time for a new ACC rule?

Why not listening to what the main racingsailboat designers say about those boats? Most of them say they don't make sense.

 

different cup i understand and googled up what i could find but havent found the main racingsailboat designers comments nor specs, goals, rules or video's yet
did learn of butterfly or dragon double skinned or wing sails that open 180 degree at the sternside for downwind sailing and more

 

If ever there were a cry for mighetto. This is it. So here are my thoughts on Xarax comments on the ACC. But first congratulations UW rowing and thanks Larry Ellison.

The ACC is about growing the sport of sailing. It is advertising for our sport as well as the sponsors. And contrary to what the rich and powerful would like, it is still about national pride. I am not chatting for Larry but he probably chats as I do. We in the USA just suck at sailing. When an EU crew needs a moral boost, it is sent to the USA where that team almost certainly will shine against our incompetent ones and why is that?

It is because the east coast of the USA, which until recently controlled the sport, adopted the old ways of Europe which are the ways of patronage, the ways of the ivy league, good old boys club, secrete society, skull and bones, German ways, what every you want to call it. But get a clue, these old ways are being abandoned by the youth of the EU.

These old ways of business as well as sailing involve minding your pees and queues, not questioning, and letting those who came before you and their sons and daughters get the plumb jobs. These old ways also create climates of cheating and worse. In Seattle we can hardly chat ACC because of the cheating in 2003. In Germany you can not chat WWII.

Contrast with the "dog eat dog" culture that is better called Americanism. We in the USA have pumped 5 times the money into Germany and Bavaria than into China according to todays Seattle Times and it makes sense. We want the EU to be more democratic and less dictatorial. When competition is fair, when it is performance over "the system" AKA patronage, all of the polite societies benefit.

One of the great notions brought to mind by the latest Pirates film is that crew is part of the boat. Think about that. Lets think about rules for the ACC that involve crew. Like age rules and nationality rules. Lets also think about rules for the designer. Is it enough that the boat be built in the country represented. Should not the design team be of the nationality represented, or at least marginally so?

Frank L. Mighetto
member US Sailing
member SSSS

 

Hello there, I have posted this before on another thread but it seems relevant here:

"I have read a recent interview (in French) where Juan Kouyoumdjian talked about it .... I will make a translation of the relevant part of the interview":

What are the main performance criteria for an Open 60?

The same as for any other racing sailboat: Maximize propulsion force and stability and minimize the drag (resistance to the forward motion).

A lot of sail area on a narrower boat ?

Normally it is assumed that a narrow hull has less drag. I can prove otherwise. With less than 12k of wind, the narrow boat has the advantage, but with more wind that’s not the case and these boats race along with strong winds.

Do you prefer to work with Class boats or Open boats?

Open boats. We are very happy, doing Open Boats (3). That’s much more exiting than Class America, an uninteresting and completely obsolete class. The boats have a monstrous ratio costs/performance.

In what direction would you like to see an evolution of the Class America?

That’s funny because that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design).

The problem is that Chris Dickson (BMW/Oracle) is very conservative. He likes heavy boats. I don’t expect big changes.

 

What we need is JK's thoughts on course changes. The in port-races will be Class America. This is owing to the need for spectator accommodation. The AC boats sail only windward leeward and that is apparently good for spectator boats and video coverage. (I remain unconvinced.) The problem here is that ocean going vessels need crew competency in reaching work and direct upwind is generally not how one would race them. So in the name of spectators the in-port events are being changed from what makes sense for ocean racing (Olymplic style courses) to what makes sense for spectators (possibly). The boats will be designed for the course.

It makes no sense whatsoever when you think auto racing. Sure there are drag races but oval courses seem to draw the most spectators. What is wrong with oval courses for sail boat racing? I mean sure, middle course is going to be a problem but you could do something with gates like is proposed for the in-port upwind downwind. My point is that the design of the America's Cup vessels is not the design of ocean racing vessels and that making the in port course, like the AC course will lead to design adaptations likely poor for ocean conditions.

 

nice to see you are still alive Frank

 

Do they? What do R/P, Farr, Jeppersen, Johnstone etc say about them?

 

...".that question was also made to Bruce Farr and our answer is very close: A little bit more of 600m2 of sail area, around 90/100 ft length, canting keels…and more liberty on the class rules (regarding design)".

 

From the Architect of AREVA team:

Restricting the Field of Research:

"In fact, version 5 of the ACC (America's Cup Class) rules was a new way of attaching parameters. The measured length (approximately 20 meters) can vary only 5 centimeters or so. Displacement is 24 tons more or less fifty kilograms. And, the measured surface area of the sails can be modified only within 10 square meters. The only really free parameter is with the width, but with a limit of 4.50 meters that nobody utilizes. All the new modifications are aimed at penalizing the smaller syndicates by increasing the draft by 10 centimeters (up to 4.10 m), which does not bring a lot to the boat's performance, but comes at a considerable cost...

.. Everyone has thus converged in a similar direction because of the Version 5 ACC rules. The field of investigation and research is reduced because the larger syndicates decided it was better to test sails, crews, and to focus on the appendages (keels and rudders). Their fear was that a smaller budget, but very innovative team would be able to build a faster boat…."
.....
“Bernard Nivelt”

He doesn’t seem very happy with the rules either .

http://www.areva-challenge.com/news.php?sel=magazine&value=9

 

Is it an exciting match race what we watch?

Sorry, Valencia, no. It is not. And all the fans of the ACC rule should honestly admit that, if this was the main purpose of the unreasonable restrictions of the rule, it failed, and failed completely. We are watching some interesting pre-match moments, and then a boring long wait to the pre-established finish.
The outcome of almost all races is determined from the beginning. Match race is reduced in pre-match race... It should be something more, and we must honestly admit that.

 

Welcome to match racing. The "unreasonable restrictions of the rule" have nothing to do with this. Any rule, regardless of restriction, will produce type-formed participants after the first iteration.

No matter the ultimate speed, if the participants are closely matched then winning the race will be dependent on winning the start and owning the favored side of the course. This is true wheter the matches are held in old, slow 12 metres, in the current ACC designs, in some new canting keel design, or in C Class cats.


Furthermore, if you try to have a match race with boats that perform very differently upwind versus downwind (planing-types) the boat that arrives first to the windward mark will set and plane away to a safe distance before the trailing boat can set. This negates one of the things that helps keep matches close, the ability of the trailing boat to attack and blanket the leading boat.


If the goal of the America's Cup is to produce the ultimate in speed, then the current ACC boats are wrong and you are right. However, it seems to me the idea is to produce boats for good match racing. In that respect the rule seems to deliver pretty well.

If you want even closer racing you could eliminate the A-Sails and maybe find some way to limit the amount of "pole forward" a boat could sail with. That would give more ability to attack to the trailing boat downwind. Maybe add more gates on the course to force more engagement, with perhaps alternating right/left for each boat at each gate. Limit the amount of technology available (no electronic navigation aids, no weather info from 1 hour before the start) so the sailors have to do all the choosing of favored sides, laylines, etc by sight.

 

"Maybe add more gates on the course to force more engagement, with perhaps alternating right/left for each boat at each gate."
It would be spectacular to watch some reaching duels, too. A match race through a complicated course could be much more interesting if the boats were not so one-design, though. Let the designers and the engineers to participate, as the sailors do, in the race, they are part of the same team!

 

What exactly do you think reaching legs would add to a match race? Reaching legs would be nothing but follow-the-leader. Do you remember 1992's Z course? There can be no blanketing on a reaching leg by the trailing boat, unless it is far faster and overtakes. That is not going to happen in a match race situation with boats type-formed to a rule. Every rule type-forms, so the boats approach (as you say) one design.

The Designers and Engineers do participate now, and did in the eras of 12 metres and J boats.

So again, please tell us how match racing would be improved with closer racing after the pre-start by changing the rule or adding reaching legs.

 

It is quite obvious that the truly creative part of designers and engineers participation is diminished as the boats approach the one-design limit. If you don t believe this, ask anybody who has designed anything !
Sailboat racing, at this level of publicity is, like it or not, a public spectacle, not only an athletic event. Reaching legs don t contribute to the sailing races per se, but I think that they might well make the whole event less boring for the public that fills the docs of Valencia or watch the series from their T.V. sets. Think Monte Carlo F1 race, what a bad racing car course, but what a great public spectacle !

 

Paul B (and others) are dead right. You can grumble all you like about the cost and complexity of these boats, but essentially they are ideal for their purpose and the proof is that more syndicates turned up for this challenge than (IIRC) at any other time in AC history.

All the criticism of it as a spectator event stems not from any short comings of the boats, but the nature of the event itself: It's match racing, and match racing is always superficially dull to watch. The interest lies in the subtlety and nuances, but this is lost on the vast majority of the viewing public.

Whilst a windier or rougher venue might satisfy the 'crash and burn' cravings of your average beer swilling TV audience, I wouldn't be too sure. The European skiff circuit, the inshore racing with 60 ft tri's and even footage from the southern ocean have only attracted very limited and short lived TV audiences.

Most of the 'fixes' suggested for the event itself are similar to putting a hidden mine field under some of the squares on a chess board. Whilst it might make watching the game more exiting, it's not really what chess is about. And so with the AC. It's always been about very rich people believing they have the money, power and control to put together a complete campaign package to wrestle the trophy from another bloke who similarly believes he has the same. It's the game they want to play and that's fine as it's all done largely with their money.

Only rarely in the AC history has interest in it ever spilled over into the public domain. Then it has usually been some scandal, or underdog story, or jingoistic nationalism, or even rarer; a genuine news worthy story (Australia winning) after over 100 years of predictable dullness. Only New Zealand in recent years has bucked this trend, but they are probable unique in the position sailing has amongst both their national sports and their economy.

If the AC holds no interest for you, then ignore it. But it won't go away as long as there are rich people who want to play. And how and what they play is entirely up to them. But it's not all bad. When that amount of money is being carved up on the table, even the crumbs that fall beneath are worth picking up. Our clients are still racing and there is already talk of the next generation of boats... "Happy days are here again......"