America's cup

T

thataway

Active member
For those who used to be sailors and have followed the America's cup; live and delayed streaming is on ESPN 360: ESPN360.com

Todays race was canceled because of lack of wind. Despite the legal wrangling, which has turned many of us off-the boats and crews are awesome, and certainly worth a look.

The next race is on Wed. Valencia, Spain, is at about the same latitude as San Francisco, and is cool/cold. Unfortunately this area of the Med, can either be calm or very windy. Lets hope that they get some moderate days. The max wind speed in the sailing notice is 15 knots, and 1 meter seas. Also the wind shift of 30 degrees is a cause for the race committee to abandon the race. The length of each leg is about 20 miles.

We were aboard one of the 40 some foot RIB tenders a couple weeks ago--and these are also rather awesome boats, costing far more than the average club racing boat in the US.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the races.
 
I believe the BMW Oracle did some test runs around the San Juans a while back. We were coming back into Guemes Channel and saw a huge mast sticking in the air. We took a closer look and it was the BMW Oracle moored at a small marina on the south side of the channel.

What a neat looking boat......so different from the usual America's Cup boat.
 
I really miss the old 12 Meter days off Newport! Watched several races from the deck of a Destroyer, in the mid 60s when I was in OCS... Not quite the same any more.

Charlie
 
Well, my grumpy old self notices the really wimpy race condition limits... In a real mans world, the race would be on a certain date and weather be damned - first one across the finish line wins!

Yes, these racing machines are awesome, but there is no way I would take one across an ocean - and certainly not onto Lake Superior... They are like F1 race cars, only fit for a very specific set of conditions... And if they were entered in the Port Huron to Mac race, they either would win by a full day, or sink!

They are beautiful, technological wonders, but they really are useless in the real world, now aren't they?
 
Yes, they are condition specific. Same as an Indy car; you would not drive it on the street.

Agree that the America's cup has degraded for many of us. Many do not realize that the requirement of the early American's cup boats, is that they had to be capable of transatlantic voyages. Our generation thinks of the 12 meter as being synomious with America's cup racing. The first races were in very large vessels, and the 12 meter yacht was formed as an Olympic class for the 1908 Olympics and raced in 1908, 1912 and 1920. The 12 meter didn't come to America's cup until 1956, and the last 12 meter race was in 1987--when the last 12 meter was built. (I had the pleasure of being aboard a 12 meter, I believe built in 1924 for the owner of Italian Fiat motors which had full cruising accomidations at the time of build.) Even the most recent generation of 12 meters were weather specific boats. They were designed for the weather at that specific race site--as are the boats raced this week. Since 1987, all of the American's cup vessels were purpose built--remember Dennis Conner's Stars and Strips (a Cat) vs the New Zealand Giant KZ1 (120 foot ultra light with wide wings for the crew to use for live ballast) in 1988.

The America's cup has lost the interest it had for me, but back in the 70's and 80's I had the privlege of knowing a number of the crew members of the American's cup boats, and attending the 1983 cup race in Newport RI. I have a poster which was given to me for my 50th birthday which had all of the signatures of the principles and crew in the 1983 Freedom/Enterprise syndicate. However the technology is awesome. There are still technology trickle downs apply to boating in C Dories.
 
I tuned in early to the feed today--and again postponed. This time the waves were too high--3 to 6 feet. The boats were designed for waves less than 3 feet (including swells...) Yesterday had heavy winds that deceased to 16 knots--and about 16 knots today. Valencia is a terriable place for the America's cup (determined by various law suits and the deed of gifts. The Principle race officer feels that there are 5 to 6 days suitable out of the last 3 weeks! The problem is that there are no regular onshore or offshore breezes, as normal in the summer. The weather systems or fronts which pass thru are generators of the winds, and these are either too strong or none. We wintered in Spain when we were cruising the Med--and it was cold and similar to what is seen currently. Lots of interest being lost fast--and a lot of money spent!
 
I just read this on another forum and thought I'd share it...

Two 90-foot long, hundred-million-dollar sailboats barely survived the savage 15kt winds and 1.3m swells pounding Valencia, Spain yesterday. Thankfully, cool heads prevailed and racing was canceled. In other news, children racing Optis around the same course complained it was 'boring'.
Click to expand...


I had a good chuckle when I read that. We used to enjoy sailboat racing, but I guess I left my competitive nature behind. These days, I have trouble getting into the "rich guys on expensive boats" thing, but I still get a kick out of Wednesday night beer can racing or kids on Optis.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
Its a race. Alinghi (Swiss) did occur a penality at the start, and BMW, was stalled. Half way up the course, BMW is ahead by 440 yards and Alinghi has not yet done the penality turn. I am watchin on "SLAM" streaming video live
http://bmworacleracing.com/en/news/live ... index.html

Good laugh--I was in charge of safety for the US Opti nationals a few years ago--and they sailed in 25 knots (not happy and lots of capsizes), but they toughed it out. :
 
Even for now sailors, it is worth watching a few minutes of the feed. The hull and water dynamics are very interesting with wave piercing hulls. The difference between the cat and the tri is interesting.

For a technical sailing standpoint the actual race is awesome. This is much different than the typical America's cup where there are tacking duals. This is all about technology and tactics. The American Tri seems to be faster in all points of sail. At times they were sailing well over 3 times the wind speed, both up and down wind. Boat Speeds are up to 30 knots. Wind was mostly under 10 knots. Much of the time the wind was 5 to 7 knots with boat speed over 25 knots.

Probably the biggest breakthru is the wing mainsail, which is 238 feet off the water at the head. The Genaker is huge--Most of the upwind course, even in light wind was under the winged mast only.

The American boat was over 3000 meters ahead at the finish, 3.5 minutes ahead at the top, and over 8.5 minutes, without doing the penality turn;15:28 minute difference after the turn at the finish. Good sporting maneuver by finishing the race--to give the time difference, and then doing the penality.

Next race is Sunday--if conditions are OK.

Media conferance in 2.5 hours ( about 12:35 Central time)
 
I have to agree with helm, that is one beautiful boat to watch in motion. When I was viewing the race the starboard hull must have been 15' in the air! Incredible!
 
Wow!

The Oracle/BMW American boat can sail both higher and faster upwind and lower and faster down wind! Nothing much the Swiss boat can do about it. VMG rules, if the difference is great.

All the maneuvering, tactics, and strategy make little difference if you're just plain slow (relatively)!

The engineering/design teams won this series, which pretty much looks over, baring a catastrophic gear/rig failure or dramatic change in boat speeds in different winds.

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
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