America's Cup

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Re: America's Cup

Post by J.D. »

Team USA performing well:

[youtube] [/youtube]

Nice to see them making a competition of it. Obviously their boat lacked development early on but they finally seem to have found the form they need.
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Re: America's Cup

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http://www.smh.com.au/sport/team-usa-de ... 2u8h1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: America's Cup

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This is turning into the greatest comeback in sporting history and remember, the defenders had to overcome a two race penalty before the final even started:

[youtube] [/youtube]

ETNZ leads 8-6 but New Zealand haven't won a race for a while. They've only needed one win to take the Cup but Team USA have now won five on the trot (it's the first to 9). They have now actually won the same number of races. The last few races have seen Oracle's foil to foil gybing improve out of sight compared with their earlier efforts and what must have seemed like a cake walk is now a real contest. The boat now looks better trimmed and balanced than before. Their strength was previously believed to be their downwind performance in big winds but they now appear strong everywhere.

It's New Zealand's to lose.
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Re: America's Cup

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Is this the greatest comeback in sporting history? I can't think of a better example:

[youtube] [/youtube]

The first half of this was a nail-biter. From 8-1 down (and don't forget the two race penalty) to 8 apiece, it's hard to imagine that a week ago you would have even given them a chance. Team USA now have so much boat speed, it's hard to see them being beaten tomorrow. The real estate agents in Auckland must by crying into their Steinlager now.

ETNZ had a great start but made a tactical error off Alcatraz, tacking too early and throwing away their advantage as Oracle just sailed over the top of them. I'd have gone much further and maintained boatspeed. The extra tacks cost them the race. Yes; they needed to stay close to the island to avoid current but when you tack an AC72, you go from 25 knots to 10 and back up again. The fewer times you do that, the better.

It's silly to refer to Oracle Team USA as "the Americans"; the brains trust at the back of the boat is all international. Spithill and Slingsby are both Australian (though Slingsby is half septic) and Ben Ainslie is a pom. Their main sail trimmer, immediately in front of Spithill, is Australian. Kyle Langford is an Aussie and there is a Kiwi and an Italian aboard.

http://oracle-team-usa.americascup.com/team" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It must have been tough for John Kostecki, a San Francisco-based American, to step down in favour of Ben Ainslie but it has made a big difference. This group of internationals has changed everything. Last week people were even questioning the design of the boat. Their trim was always bow down and they weren't gybing from foil to foil like the Kiwis were. Now they're foiling upwind and the boat has turned from being fast downwind to being an absolute rocket. I saw ETNZ hit 32 knots upwind in this race but I suspect Oracle might have gone even quicker.

Oracle Team USA would have to be firm favourites for tomorrow's race and the cup itself. Amazing effort.
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Re: America's Cup

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Just out of interest, Team Oracle USA might be flying an American flag but the makeup of the team is interesting:
  • New Zealanders: 8
    Australians: 7 (including skipper James Spithill, trimmer Joe Newton and strategist Tom Sligsby)
    Dutch: 2
    Americans: 2
    British: 1 (he's a big one - Ben Ainslie)
    Italians: 1
    French: 1
    Canadians: 1
    Antiguans: 1
No wonder Australia doesn't go in for America's Cup racing these days! We're pretty well represented already.

I think ETNZ are mostly home grown except for Adam Beashel and Glenn Ashby, who are both Australians. Adam Beashel is the brother of Colin Beashel who was on Australia II in 1983.
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Re: America's Cup

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All over for 2013:

[youtube] [/youtube]

Turn out to be a great regatta after all.

As Ken Read said it was about "boatspeed, boatspeed and boatspeed".
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Re: America's Cup

Post by petey »

Uh, it is a race - with boats. I would indeed think boatspeed is a large factor in the outcome. :p
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Re: America's Cup

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Did you read what I wrote earlier?

Anyhow, because of the regulations, teams were limited in their development opportunities in the same way Formula 1 are. They only have a limited number of test days available to them. ETNZ had a quick and consistent boat but when they finished their testing, they had to go through the Louis Vuitton Cup and got a lot more hard data about their boat and their relative speed compared with others.

Oracle didn't have that luxury because there was only one defence syndicate. That meant once they had used up all their test days, the first real chance they had to compare their performance with another boat was the first time they raced. The Kiwis had a lot more sail time and had perfected foiling gybes.

That's why Oracle's performance improvement was so steep and in the end, they had the faster boat. But developing your boat during the big regatta is far from ideal.
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Re: America's Cup

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I seem to remember around this time 30 years ago that the defending team had the ruling body on their side as well. There was a big uproar around how the Americans were cheating pricks as the slightest thing that could go against the Aussies would and the slightest help the Americans could get, they would.

Maybe that was all conspiracy theories cos we were on the back foot and doomed. Then we won and said fuck you to both the American team and the rules committee.

Did we not see the same thing here? Would Oracle have won without the home ground advantage of making the rules for the regatta that comes with being the title holder? NZ in front and needing 1 more win? surely there is not enough wind so lets cancel the day. NZ would have done the same thing if given the chance so Im not saying Americans are cheats but surely the deck is stacked in their favour.

That said, huge comeback and a great sporting moment.
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Re: America's Cup

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They really did snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! I've been seeing highlights on the news and the coverage with all the graphics and sponsors ect... It's very commercialised now.

They should go back to those lovely J class boats. Yeah they are a by gone era but it would add some real class back into it. :)
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Re: America's Cup

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Yeah, probably worth adding that there are a few wanna-be-hard-arse, armchair sports watchers out there who are saying that this was also the biggest choke of all time.

They don't know what they're talking about. They sure don't give any examples. ETNZ made one major error when they tacked in the wrong spot yesterday. If that's someone's idea of choking then maybe they're just perfect and everyone else should be too.

Their boat just simply wasn't as fast as the American boat.
Bauer wrote:Did we not see the same thing here? Would Oracle have won without the home ground advantage of making the rules for the regatta that comes with being the title holder? NZ in front and needing 1 more win? surely there is not enough wind so lets cancel the day. NZ would have done the same thing if given the chance so Im not saying Americans are cheats but surely the deck is stacked in their favour.
Again, Oracle was on the back foot in the development department. Whatever the rules said - and yes, the Kiwis could have done the same thing - it did make a proper race of the series. What I'm saying is that you could read it either way: home water advantage or development opportunities. I'm not sure it's anything more than a zero sum game.

As far as time limits are concerned, it's something that I come up against almost every second week. I do a lot of pursuit racing, where the handicap decides when you start. The slow boats start first and the fast boats start last. We're one of the fast boats so we start 42 minutes after the first boat. The idea is that everyone finishes together. The race is usually two laps of a pre-laid course, quite similar in some ways to the AC course. If the wind goes light the race will be shortened and the little boats get the win. I think they should only get half points for it (or double, in our system).
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Re: America's Cup

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Thanks for all the links and info J.D. :yes: , watched it all here :) . The turnaround was very strange indeed , well done to the Americans though but I was really hoping the Kiwis could do it :( .
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Re: America's Cup

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There is only one American in team USA, most are Aussies.
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Re: America's Cup

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mrleisure wrote:Thanks for all the links and info J.D. :yes: , watched it all here :) . The turnaround was very strange indeed , well done to the Americans though but I was really hoping the Kiwis could do it :( .
Pleasure mate!

I was wondering who was watching. I could see the hit counter going up so I assumed I wasn't the only one (even though the system counts every hit).

Glad you got something out of it. :)

I felt pretty neutral about it with perhaps a slight lean to the Kiwis. In the end, Oracle Team United Nations made such a good series of it that I really didn't mind who won. I'm not sure how I came across. With Aussies in both camps, we were having a bet each way anyway ;)

San Francisco Bay is arguably the best venue I've seen for an event like this but I think they need to review the type of boats raced. Spectacular as they were, I think the AC72s are a less than ideal platform for match racing. We shall see but they definitely need to encourage more teams to get involved. The only way to do that is to reduce costs. At >$100m per campaign, there were/are very few who could afford to take it on.
Dr. Pain wrote:There is only one American in team USA, most are Aussies.
Not quite: 4 out of 11, with Australia being the biggest contingent actually on the boat. The skipper, the tactician and both trimmers - including the wing trimmer Kyle Langford who had to step in after the scandal broke - were all Aussies:
  • Jim Spithill: Australian but married to an American and I think now a citizen of the US,
    Tom Slingsby: Australian with an American mother,
    Ben Ainslie: British,
    Joey Newton: Australian,
    Jono MacBeth: New Zealander,
    Joe Spooner: New Zealander,
    Gilberto Nobili: Italian,
    Simeon Tienpont: Dutch,
    Rome Kirby: American whose father was also an America's Cup sailor,
    Kyle Langford: Australian,
    Shannon Falcone: Antiguan.
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Re: America's Cup

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San Francisco Bay is arguably the best venue I've seen for an event like this
hell yes. I thought it was sensational. Was like watching the Tour ride through the Alps. great to watch. :up:

And thanks for your thoughts too. I chose to watch more of this on Fox as a direct result of this thread.
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Re: America's Cup

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Thanks mate, I'm flattered. :)

You'll get to see it in San Francisco again in a couple of years!

I plan to be there in some capacity - probably not my current one.
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Re: America's Cup

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J.D. wrote:Did you read what I wrote earlier?
Apologies for the time waster, I have not read anything in this thread. I just saw a snippet on tapatalk and thought with the title - the statement seemed rather obvious. :p Tongue in cheek, nothing of substance, moving on. :p
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Re: America's Cup

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Okay, I'll give you a little backup to the boatspeed comment because in a roundabout way, you're raising an interesting point.

This is actually critical to understanding the America's Cup and why I think AC72s are a poor choice.

In 2010 the America's Cup was run between two ridiculously large multihulls and it was won by BMW Oracle. That boat, skippered again by Jim Spithill, was vastly superior to the cup defender and simply walked off with the silverware. The result was a change of specification to the AC72. Unlike BMW Oracle, the AC72 was relatively human in scale and was eventually coaxed onto foils. Suddenly speed started to work against the series.

As you already know, the America's Cup is a match racing regatta and not a drag race. It is intended to be tactical, which is why the World Match Racing Championships are fought out in one-designs - identical boats. AC72s don't led themselves to that very well, to say nothing of the safety concerns.

On top of that, there has been talk of ETNZ choking. Anyone who actually watched the races knew that wasn't true. In the end they were beaten by boatspeed rather than guile.

Many people, including yer humble scribe, think this is a bad idea. That's why people are already advocating a return to monohulls. Obviously boatspeed will still be a factor, just as it was in say 1983 and again in 1987 but it should not be the dominant factor. Tactics must play a part or the exercise is pointless*. Equally, the boats should represent the latest in design trends which is why 12 Metres are no longer used.

Balancing the last two things off against each other is where the difficulty lies.

*Many people, both landlubber and expert, see this as the major flaw in the America's Cup competition.
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Re: America's Cup

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I must say, this sounds like similar issues that are faced in Formula One. That is ofcourse a rather under developed and mildly narrow minded point of view. I know very little about formula one cars/rules and I know much less about boats and the America's Cup.
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Re: America's Cup

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Formula 1 is not a very tactical sport in comparison with sailing. New practices like pit stops and changes in the weather have made it more so than it used to be but basically, all the driver can do is pressure those ahead and hope they make a mistake or try to stay ahead of the competition and not allow the pressure to get to them.

Sailing is always tactical, probably more so than any other sport because in sailing, the conditions decide everything. Which side of the course has more wind/less current/more line bias? What is the wind doing over there? Is it a lift or a knock? What is the making leg and when should you sail it? What is the other bloke going to do? These are just a few questions for fleet racing. Match racing is much more tactical even than that.

Ironically, the rules of F1 have helped in this area but in the America's Cup, they have had the reverse effect. As I predicted back on page 1, it had the risk of turning it into a drag race where only being the fastest mattered. I think for the most part I was right.
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Re: America's Cup

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JD, with the teams we see not a true all American team. Is this because the financial backers just go hunt the best team and declare we'll be team USA and base there?

It' seems to been a real push to make it a spectator sport so you want fast exciting craft.
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Re: America's Cup

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oooohh.

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Re: America's Cup

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Doc: the defence is mounted by the club which holds the cup, in this case The Golden Gate Yacht Club rather than the United States. It doesn't actually matter who the sailors are though presumably they have to be club members.

Wobbler: classic port/starboard close. ETNZ were at fault. Don't think a penalty was applied though.
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Re: America's Cup

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Ah ok so it's effectively premier league racing. Now I get how it works.
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Re: America's Cup

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JD, Would of been fair to penalize them for that lack of move.
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