America's Cup

soonleng.lim

Any follower for the America's Cup?
What do you think of the dismal Oracle performance ?

neris

I gave some attention to previous ACs in the 70 footers but this whole series has been a farce. Egos, power trips and wealth have been to involved along with the rules constantly rewritten. I hope the kiwis win and return some sort of spirit back to the event

BrensBenz

I haven't been a fan of the America's Cup format for years - give me dozens of boats jostling for the biased end of the start line.

Admittedly, I've only seen races 1 and 2 and, while these AC cats are technological wonders to behold, both races seem to have been peppered by fairly basic helming errors, with NZ making slightly fewer than US.

It's almost an F1 scenario, i.e. races are being won by designers and lawyers wriggling their way through the rulebook, with this week's best car, driven by an OK driver, getting the checkered flag.

Of course, many will applaud this - how else can design advance? - but I still yearn to see talent rather than machinery or lawyers, as we see in one-design class racing, winning the day. I could probably list dozens of Olympic helmsmen (my heroes!) but I'm struggling to remember the names of the two skippers in San Francisco!

pedroeibar1

neris wrote: »

I gave some attention to previous ACs in the 70 footers but this whole series has been a farce. Egos, power trips and wealth have been to involved along with the rules constantly rewritten. I hope the kiwis win and return some sort of spirit back to the event

+1.

Rule changes are not an unusual occurrence. The NYYC was accused of the same back in the 1800's by Lord Dunraven, who as a result resigned his honorary membership and gave up Americas Cup racing. He was disgusted by what he considered to be their unsporting tactics and his resignation and comments raised a huge fuss at the time. The NYYC was constantly stacking the rules in favour of the defender, drawing accusations of cheating and bad sportsmanship. It prompted the expression "Britannia rules the waves, but America waives the rules."

neris

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

+1.

Rule changes are not an unusual occurrence. The NYYC was accused of the same back in the 1800's by Lord Dunraven, who as a result resigned his honorary membership and gave up Americas Cup racing. He was disgusted by what he considered to be their unsporting tactics and his resignation and comments raised a huge fuss at the time. The NYYC was constantly stacking the rules in favour of the defender, drawing accusations of cheating and bad sportsmanship. It prompted the expression "Britannia rules the waves, but America waives the rules."

the rules are always rewritten during every americas cup but this time its just gone over board and is more of an ego thing for ellison to lash cash at and win by his own rules.

also the whole thing has just gotten so expensive to compete in that its loosing its appeal. the kiwis are been backed mainly by the govt, artemis couldnt afford the campaign aswell as the italians who were always competitive in the monos. Look at the amount of teams who competed back in the 87 cup and more recently.. Teams from china, spain, south africa, australia, britain, france, germany, canada.

miss no stars

Im just too bored by it to bother following it. When I want to watch farcical law suits and squabbles I turn on judge Judy. How about a new format - properly one design boats built by the same builder that are affordable enough for many teams and the result isn't a foregone conclusion. There's been so much crap in the run up to what was supposed to draw loads of new non-sailing viewers to watch nail bitingly close racing at the pinnacle of the sport that they managed to lose what should be their base audience - sailors!!!

The winner should be determined on the water - not in the room or the bank or in court.

Stheno

Watched one of the races last week, and it was seriously boring with just the two, no jostling at the line, no real tactics given it was just the two,

Inquitus

The boats are amazing, sadly the racing is one sided, ETNZ's pace upwind is such that they can lose the start trail round the first 2 marks and cruise to victory upwind on the 3rd leg. Fully expect to see a 9 to -1 final scoreline.

errlloyd

I am loving it. Just tuned in the last few days.

Stheno

I was watching this on youtube, but finally remembered I had sky sports, so watched the last two races on the tv, with commentary and it made a big difference.

As a newb, the commentary made me understand more.

That last race last night was fun

Slaacer

well where to start !

I've been an ETNZ supporter for a while now and that included Camper from the recent VOR70 race.

I was hoping that after the fisco of the last AC which turned out to be the field of rich boys toys and solicitors the american managed to find the gap in the rule needed to sail in multihulls and then with a wing.

I was a supporter of Alinghi then but once I saw the american came up with a trimaran I knew it was going to be a short AC racing on the water - never mind their wing sail - I have enough experience with multis to know the trimaran was gonna win over the a cat.

Oracle managed to do revive the interest in the cup with the launch of the AC45 - a brilliant idea as it limited the cost and more teams signed up and it promised to be a fantastic event - and it was - fantastic boats, more teams, and close racing at great speed. Being a simily one-design helped in achieving this but then they decided on the huge cat 72 foot long... pretty extreme and limiting the no of teams as budgets had to be substantially bigger.

Don't get me wrong I really like the fact that they are breaking so many boundaries and pushing development and they are simply fantastic to watch. Let's face it how often can you see boat racing at 22-30 knots upwind and screaming to 48 knots downwind in a 18-22 knot wind ???

But this was not risk free as a live was lost and all teams suffered breakage of various amplitude.

Bottom line is I would have preferred to see the cup raced on AC45 witch would have given more teams a fair chance to have a go at it.

Nonetheless now that it is set for AC72 I think and said after I saw the first video of ETNZ sailing - they're gonna be hard to beat by any team out there, the LVC will be a nice warm up for the AC against the defender and so far I am proven right. I also committed in saying they'll win the AC too which is still open.

I didn't expect to see OR despite their massive budget, their cheque book team to be that close in performance to ETNZ.

Bottom line is that they could see the pace of ETNZ and LR as benchmark for their 2 boats training program. They also amazed me in their ability to learn so quickly to sail their AC72 vs ETNZ and they have closed the performance gap so quickly - they have too ! the question is was it fast enough ! time will say but I don't think so with only 2 more win for ETNZ vs 9 for OR the odds are for ETNZ to win.

OR have bounced back before and can do it again but I hope that ETNZ have enough to win these 2 races and bring the cup back to NZL.

One thing these boats have proven time and time again is that you pay dearly for the slightest mistake (bad tack, bad rounding, bad start, etc) as at the speed they go the other boats disappear quickly in the distance.

Go ETNZ !

neris

the racing looked good on youtube on sunday, was 1st races ive seen. the speed they have is amazing but the races lack the closeness and tacking duels of the mono hulls but hey you cant everything you want. hopfully when the kiwis win they,ll make the next event more viable for smaller funded teams to attend. maybe smaller multis 50 or 60ft long that might only do 30knots instead of 40 but will get more teams in making the louis vuitton more attractive to watch and have a larger round robin series.

Stheno

On at ten, so about twenty minutes time. If NZ win tonights two races, they have won the cup outright.

neris

No racing today been postponed due to excessive winds on sf bay.

Bit ridiculous having a maximum wind speed of 20 knots. They know in s.f that the wind builds in the afternoon in excess of 20 kts. They should have designed the boats to fit in around the local conditions and not expect mother nature to fit in around their boat design plans. In 87 they built boats to race in 30knots coz thats the weather in freemantle for 88-95 they built light boats coz you get light winds in san diego. If a 72 foot boat is unsafe or to light for the area they should have built smaller safer cats and gone racing.

Stheno

neris wrote: »

No racing today been postponed due to excessive winds on sf bay.

Bit ridiculous having a maximum wind speed of 20 knots. They know in s.f that the wind builds in the afternoon in excess of 20 kts. They should have designed the boats to fit in around the local conditions and not expect mother nature to fit in around their boat design plans. In 87 they built boats to race in 30knots coz thats the weather in freemantle for 88-95 they built light boats coz you get light winds in san diego. If a 72 foot boat is unsafe or to light for the area they should have built smaller safer cats and gone racing.

Thanks, but I was looking forward to it.

I think originally they set the max. speed at 30 knots, but after Bart Simpson was killed they reduced it down to 20

neris

Stheno wrote: »

Thanks, but I was looking forward to it.

Sorry for ruining your night. good news is 2 races being run tonight. should be live on youtube at 9pm.

neris

Funny how being 10 seconds late at the start line is a great start. Great starry from the kiwis

Stheno

neris wrote: »

Funny how being 10 seconds late at the start line is a great start. Great starry from the kiwis

Good first race

neris

Stheno wrote: »

Good first race

Yep hope the kiwis nail race 2 & stick it to the yanks & that arrogant **** ellison

Stheno

neris wrote: »

Yep hope the kiwis nail race 2 & stick it to the yanks & that arrogant **** ellison

Same here I've even got the OH avidly following

Stheno

Arrrrgggggh they've hit the wind limit again!

Inquitus

Wind limit should be 30 knots as set before the poor sailors death, can't have this in the bay at this time of year with these limits, borderline farcical.

neris

This sucks. 20 knots is nothing, if these guys cant andle their boats in 20.1 knots theres somthing wrong with pro sailors

Stheno

neris wrote: »

This sucks. 20 knots is nothing, if these guys cant andle their boats in 20.1 knots theres somthing wrong with pro sailors

I think the loss of Bart Simpson is too raw for a lot of them, look at all the safety precautions they take, and yet someone was killed.

neris

Stheno wrote: »

I think the loss of Bart Simpson is too raw for a lot of them, look at all the safety precautions they take, and yet someone was killed.

Could be partly true they have had a good deaths in yacht races in california over last few years but they knew when they were planning the cup that they get strong breeze there. anyway theres always tomorrow & theres feck all on tv on thursday night

Stheno

neris wrote: »

Could be partly true they have had a good deaths in yacht races in california over last few years but they knew when they were planning the cup that they get strong breeze there. anyway theres always tomorrow & theres feck all on tv on thursday night

True, something to look forward to, I texted one of my sailing buddies tonight asking were they watching before the postponement and got a stern text back not to update

miss no stars

neris wrote: »

This sucks. 20 knots is nothing, if these guys cant andle their boats in 20.1 knots theres somthing wrong with pro sailors

Quibbling over 0.1 of a knot is ridiculous tbh... But a line has to be drawn somewhere and these boats have shown themselves time and again to be both fragile and volatile. 20 knots in a 40 foot displacement yacht doing 8-10kts boatspeed is nothing to even consider taking in some sail area over... 20kts in pretty much anything sailed around here is nothing to get over excited about. But 20 knots TWS in an AC72 foiling at a 45kt clip gives a fair bit more apparent wind and an exceptionally higher risk to life. It'd just take one slip of the helm for there to be another Bart. Oracle's capsize happened in 25kts of wind, wasn't the Artemis break up in about 20 knots gusting 25ish?

It's just a game folks. Nothing worth dying over.

Maybe the Kiwis will keep the AC72 concept or do something very similar, by which time there'll have been more development and practice and knowledge about foiling wing cats, and a higher wind limit will be okay. I don't know enough about the boats to comment on whether 20, 25, 30 or even 35 knots is an appropriate wind limit, but all the teams agreed to the downward revision. 1 person dead, one completely broken boat that just fell apart due to construction/repair defects, another team had a similar event and broke their wing from pushing too hard and a string of other more minor problems.

Sure, the boats were designed for 30 knots, but there've been 2 serious incidents in winds over 20 knots (including one fatality). Do we need a third? Maybe the boats didn't meet their design criteria or maybe the sailors weren't up to the job. Either way, boat + crew + TWS<30kts was causing problems, to put it mildly. Look at it another way, if they went out in 25 knots and one pitchpoled and killed another crew member, everyone would be crying out about why the wind limit was so high; that there was already precedent to show they were unacceptably dangerous over 20 knots at this stage of development.

miss no stars

Interesting post over on sailing anarchy about this. It's not that the boats don't perform... rather they overperform...

http://sailinganarchy.com/2013/09/19/safety-dancespeed-kills/

Inquitus

no more racing again

Stheno

Eh, anyone know why one of the NZ team is going up on top of the jib as they hoist it?

errlloyd

I'd argue it's good for new Zealand.

Stheno

Wind has dropped 4 minutes to the start

Inquitus

****

Stheno

Inquitus wrote: »

****

quite, it spiked for three seconds!

neris

Ah well the best reason ever to not watch the late late tomorrow night. thats two days the winds teased us

neris

Stheno wrote: »

Eh, anyone know why one of the NZ team is going up on top of the jib as they hoist it?

Some of the bigger boats they can lock off the halyards up the mast to reduce loads. Also these boats don't have normal rigs so halyard set up may be unconventional

Stheno

neris wrote: »

Some of the bigger boats they can lock off the halyards up the mast to reduce loads. Also these boats don't have normal rigs so halyard set up may be unconventional

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is locking off the halyard essentially reefing the jib?

edit: Sorry I've looked this up, it allows you to lock where the jib stops on the mast?

neris

Modern headsails cant be reefed. They used to have headsails that could reefed back in 70s & 80s but they were made from a cloth unlike modern sails which are made from fibres & laminates. Race boats now that don't use furling have a selection of head sails to cover different wind strengths. Generally a number 1 & 3 for club racing boats but the bigger competitive boats have bigger sailwardrobes where specific sails can cover various speeds of wind & direction.

Inquitus

Here we go again, last chance USA saloon part 4

Inquitus

No wind, prob no chance for Oracle to keep things going for another day.

neris

Jebus. Would the weather ever make its mind up. windy, no wind. Hope this, won't be a floater.

HeidiHeidi

neris wrote: »

Jebus. Would the weather ever make its mind up. windy, no wind. Hope this, won't be a floater.

Should I stick with the retro 80's countdown then? Haven't seen a minute of this yet, would hate to not see any of it, can someone let me know if racing starts please??!!

miss no stars

20 seconds to gun

Stheno

Racing on, they are crawling around the course, first time iirc that they have had the gennakers out.

neris

Started. Luffing match up 1st reach. Light as dublin bay. COde zeros out. This will be the slowest race so far.

HeidiHeidi

Bugger, can someone give me a link? All I can find is a one-minute promo, and replays

Stheno

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Bugger, can someone give me a link? All I can find is a one-minute promo, and replays

Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbRX6EQ5Tg

neris

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Bugger, can someone give me a link? All I can find is a one-minute promo, and replays

Youtube and americas cup channel or americsscup.com n click on youtube

miss no stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbRX6EQ5Tg

neris

Tnz just got lead

Stheno

NZ now 450metres ahead