Brits having a hard time in AC?

[Resolution]

As for match racing, we see more tactical racing from kids in Toppers

So you didn't watch Race 6 on day 1, which had a tacking duel on the last upwind leg, an overtake round the last windward mark, and which USA finally won by just 12 seconds? All at 30 to 40 knots boatspeed. This was great stuff!!

 

[RJJ]

So you didn't watch Race 6 on day 1, which had a tacking duel on the last upwind leg, an overtake round the last windward mark, and which USA finally won by just 12 seconds? All at 30 to 40 knots boatspeed. This was great stuff!!

Imho it's boring as sin. The best AC racing we ever saw was in the last couple of rounds of IACC, when you had four teams all close enough to be finishing within seconds of each other. As in, sometimes, one or two seconds. And crossing / circling with feet to spare. And penalties that you could just about understand. (After 3 hours watching I still don't get how penalties work here; and I used to be a match racer).

The boats are amazing, but after a few minutes of watching them blast around...meh. also, I don't see them as relevant. With the IACC, you could as a decent amateur, upper third of Cowes week, sort of helmsman, imagine yourself doing it. In fact, you could step on board and helm to within a couple of minutes of the rock stars, given their crew. With these foilers, who would know where to start?

 

[Bobc]

Imho it's boring as sin. The best AC racing we ever saw was in the last couple of rounds of IACC, when you had four teams all close enough to be finishing within seconds of each other. As in, sometimes, one or two seconds. And crossing / circling with feet to spare. And penalties that you could just about understand. (After 3 hours watching I still don't get how penalties work here; and I used to be a match racer).

The boats are amazing, but after a few minutes of watching them blast around...meh. also, I don't see them as relevant. With the IACC, you could as a decent amateur, upper third of Cowes week, sort of helmsman, imagine yourself doing it. In fact, you could step on board and helm to within a couple of minutes of the rock stars, given their crew. With these foilers, who would know where to start?

I tend to agree with you. As incredible as these boats are, I would have preferred to see them slogging it out in something like TP52s.

 

[dunedin]

Closer racing but two defeats by NZ.

Improving, but not a lot of time left

 

[flaming]

Imho it's boring as sin. The best AC racing we ever saw was in the last couple of rounds of IACC, when you had four teams all close enough to be finishing within seconds of each other. As in, sometimes, one or two seconds. And crossing / circling with feet to spare. And penalties that you could just about understand. (After 3 hours watching I still don't get how penalties work here; and I used to be a match racer).

The boats are amazing, but after a few minutes of watching them blast around...meh. also, I don't see them as relevant. With the IACC, you could as a decent amateur, upper third of Cowes week, sort of helmsman, imagine yourself doing it. In fact, you could step on board and helm to within a couple of minutes of the rock stars, given their crew. With these foilers, who would know where to start?

I agree... (And I also used to do a bit of match racing..) With the caveat that so far I actually think they are better than the cats for match racing. At least this time the losses in tacking and gybing seem to be pretty small. So as the teams get more dialed in we may yet see covering tacks etc, rather than just bouncing from boundary to boundary.

Not looking good for Ineos though...

 

[scruff]

Listening to Ben at the press conference, he was putting the blame firmly with the NZ shared tech and politely stating it's not fit for purpose - receiving software updated right up to the last minute.

Shaping right up to be a typical America's cup - contested in the court room as much as on the water.

 

[flaming]

Listening to Ben at the press conference, he was putting the blame firmly with the NZ shared tech and politely stating it's not fit for purpose - receiving software updated right up to the last minute.

Shaping right up to be a typical America's cup - contested in the court room as much as on the water.

Team NZ fired back, that the update was sent on Friday....

If correct, I wouldn't want to be the Ineos team member that sat on the update and didn't install it until just before leaving the dock....

 

[matt1]

I just wonder sometimes....In Alex Thomson and Ben Ainslie we have arguably the fastest sailors on the planet, but each seem to go to the slight extremes in boat design in order to gain a speed advantage. Of course, I get you have to have the fastest boat, but is this cultural (eg British exceptionalism?) Neither campaigns lack funds. Is there an inherent lack of confidence in themselves that draws them to "pulling a rabbit out the hat" when it comes to design to get some advantage? There shouldn't be. If you had a one design IMOCA or AC boat I'd place a large bet on each winning! It's tragic that these guys don't have the designs / hardware to do them justice. In Alex's case I reckon he would be well ahead now if he was in the previous HB.

 

[TernVI]

So you didn't watch Race 6 on day 1, which had a tacking duel on the last upwind leg, an overtake round the last windward mark, and which USA finally won by just 12 seconds? All at 30 to 40 knots boatspeed. This was great stuff!!

Nope, missed that.
The bits I've seen don't encourage me to sit through hours of 'traffic' in the hope of a good bit.

The boats are conceptually dumb.
A rule set designed to need a big team of people to heave appendages around.

Boatspeed is relative to size. Something that size doing 40knots is not as impressive as something like a B14 doing 25.
And the foiling means they're out of the chop so 40 knot is not skipping over waves at 40 it's more like flying very slowly.
A laser planing at 12 knots looks fast.
International moths doing 20+ knots don't look that fast. (until it overtakes the laser).
40 is scary fast on a pushbike, slow in a bus.
Those AC boats are the size of buses.

 

[dunedin]

I just wonder sometimes....In Alex Thomson and Ben Ainslie we have arguably the fastest sailors on the planet, but each seem to go to the slight extremes in boat design in order to gain a speed advantage. Of course, I get you have to have the fastest boat, but is this cultural (eg British exceptionalism?) Neither campaigns lack funds. Is there an inherent lack of confidence in themselves that draws them to "pulling a rabbit out the hat" when it comes to design to get some advantage? There shouldn't be. If you had a one design IMOCA or AC boat I'd place a large bet on each winning! It's tragic that these guys don't have the designs / hardware to do them justice. In Alex's case I reckon he would be well ahead now if he was in the previous HB.

Not sure your case stands up. Alex Thomson wasn’t (as far as we can tell) let down by bad or extreme design. He was in the lead about to head into the waters his boats was designed to be fastest in. But a combination of COVID-19 limiting proving time for the new boat, and what sounds like bad luck hitting floating nets (TBC) knocked him out. Remember that the French favourite didn’t last 4 days before returning to Les Sables.
And the AC has very often been decided by design before the boats reach the start line - from the days of the J Class through Australian wing keel etc, to the NZ AC designs.
So not a Ben or UK thing. With a brand new class and zero opportunity for racing the first edition boats, it was always likely that there would be big differences in capability with such new concepts. In fact surprising that some of the races have been reasonably well matched.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Call me 'Old Fashioned' or someone stuck on nostalgia, but I think the AC should revert to its earlier format ('J Class' type boats) over a course that most racing sailors can understand, and to rules and penalties that relate to those that most of us use.
It was the introduction of the winged keel that IMHO started the decline in relevance of the AC, and reversion to more conventional yachts would potentially make the AC more relevant to most of us who sail. .
The new 'flying' boats should have their own competition, by all means call it the 'Techno America's Cup' or something, as there is obviously a place for this form of sail racing, and it does perhaps make good television, but it's a bit like speedboat racing in that it is spectacular for a short time but it eventually just gets boring.

 

[flaming]

Call me 'Old Fashioned' or someone stuck on nostalgia, but I think the AC should revert to its earlier format ('J Class' type boats) over a course that most racing sailors can understand, and to rules and penalties that relate to those that most of us use.
It was the introduction of the winged keel that IMHO started the decline in relevance of the AC, and reversion to more conventional yachts would potentially make the AC more relevant to most of us who sail. .
The new 'flying' boats should have their own competition, by all means call it the 'Techno America's Cup' or something, as there is obviously a place for this form of sail racing, and it does perhaps make good television, but it's a bit like speedboat racing in that it is spectacular for a short but it eventually just gets boring.

I'm not really sure that the AC boats have ever really had an awful lot of relevance to the sort of sailing we normal folk do. To be honest, I quite like the idea of the AC out there pushing the bleeding limits of sailing. There's plenty of other match racing etc available to watch for the more relevant stuff.
It is, and always has been, a pissing contest between billionaires. It's nice of them to let us watch really...

However... On the flip side I do think that this sort of boat represents a bit of a cul-de-sac in terms of development.

 

[Praxinoscope]

flaming, ... I think although the old 'J Class' etc. We're toys of millionaires, so are the modern AC boats, but they tend to be corporate rather than rich individual.
But I was thinking making it much more like a true test of sailing/seamanship, junk the on-board computers, instrumentation, allow no more than wind speed/direction, log and depth, even GPS seems a bit OTT.
Then let the 'techno' competitors use all the modern gizmo's as they are more the equivalent of F1 racing where developments in materials, design and technology will if proved viable slowly filter down to the average yachtie.

 

[flaming]

flaming, ... I think although the old 'J Class' etc. We're toys of millionaires, so are the modern AC boats, but they tend to be corporate rather than rich individual.
But I was thinking making it much more like a true test of sailing/seamanship, junk the on-board computers, instrumentation, allow no more than wind speed/direction, log and depth, even GPS seems a bit OTT.
Then let the 'techno' competitors use all the modern gizmo's as they are more the equivalent of F1 racing where developments in materials, design and technology will if proved viable slowly filter down to the average yachtie.

The J class were the techno freaks of their day. The AC has always employed the highest level of technology that existed. You can't pretend that if instrumentation had existed in J-Class times they wouldn't have been stuffed full of it.
All three of the challengers this time around are essentially backed by one rich person. Just using their corporate bodies to provide the cash, rather than from their own pockets.

What you're proposing isn't the AC, it's the equivalent of the GGR racing their old long keeled things to the Vendee Globe's IMOCAs. There's a place for it... but...

Would I have preferred the AC to have been raced in something akin to a turboed TP52? Of course. But the foiling genie is out of the bottle and I don't think you can realistically put it back in.

 

[halcyon]

The J class were the techno freaks of their day. The AC has always employed the highest level of technology that existed. You can't pretend that if instrumentation had existed in J-Class times they wouldn't have been stuffed full of it.
All three of the challengers this time around are essentially backed by one rich person. Just using their corporate bodies to provide the cash, rather than from their own pockets.

What you're proposing isn't the AC, it's the equivalent of the GGR racing their old long keeled things to the Vendee Globe's IMOCAs. There's a place for it... but...

Would I have preferred the AC to have been raced in something akin to a turboed TP52? Of course. But the foiling genie is out of the bottle and I don't think you can realistically put it back in.

I tend to watch it for the technology as much as the racing. NZ have designed a foiling boat, not a boat with foils I think they are using the hull profile to form an air cushion between hull and water to help stablize the boat.

Brian

 

[savageseadog]

Go back to one designs..........like a Laser. Ainslie would win that one.

 

[halcyon]

Go back to one designs..........like a Laser. Ainslie would win that one.

Not bad in an Optimist as well.

Brian

 

[flaming]

I tend to watch it for the technology as much as the racing. NZ have designed a foiling boat, not a boat with foils I think they are using the hull profile to form an air cushion between hull and water to help stablize the boat.

Brian

Yes, the aero component of the hulls is clearly key.

 

[flaming]

Go back to one designs..........like a Laser. Ainslie would win that one.

Can't go back to OD in the AC. It never has been.

 

[TernVI]

I'm not really sure that the AC boats have ever really had an awful lot of relevance to the sort of sailing we normal folk do. To be honest, I quite like the idea of the AC out there pushing the bleeding limits of sailing. There's plenty of other match racing etc available to watch for the more relevant stuff.
It is, and always has been, a pissing contest between billionaires. It's nice of them to let us watch really...

However... On the flip side I do think that this sort of boat represents a bit of a cul-de-sac in terms of development.

But this isn't the 'bleeding edge of technology'. Neither were those catamarans last time around.
It's a circus with a bizarre set of rules isn't it?
The cats were limited in their foils and controls, so that you needed lots of gorillas to adjust trim.
You don't bank an aeroplane by moving the whole wing by brute force, you use an aileron to do it easily.
Likewise this time around, I think the rules are very prescriptive, it almost is a one design.
It's certainly not 'blue sky thinking' or an open rule 'loa < 70ft and 200sqm of sail' kind of thing, or even a formula like the 12m.
It's small variations on a fixed concept.

There is probably more variation in some 'one designs' like say 505s?

Technically, it would be interesting to see this level of expenditure with a much more open rule, like LOA, sail area and crew numbers.
But the racing would be repetitive unless the conditions varied a lot.

If the current format works, in that it gets on TV, and sponsors are willing to field teams, then good luck to it.
In many ways, the more difference between sailing as a mainly amateur sport and the circuses, the better.