Is the America’s Cup now a niche side show?

[dunedin]

I have never quite understood the change from foiling catamarans to the weird hybrid that they have introduced now for the AC - very complex beasts, part monohull leadmine and part foiler (why ballast weights on a foiler?). Seems neither one thing or another.
And these sharp foil/ballast keels sticking out the sides seem like a fatal accident in waiting for boats supposed to do (high speed) close quarters match racing.
Throwing away the previous technology and starting anew has dramatically increased the costs - and hence reduced the number of teams competing. And with the wide disparity between designs, it is quite likely many of the matches when they actually commence will be very one sided processions rather than close races. Overall I have lost interest in this oddity.

Meantime we have the SailGP using updated versions of the previous AC technology, very fast foiling cats giving close and dramatic racing.
Even Ben Ainslie’s INEOS AC team have now joined the SailGP circuit.
SailGP looks to continue to be the one to watch in 2020.

 

[Refueler]

Personally ? I thought the change to Cats was bad enough ...

The Americas Cup has been known for decades as THE Sail race .... and some of the most beautiful classic yachts ever ...

Since the change to Cats - its become a purely Techno affair. IMHO

 

[Kukri]

The America’s Cup is the America’s Cup. It has always been a technology shoot out in which vast amounts of money are spent...

(‘Now, Fife, I haven’t got money to burn... but if it makes her go any faster, just shovel on the notes!’ - Sir Thomas Lipton to William Fife III, 1890s...)

And it has generally been a ‘procession’ in which one boat, usually the challenger, has been hopelessly outclassed.

The America’s Cup today is in fine fettle compared to years ago when years would pass between challenges. Today challengers line up for a preliminary shoot out...

 

[Refueler]

The America’s Cup is the America’s Cup. It has always been a technology shoot out in which vast amounts of money are spent...

(‘Now, Fife, I haven’t got money to burn... but if it makes her go any faster, just shovel on the notes!’ - Sir Thomas Lipton to William Fife III, 1890s...)

And it has generally been a ‘procession’ in which one boat, usually the challenger, has been hopelessly outclassed.

The America’s Cup today is in fine fettle compared to years ago when years would pass between challenges. Today challengers line up for a preliminary shoot out...

One reason challengers feel more inclined to challenge is because no longer do they have to sail the challenge boat to the venue.

That in itself was a limiting factor before even racing.

 

[MikeBz]

The America's Cup has always been a niche sideshow.

I have never quite understood the change from foiling catamarans to the weird hybrid that they have introduced now for the AC

The change from the IACC boats through the DoG match to the AC72 monsters isn't any easier to understand. For me it all went wrong when they dropped the IACC boats, they had developed to the point of near-equality where the match racing made great viewing. The series they had off Cowes towards the end of their reign made compelling (TV) viewing. The AC72s in 'Frisco were entertaining in the way that someone from Victorian times would have found watching a 747 take-off entertaining, as in "how the hell is it doing that", but once you get used to it the novelty wears off. The AC50s were a real snooze-fest - yes they are fast but you sooon stop noticing that, and there is no real match racing or sense of risk/danger/awe.

- very complex beasts, part monohull leadmine and part foiler (why ballast weights on a foiler?). Seems neither one thing or another.
And these sharp foil/ballast keels sticking out the sides seem like a fatal accident in waiting for boats supposed to do (high speed) close quarters match racing.

I agree it looks dangerous. Not sure they are any more complex than a catamaran would be - catamarans would, if rules allowed, develop flip-up foils as well. Providing righting moment with the windward foil isn't that different from providing righting moment with the windward hull of a catamaran - with a catamaran you are hauling 2 hulls of ballast through the air.

Throwing away the previous technology and starting anew has dramatically increased the costs - and hence reduced the number of teams competing. And with the wide disparity between designs, it is quite likely many of the matches when they actually commence will be very one sided processions rather than close races. Overall I have lost interest in this oddity.

This happens every few cup cycles anyway. 12m to IACC, IACC to the DoGfight, one iteration of AC72s, then AC50s etc. Oh, and that's ignoring the ludicrous match of Michael Fay's behemoth mono vs. Dennis Conner's catamaran. At least all teams are using the same rules now.

Meantime we have the SailGP using updated versions of the previous AC technology, very fast foiling cats giving close and dramatic racing.
Even Ben Ainslie’s INEOS AC team have now joined the SailGP circuit.
SailGP looks to continue to be the one to watch in 2020.

I did watch some of last year's SailGP - I wouldn't have said that much of it was close and dramatic. It's so overhyped that it just turns me off (a fantastic example being their recent press release about going 'carbon neutral' by 2025, it reads as though someone had been given the challenge of getting every single cliche into the smallest possible space).

Overall the I thinkg foiling monos are far more interesting than the raft-based platforms, but there still isn't going to be any match racing more's the pity. In fact I think there will be even less match racing - the monos are in serious danger of falling over if they park up, they can't just sheet in and go since they need to get some lift from the foil to add righting moment, so they have to accelerate quite slowly.

I've just been working my way through the 'Awesome Aussie Skiffs' videos on YouTube - from the heyday of their GP series in the 90s, now that was spectacular (terrible quality video, looks as though it has been filmed from a low quality tube TV).

 

[Seajet]

Personally I find the round the world monohull developments much more interesting and possibly relevant - the snag with catamarans - even the Dart 18 dinghy I had - is they may be jolly fast but there's nothing like the sensation of speed to onlookers or those aboard, compared to fast planing - or foiler - monohulls.

 

[Sandy]

Thankfully we don't need to watch the daring people in their flying machines.

Personally, I'd like the Vendee Globe split into two classes, flying machines and proper sailing vessels.

 

[Daydream believer]

Cat racing is boring & cats on foils even more so. One sails from one side of the course to the other, tacks then sails over to the other side. Significant tacking to beat an oponent is pointless, because the time taken to tack is far too long. A nimble monohull can be tacked to make use of many wind shifts in a leg. In a cat it is not worth it due to the time lost. So tacks & tactics are not so prevalent.
Monohulls without foils are the way to go, unless they can be made super maneuverable and allow boats to get up really close to near contact positions.

 

[Laser310]

It was always a niche sport..., the thing is that years ago that didn't matter, as nobody was trying to make money from the event.

To make money, they need an audience; but who might that be?

I think that a basic problem is that, more than the typical person, sailors tend to be doers rather than watchers. I am mostly a racing sailor, and even I have only limited interest in watching other people race sailboats.

But then I don't watch much sport of any variety.

Once you move from actual sailors to the public at large, I think that with only a few exceptions, the interest is really low.

I watched some of the last AC , but not al of it. Partly my interest was Bermuda - I am there often for racing. I saw the AC boats out practicing during one regatta.., and then, in another we had one of the AC wing trimmers onboard as crew. So that raised my interest level above what it would ordinarily have been. From a racing point of view, it was not that exciting. The spectacle was cool, for a while, but doesn't sustain interest.

The new foiling monohulls are certainly spectacular, from a technology point of view. I must admit that when I first heard what they were planning, I didn't think they would be as successful as they are even now on the gen. 1 boats. The fact that they are cool boats doesn't mean the racing will be compelling from a tactical perspective. Unfortunately, we will no longer have the Sardinia even to see what the racing is like.

 

[Kukri]

Taking a long view... the America’s Cup races from 1870 up to 1970 always attracted a spectator fleet and were always reported carefully and at length in the newspapers. Up to WW2, the large size of the competing boats made it a spectacle that could be followed at a distance. From the sixties onwards we had television.

But it was always a minority sport.

 

[dunedin]

Cat racing is boring & cats on foils even more so. One sails from one side of the course to the other, tacks then sails over to the other side. Significant tacking to beat an oponent is pointless, because the time taken to tack is far too long. A nimble monohull can be tacked to make use of many wind shifts in a leg. In a cat it is not worth it due to the time lost. So tacks & tactics are not so prevalent.
Monohulls without foils are the way to go, unless they can be made super maneuverable and allow boats to get up really close to near contact positions.

Have you seen the foil to foil tacks done by the cats in the last America’s Cup and GP50s ? They literally fly through the tacks. It ain’t like tacking an old Unicorn or Tornado cat, let alone a lumbering cruising cat.

But yes, once boats are flying upwind at 30+ knots on foils it is a different game. And the new style hybrids with monohull, swinging foils plus lead sticking out the side will have limited opportunity for close tactics. Passing close at 60+ knots crossing speed with shaft foils sticking out will be positively dangerous.

 

[Daydream believer]

Have you seen the foil to foil tacks done by the cats in the last America’s Cup and GP50s ? They literally fly through the tacks. It ain’t like tacking an old Unicorn or Tornado cat, let alone a lumbering cruising cat.

So how many short tacks did we see in the last cup compared to some AC races in the past, where a tacking duel, up or down wind,to gain space over an opponent, or to pick up a short wind shift, sometimes took place?

 

[Resolution]

So how many short tacks did we see in the last cup compared to some AC races in the past, where a tacking duel, up or down wind,to gain space over an opponent, or to pick up a short wind shift, sometimes took place?

In the early 1980s I was almost an Australian, living in Papua New Guinea. Together with a riotous bunch of Aussie mates we watched live on new-fangled satellite TV Bondy's boat beat Dennis Connor to take the Americas Cup. At the time it was super exciting. Yesterday I watched the nail-biting last race again on Youtube. It was for the most part dull, ponderous and SO slow.
I can quite understand team racing and match racing specialists finding old Americas Cup contests quite intriguing , with the nuances of covering and tactics played out in slow motion. But for the majority of yachtsmen and pretty much everyone else it must be close to watching paint drying.
Whereas these 50mph catamarans.............

 

[Daydream believer]

In the early 1980s I was almost an Australian, living in Papua New Guinea. Together with a riotous bunch of Aussie mates we watched live on new-fangled satellite TV Bondy's boat beat Dennis Connor to take the Americas Cup. At the time it was super exciting. Yesterday I watched the nail-biting last race again on Youtube. It was for the most part dull, ponderous and SO slow.
I can quite understand team racing and match racing specialists finding old Americas Cup contests quite intriguing , with the nuances of covering and tactics played out in slow motion. But for the majority of yachtsmen and pretty much everyone else it must be close to watching paint drying.
Whereas these 50mph catamarans.............

But there again, millions round the world watched it, or at least read about it (or wrote songs about it!!!!!). How many - in this age of high intensity media for all- watched the final of the last AC . Did it attract greater numbers?

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Americas Cup was always about new technology as well as the racing, hence it has always changed, just that in the past the change was slower than today.

 

[JumbleDuck]

One reason challengers feel more inclined to challenge is because no longer do they have to sail the challenge boat to the venue.

That in itself was a limiting factor before even racing.

And a deliberate fiddle by the Americans. British boats had to be built for crossing the Atlantic, US ones for a pootle down Long Island Sound.

 

[dunedin]

And a deliberate fiddle by the Americans. British boats had to be built for crossing the Atlantic, US ones for a pootle down Long Island Sound.

Actually it was originally the American entry that had to cross the Atlantic, after which it trounced the entire fleet of British racing yachts. So it was a British rule originally - that we then found difficult to emulate the American success.

The rule was also binned half a century or so ago so perhaps not particularly relevant

 

[JumbleDuck]

Actually it was originally the American entry that had to cross the Atlantic, after which it trounced the entire fleet of British racing yachts. So it was a British rule originally - that we then found difficult to emulate the American success.

The rule was also binned half a century or so ago so perhaps not particularly relevant

I don't think there was any rule about it in 1853. America had come from America on her owners' initiative, was allowed to join in the last day of the RYS regatta for a round-the-island race and trounced the competition. In view of the fact that she had crossed the Atlantic it perhaps wasn't unreasonable to insist that future races be held between similarly robust craft. However, there is no doubt that the Americans used this to ensure that they could put delicate racing machines up against ocean crossers.

But that's the America's Cup tradition, isn't it? Ten per cent technical excellence, ninety percent legal wrangling, skullduggery and plain old cheating.

 

[dunedin]

I don't think there was any rule about it in 1853. America had come from America on her owners' initiative, was allowed to join in the last day of the RYS regatta for a round-the-island race and trounced the competition. In view of the fact that she had crossed the Atlantic it perhaps wasn't unreasonable to insist that future races be held between similarly robust craft. However, there is no doubt that the Americans used this to ensure that they could put delicate racing machines up against ocean crossers.

But that's the America's Cup tradition, isn't it? Ten per cent technical excellence, ninety percent legal wrangling, skullduggery and plain old cheating.

Interestingly it would appear that the “sail to the event” rule actually only came in formally in Deed of Gift version 2 in 1882 - and the target was apparently not British boats, but a concern about lightly built Canadian lake racers seeking to win the trophy. The rule was dropped after WW2 in the Deed of Gift v4. So only really applied significantly in the era of Sir Thomas Lipton etc.

Would be fun sailing one of the previous series AC foiling cats across the Atlantic though - get the right weather window (and rescue craft stationed ahead, because no power boats could keep up trans Atlantic) and could create an amazing Transat record (after a few equally amazing and spectacular failures).
Don’t say it is not possible - who would have believed it possible to sail a 100 foot trimaran round the world safely in just 42 days !!!