Thanks, Matt! I wonder who we root for now that nationalism is a thing of the past. I mean does New Zealand have two teams for the next Cup -Oracle and Alinghi or are those teams representing some other country? Or is this the first 100% Corporate Americas Cup? Like maybe: “The Bertarelli Pharmaceuticals Americas Cup”?
I wonder if the new found Super Commercialism will help or hurt the Auld Mug?
And what about the boats? It will be interesting to see what the new rules do… Used to be an America’s Cup boat was sort of a pinnacle of sailing yacht design. With boats like maxZ86’s, Genuine Risk, Maiden Hong Kong, Wild Oats, Zana, Mari Cha and others roaming around I’m sadly not sure that’s going to continue to be true…
i would like to see the americas cup go back to the national route. there was a sort of feel to the cup then. I was talking with friends about this one and he did not care to watch. it was still kiwis beating kiwis. not swiss beat new zealand. I come from Canada. and am proud of Canada 1. i was looking forward to seeing canada there. but now that is still possible but who will steer? american? kiwi? aussie. will the next series of boat have to be design around new set of rules, so that they can stand up?
cougar
Dan, there may not be canting keels THIS time but it won’t be because of structural problems! A canting keel would allow the boats to maintain their maximum righting moment with 50% less ballast AND could allow a lite air sail area increase as well. That spells speed with no structural concerns whatsoever.
The current IACC boats compared to state of the art monohulls their size(maxZ86’s) have less sail area, WAY more weight and are much slower. Not a formula for TV excitement which the new “Corporate Cup” is definitely going to need. Using outdated relatively low tech boats as compared to the higher technology that is available is probably a mistake. Not only that but a lot of respected designers such as Jim Pugh think that by allowing the new technology everybody would be on a more even playing field as compared to the huge advantage the two top Corporate teams have now. I think there is something to that and I think if something serious isn’t done to the rule to allow much faster boats the Cup will be eclipsed by huge advances in monohull speed technology taking place now or on the drawing board…
Speed doesn?t mean anything when you boats sitting at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
That?s what some of the engineers are worried about. The way it was explained to me was the following. There is a tacking dual going on and your opponent throws you a dummy tack. It?s too late you have already set your keel in motion and are head to wind. You throw the helm over to get back on your old tack and, slam the brakes on your keel. Just as your straining the hull trying to stop that 20 ton keel the wind grabs the sails. Ever heard carbon fiber break? It?s not a pretty sound. Now let?s throw in some ruff chop and it only gets uglier.
-Dan
The AC is about tactics not speed. If it was about speed they would be racing 130 foot tri’s
Absolutely correct Dan!! We have already lost some of this spirit when we lost the 12s. I can’t imagine a more boring race then two canting keel boats refraining from tactics due to a too complicated of a system to do them with. The beauty of this race is absolutely the tactical duels of the crews, not how fast the boats are due to new technology! Who really wants to watch two boats race in a straight line for three months?
Yes these boats are really wonderful to watch and real beauties. To watch these teams race all Catalina 50s would be a bit slow. I do appreciate the tech of these boats, but when it comes down to hindering tactics, it?s a bad idea.
Dan, you must have talked to somebody that’s never engineered a canting keel! CBTF is reltively new(about8 years old) but canting keels have been around over twenty years and engineering them properly is not rocket science. Schock 40’s use them on inshore courses all the time and of course they have been on ocean racers forever. The fact that by using a canting keel the ballast can be cut in half will potentially REDUCE some loads in way of the keel-or in the worst case keep them as they are while keeping rigging loads more or less as they are now(same maximum righting moment). For instance, since the ballast would be 50% of what it is now the pitching moment imparted to the hull by the lead bulb will be drastically less!
And to suggest that if the boats go faster tactics go out the window is just not true–geez all these same arguments were made 15 years ago or so about the IACC boats versus the 12’s. New technology brings speed , tactics and new and exciting challenges and would re-invigorate the Cup—even ,or should I say most especially, the "Corporate Cup.
When I was a kid and racing all along the Gulf Coast of the US everybody I sailed with and against felt that the America’s Cup was the pinnacle of sailing and that the 12’s were the highest development of a proper sailboat.Times change and to suggest that it’s ok to have IACC boats be slow and not at the top of the technological end of sailing yacht design strikes me as somehow sacrilegeous. Especially under the new system of trying to maximize TV coverage.Even Coutts has said he’d like to see a much more powered up boat–and so would a hell of a lot of other people.
I’ll throw somthing in here too! Fast boats are just as tactical as slow boats, but with the added bonus with a fast boat that you have to think quicker, making it more exciting to both take part in and watch. The dinghy class i sail is about the closest youll get to a skiff upwind, but Ive often got in full on tacking duels with my nearest rivals, a great example being last weekend in a club race when we were tack on tack for a one mile beat up a strip probally less than 200 yards (to keep out of the tide)planeing upwind all the way.
AC to me at the moment seems out of date and doesnt help the sport, as in the UK at least were trying to shead saillings image as a sport for the rich only. If these people with the money really want to help the sport they should throw their money into real development, instead of coming up with useless concepts like the hula and trying to get that 0.05% more speed all the time. When you compare an Open 60 with a ACC boat, the ACC boat is a dinosaur. An 18’ Skiff goes faster, is more exciting and can be just as tactical to sail -for a fraction of the cost.
Rant over!
Even the 12 meters were not the latest technology. The AC boat is meant to look good to spectators. It’s never been about making the highest tech/fastest boat out there. For $500 any average person could go out and buy windsurfing gear and go faster.
How on earth will adding CBTF help even the odds for the poorer syndicates. They still will not have the resources that the richer syndicates do to develop and testing. It won’t level the playing field at all.
Let’s just admit the cub isn’t about racing the fastest boats. Even a Volvo/Whitbread 60 could have beaten an IACC boat. Most maxi boats probably could as well. The rule is written to make large boats that look good are are atleast somewhat close in speed. The first section of the IACC rule states that.
What would make the event better is to force them to race regardless of the conditions. It’s rediculous that they don’t race in 20mph winds.
" Lets just admit the cup isn’t about racing te fastest boats." 1? Never! the America’s Cup should be the greatest RACE on earth and it always has been about racing the fastest boats and the most technologically advanced sailboats. You can’t rewrite that part of history !!
CBTF could certainly level the playing field by making everybody start with a blank sheet of paper-still would take a lot of money but the new teams would be in a better position against old established Teams. But it doesn’t have to be CBTF-just tell the designers they can lose 10 tons of the current 20 tons of ballast and see what they come up with…
But I think scaled up Libera type skiffs would be the ultimate ac monohull!
Has anybody heard what the new rules do allow? I thought it was to be announced today.
You seem to forget that in 1992 when the IACC rule was started we had that situation.
Teams with a higher budget will do much more testing and design and still be in a better position then the low budget teams. Remember 92, the first year of the IACC boats? Who won? A3. Were any of the low budget teams with only 1 boat even competitive?
Changing the rules will not level anything for the low budget guys. With CBTF the boats will be more expensive due to added complexity. There will be no existing boats so there will be no cheap trial horses available to test against. There is no way that will help a poor team or even the competition at all.
… the 12M was one of the fastest boats during the time they were racing them??? Ummmm, I hope your not serious about that statement Doug.
Look, some think the AC is the best racing and some think the trans-atlantis stuff is, some think large fleets of dingys are. Once again Doug, you seem to think that everything should be what ?you? like best. The AC has not been about the ?fastest? boats available since the ?J?s. It?s been about ?Match? racing, not mismatch racing like when the cat raced the giant. It?s always been about tactics no matter what boats were on the water. The Aussisi?s did not win the cup due to their wing keel and hull design, they won it due to a tactical error of the DC team.
When the cat raced the giant, hmmm wasn?t that the most exciting AC there ever was? Right,? it wasn?t!
Can’t believe I missed what the America’s Cup was all about for all those years- oh well…
Greg , so now Greg Vasilef is also rewriting history: the Aussies won because they had the fastest boat! THEY might have lost because of an error they made but they got in position to win because they clearly had the faster boat–no ifs ands or buts.
UPDATE: The Aussies startled the Americans on another front in 1983: they had far superior sails using kevlar in a new way(vertical cuts I think)-and that is from Tom Whidden in his most recent book. Not only did they have the fastest hull they had the fastest sails…And one other thing: if the AC were all about match racing and not speed why isn’t it sailed in One Designs???
Read Dicks letter again -he says it very ,very well! Match racing is the FORMAT; SPEED is the goal…
Without serious changes to the boats the Corporate Cup is probably in a bit of trouble.
Read somewhere today that they were going to ditch 5 tons from the 20 ton keel and add sail area; where are they going to get the extra RM? If they ditch 5 tons this time and 5 tons next time we’re getting into CBTF?! Change WILL come-the question is will it be broad enough soon enough?
?The competing yachts or vessels, if of one mast, shall be not less than forty-four
feet nor more than ninety feet on the load water-line; if of more than one mast
they shall be not less than eighty feet nor more than one hundred and fifteen feet
on the load water-line.?
So since the beginning the cup had been about racing large yachts. Thus by its very nature it?s a rich mans race, anyone who thinks otherwise is fool of it.
Any one remember NZL 32? It wasn?t high tech and it walked all over the competition.
I read Scuttlebutt Europe this morning and they said:"…that will mean reducing the 20 ton keel by 20%" somehow I fixated(wishfull thinking?) on five tons when they meant four. My apologies.
Since then I’ve read the Yachting World site (an article by Matthew Shehan(sp) in which the quote is down to a one ton reduction in displacement, the crew up to 17 plus the 18th man (or weight), no magnetic fields, heated keels or special paints. A 7-8% increase in downwind sail area.No molded spinnakers. A new “anomaly” rule to prevent new “secret” development and deeper keels.
According to Grant Zimmer: “Russel Coutts felt that the current America’s Cup boats would look old fashioned by 2007 and that the new generation should have the latest technology such as canting keels.”
I couldn’t agree more! No matter who is quoting the facts whether Scuttlebutt Europe or Yachting World it looks like the changes will be far too few far too late.No longer will the Corporate Cup boats represent the pinnacle of monohull sailing yacht design–too bad.
You have such a narrow view of the world that I just have to laugh. Just because it doesn?t have a canting keel, foils, or some other gadget doesn?t mean it?s not high tech.
An 8 year old opty sailor could tell you that if you give him more sail and let him hike out he could go faster.
I don?t give a crap what Russel Coutts thinks. I?m not even a New Zealander and I think he should be hung from a yard arm some where.
i see alot of people agruing about this and that. I like that. it is an exchange of ideas. I am a follower of aussie II. I started when they shourded the keel. the ac reggata, and lets not forget this. it is a reggata. is sailed by fast boats. and not by gimmicks. it is sailed by ppl. the fastest boat one this time. and why, simple realy nzl 80 whent too far with the advancement. ie the finger tip boom. I myself would like to see them go back to the old 12s. and make the sailors earn it. not the designers. and i would like to see a salary cap put on the teams. I think denis conner was right in saying that he raised 40 million and could not compete with alhingi or oracle, who both had a budget of over 100 million. the ac reggata has become what i fear it would. who ever could buy the fastest boat wins. not who is the best
LLoyd “cougar” Ertel