major event away from the monohullers who make up the vast majority of sailors would make it almost irrelevant to most of those in the sport. Exactly why a small minority has the right to take over a classic event is a mystery to most of us.

We've been forming clubs for multis, building multis, living on multis and sailing multis for 3 generations in my family. They are fantastic boats, but that doesn't mean that they should be allowed to take over existing events for other types of craft, any more than Skiffs or foilers or windsurfers should be allowed to walk into major multi events, or cars should be allowed to enter motorbike races.

 

The "rule"

90 feet LWL
22 ft draft

The "rule" allows multi's. The rule also allows mutual consent.

When it suits you, you say that AC boats should be a reflection of mainstream fast cruisers or cruiser racers, then when I point out that there are more and more multis that fit that description you bring up multi-hull not being racing as much.

Do the races you mentioned welcome multihulls?

I know that our local annual regatta does welcome boats of all types, the cruising multi's are a growing fleet, the mono fleet is pretty stable.

You don't like the question about multi's being allowed to compete in the Whitbread ... that's fine ... that race has evolved to motor-sailing ... about as relevant to sailing as asking how the Indy or the Monaco Grand Prix would have developed if they allowed rocket powered 8 wheelers instead of F and Indy cars.

What you seem to miss is that the AC rule allows Multi's, this is in stark contrast to much of what you posted in reply.

You are getting paranoid I think. Did I mention any conspiracy?

All I can say is that if you walk a marina here, you see more newish mutli's out sailing than newish monos. We are welcoming and nurturing them to join in our local racing.

I guess just that because they didn't build the event, we should tell them to go start their own?

Randy

 

Its a match race not a drag race so cats are OUT!!
( there is one class of cats match racing and most yachtys have never even heard of it...is there a class in your country?
There's your answer)

A cruising yacht is the worst compromise of a boat ever thats why we have IRC so the 4kts sh1tboxes can race.

People want to see high tech race.
People who know cars follow NASCAR people who know nothing follow F1
Billionaires dont by cats..they buy mono's, production cats are ugly like a VOLVO car, mono's are more pleasing to the eye, just look at re sale and what custom builders are building...


Yachting is a very difficult sport for spectators, a match race in similar boats is as good as it gets if the yachts are doing 30kts it will look like 2 boats out sailing and the percentages in speed difference become huge when you go faster so the race is over before they even hit the water as soon as we all know who has the faster boat.

re production designs to keep cost down...
I could imagine the AC being run in similar hulls but with foils, mast and deck etc. all free to fit the rules.
Hull decided by mutual consent...could be a production design.... that might help connect the average sailor?

 

The AC was never intended to be a "Match Race". "Match Racing" evolved from the 12's ... in "Match Racing" it is all about tactics and sailors with a tiny bit of design freedom under a tight rule.

The Cup was:

30 to 300 tons, any vessel. Does that sound like a "Match Race" to anyone?

In 1887 it was changed from 30-300 tons to 65-90 ft LWL for single masts and 85-115 ft LWL for vessels of more than one mast. Still very far from a "Match Race".

The Cup *can* be a "Match Race" under mutual consent, but the basic rule does not even hint that the vessels should match in order to provide good racing.

Given either the basic tonnage rule or the revised LWL limits, what would you design and build to win the Cup?

It is the wide open design rule *and* the ability to agree to other terms that makes the Cup different. There is no mono-hull requirement, there never was.

In 1857 there were no multi's that could win. By 1970 there were. In one of the few events that allows design freedom it is amazing to hear claims that the Cup should be limited to mono-hulls and slow ones at that.

Larry is thinking of a new monohull rule that will produce boats that are capable of 30+ knot speeds. Ernesto has said that they are considering a rule that will allow more affordable multi's so several clubs can afford to challenge.

Neither is suggesting a return to heavy displacement monos and "Match Racing" as we have come to understand it from the 12 Meter years.

There are many "Match Racing" series. Why are they not the premier events for sailing?

I tend to agree with CT 249 about forcing multi's into existing events. I agree 100% that I enjoy racing against boats of similar type and speed. I also find it interesting to see what conditions favour what types. I think we are sailors first and we don't need to keep any type of boat from coming out to play.

I also think that that the owners of big, expensive boats, don't really want to be first to finish badly enough to change from traditional boats. How do they reconcile allowing powered systems boats but not multi-hulls? Powered ballast systems and powered decks are every bit as far removed from the mainstream as multi's are. One type is allowed to set new records previously held by traditional sailboats, the other type is not. Why is that?

R

 

30 knot Monos!

Now, that would be great!

 

RHough Yes fair enough what you have said.
Re the power though, the 80 to 100' race mono's all have full power everything now ashave large cruising boats for 20 years, it s allowed under IRC now to race with it.
Match racing not main stream, your right, I thinks you need to look at yacht racing and for many events its a rich guy sinking money in and driving his boat for some, all or most of the race and for most races a hot crew and fast boat will allow him to do that IRC thing.
A rich guy at the helm of a match race boat is going nowhere.
A rich guy cant do much in any other sport..drive his F1..no, his horse...no. He can lift the trophy in sailing and say 'I did it'
Where is the sponsor going, with the arse out of his pants hot young sailor crowd who couldnt tell you what year Dom Perignon you should be drinking OR with the guy driving the Rolls Royce with plenty of hanger on ers?

I know RC wants to have planning mono's ( I believe one of the disagreements he had with EB) but for me it will just become a drag race to the top mark and you have a winner as with assy's you cant pass a boat in front of you and if you run sym kites downwind you will be way slower.
You may as well have them tethered at the start line cut the rope and wait for the top mark and get the gun if speed becomes the main issue and not the match racing?
They will end up racing Moths?

 

=====================
Yeah-60'Moths or so... See more here in post#11-what Coutts wanted according to Julian Bethwaite: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/design-challenge-trapwing-deck-ballast-12-22-a-29610.html

 

Nice thread Doug..you could be on the right track there.
Must be time to build a one man version and do some testing

 

My dad exposed me to the Cup at the beginning of the 12 Meter Era. I was 4 in 1956. I learned to sail pretty late at age 10 and the first names I remember are Gretel and Dame Pattie. Cup sailors were my heroes.

My dad also exposed me to early cruising trimarans ... Piver's Lodestar was one of his dream machines.

I didn't give much thought to why multi's and monos didn't race against each other, since all the sailing I did was One Design. Stars didn't race against Scows, or Lightnings, so it was not remarkable that Cougar Cats raced in a separate class too.

I came to learn more about rules and tactics since that was the focus of the AC. I had little knowledge of Cup history other than it was old and named not for America as in USA but for the Yacht America that won the Cup.

1987 in Perth was a highlight for me. The new rule IACC's never got my attention as the close racing I had come to equate with the AC was gone. None the less, I was able to cross "going to the AC" off my bucket list after going to Valencia for AC32.

The outrageous rules for AC33 prompted me to look much more closely at the rules and history of the Cup. It also caused me to lose respect for those that were competing for the AC.

I've now been sailing and racing for over 45 years. I happen to race a 4KSB and enjoy it. I've also enjoyed racing every boat I've ever sailed on. There was some small satisfaction sailing a 24 foot trimaran with a crew of 3 (average age 60+) boat for boat against 40-50 foot monos with 7-10 crew aboard. I also know which boat I would rather cruise on for a week.

The AC is the one trophy that was designed to be adaptable to the times and wants of those that compete for it. I have mixed emotions about it's popularity and the idea that the common perception is that the AC is sailed for in fast boats.

At one time, the USAC roadsters were more than competitive with F1 cars of the day. People resisted rear engine cars at Indianapolis, but after a few years, front engine cars were no longer competitive and the Indy didn't die, it continued with new technology. What design rule that does not specify hull type produces a ballasted monohull as the dominate design? The big gains in sailing performance came with the ability to build lighter boats. At some point it became possible to build competitive multi-hulls. Under Area Rules like the A, B, C, and D classes, can monos' compete with other types? Under a LOA rule? Under a LWL rule? Under a displacement rule? Why do designs that are slow for their length, slow for their weight, and slow for their sail area continue to be the choice for new racing boats? When ballasted mono's cannot be competitive under a rule that allows other vessel types to compete, why didn't the owners give up hauling lead around and go with the faster types?

I don't find the argument about not letting motorcycles into the Tour de France persuasive, they allow boats that require stored energy to race.

If motor racing can adapt to the change from front engine cars to rear engine cars, why does sailing have such a hard time going from mono's to multi's?

Certainly, there are racing classes for sedans that are front engine, rear wheel drive and it took some time for front wheel drive cars to become competitive. We now see a mixture of front and rear wheel drive cars in many classes at the club level. Shouldn't we see a mixture of monos and multis in club level sailing classes? At the top of motorsport internationally, we don't see either front engines or front wheel drive, the winning combination is mid engine and rear wheel drive. Shouldn't we expect to see mutli-hulls in the AC? Shouldn't we have expected to see battles between monos and multis in the top levels of sail racing?

It does not make sense to me. Just because mid-engine, rear wheel drive cars are far from the layout of mini-vans and the majority of road cars, they are the dominate type on the race course. Just because multi-hulls are not the dominate type for everyday sailing and cruising, why should the AC reflect that? Sports car racing is not reflective of what is in the parking lot at WalMart, why should the AC be reflective of the dock queens at most marinas?

I'm not on a particular crusade here, just looking at the two sports. It seems odd to me that while there are many parallels between sports car racing at the club level and sail racing at the club level. One mostly amateur sport embraces better performing types and the other one does not. There is no "We should not allow front wheel drive cars into our local street drags, they did nothing to build the event. They are free to start their own club and have their own races." attitude that I am aware of. In local automobile racing, all racers seem to be made welcome. New cars are fit into existing classes. Effort is made to set weight limits and modification limits so the cars can race together. Why no PHRF or IRC type rating system that allows multi-hull cruiser/racers to sail against mono-hull cruiser/racers? If car clubs can figure out rules that let Honda Civics, MR2's, and Miatas race together instead of splitting them into Front Engine/Front Drive, Mid Engine/Rear Drive, and Front Engine/ Rear Drive, sail racing should be able to do the same.

I for one am happy that we get to see what can be done with a 90 foot LWL and 22 foot draft. There is more than enough data to rate 30, 40, 50, and 60 foot multi's to allow them to race with mono's. Either under a measurement handicapping system that uses VPP's or an observed performance handicap system like PHRF or Portsmouth. Even IRC is subjective enough to try to rate ULDB's against heavy displacement 4KSB's, they could include multi's if they wanted to.

Is the resistance due to people not wanting to be reminded that the boats they sail should be in vintage or cruising classes, and not the headliners they once were? The cars guys didn't let that happen, why should we?

Randy

 

No, if you want to let them in, great. That doesn't mean that they have to be allowed into every other event.

Multis don't allow monos, kites or boards into most of the big multi events, why should they demand special treatment?

I guess that just kites should be allowed into the A Class titles too?
I guess that steamships should have been allowed into the AC?
I guess that

If you allow every type into every race, you can lose the degree of commonality of gear, tactics, spirit, personality, handling and other facets that make a sport event. How much commonality any particular event allows can vary, but to just imply that every event has to allow in the most 'efficient' possible gear is compeletely against the rules of most sports.

I notice you continue to ignore the fact that almost all sports (perhaps all sports, certainly the sportscars that you refer to) have rules that restrict the gear - why are you so against it in sailing?

 

Because the line chosen is so obviously arbitrary, and results in the exclusion of the fastest boats.

It is perfectly reasonable to keep power boats out of sail races. It is less obviously reasonable to exclude certain sailboats because they are somewhat different from the traditional entry. This isn't match racing or class racing. It's ocean racing. If 25 foot monos are allowed to compete in the same race as 90 foot maxi yachts, it seems disengenuous to claim that allowing multis would result in too much diversity in the entries.

Consider the Dakar rally. This is actually not a bad analogy for an ocean race. And there are cars, motorcycles and trucks competing. The result is that the race is more interesting to more people, and so I think it would be if multis were encouraged to race in the major ocean races.