America's Cup

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J.D.
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America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

America's Cup n: Possibly the single stupidest sporting event ever conceived, usually bounced around in court rooms making lawyers rich and achieving little else.

Well, development is in full swing.

The next America's Cup will be contested in San Francisco Bay - probably as good a venue as any - starting at the end of 2013.

The current holders of the Auld Mug are the Golden Gate Yacht Club. The cup is in the custody of the club where the successful challenge (or defence) originates and this makes for strange bedfellows. Team Oracle is made up of a mix of talent; skipper James Spithill is Australian. Then there is a bevy of Olympic gold medallists; Ben Ainslie from the UK, Tom Slingsby and Nathan Outerridge from Australia and Russell Coutts from NZ. That's about half the crew. The man bankrolling the American defence campaign is Larry Ellison, of Oracle fame, one of the richest men in the world.

Emirates Team New Zealand has suffered a bit from this redistribution of talent but appear to be making up ground in other ways. With some of their finest, like Coutts, having defected, the Kiwis have had to call on their depth of talent to see them through. Skipper Dean Barker, while good, is probably not the best New Zealand skipper for match racing. On the other hand, he and his crew have an awful lot of meaningful testing under their belt because they've managed to keep their machine together.

[youtube] [/youtube]

This cycle of the Cup sees the same round robin format and the same match racing format too. This time round though, they're doing it in a new class called the AC72. Evolved from the AC45, the 72 retains the solid wing and soft headsails but adds foils. This has produced some of the fastest sailing craft ever seen. They have already been clocked at around 38 knots and 40+ is highly probable but logs have been difficult to calibrate. Speeds are so high in fact that ETNZ had to specially design and commission a chase boat - 45 feet long with 4 stonking V8 outboards totalling 1200hp - just to keep up. Have I got your attention yet?

With this high speed comes an attendant risk. Oracle Team USA was destroyed back in October when she pitch poled - an end-for-end capsize - on San Francisco Bay. Nobody was hurt but Ellison's bank balance took a bit of a hit. At $8m a copy, these new boats are frighteningly expensive and their twitchiness only makes crashes more likely. The series will basically rely on surviving long enough to score points. How anyone came up with a formula like this for match racing, I'm fooked if I know.

[youtube] [/youtube]

Ellison is intending to cash in on this NASCAR style. The course is on the stretch between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz so the public will get a better view than ever before. He has also gone in for instant TV replays with thumping loud head-banger music, grandstand seating with ready access to hot dogs and a range of ticket prices. The test run for all this is the AC45 series currently being run. It seems to be popular.

I guess it's just the sort of hoopla and banality we've come to expect from the America's Cup really...
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Re: America's Cup

Post by wobblysauce »

1st video, that is some great speed on flat water.

2nd video, I have seen the guy fall through the sail but the full video, just put a smile on my face as it was silly on that water.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by richo »

Would not be surprised if the Kiwi boat ends up arse over tit too, the sponson's are very close to the water in flat water let alone how rough San Fran Cisco Bay will be.

Not to mention its farken cold as all buggery there.


It is a bit of a wank but it's a wank with tradition and the opportunity to beat the American's can't be overstated..
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Re: America's Cup

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The Kiwi boat has been stacked already but with no great harm done. It seems to be relatively stable. It will only foil if the water is reasonably flat otherwise it does what catamarans usually do. The first video is amazing because the boat is generating so much speed in so little wind. You can do that in flat water if you've got the power to weight ratio. What amazes me is that there are no white caps. By inference that means the wind strength is definitely less than 15 knots - probably less than 12. How fast do you reckon it's going?

Oracle Team USA won't admit it at the moment but they have a major technical problem. Their foils won't support the weight of the boat for more than a couple of minutes before they snap. You mention that the sponsons are close to the water. There's nothing actually wrong with that but the AC72s have a nasty habit of nosing over. To me, the Kiwi boat looks stable and the US boat less so. The challenge is not in trimming the sails this time but trimming the foil. This requires grinder work of the sort which hasn't been seen for a long time. The American foils just don't seem to work and there's no capacity to change them.

Like Formula 1, there is a limitation on testing (30 days). The Kiwis are getting close to expending their allotment for this boat but they've got quite a lot of useful data out of it. I reckon the US team will have to make some fundamental changes to their design just to get to the start line. Both teams are faced with the same dilemma: keeping the weight as far aft as possible when the boat is foiling or traveling at high speed. The alternative is a pitch pole.

Sailing them in San Francisco Bay will be a challenge. Yep; it's cold. It's also windy. Sort of reminds me of what happened when they took the old 12 Metres to Fremantle. They'd never had to sail those things in 25 knots before and there was no capacity to reef them (I know; I used to sail on one of the Kookaburras). It was as exciting as the America's Cup ever got.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by bengatta »

The America's cup lost all momentum when they stopped racing the big boats...
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

Which big boats? The J-Class? The 12-Metre? The IACC Class?

The AC72s, as their name implies, are pretty big.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by bengatta »

IACC
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

I tend to agree. I think match racing lends itself better to monohulls.

The final of the Women's Match Racing at the Olympics - if anyone here saw it - proved you don't have to be doing 40 kts for the racing to be exciting as hell.

Not sure what the proposal for the series after this one is.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by wobblysauce »

JD, I did and it was great.. shame a lot of people didn't see it.
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Re: America's Cup

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I saw it, it was fantastic and I also saw most of the races even heats in the America's cup when it was the big boats... god bless foxtel on both counts...

the hobiecat regatta I just can't get into... can't even describe why, because in almost other forms of sport fast is best... but not sailing for some reason...
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Re: America's Cup

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I'm glad a few others saw it. I can't believe it's been dropped for the next Olympics. Fools.

In terms of good publicity it was probably the best thing to happen to sailing in a couple of decades.

The problem with the cats is that I reckon it will just turn into a drag race, like what happened last time. The fastest boat will win only because it's fast. Of course there is the attendant risk of a huge crash which will wipe out a multi-million dollar challenge but that isn't really what match racing is about.

At a design level, I can only say that whatever they choose, it should reflect the design trends of the day. The IACC is a lot closer to that than many other types.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by bengatta »

actually they dropped a lot of the good sailing from the next olympics... seriosly, dropping sailboarding for kiteboarding is like replacing formula 1 with street luge....
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Re: America's Cup

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I know I'll get a brick in the head for this but I called the kite boards the BMX of the Olympic sailing...everyone agreed.

I was having a chat with an International Judge the other day, a bloke I sail with every week. He's just finished doing Sail Melbourne, which included kite boards. He was on the Protest Committee and heard 39 for the week. Only 6 were from other classes*. 33 were from kites. The problem is that, even with the judges on the water, it's almost impossible to tell who's on port and who's on starboard when it comes to right of way incidents.

I suggested that the judges take a practical approach: monitor the start and finish and make sure that everyone gets around the marks cleanly and forget the rest. No quarter, no protests. Let the competitors sort it out in the car park afterwards. Most have never raced before and have no idea of the rules anyway, even if they wanted to follow them. Oddly enough, my suggestion was met with considerable enthusiasm!

You may not have to worry about kite boards in the next Olympics. I think the IOC has actually changed its collective mind (back to RS:X) already.

*The other classes included Finns, 470s (men and women), Lasers, Laser Radials and 49ers.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by bengatta »

J.D. wrote:You may not have to worry about kite boards in the next Olympics. I think the IOC has actually changed its collective mind (back to RS:X) already.
that would be awesome news if so....

BMX has some entertainment value during the heats, but yes it is like drawing straws in the finals....
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

Yeah, I suppose so. What I was referring to was the blue riband events that cycling had to sacrifice to make way for BMX.

Here's part 1 of 9 of the last race of the 2007 America's Cup. Possibly the craziest match race ever seen (if you can live with the screaming commentators):

[youtube] [/youtube]
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Re: America's Cup

Post by richo »

Bring back Bondy and Ben Lexcen ..
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Re: America's Cup

Post by bengatta »

richo wrote:Bring back Bondy and Ben Lexcen ..
It may be a little hard to bring Ben Lexen back.... :)
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Re: America's Cup

Post by richo »

He will be ok in his winged coffin..
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Re: America's Cup

Post by NeilPearson »

Bmx should have been in the Olympics sooner.

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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

Zzzzt Boing! Brick to the head.

Anyhow, here's some stuff about Luna Rossa, though it's not that new:

http://luna-rossa-challenge-2013.americ ... atest/2384" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Image

Notice in the third pic how the rig is canted to windward. They are flying a hull but the rig is still vertical. The boat is said to be basically the same as ETNZ but I'm not sure their second boat will be. Seems to be working.
Today we can officially say that Luna Rossa does not just fly on the foils developed by our design team, but also that she flies very fast: many times we reached 37 knots of speed!
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Re: America's Cup

Post by mrleisure »

Hmmm , are computers and electronic winches making adjustments to the mast and rigging or do the crew have to do it manually ? I'd prefer to see this type of racing done on mono hulls around the twelve metre size with non adjustable masts and keels or like JD mentioned earlier it will just be a point to point drag race .
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Re: America's Cup

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as far as i know, it's all manual. The boats don't have generators to power the winches and I don't believe there's any electronic trim, either of rig and sails or boards. Most of the trimming in these boats is in the boards.

I know you didn't actually say they should go back to 12 Metres but just to clear it up for others; that will never happen.

The 12 Metre is a museum piece. The IACC boats, which were longer, lighter and much faster, were a much newer substitute which they could probably return to anytime if need be.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

It wouldn't be the America's Cup without some skullduggery...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/americas-cup/ ... d=10851372" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Have a look at some of the sailing vision in this piece. Even I was impressed (though not quite as impressed as the ONE reporter...)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/americas-cup/ ... d=10853763" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interviews with team boss Grant Dalton, skipper Dean Barker and some dude with glasses who I should know but don't.
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

More skullduggery!

America's Cup Event Committee apparently stacked with Oracle people! What a shock...

This will bring back memories of the New York Yacht Club and how much we used to hate them!
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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

Dunno if anyone else saw this last night:

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/?series=229 ... es/2299111" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Worth a look. Part 2 next week.

I was fascinated by the part with Ben Lexcen laughing at the American attempt at a winged keel. I actually remember it. I wonder what the New York Yacht Club would have made of a bloke like that. It must have seemed like he was from another planet.

Another bloke I remember was the chief sailmaker, Ted Silbereisen. I used to sail with Ted but he died last year of cancer. A taciturn man, not only did he have the final say in the sails, he designed the boxing kangaroo flag as well. Vale Ted.

It was sad in a way. Australian sailing was never able to fully capitalise on the success of Australia II. Sure, we still talk about winged keels as a sort of national joke about outsmarting the other bloke but where are the hordes of people who took up competitive sailing as a result? Was it just me? It was great but it belongs in the history file. We have to let it go.

We sort of went through a golden age. We won the bloody thing, defended and lost it in Fremantle, then there was the Tall Ships Regatta in 1988, then... nothing.

The Admiral's Cup, a happy hunting ground for many great Australian ocean sailors, collapsed in the 1990's. Olympic success eluded us for quite a while.

The 12 Metres had to go. Kookaburra, which was used for the making of this show, was 63 feet long and weighed 67,000lbs. I remember that view of the keel. She is narrow, slow and has massive loads. While she's amazing to sail on, she's no longer representative of the state of the art in yacht design. In short, she's a museum piece.

The deed of gift changed and changed again and like many people, I got sick of the interminable legal wrangling. We haven't challenged since One Australia went "glug" off San Diego.

Australian sailors ran riot at last year's Olympics. The women's match racing series was a bottler. Let's see if we can tempt more people to have a go.
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