SailGP

[Alan S]

Insanely fast, those foiling cats but think how much faster they could be if once they were foiling they could jettison the hulls just keeping the rig and foils!

 

[Wansworth]

Insanely fast, those foiling cats but think how much faster they could be if once they were foiling they could jettison the hulls just keeping the rig and foils!

Why not install a jet engine

 

[Alan S]

Ditching the hulls might conceivably be within the rules with a bit of "blue sky thinking" from the organisers but I can't see Pratt & Whitney or Rolls Royce getting any sales in this area.
I'm actually only half joking here....
Watching these boats racing it's obvious that the hulls are redundant extra weight and windage once they get up on the foils so just drop them, support boat recovers them for re-use and cat runs onto the beach after the race. Great for spectators.
What's not to like?

 

[Wansworth]

Ditching the hulls might conceivably be within the rules with a bit of "blue sky thinking" from the organisers but I can't see Pratt & Whitney or Rolls Royce getting any sales in this area.
I'm actually only half joking here....
Watching these boats racing it's obvious that the hulls are redundant extra weight and windage once they get up on the foils so just drop them, support boat recovers them for re-use and cat runs onto the beach after the race. Great for spectators.
What's not to like?

The last vestige of speed and grace sold to the highest bidder,even sailing reduced to the wishes of mammon

 

[Alan S]

I understand your thinking, Wandsworth, but It's called SailGP, so presumably the target audience is speed freaks as in Grand Prix motor racing. I think there is a place for "no holds barred" racing as opposed to normal club, national and Olympic racing. There is obviously money to be made from sponsorship and TV rights etc which if controlled properly should filter down to grass roots.
Sadly I don't think we'll see much of the speed and grace of 12 metre racing on our screens any more.

 

[Lightwave395]

I understand your thinking, Wandsworth, but It's called SailGP, so presumably the target audience is speed freaks as in Grand Prix motor racing. I think there is a place for "no holds barred" racing as opposed to normal club, national and Olympic racing. There is obviously money to be made from sponsorship and TV rights etc which if controlled properly should filter down to grass roots.
Sadly I don't think we'll see much of the speed and grace of 12 metre racing on our screens any more.

Plenty of it about still, beautiful it is too, even at a slower pace:

INTERNATIONAL 12 METRE ASSOCIATION

 

[flaming]

I understand your thinking, Wandsworth, but It's called SailGP, so presumably the target audience is speed freaks as in Grand Prix motor racing. I think there is a place for "no holds barred" racing as opposed to normal club, national and Olympic racing. There is obviously money to be made from sponsorship and TV rights etc which if controlled properly should filter down to grass roots.
Sadly I don't think we'll see much of the speed and grace of 12 metre racing on our screens any more.

Sail GP is a commercial attempt to make money out of televised sailing. Nothing wrong with that, pretty much every other sport does this.

The difference with sailing is that there are so many different flavours of sailing... From dinghies to 12 metres to foiling cats to AC75s...

Over the years there have been many attempts to turn sailing into TV friendly "grandstand" sport. The most notable in the UK was the Ultra 30s. But even that, with its big name sponsors and relatively low cost to put on withered and died. In Aus the 18 footers still get some amazing footage and some decent TV numbers. Again the boats are relatively cheap, and even better only require 3 crew.

What has never stacked up commercially is televised racing of boats which cost mega bucks to own and run... The America's cup gets away with it because the TV is a complete sideshow, the cup is just a willie waving competition for very rich men.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Enjoying the Sydney stop ths week end. UK crew member fell through trampoline netting into water some speed. Did I hear it right ? The netting not designed to take the full weight of a falling man ?

 

[Chris 249]

I understand your thinking, Wandsworth, but It's called SailGP, so presumably the target audience is speed freaks as in Grand Prix motor racing. I think there is a place for "no holds barred" racing as opposed to normal club, national and Olympic racing. There is obviously money to be made from sponsorship and TV rights etc which if controlled properly should filter down to grass roots.
Sadly I don't think we'll see much of the speed and grace of 12 metre racing on our screens any more.

I know it's an old post, but I'm just sitting on my phone getting some relevant info from an extraordinarily good source so......

1- GP motor racing is very strictly controlled - check the list of things they've banned.
2- There's no enough money to judge from all available information.
3- Why would money filter down to the grass roots? The head of the British motorsport association and others have pointed out that it works the OTHER way - sponsors move away from sports that seem to be too costly and high tech. We've had more concentration on hyper-performance sailing in recent years than ever before, and the sport is shrinking in many ways.
4- Only 15% of the drag in a SGP boat is from the "boat" (including the crew, who must be a very significant part of that considering that human bodies are terrible shapes for aero drag). If you take away the hull - and how do you do that without hitting the foils - then you may go slightly faster when foiling but how on earth do you handle the catastrophe when you drop off the foils and sink the entire foils, rig, electronics and crew?

Windsurfers, AC boats and others are now being designed very largely about handling splashdowns, which are incredibly important in foiling. The designers aren't doing that because they are morons, they are doing it because they know what counts. Have you foiled much?

 

[dunedin]

Sadly I don't think we'll see much of the speed and grace of 12 metre racing on our screens any more.

The 12 metres were a small boat class introduced to save cost after the glory days of the J Class.
If you want traditional boat racing spectacle, watch the J Class which were resurrected a couple of decades ago - and more racing now than in their heyday. Massively more grace and awe than the little 12 metres.
The wasn’t much “speed” from the leadmine 12 metres. Hence why they were replaced by the faster SC class monohulls.

But even they are very slow compared to modern foiling boats, whether IMOCA 60s or the super fast SalGP foiling cats.

 

[Wansworth]

The 12 metres were a small boat class introduced to save cost after the glory days of the J Class.
If you want traditional boat racing spectacle, watch the J Class which were resurrected a couple of decades ago - and more racing now than in their heyday. Massively more grace and awe than the little 12 metres.
The wasn’t much “speed” from the leadmine 12 metres. Hence why they were replaced by the faster SC class monohulls.

But even they are very slow compared to modern foiling boats, whether IMOCA 60s or the super fast SalGP foiling cats.

So speed is the only criteria to sell to the masses who don’t know one end of a boat from another

 

[Chris 249]

If you want traditional boat racing spectacle, watch the J Class which were resurrected a couple of decades ago - and more racing now than in their heyday.

Without wanting to be too much of a pedant, the Js raced many more regattas in their heyday than the half dozen or less they do today. in the '30s the British Js could race 30 or more times per season. The current fleet has fewer boats (no more than six) doing far fewer races.

While it may seem pedantic, IMHO it's a vital point - the AC boats used to be just a part of a "First Class" that regularly took part in normal regattas alongside boats like 8 Metres, 52 Footers, Brixham trawlers, offshore races, old racers on arbitrary handicaps, and boats down to 25 ft LOA, designed to the same sort of rating rule. Now the Js tend to specialise in "superyacht" regattas and the AC boats stay a million miles away from any connection with mainstream yacht racing and have very little relationship to anything else that sails.

It's not a formula for a successful event or a strong sport.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

So speed is the only criteria to sell to the masses who don’t know one end of a boat from another

The masses are never going to be interested. They weren’t that interested in the J class or 12 metre boats either. The technology developed by those 2 is run of the mill now, any AWB is full of it. I expect the foiling boats to do much the same in the end, though maybe we’ll see it sooner in the powerboat scene. It saves a lot of fuel, which is the hot topic, given the price of it and the damage it does.
The intricate game of water borne chess that is yacht racing in any sail boat is beyond a good number of sailors, so no chance for Joe Public. Most of us are quite content to bimble round to a nice anchorage, have a picnic, crash out, bimble home. And why not? We’re not all as driven as Ben Ainslee.

 

[dunedin]

Without wanting to be too much of a pedant, the Js raced many more regattas in their heyday than the half dozen or less they do today. in the '30s the British Js could race 30 or more times per season. The current fleet has fewer boats (no more than six) doing far fewer races.

While it may seem pedantic, IMHO it's a vital point - the AC boats used to be just a part of a "First Class" that regularly took part in normal regattas alongside boats like 8 Metres, 52 Footers, Brixham trawlers, offshore races, old racers on arbitrary handicaps, and boats down to 25 ft LOA, designed to the same sort of rating rule. Now the Js tend to specialise in "superyacht" regattas and the AC boats stay a million miles away from any connection with mainstream yacht racing and have very little relationship to anything else that sails.

It's not a formula for a successful event or a strong sport.

I agree that the “Big Class” yachts in the UK did more races per season than current J Class tend to do. But are you sure that they ever had as many as 6 J Class racing together in the pre-war era (as opposed to other similar sized Big Class yachts built under different rules, such as the famous HMY Britannia)?
One thing is similar is the huge expense and need for professional crew. As well as the spectacle, albeit due to scale and power rather than raw speed.

PS. I am very fortunate that my only visit to Falmouth coincided with the modern J Class regatta, so watched them out sailing on arrival and departure, and was berthed in the marina about 20m from the closest J Class, and the support vessel Bystander nearby. They make an incredible noise as they gybe round a buoy, with the groans of all the (nowadays) carbon fibre and dyneema as they gybe these huge beasts - and the water was left disturbed for minutes after due to their mass. Being their training day we were able to get very close (outside) their course to watch. Also seen quite a few in Scotland in cruising mode.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Have you heard the SailGP boats, or AC cats up close? They make an absolute cacaphony of groans, screeches and bangs, ok not quite as noisy as the V10 era of F1, but comparing it to the new turbo era isn‘t as mad as it might seem. It’s just not as constant.

 

[Chris 249]

I agree that the “Big Class” yachts in the UK did more races per season than current J Class tend to do. But are you sure that they ever had as many as 6 J Class racing together in the pre-war era (as opposed to other similar sized Big Class yachts built under different rules, such as the famous HMY Britannia)?
One thing is similar is the huge expense and need for professional crew. As well as the spectacle, albeit due to scale and power rather than raw speed.

PS. I am very fortunate that my only visit to Falmouth coincided with the modern J Class regatta, so watched them out sailing on arrival and departure, and was berthed in the marina about 20m from the closest J Class, and the support vessel Bystander nearby. They make an incredible noise as they gybe round a buoy, with the groans of all the (nowadays) carbon fibre and dyneema as they gybe these huge beasts - and the water was left disturbed for minutes after due to their mass. Being their training day we were able to get very close (outside) their course to watch. Also seen quite a few in Scotland in cruising mode.

Yep, in 1935 there were six Js in the British season, because Astra and Candida had been modified to fit into the rule and were there with Valsheda, Endeavour, Shamrock and Yankee as well as Westward and Britannia which, as you point out, were built to different rules. There were 26 races in which 6 Js raced during that season.

I think there were five or five Js in 1932 (plus Britannia and Westward); Shamrock V, Astra, Candida and White Heather II (another ex-23 Metre). The thing is that White Heather II, as a First Rule 23 Metre, was not built to the same scantling restrictions as the later 23s and she may have been theoretically too lightly built to actually be fully compliant with the J rules. However, I can't recall the issue ever being raised so maybe her mods included structural alterations. For 1933, of course, she was replaced by Velsheda. Since WH's keel was used for Velsheda I wonder if you could use that as the basis for a re-born White Heather II? There'd be more original fabric than in many modern "restorations"!

I think the other critical point about the Js is that they were, as you note, so close to boats to earlier rules that the old boats could race as, or with, the Js. The Js fit into a pre-existing class and class system and almost all of the 1893-1930 big cutters could have raced with the Js, so they were part of a class of about 20+ earlier boats. That shows how they were part of mainstream sailing in a way that the foiling AC boats have never been. The idea that AC boats were exotic bleeding-edge beasts outside of the mainstream of the sport is just BS created by PR hacks over the past few decades.

Lucky you, to have seen the Js in action. I've only been able to get close to Cambria, the 23 Metre. I did run the bow of Weatherly in a 12 Metre class race at the NYYC Annual Regatta and the next day sailed with Grant Simmer of Australia II etc, but the 12s are of couse like toys compared to Js or even compared to maxis.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Well done GB over the weekend.
Is Hannah making the difference ?