America's Cup: The Myth of Monohulls


'More of this? 32nd America’s Cup - Final Match - Day 4 - Alinghi vs Emirates Team New Zealand' Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

The multihulls we watched in America’s Cup 33 were amazing, well, at least one of them. The boat that won. BMWOracle’s trimaran USA.

Now the yacht club that sponsored BMWOracle Racing, Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco (GGYV), with an assist from its challenger partner, Club Nautico di Roma (ITA), has apparently formulated the protocol for America’s Cup 34, and will be announcing it soon. That’s great. All of us are ready and waiting.

Just for the record:

(1) We don’t think America’s Cup is drag racing. Drag racing is about highly powered, ungainly vehicles challenging each other in a speed-only event. We saw some drag racing in AC33. It was new and captivating since we had never seen drag racing before in America’s Cup. However, like most purists – and as Bruno Troublé (head of yacht racing for former America’s Cup sponsor Louis Vuitton) and many other purists probably feel about this – we hope that drag-racing doesn’t become the future of America’s Cup.

(2) Multihull racing vs. monohull racing is like giraffes – no, camels – racing thoroughbred horses. Sometimes those camels and giraffes are extraordinarily fast, but thoroughbreds are better bred, more elegant, more beautiful to look at, and, well, fast enough.


Less of this? In pursuit of USA-17, Race 2, 33rd America’s cup, Valencia - BMW Oracle Racing: Guilain Grenier Click Here to view large photo

(3) You cannot discern yacht speed on television. Monohull or multihull, you cannot tell by watching helicopter footage (which most us see), even in close up, exactly how fast boats are sailing. Speed actually is rational data communicated live by commentators, by onscreen captions, or through online presentations from modeling data (as on Virtual Spectator). Any argument that America’s Cup needs multihulls because racing is about speed is, inevitably, null and void. Television cannot discern speed on the water.

(4) Multihull speed – indiscernible to most viewers anyway – is about the thrill of failure. This is the ‘spinnaker syndrome’, raised to the power of ten. Whenever most of us see stress on a racing boat, it’s when spinnakers are raised. In a situation exacerbated by commentators and television producers, most of us sit there and wait for something to destroy everything. It’s a bit like NASCAR, transcribed to downhill legs on a sailing racecourse. The fact is, cataclysmic incidents are what high-speed racing multihulls are all about, most of the time. Even multihull sailors admit that. We respect that courage and everything else that makes multihulls unique. But is this what America’s Cup is about?


Q: How fast is USA-17 sailing here? A: 22kts - Impressive? Very. Spectacular, yes, but not in the way you would think. And not on TV. - Richard Gladwell Click Here to view large photo

(5) Once speed is diminished by television, multihull racing is (wait for it) boring. It’s about straight-line, drag-racing speed. It’s about the fear of failure. In America’s Cup, so far, it hasn’t been about tactical, competitive action. So far, multihull racing has shown us long, boring legs of immense speed that we cannot discern, except when one boat is faster than another.

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