Britain's America's Cup challenge

DanTribe

DanTribe

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Just announced on BBC, great news.
But I do have to take issue with the commentator.
video of the last race.
"Do you remember this? When Ben Ainslie won the America's Cup"
I thought he had a bit of help, from some antipodeans.
 
DanTribe said:
"Do you remember this? When Ben Ainslie won the America's Cup"
I thought he had a bit of help, from some antipodeans.
Click to expand...

They were pushing that line on their website recently. I put it down to BBC Sports traditional jingoism ... 1966, come on Tim, women's curling, Sirben cures psoriasis with his touch and so on.
 
Looks like it will be a Red Bull sponsored team, with Adrian Newey as Chief Aero. WOW!

Which makes sense after Christian Horner's comments on Sunday.
 
Oh dear, another made for television event that will be covered to death. Needless to say I am not a fan of the event.
 
I have the feeling that the last America's Cup was the best spectacle it could ever be, with a comeback from near-certain defeat.
Next time could be a dull 7-nil farce. Like the old days.
 
Bobc said:
Looks like it will be a Red Bull sponsored team, with Adrian Newey as Chief Aero. WOW!

Which makes sense after Christian Horner's comments on Sunday.
Click to expand...

If this is true, and given that Newey is to remain focused on F1 for the remainder of 2014, this means the British Challenge's Head of Aero will have started work 5 months late, in a design field (yachts) he is previously unfamiliar with.

Newey is without doubt a genius at F1 aero, but I'm not completely convinced as to how transferable the knowledge is; the only other F1 technical chief to make the transition to an AC team ended up designing Halyard locks for Alinghi.

On the plus side Red Bull money would mean we might get to the start line this time.
 
Newey has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like the new F1 rules and cars, and is not going to be heading-up the 2015 car (which I'm guessing they are now into designing).

I suspect that this could be a good way forward for him, but also a good way of RB keeping him on-side in the F1 team as a "consultant".

Purely speculation, but you can almost imagine the conversations.
 
Bobc said:
Newey has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like the new F1 rules and cars, and is not going to be heading-up the 2015 car (which I'm guessing they are now into designing).

I suspect that this could be a good way forward for him, but also a good way of RB keeping him on-side in the F1 team as a "consultant".

Purely speculation, but you can almost imagine the conversations.
Click to expand...

All that can be said about Newey's new contract (unless someone here has actually seen it) is that it was written with the intention on Red Bull's part of ensuring he didn't design an F1 car for anyone else in the next 3 years.

The timing of today's AC announcement presumably follows on from the formalisation of the Protocol for the next AC.
 
AndrewfromFal said:
If this is true, and given that Newey is to remain focused on F1 for the remainder of 2014, this means the British Challenge's Head of Aero will have started work 5 months late, in a design field (yachts) he is previously unfamiliar with.

Newey is without doubt a genius at F1 aero, but I'm not completely convinced as to how transferable the knowledge is; the only other F1 technical chief to make the transition to an AC team ended up designing Halyard locks for Alinghi.

On the plus side Red Bull money would mean we might get to the start line this time.
Click to expand...

I would say that the knowledge is very transferable and very similar. Don't forget, the AC cats are planes, not boats. All the old "naval architecture" stuff goes out of the window when you're trying to support a couple of tons of boat on some tiny foils at 40kts.
 
Bobc said:
I would say that the knowledge is very transferable and very similar. Don't forget, the AC cats are planes, not boats. All the old "naval architecture" stuff goes out of the window when you're trying to support a couple of tons of boat on some tiny foils at 40kts.
Click to expand...

True, although it is very much key to upwind sailing and also getting the boat on the foils at the earliest opportunity after a bear-away
 
Can someone explain to me why there is local opposition to Ben basing the challenge on a brownfield site in Portsmouth?
 
Pinnacle said:
Can someone explain to me why there is local opposition to Ben basing the challenge on a brownfield site in Portsmouth?
Click to expand...
20,000 meeja types, 30,000 lawers and a few people in odd shaped boats for three months before returning to a brownfeild site, would be my best guess.
 
I really do wish Ben well, he brought the Americans back from the dead, but what worries me is that he will have a problem either raising enough money to build a boat or enough to build one to be competitive with the higher budget boat(s). Good luck to him that he does.
 
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