Will the new IACC boats at 90 feet be that much of an improvement over the current crop of boats? Will there be enough of a change to bring interest back to the cup and it’s (usually) leading edge design and technology - or will the “new” rule simply create yet another series of look alike, perform alike boats that are way over priced and way under speed to really be a “racing” boat ? Does adding a small prod/sprit pole really provide improved performance? Will wing masts that rotate be used - or declared illegal?
Does anyone really care since the current crop of boats performed without much new or cutting edge? Will Oracle and the Alingi group have the ba**s to try something really new, or will they step back into the comfort zone and stay away from any radical go-fast ideas?
Will this be typical of the new boats intended to “wow” all of us? Does anyone care? Any thoughts or comments on the “new rule” as it begins to emerge and how it might affect our “little” boats?
OK - just add a few funnela and buff upperworks and you have a Victorian battleship.
What marked the demise of the cup for me was when they went out of 12mRs - allegedly to improve sailing as a spectator sport. But they got a variety of things wrong. The first was to equate speed with excitement. They are not the same thing at all. A relatively heavy, relatively small 12 m is actually much more exciting to watch than a modern AC boat. Within monohiull limits, speed generally means boredom - flatter wavetrsins, less nise, less spectacle. Is suspect that the same applies to multihulls too. It doesn’t take very long for us to get used to it disappearing over the horizon in 0 seconds flat. I don’t sit in front of the television just to watch streams of motorway traffic, and hat’s faster.
I think what IS exciting, probably, is the sigh of boats whore HULLS are being driven to the very limits of their performance. I have no doubt that under the new rule starts will not be allowed in over 15 knots windspeed or some equally silly figure. The racing will be held in Long Island Sound or somewhere equaly idiotic in the calmest part of the year. Doesn’t anyone resemple the 12 metres in Fremantle - that was really exciting, a superb spectator support. And it’s precisely what they scrapped.
I am with you Angus. To me, the Americas Cup has been going downhill since the demise of the 12s. Its not just the difference in speeds. (I have this on reliable info,) in 1980, the Freedom/Enterprise winning team, was run on the same bugdet as the mast program for the 2000 Young America challenge, which didn’t even make it to the finals of the Louis Vuitton.
This new 90 rule is going to be so complicated, and so expencive that it is pretty much going ot guarentee that only the most wealthy teams will ever have a shot at even coming up with a program. What has Alinghi done? They have abused their defender’s privledges to make sure that only teams like them, Oracle, Desefio, Themselves, and a very few others can ever hope to be truely competitive. (I would really like to be proven wrong about this… it would be fantastic if Shosholoza came and taught these rich boys a lesson!) The Americas Cup was supposed to be the pinnacle of corinthian yacht racing between nations. Instead, people like Larry Ellison, and Ernesto Beritelli or however you spell his name even the Spanish, with their questionable yacht club, have turned this contest into a “boost my ego” game.
If the Americas Cup is to ever lose its “rich jerk” image, then it is going to have to knock the crews back to 11 people, and go to a rule, that describes reasonable boats. Boats that can be sailed in more than 15 knts and flat seas. Boats that have character, boats that are supposed to match race. I would love to see the 12s return, to me, they are some of the most beautiful boats in the world. Maybe the 12s are no longer right, and there needs to be new as an AC horse… who knows.
But one thing is for sure, trying again, to sail the Americas Cup in 90s… is trouble. Just like it was the first time.
i agree the cup has never been the same since. they made the switch. but i also remember hearing this same arguement when they made the switch TO the 12 meter. i agree that the cup needs something to realy make it know again. i did not see one race this time around. none of it was on tv. i enjoyed watching the 95 and 2000 and 2003 series. in 95 there was that march to the final. in 2000 you knew alll those teams. and in 03. you had the traitor. and you had orcale. plus the fat man.
this year. what happend?. it was not the boats, when i first got started. watching it. the people and the boats were all in it. 1980 the yankees stealing the bendy mast. and in 83 keelgate. 87 was the plastic fantastics.
this past year. was hum drum. i think.
i think they need to keep the boats the same way. and race in all conditions. if the boat breaks, then you srcewed up. and did not make it strong enough.
just like what happen in 2003. dont call it off. i realy was intrigued by dicks drawing. you sort of have that box rule( lossely worded) but. with that chin. you could use all the waterline and lose alot of wiegth. for a straight lilne speed. it maybe real fast. i dont think it would spin well though:zbeer:
Cougar - I can’t take credit for the drawing - since it was done by Schickler Tagliapietra Yacht Engineering. (They also did +39 for the last cup as I recall).
Just trying to stir things up a bit and see where folks have their memories locked in.
Mine is the 1988 Stars & Stripes catamaran defense. 60 foot cat vs. 90 foot monohull. No contest ! As the old saying goes … “If it isn’t a cat, it’s a dog !” *
*courtesy of Supercat Mfg. advertising - mid 1980’s
What it needs is decent television coverage. Last time OLN carried it in Canada and I was glued to the TV. This time TSN had the occaisional 30 min show and no warning when it was on. I lost touch real quick. If they want people to watch it has to be on non-pay TV.
Don
My simplified and diluted thoughts. In Recent years “Box” rules have worked very well. Look at the TP52 class which has spawned the STP65 class. Secondly, unlimited spinnaker area is never a bad thing. I think the boats will end up looking more like boats we can race on the weekends which I think will draw SOME interest. My main hope is that the new rule allows the progression of the designs so that they become more performance oriented, rather than trying to make a bath tub fast (Basically my opinion of the old rule in a nut shell).
I say again, why this obsession with speed? Speed is not in itself in the slightest bit exciting.
The fastest that most of us is ever likely to travel is around 450 mph in a jet airliner. When you get off the plane after a transoceanic or transcontinental flight, are you bouyed up by the thrill of all that lovely speed? Are you hell as like. You’ve just spent 5 or 6 hours cooped up in a giant cigar tube with lousy catering, no leg room and unchanging scenary of cotton wool. The only good thing about the speed is that the cigar tube would othewise take two or three times as long.
The experience will be unknown to North Americans here, but I can tell you from eperience that European high-speed trains are litle more exciting. There’s more to see, but no thrill to it after the first five minutes.
Speed is exciting by the way in which it is generated. In boats this generally means throwing lots of water and spray all over the place and a faint scent of fear arising from dwindling control. You do this by producing relatively slow boats and driving them hard.
i realy can say that the americas cup is about speed. the faster you get around the course. the better chance you have of winning. now the question becomes. what makes a fast boat. dicks drawing up front maybe fast in a straight line. but i dont think it will spin/turn fast at all. now in a tacking duel. this boat is going to lose BIG TIME. so maybe it is what i think is most important. accleration. when you come out of a tack. how long does it take you to get to speed. I look at austraila II. liberty was faster in a straight line. but austraila II could spin on a dime, and get to full speed faster. i think the same thing happend with nzl 32 and alghini. all of them could acclerate very fast. but this is just me:zbeer:
Angus - I must politely disagree with you. Based on past sailing experience, if I want an adrenaline “rush” I would sail a “fast” boat - be it a skiff, a planing dinghy, a multihull or even an ocean racer. If I am looking for the excitement of sialing, it can be done without being in a race - and when I come to shore and remove a wetsuit, if the underwear is full - it was a terrific ride!
On the other hand, a Laser, multihull or dinghy - being daysailed and without the desire to be on a trap or hiking until the belly hurts was also satisfying to me for “relaxation”. Taking a fast boat and sailing it slowly can be as rewarding as being on the edge of control. All depends on the day, the mood and the desire.
Quite frankly - if you were sailing a 48 inch long multihull at speed in decent wind, or a 50 inch (self-righting) Marblehead, I can only surmise the "excitement is in sailing the multihull at the edge of control. If you have a boat that nosedives, broaches, or gets knocked down - only to have self righting, a lot of the worry of “sailing on the edge” is removed.
As for our obsession with speed - I have said it before - why hang a blob of lead to make the boat go slower, if a boat without lead can sail faster? It isn’t, I agree the excitement of going fast - but the excitement of finishing first - and to do that (with tactics set aside) one must be the fastest and be able to finish.
As for the above drawing - I really don’t see any breakthru in the box design being proposed. As the rules and designs eveolve, it will be interesting to see how radical and different they will be - or will it simply be just another “cookie cutter class”.
Since this thread started, I have been thinking quite deeply about sailing experiences I shall remeber on my deathbed.
I think they are grouped into 3.
Navigational/tactical games in lightish conditions, usually involving a duel with other boats and/or complex tides and/or rocky coasts and/or thermal breezes.
On the limit downwind sails at night, usually in heavyish displacement boats with nasty handling characteristics.
A few sails (usually in lighish boats, usually cruising) where the scenary of sea, sky, birds, lan (if any) was just so utterly beautiful. Like running down to Ailsa Craig one bright, cloudless night in Skulmartin - doing perhps 6 - 6.5 knots, in shirtsleeves and a brilliant moon. Or screaming down on the Calf of Man in Spring Onion in the dawn with a boomed out genoa and main - OK we were surging up to 13-4 knots biut it wasn’t exciting (she’s a well-behaved little mite), just totally joyous.
I have to disagree with Angus, I was brought up with cars, fast cars ( like nitro fuel dragsters ) there is nothing like strapping yourself it to a fuel dragster and 7 seconds later crossing the finish line at over 200 mph with that big Hemi up front belching out nitro and oil, then you know what real speed and acceleration is. I got into RC sail boats about 5 years ago, I needed some thing slower to race, I couldn’t keep up with the nitro boats any more.
john
tabarjohn - I think you just made my point. I can strap myself into an economy class seat in a Boeing 737 with very approximately the same performance as your dragster and be asleep half-way down the runway. It’s not just the speed that does it, it’s how it’s presented - the smell, the roar, the vibration. And a lot of ‘slow’ boats do produce very good equivalents of those things.
I think there is a way to gain the speed and excitement of the big cats and still maintain the maneuverability required for close match racing: bring back the sandbaggers. These were beamy, ludicrously overpowered, shallow draft centerboarders whose crew moved sandbags from side to side during tacks. Lots of sandbags. Raced for money. Lots of money.
So here’s a proposed rating rule that fits my criteria of difficult, dangerous, and fast:
90 feet LOA monohull, all other dimensions unlimited.
All ballast to be carried inside the hull or on deck. Ballast may be moveable. Ballast may be jettisoned at any time during a race. Ballast units must carry means to enable their salvage.
Number and weight of crew unlimited. Crew members may abandon their boat at any time during a race, but may not reboard until the race is finished.
Sort of like the big Kiwi boat, but without a keel. Lots of tradeoffs: wide wings means lots of righting moment but lots of distance for the crew to haul ballast. Big centerboard reduces leeway but the crew has to haul it up and down. And so forth.
And how’s this for telegenic: rounding the windward mark on the last lap, huge spin going up, crew and ballast diving overboard as that big honker gets up on the plane – and if they get it wrong and enter a death roll, well, that’s telegenic too
