America's Cup

where is the challenge in a tricycle? Nice boat and only 30 HP--but I'll bet this was very expensive, time consuming and complex to build. Nice job and it will be interesting when the sail is on the tri.

There are single engine small mono hull runabouts which foil--but again very light weight
 
Sorry to see Artemis loose. Tough in many ways. It might have been different if they had not damaged the first boat, lost "Bart" Simpson and had more time to practice. The port/Stb contact at the start is both tactical and mechanical--in that those big cats do not tack well. There was an extra penalty assessed for not making the first penalty fast enough. Yes, they made some tactical mistakes today--but still didn't have the boat speed. That S F did wind did not build to what might be predicted.

Luna Rossa now has more racing time in the AC 72's than New Zealand (and Oracle). Next races are 17 Aug.
 
Please correct me if I'm wrong but they did not always race just two boats at a time did they? Seems to me it would be more interesting if there were 4 or six boats racing at once. Just two boats drag racing back and forth is ok but lacks excitement and strategy.

The boats them selves are fantastic. 40 knots in a cat that large is just wonderful. I have not seen the 45 ft boats but maybe a dozen of them at once might be interesting for more then a day.
 
Tom,
When the Schooner "America" raced the best the British had around the Isle of Wright in 1851, the members of the New York Yacht Club took that Trophy home, and dedicated it to international yacht racing.
From Wikipedia:


"Any yacht club that meets the requirements specified in the Deed of Gift has the right to challenge the yacht club that holds the Cup. If the challenging club wins the match, it gains stewardship of the cup.
....
The trophy was held by the NYYC from 1857 (when the syndicate that won the Cup donated the trophy to the club) until 1983 when the Cup was won by the Royal Perth Yacht Club, represented by the yacht Australia II, ending the longest winning streak in the history of sport.[2]
From the first defense of the Cup in 1870 through the twentieth defense in 1967, there was always only one challenger. In 1970, for the first time, there were multiple challengers, so the NYYC agreed that the challengers could run a selection series with the winner becoming the official challenger and competing against the defender in the America's Cup match. Since 1983, Louis Vuitton has sponsored the Louis Vuitton Cup as a prize for the winner of the challenger selection series."

The two boats racing in a round robin series to race the holder of the cup--in this case "Oracle" are doing what is called "match racing". There are a number of tactics which may not be apparent to the casual observer, but it involves a lot of stategy and tactics--but was much more apparent in the slower older mono hull boats. It happens so fast that even the comentators missed the fouls yesterday when Artemis fouled Luna Rosa. That ended in two penalities--basically the penalized boat had to give up a boat lenght. The second penality was because Artemis didn't do the first one fast enough and gained an "unfair" advantage. The other two were technical--one by going a few meters off the imigery line of the bounds of the course, the other involved movement of the trimming boards on the boat.

In Match racing, the boats may not cross the starting line for a minute--it is all about tactics and blocking the other boat. This happened yesterday--and even though Artemis got the advantage, they committed a foul, and lost first leg of the race. From there on it was mostly speed..

I agree with Tom, that it looks as if there are just two boats going back and forth. The reason for the specific course is that is because these boats have to stay in certain bounds--they do not do well going right into the wind or right down wind. The current, wind shift, wind shadows, etc are all taken into effect. Of course today, there are 30,000 pieces of information a second taken into account on computers both on shore and aboard. For example the wind velocity and direction is measured ahead of the boat with laser monitors on the boat.
 
Tom-

Match racing is traditional in the America's Cup and considered the ultimate challenge to the yacht racing skills of the competitors, being boat for boat, instead of a "multi-boat frenzy" (my term, humor intended.)

It's also easier to judge protests and manage the race, from the organizer's point of view.

It also naturally leads to a dramatic final set of racing duels.

The preliminary (practice/developmental) races for the America's Cup were in AC42's, and featured both match racing and fleet (multi boat) racing.

I'm picking New Zealand in the Louis Vuiton Finals next week, and think the America's cup between Emirates New Zealand (Dean BArker) and Oracle USA (probably Jimmy Spithill) will be the match races of the decacde!

Kudos to Larry Ellison and the Golden Gate Yacht Club for bringing the America's Cup to San Francisco Bay (the grandest venue for yacht racing in the world) and their choice of this hot rod sailboat format! It's a technological world, we'll just have to get used to it!

$64 Question of the Day: What does the Saint Francis Yacht Club (which occupies 1/2 off the yacht basin in shares with the Golden Gate Yacht Club pay the City of San Francisco for it's half share of the basin and peninsula housing the yacht club, storage yard, and about 100 moored boats?

Sweetheart deal detail: $500 per year! Probably recovers that on a single slip rental each month! :lol:

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
Larry Ellison could not come to terms with Prestigious St. Francis YC about the America's cup plan, so he went down the road a few feet to Golden Gate a small family oriented club and took the AC challenge from there. The same sort of thing happened in New Zealand back in 1988, where the Mercury Bay YC was the Club of Record rather than the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club...
 
Today, Luna Rosa had problems with one of the boards, so she was pretty much out of the race after the start. But the real news is stuffing the bows of Emirates Team New Zealand shown at:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10913967

Not only exciting watching that film--but they lost crew overboard who were picked up by chase boat. The two crew were not injured. Emirates Team New Zealand tore the trampoline but finished in first place.

Different rules--when you don't have to go back and pick up the crew or lost sails overboard!
 
Here is the entire race, with commentary on U Tube, the stuff occurs about 1hr 02' 42" into the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKPYa-5s_M

This segment is a good look at the catamaran chase boat. These are 45 foot Morrelli & Melvin designed cats with quad 300 hp Yamaha outboards designed to easily reach 50 knot, carrying the rescue crew and support.
 
It was pretty interesting to see the Luna Rosa team trying to fix that daggerboard in the 15 minutes leading up to the race start. Their crew had a dremel, hack saw, and some two-part adhesive trying to make a temporary fix that ended up holding for only a brief period of time.

The ETNZ mishap was incredible. The boat was doing almost 40kts when it took the dive. I'm surprised there weren't any injuries since the crew looked like they hit a brick wall.

Thanks Bob for mentioning the chase boat manufacturer. I had been wondering about the details of those boats. You don't really realize how big they are next to the AC72s. The Morrelli & Melvin website has some good info on them:

http://www.morrellimelvin.com/etnztender/

The video says top speed of 58kts. The last tab on that page is a brochure in case anyone is interested in buying one of the Catalyst45s. The quad 300 engine configuration is priced at NZ$675,000 (US $547,695).
 
Ah, we remember when the yacht club 'upgraded' racing for us kids from Dyer Dinks to Blue Jays - a sloop! Good grief!! What's this world degenerating to ... "It's the fancy, high-priced boat -- not the skipper's skill, anymore"

What an evolution -- now it's the bucks AND the high tech - sure, we know, it's the skill in using the technology - but we still enjoy seeing kids race a dink. And we miss the early days of America's cup racing before tricycles!

Gee, I coached a New England prep school to the NE Championsip, and we didn't even have GPS! :-) Fun to be an old timer.
 
Bill, I hate to tell you that the America's Cup has been a rich man's sport from day 1. I knew a number of the crew in the era from the mid 70's to the mid 80's. One of my more prized possessions is a poster of Freedom and Enterprise (1980 cup) signed by the entire crew. We were in Newport RI to observe the 1983 Cup from out own boat.

Still, have the top skippers in the world sailing these huge and fast sailboats. If you understand match racing, then it makes more sense. It is far more than just using technology--although that gives a lot more information to the skipper and crew. The AC boats have given us a lot of innovations in boating. The crew members are world class athletes. Even though there are hydraulics to move the foils, the crew pumps up the pressure thru the grinders.

The big Cats are too expensive to allow any but the richest people in the world to compete. But it does make a more exciting race. The problem so far has been that there are been inequalities in boat speed. Part is due to innovations along the way, some has been due to the crew experience. A year ago, it was not known that the AC 72's would foil at all. Now there is a rumor that two of the boats have foiled upwind.

However, the idea is to make the sport relevant to the younger generation who now kite board when we were surfing or sailing lasers--or Skimmers etc depending on part of the country. Also relevant to a current Television audience. Granted that the cost and danger of the larger boat cut down the field to only 4 boats, rather than the dozen if it had been held in 45 footers. The AC has always been a development "class"--it might be better in identical one designs as the 45's which were sailed in the America's Cup World Series in the last year. Because of about a 2 lb addition in the king post of two of the AC 45 used by the Oracle group, they forfeited all race wins!
 
AH technology. E/Team New Zealand withdrew due to hydraulic issues--and without the hydraulics, the boat was basically not controllable. In order to try and make the second race, a repair crew was put aboard from the tender, and Luna Rosa sailed to an uncontested victory...
 
Yup:

Cutting Edge High Tech = High Probability of Failure! (Sometimes, anyway)

Remember when Tom asked about why, instead of match racing, they didn't race the America's Cup Fleet Race style?

Can you image 4-8 of those things converging on a windward or leeward gate at the same time at 45+ mph, and closing speeds of over 90?

On the other hand, if they didn't skewer each other, there might just be two of them still sailing by the end of the race! (50% drop out rate so far!) :lol:

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
Sea Wolf":z4atgiwd said:
Yup:

Cutting Edge High Tech = High Probability of Failure! (Sometimes, anyway)

Remember when Tom asked about why, instead of match racing, they didn't race the America's Cup Fleet Race style?

Can you image 4-8 of those things converging on a windward or leeward gate at the same time at 45+ mph, and closing speeds of over 90?

On the other hand, if they didn't skewer each other, there might just be two of them still sailing by the end of the race! (50% drop out rate so far!) :lol:

Joe. :teeth :thup
Click to expand...

Exactly why there are specific match racing rules for the AC 34: 5 minutes before start is the warning signal; 2 minutes before start the boats may enter the "box"--behind the starting line, from opposite sides of the line,
1 minute before start end of the time to enter the box, and 0, is the starting gun. Quite a bit different where there might be as many as 100 boats on a starting line in some large conventional type of races.


 
Even the lowly laser is able to foil with a $5000 kit. So I think we will see more and more of the super fast sailboats. Of course there always will be those who enjoy just putting along on the water at less than 8 knot---until another boat which we think we can "beat"--and we trim in the sails.....
 
Yep, Bob. And if your Laser is equipped with the same gear as "that other boat," then a challenge to race is REALLY a race between sailors and let the most SKILLED win.

Some of the best (IMO) races I have watched or participated in were club races using the club boats (outfitted the same). We "drew" for our boat and then had ten minutes or so to tighten stays or whatever before boarding.
Those were races of sailor against sailor - true racing skills - not who had deepest pockets. As kids we took great pleasure in beating the old salts (who owned mighty boats) when we took them on in our "kid fleet" of one class club boats.

I still think that is the best way to encourage young kids to participate in sailboat racing. Traveling at 8 knots, heeled over, jib sheet in your teeth, rounding a mark just ahead of the other boat -- and winning the soda pop at the finish -- beats the same hill out of watching mega-trimarans cartwheeling in AC. That's just entertainment (and fun to watch, for folks who think speed is everything) -- but for kids who do things, my experience in coaching kids taught me that tactics, skill, reading wind and water, and boats THEY could sail - that's what they loved! At a young age, it's the difference between reality and virtuality.

Yes, AC results in technological advances in sailing. It is exciting to watch, and there is skill involved. And it's a future a young sailor might desire. So it certainly has a place in the sailing world. However, the commercial world of speed, big bucks, t.v. entertainment, and glitz is not the only world for many sailors - kids and old folks alike.
 
Getting into involving young folks into sailing is beyond the scope of this thread--but at Pensacola YC (and most other clubs), is that you get some young kids started in Opti's (or Sabots--maybe even Dyers)--although the Opti is the international standard--although not the best boat. After the opti, where age and weight limit at about 13 years, is the challenge to keep juniors involved. There have been a number of tween/teen boats, but none have been really successful, and you loose most of the kids at this point except for the real starts. Unfortunately sailing as a sport has not moved forward as much as many other sports--especially with the youth. (I have been involved with youth sailing for a long time). Some areas of France have the right idea. Sailing starts with the first grade and is a regular required PE class thru "University"--our high school.

Today's youth are a long way from what Bill may remember. (Not many trainers have jibs, and there is a lot more at stake than a soda pop.) I was shocked when I ran safety for the Opti nationals and internationals a few years ago. There are a few kids which go out there for the "fun of it". But there is a group, which is very serious with tiger parents, coaches on the race course and cheating is not rare. For some Jr. sailors the parent just goes to the manufacture's trailer and buys a new rudder or dagger board--vs the kid whose parents had skimp all year to get the gas money to drive to the regatta,, no coach, and mom took the rudder into the bathroom to use the hand dryer to help cure the epoxy cure...

Back to AC--today E/Team New Zealand won by default. Luna Rosa did a jibe/tack at the first mark--and had a winch over-ride (something which should never happen at this level)--and then when grinding out the override, a sheave broke in the control section of the wing foil, and L R was out...

The carefully controlled one design boat such as the Congressional Cup, is a match race with 37 foot boats owned by a foundation of the Long Beach Yacht club. Unfortunately it is the rare club which has the builder's support and the funding to allow a fleet of truly identical boats. Most club's one designs have enough variation to make them not entirely equal. But we agree that racing in equal boats is the peak of individual racing.
 
Back
Top