Americas Cup 37 about to commence

[Puffin10032]

My little fantasy would be we win and go back to the original rules and course. Now that would be a laugh!

And mandate that it's sailed in dinghies

 

[Chiara’s slave]

And mandate that it's sailed in dinghies

You’re missing a trick. Reverting to previous rules, insist that boats are sailed to the event from their club.

 

[Puffin10032]

You’re missing a trick. Reverting to previous rules, insist that boats are sailed to the event from their club.

Even better The Aussies and Kiwis need to launch their Lasers now whilst it's still light over there

 

[dunedin]

….. Portland or Portsmouth might be contender locations, I can’t see Cowes making the grade sadly

It would be a great problem to have, and a huge leap to even think about a potential venue.
But for any serious sail racing, Cowes is a hugely compromised and unsuitable location, Portland is much better. Hence why it was the London 2012 venue - and a preferred championship venue.
Cowes is popular for its “character”, and its quirks - not its good sailing waters. The Clyde would probably be second best after Portland.

 

[14K478]

Seven laps of the Isle of Wight, alternately clockwise and anticlockwise, sailed in the J class.

(Chances are the Kiwis would still win!)

 

[Robin]

I doubt if the Squadron would hold it anywhere but GB. And no need to really. The only issue might be wind, we tend to have a lot of it or hardly anything.

but maybe we could at least avoid the Barry Humphries commentary

 

[flaming]

Yes - Oracle were losing 8-1 in a first to nine series so they brought Ben in as tactician. Ended up winning 9-8. While not the only factor, Ben's tactical skills were a key part of that.

A pedant writes...

They actually swapped out at 4-1, and continued to lose races, but just without the bizare tactical calls. Remembering as well that because of the "lead in the kingpost" cheating scandal in the AC45 feeder series, the score was actually 4- -1 on the water, as Oracle had been docked 2 points and started on -2.

If you want to go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, google "AC34 Herbie". Which is a reference to a component that Oracle put onto the boat at 8-1 down, with TNZ not bothering to question. It is alleged that this was some sort of feedback loop enabled flight controller that enabled them to foil upwind. If it really was a basically automatic ride height, then it would have been illegal, however because TNZ waved it through when 8-1 up, their later protest was thrown out.
Even though they came back in Bermuda to win the cup, some Kiwis are still very angry about it.

 

[flaming]

And we are now back to building boats purely to contest the America's Cup - I see no chance of these AC75s having any life at all outside the LV / AC - which is a shame.

I think that's a given to be honest.

Where the Js, and even the 12s, have enjoyed a long retirement as (very) rich persons plaything, the same is almost impossible to imagine for the AC75s. For a start the J's and 12s have been fitted with things like engines, and even interiors, so that the other part of rich person yachting - the entertaining - can be done on board. And of course in nice places that rich people like to go yachting, like the Med and the Carribean, sailing in chino shorts and shirts is very pleasant.

In contrast the AC75s would require large shore crews, escape training, spare air bottles in every seat, and helmets etc. Not saying that there aren't people who would be thrilled to go sailing like that, but that the Venn diagram of "people who could afford to run a boat like that" and "people with the talent to actually sail it" has a vanishingly small intersection. Plus of course you spend all that money and only get to helm on one tack!

You can actually now go out and place an order for an AC40, the boats that were used for the preliminary regattas earlier this year and now the youth and women's. They're advertised at £3million. What you'd do with one once you had it, I don't know...

 

[14K478]

I think that's a given to be honest.

Where the Js, and even the 12s, have enjoyed a long retirement as (very) rich persons plaything, the same is almost impossible to imagine for the AC75s. For a start the J's and 12s have been fitted with things like engines, and even interiors, so that the other part of rich person yachting - the entertaining - can be done on board. And of course in nice places that rich people like to go yachting, like the Med and the Carribean, sailing in chino shorts and shirts is very pleasant.

In contrast the AC75s would require large shore crews, escape training, spare air bottles in every seat, and helmets etc. Not saying that there aren't people who would be thrilled to go sailing like that, but that the Venn diagram of "people who could afford to run a boat like that" and "people with the talent to actually sail it" has a vanishingly small intersection. Plus of course you spend all that money and only get to helm on one tack!

You can actually now go out and place an order for an AC40, the boats that were used for the preliminary regattas earlier this year and now the youth and women's. They're advertised at £3million. What you'd do with one once you had it, I don't know...

I will just add that, from 1887 down to the 1930 series which was the first in the J class, the American defenders were completely uninhabitable and fit for nothing except racing for the America’s Cup and the British challengers crossed the Atlantic under a cut down yawl rig and had their internal accommodation removed before the races started.

So, nothing new, really. The Js and the Twelves did have simple, light weight, accommodation, and could be made comfortable afterwards.

Famously, Ted Turner made a serious offshore racer under IOR out of the Twelve Metre “American Eagle”, which had been built as a possible defender for the 1964 Cup races.

At the other extreme, the 1886 British challenger “Galatea” was actually the home of her owners, Lt and Mrs Henn, and they continued to live aboard her for years after the Cup races. Lt Henn died in 1894 and Mrs Henn lived aboard until her death in 1911. From photographs I have seen, she was definitely fully fitted out, in the high Victorian taste.

 

[14K478]

I have been trying to find pictures of “Galatea”’s saloon. No luck so far but here are some externals:

The last picture is the start of a Cup race.

 

[14K478]

The Henns were in some respects a very modern couple. They met whilst sailing in the Mediterranean - Lt William “Paddy” Henn aboard his 80 ton yawl “Gertrude” and Susan Cunningham-Grahame was sailing with her brother aboard a “small yacht”.

They married, in 1877, and Susan moved aboard the “Gertrude” and they carried on living aboard and cruising in Europe and the Med until in 1885 they had the cutter Galatea built in steel on the Clyde, to a design by Beavor-Webb.

They sailed her across the Atlantic, Susan Henn becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic aboard a racing yacht and in due course the first woman to take part in an America’s Cup race, in 1886.

And here’s the saloon:



I wonder if the leopard skin had been shot by Lieutenant Henn on his successful expedition to find Henry Morton Stanley, who had just found Livingstone?

Anyway unlike certain other Cup challengers the Henns were very popular in the States and carried on living aboard and cruising there after the usual thrashing (it was best of three in those days and they lost the first two).

Here’s Susan Henn:

 

[DoubleEnder]

The Henns were in some respects a very modern couple. They met whilst sailing in the Mediterranean - Lt William “Paddy” Henn aboard his 80 ton yawl “Gertrude” and Susan Cunningham-Grahame was sailing with her brother aboard a “small yacht”.

They married, in 1877, and Susan moved aboard the “Gertrude” and they carried on living aboard and cruising in Europe and the Med until in 1885 they had the cutter Galatea built in steel on the Clyde, to a design by Beavor-Webb.

They sailed her across the Atlantic, Susan Henn becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic aboard a racing yacht and in due course the first woman to take part in an America’s Cup race, in 1886.

And here’s the saloon:

View attachment 183925

I wonder if the leopard skin had been shot by Lieutenant Henn on his successful expedition to find Henry Morton Stanley, who had just found Livingstone?

Anyway unlike certain other Cup challengers the Henns were very popular in the States and carried on living aboard and cruising there after the usual thrashing (it was best of three in those days and they lost the first two).

Here’s Susan Henn:

View attachment 183926

Did they have a billiard table on board?

 

[14K478]

Did they have a billiard table on board?

Not to my knowledge, but I remember looking at the HongKong Bank launch “Wayfoong” in HK. She was built as a steamer so she is quite similar in shape and she very definitely scends rather than rolls in a swell.

 

[bedouin]

I think that's a given to be honest.

Where the Js, and even the 12s, have enjoyed a long retirement as (very) rich persons plaything, the same is almost impossible to imagine for the AC75s. For a start the J's and 12s have been fitted with things like engines, and even interiors, so that the other part of rich person yachting - the entertaining - can be done on board. And of course in nice places that rich people like to go yachting, like the Med and the Carribean, sailing in chino shorts and shirts is very pleasant.

In contrast the AC75s would require large shore crews, escape training, spare air bottles in every seat, and helmets etc. Not saying that there aren't people who would be thrilled to go sailing like that, but that the Venn diagram of "people who could afford to run a boat like that" and "people with the talent to actually sail it" has a vanishingly small intersection. Plus of course you spend all that money and only get to helm on one tack!

You can actually now go out and place an order for an AC40, the boats that were used for the preliminary regattas earlier this year and now the youth and women's. They're advertised at £3million. What you'd do with one once you had it, I don't know...

I wonder how it would rate on IRC

With their electric power the AC40s are clearly a more practical proposition than the AC75s and with some intelligent control software they might almost be within the handling capability of reasonably experienced sailors.

Having seen some of the new small foiling boats (wind surfers etc) I can't help thinking we are getting to the stage where a small foiling sailing boat is feasible

 

[Buck Turgidson]

I wonder how it would rate on IRC

With their electric power the AC40s are clearly a more practical proposition than the AC75s and with some intelligent control software they might almost be within the handling capability of reasonably experienced sailors.

Having seen some of the new small foiling boats (wind surfers etc) I can't help thinking we are getting to the stage where a small foiling sailing boat is feasible

mini 650s have been foiling for a while.

 

[Chris 249]

The Americas Cup boats have never been anything that the average boater would sail - the J Class was a dedicated race boat for the super wealthy, so nothing new.
But just like none of us would want a second hand Formula 1 car to drive to the shops, there is a lot of technology trickle down from these racing machines - both cars and boats.
But it does depend a bit on your definition of “most of us”. Clearly little in common with, and little technology trickle down, to somebody sailing a 40 year old cruiser. But the previous generation of foiling catamarans had lot of influence in some quarters. And foils are increasingly relevant in the racing classes - in 3 of the Olympic sailing events, and increasing number of dinghy classes plus offshore racers.

Not new of course. Currently reading a book about the Cheers project for the 1968 OSTAR - and noticed that Dick Newick mentioned that he had briefly considered a foiling multihull back in 1967, but the technology of the day wouldn’t have made it able to be used safely long distance single handed (with no electronics etc).

The America's Cup boats of earlier eras were very close to, and often a normal example of, the boats that the average big-boat sailor would sail. The earlier AC boats were normally also to the same rules, or similar rules, as many club-racing boats. That no longer applies - there's basically only one boat in the world like an AC75 outside of the AC circuit itself.

From 1893 to about 1935, for example, there were about as many boats that were about as big and fast as an AC boat that never tried to do the AC, as there were AC candidates. Valkyrie II, the AC challenger of 1893, was no bigger or sigificantly faster than Navahoe, Britannia, Calluna or Satanita which hit the water at the same time and just did normal non-AC racing. The same pattern existed from the very first AC right up until the last Deed of Gift challenge; AC boats like Galatea, Cambria, Genesta, Vim, Magic, Mischief and Livonia were just normal club- and regatta-boats that ended up doing the AC events. Shamrock V and the Endeavours fitted into the normal UK regatta First Class fleet. When the 12s were selected there was still recent class racing for the class in the UK and Norway, and several of them were racing regularly in the normal US fleets. When the 12s were racing in the AC there were 12s in the Fastnet, Hobart, Nioularge, SORC, Swiftsure and many of the other "mainstream" events.

That situation no longer exists - there is nothing like an AC boat outside of the AC circuit apart from one much smaller boat doing a few Med events. No AC75 is winning the Fastnet and Hobart like the 12M American Eagle did. No AC75 is winning on the USA's Great Lakes long races like the 12M Heritage did, or taking out wins in the world's biggest fleet like the 12M Newboy (ex-Easterner?) did in the Ensenada race.

Throughout these many decades, there were hundreds of 20-40 foot boats built to the same rules as the AC yachts that were to be found in dozens of club fleets, in the form of Half Raters, One Raters, 2.5 Raters, Three and Five Tonners, R and S Classers, 15 Footers, Six Metres and the like. They formed a very large component of the normal club fleets and they were very similar to (but more advanced than) the AC machines.

Again, that situation no longer exists - there are no fleets of baby AC boats in Cowes, the Clyde, SF or Sydney. The current situation is nothing like what it has been before in AC history.

The Js were not normally race machines - like the 23 Metres that preceded them they were at the time regarded as racer/cruisers and the rules required full accommodation (ie a bathtub for the owner) most of the time.

The number of foilers in small cats and dinghies remains pretty small and isn't actually growing much if at all. The only Olympic foiling boat, the Nacra, is extremely unpopular with only tiny fleets. The A Class foilers are doing OK but the non-foiling side of the same class is doing better. Outside of the UK the Moth fleets are tiny. The much-hyped takeover of the match racing circuit by foiling cats is over. The much-hyped GC32 class circuit is dead. The hyped Flying Phantom foiling cat is out of production. Where is this growth?

There are big fleets of foiling boards but it's odd that boat racing, which has so often largely ignored windsurfers and kites, seems to only really count them now that many of them are foiling. And if you are going to get into foiling, with all its positives and negatives, boards are arguably the logical way to do it.

The current status of the AC, as an event in a type that is not like any type normally sailed in local regattas, is unique and out of keeping with the history of the event from 1851 until 2000-something.

 

[Chris 249]

I wonder how it would rate on IRC

With their electric power the AC40s are clearly a more practical proposition than the AC75s and with some intelligent control software they might almost be within the handling capability of reasonably experienced sailors.

Having seen some of the new small foiling boats (wind surfers etc) I can't help thinking we are getting to the stage where a small foiling sailing boat is feasible

There's lots of feasible small foiling sailing boats already - do you mean small foiling yachts?

The Quant 23s in Europe are similar and they seem to be fairly feasible, but production ceased at around 11 boats. Foiling brings with it some interesting issues that seem to be often overlooked. Unless you just want to reach or run in a breeze, you've got to have massive amounts of righting moment to handle the apparent wind, which isn't easy. You also need to have a low-windage hull and, even more critically, a low-drag rig that is nevertheless powerful enough to overcome the considerable low-speed drag of the foils and push them quickly enough to get lift. And then of course you need a foil control system that can handle real life.

The current little foilers show the issues. The foiling Laser popped up OK and felt surprisingly small when it was on foils, but the high aero drag of the rig and the low righting moment of the hull limited its performance dramatically. The small foiling cats are only about 2-3% than their non-foiling counterparts most of the time in the hands of most people, even very good people. The righting moment issue can also be seen in the way the Olympic windsurfer and kite foilers had to fatten up from sometimes about 70kg to over 100kg (and much of it is literally fat since they couldn't put on the required 25 or so kg without almost force-feeding, the guys on the podium are almost unrecognisable now) to create the required righting moment. And foils themselves are finicky - some serious guys don't even allow clean fingers to touch the foils because it creates ventilation, and crashing from foils is way nastier than crashing at similar speeds and heights in non-foilers because foils dig in and stop you dead. So any feasible foiler is going to have to be dry-sailed, and quite carefully treated.

The only foiling America's Cup coach I know says that he has dropped out since the AC75s arrived because they are so dependent on computer controls that it's not "real sailing" like it was with the AC72 cats or the Sail GP boats he's sailed and driven. That level of control is unlikely to be feasible at the level of mortals.

One of the interesting things about foilers is that many people in the sailing press who saw it as the future of the sport 15 years ago still haven't bought their own foiler or sailed them much. It says a lot about how out of touch they are, and also indicates that they lack personal experience of the downsides.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I’ve had a go at foiling. It’s fast, but there’s little sensation of speed until you crash. If you’re unlucky that is going to hurt. There’s no ‘rush’ like you get from a Vmax planing reach. It's also expensive. And you need the right water conditions and a suitable launch site if we are talking dinghys. Any foiling bigger boat would be dry sailed. I reckon I could launch a waszp at our club, but in foiling wind strength, most of the time the chop would be too difficult. Speaking as forum speed freak, it’s all too difficult.

 

[flaming]

There's lots of feasible small foiling sailing boats already - do you mean small foiling yachts?

The Quant 23s in Europe are similar and they seem to be fairly feasible, but production ceased at around 11 boats. Foiling brings with it some interesting issues that seem to be often overlooked. Unless you just want to reach or run in a breeze, you've got to have massive amounts of righting moment to handle the apparent wind, which isn't easy. You also need to have a low-windage hull and, even more critically, a low-drag rig that is nevertheless powerful enough to overcome the considerable low-speed drag of the foils and push them quickly enough to get lift. And then of course you need a foil control system that can handle real life.

The current little foilers show the issues. The foiling Laser popped up OK and felt surprisingly small when it was on foils, but the high aero drag of the rig and the low righting moment of the hull limited its performance dramatically. The small foiling cats are only about 2-3% than their non-foiling counterparts most of the time in the hands of most people, even very good people. The righting moment issue can also be seen in the way the Olympic windsurfer and kite foilers had to fatten up from sometimes about 70kg to over 100kg (and much of it is literally fat since they couldn't put on the required 25 or so kg without almost force-feeding, the guys on the podium are almost unrecognisable now) to create the required righting moment. And foils themselves are finicky - some serious guys don't even allow clean fingers to touch the foils because it creates ventilation, and crashing from foils is way nastier than crashing at similar speeds and heights in non-foilers because foils dig in and stop you dead. So any feasible foiler is going to have to be dry-sailed, and quite carefully treated.

The only foiling America's Cup coach I know says that he has dropped out since the AC75s arrived because they are so dependent on computer controls that it's not "real sailing" like it was with the AC72 cats or the Sail GP boats he's sailed and driven. That level of control is unlikely to be feasible at the level of mortals.

One of the interesting things about foilers is that many people in the sailing press who saw it as the future of the sport 15 years ago still haven't bought their own foiler or sailed them much. It says a lot about how out of touch they are, and also indicates that they lack personal experience of the downsides.

I don't think it's possible to put the foiling genie back in the bottle now. Nor is it especially desirable that we do.

There clearly will continue to be development in foiling, but I agree that it's unlikely to become mainstream.

What it is is pretty exciting to watch....

 

[14K478]

Some very good contributions from people who have real experience, here.

I just learned a lot. Thanks.

The next contest will be in AC75s, as I understand it, because teams seeking to enter for this event had to agree to that as a term of their entry.