Ah, such talented art work… You really are wasted messing around with boats!!
Row
The kiwis almost threw out all their good work at sea so to speak with their near capsize but I have to say fair play to all the crew for staying in their position and working those winches to get the hydro pressure needed to pop the wing !
Imagine this huge cat and wing coming at you with the water so close to you then - that would have been a scary moment for anyone !
OR got their win there but glad all the same that ETNZ live to race another day - It really shows how stiff their platform is - I would love to know how much pressure the sensors showed on the front beam when the boat hit the water again ! has to be some impressive numbers !!!
OR have really made some phenomenal progress in such a small time frame, particularly upwind and in their tacking too. Ben is doing a fine job as tactician - talking about a steep learning curve for him too !!!
Yet delighted ETNZ finished the day winning that final race - it was so important for them to break quickly the winning streak of OR
Come on ETNZ 2 more to go !
PS I don’t want to take any of the skills or talent in JS or DB but do the commentators know there are other people in the team - not only the crew but the shore crew and all the other people who contributed to the team being where they are - getting fed up hearing that JS this DB that they are not the be all and end all !!! they’re a team, it’s not all done to one person ! sorry but that was a personal shoot out !!!
I agree fully with your remarks, personally I would add also all the Design Staff, without them nothing could be done in spite of all the money invested.
ClaudioD
Your referring to the commentary during racing ? I thought they have been doing a very good job of giving over-all team credits at appropriate moments during racing, I for one, would not really appreciate that they side track us-viewers, doing personal profiles etc during the actual racing ! But I have to say that cheer girl commentator (Motor mouth Tucker) gets on the nerves a little at times.
Not sure which your channel picking up AC info from but this one http://www.youtube.com/americascup has just about everything you may be interested in, from Teams, Individual profiles, design & Technology, Press conferences, Controversial stories, Cup history, Live racing and Replays, Explaining rules & Sailing terminologies etc …I think it is one of the best documented AC’s we have ever had, it’s not in your face but everything is there if you take time to look for it … just my 5 cents
don’t forget about the housekeepers, custodians, and you can’t forget the caterers…
And even better don’t forget to thank the American for writing rules which allowed the smart designers to create a platform that foils…
Of course !!! while I still prefers monohulls…with 2 hours race instead of 19/20 minutes.!!
ClaudioD
we’ll you can’t argue that there have been some very close racing… but man, one bad tack, or one bad dip. and you are really screwed…
sundays last yrace, OR was steaming up and ahead but after they dipped behind the kiwi’s they went from being 15-20 meters ahead, to 200 meters behind.
I still can’t understand why OR dipped NZ on that last downwind. They seemed to be a little faster, and I thought they would be ahead at the last mark.
I agree that it really takes away from the racing when Tucker starts talking about something else. He does the introductions before the start, and then some quick replays during the upwind. All that seems to be in-line with the concept of a media-biased competition. In stead of spending millions on the Cup Park and all being right on the water, they could have afforded an extra chopper or two.
Tide’s currents were/are playing a good roles !
ClaudioD
As the boats converged, OR was on port and NZ on stbd. OR was close, but could not cross ahead of NZ. So OR had two choices - either gybe to weather, or cross behind. If she gybed, then she would be trapped outside until NZ gybed on the layline to Mark 4. In that case, all she could do would be to follow NZ into the mark. If she went astern fn NZ, then she would have stbd advantage at the next cross - so that was the option that offered best chance of a pass. Unfortunately, she slowed too much and lost too much distance.
John
I’m still hearing about the “loophole” that started the whole foiling mess. Does anyone know what the actual “loophole” was? IMO, it was either something that specifically allowed the use of winglets (the foils,) or something that didn’t prohibit the use of winglets. In fact, the whole AC72 rules, from what I read, sounds like the rule for an r/c class.
IMO, if there was no loophole, then this Cup would be a whole different matter, with more competitors, and probably a different Cup final (Prada seemed to be doing fairly well in the AC45s.)
Foils were, and are, allowed to have “winglets” under the current rules, but the rules state also that the “lifting” foils (the winglets?) could not have an active pitch control, and that’s necessary for foiling - you have to be able to control the pitch otherwise you won’t be able to stay on the foils for very long , the rudder pitch angle is fixed at a specific angle 2 minutes before the start of the race, this was thought to be enough to prevent foiling but the kiwis sort of “bypassed” this - the lifting foil pitch control - by making the whole keel tilt forward or backward and in this way control the foil pitch, with a “fixed” winglet, and be able to foil within the rules.
I think.
The active pitch control is like what you have on an airplane tail (the horizontal element), or a boat rudder’s trim tab. on the current AC72 daggarboards, the winglet is at a fixed angle, so you pitch the whole daggarboard via the board trunk. IMO, having no active pitch control simplifies the whole mess, but it requires bigger and stronger parts to move the whole daggarboard.
I think it’s just amazing how the whole boat (14,000 LBS!) is lifted and supported by the one daggarboard & winglet, and even more the curved daggarboards. Plus the side load from the sideways pressure of the wind. I’m surprised we haven’t seen a board break.
So it appears that the “loophole” is the way the Kiwis found to control the winglet pitch?
As I noted in an AC thread (somewhere) - you NEVER cut behind a boat ahead of you while sailing to windward! There is just too long of a bad wind shadow with high aspect ratio rigs that dump bad air behind them by a long length.
Call this one “Being Schooled” and what usually happens to a novice multihull sailor when they find themselves up near the front of the fleet and trying to catch up. At this level of competition, it is like Denis Conner who failed to cover in the monohulls cup, while he was ahead.
Sigh :censored: :censored:
Don’t forget … it was not until the AC began (following LVC) that these two crews really started to learn how to race these AC 72’s … neither crew had ever experienced real match racing before or things like a dial-down or down-hill dip and up-wind foiling in the heat of battle before now … all first timers that has only been experienced in the last 5-6 races !?
No-one has done a down wind pass yet alone worked out to get around the last mark when both boat head for the finish line, how do they handle getting around the bottom mark and heading for the line ? … do you take the inside at the mark or the outside and try to get the overlap outside the zone and luff up the windward boat going at 45 knts ??? … wow talk about quick decisions & learning on the run.!?!
These guys are always learning but with 2 more ETNZ wins … then sadly these boats then head to museums or get thrown in the trash and no-one will have really mastered how to really race them … that is the truly bizarre thing about this AC 34, it’s a complete waste of time, money etc. that can never mature and we will never know their true potential.
Still born babies that we all love to watch, but just far too expensive to be able to survive !
Maybe he though he could “blast through it” but I am surprised why he did not tack in front of the KIWI’s and force them to tack away and not get into a “windward/leeward” battle
what really gets me though now. is the cancelling of races for high winds. Simple…the RC should modify the NOR and push the start time up to maybe 11am…
a flat sheet of carbon is strong, make a tube and add some curves. it build strength pretty quick. essentially two surfboards in a V are whats keeping the boat up…Very impressive
But I am surprised that when the KIWI’s came flopping back down after nearly capsizing that nothing broke.
Sure, it’s simple enough- you just gotta get ALL the teams involved to agree. NZ seems to go well in less pressure, so OR won’t go for that, and OR goes well in high pressure, so NZ won’t go for that. 
RC should be an impartial committee with no favorites. Their primary focus should be to get boats on the water and racing… If that means pushing the start time up and hour… so be it…
if that favors one boat over another. tough toenail. should have designed a platform that is more capable in all conditions, and not a one trick pony