Hunting is legal (to a point) in match racing.

Can make things a bit more interesting.

You've got to know your rules and ump calls - but when you've never seen anything like these two boats race before, how do you make the call?

Personally I think BMWO was the better boat BUT I think Alinghy lost the cup mostly on

-1- bad handling and tactics.

It wouldn't be the first time a slower boat won the AC by employing superior tacktics. Unnecessary pre-start penalties REALLY don't help and can have a huge effect on moral. Low speed tacks are also stupid to attempt on a cat this size (if not at any size). And what about the slow reacher set after rounding the mark in race 1 ? Rule of thumb in F18/F16 racing is that each additional second required to set the spi and make it draw costs you 10 mtr. It took A. about a minute to get that reacher drawing = 600 mtr out the door. BMWO's set was right on the mark.

-2- bad sail choice

Flying the genoa upwind against the wingmast. That just aggrevates the pointing disadvantage of a sloop soft sail setup. (overlapping) Genoa's always point lower then a blade jib. That much we know from lots of beach cat racing. Size of the jib is NOT that important as long as it is sufficiently large to achieve the positive interaction between mainsail and jib. Main is less likely to stall (boat settles down) and jib develops full drive at a much smaller angle of attack to apparent wind due to updraft of the mainsail.

-3- Having the disadvantaged design

There is no arguing that the Wing sail is superior on the downwind legs. The advantage upwind seems to be smaller as I think the A-cat wingmast experiment of Bob Hall in one of the recent A-cat worlds also indicated. The ability of the wing to operate efficiently (and not stall) at large angles of attack favour it especially on the offwind courses. Having said that A. could in my opinion have been more competitive with better handling and tactical choices. I saw a huge improvement of A. when comparing the 2nd race with the 1st. Was that the result of Loick Peyron at the helm (and also helped by some lucky windshifts) ?


End conclusion;

Alinghy was soundly beaten by BMWO on all fronts; tactics, handling and boat design

I also do think the AC is inherently unfair. The USA is afterall a collection of 50 (independent) states under a single name whereas all other nations must find the resources and technology inside a much smaller area with much smaller industrial bases. I think it was a great achievement of team Alinghy to even have build A5 in the mountainous region of Zwitserland. This nation is not known for their shipbuilding credentials or access to proper (offshore) testing grounds! Point in case; it was argued that they couldn't use 3D sails because the only sailmaker capable of making these at this size was located in the USA. I like team BMWO better for their presentations and willingness to provide proper online coverage and credit to the other team but Ernesto may have a point when he refers to the AC setup as favouring the USA.

Nevertheless A. was soundly beaten.

Personally I see no reason to favour the tri over the cat or to attribute the loss of A. to 10 feet less overall width. A. is also lighter and as we know the smaller F16's are as fast as the wider and heavier F18's. It is all in the ratio's and NOT in the absolute sizes.

I love BMWO wing and have alwasy had a thing for large tri's but I also think Alinghy has build an absolutely beautyful boat. I would have loved to have seen more tight racing between the two.

If only the two of them can now agree on BMWO putting their soft sail rig on, take E. of the helm in favour of Peyron and do a demo race series of 7 races as a promo. Let Alinghy get some experience in wit handling and then go head to head to show large multihulls can result in exciting sailboat match racing. Afterall both have sunk enormous amounts of money in these projects and it seems such a waste to have done so for only 2 races.

Wouter

Ohh, there is one thing I don't like about the sites like sailing anarchy.


Every gain made by BMWO is attributed to the design of DOGZILLA of the superiority of the BMWO crew and never to any favourable windshift.

while

Every gain by Alinghy is invariable "explained away" by refering to favourable differences in pressure or a "lucky" windshift.

They bitch endlessly about E. and A. but act themselves as a bunch of the greatest vinegar pissers I have ever met.

Do I like the personality of Ernesto ? I don't know, but I'm beginning to understand why he is giving the cold shoulder to any reporter from such fan bases.


I think the BMWO team themselves are alot more respectful of their opponents and the varying conditions then their fan base.

Point in case. When BMWO rolled up their jib in race 1 team A. won back alot of ground over the next 10 minutes. Spithill simply explained that such a sail change is always followed by a period of dialing in the rig to the new settings; obviously a thing team A. also had to content with when they switched over from the genoa to the solent jib (blade jib) and BMWO made great gains. On Sailing Anarchy this 10 minute stretch of losing ground by BMWO is simple ignored alltogether and they make it sound like removing the BMWO jib was like hitting the turbo boost button, when it REALLY wasn't. Of course they make a great point of saying the wing just motored over A. when A. made their sail change. Could it be that E. and fan bases like Sailing Anarchy deserve eachother ? I don't really see the latter occupying the high ground here (where team BMWO itself does)


Tell it like it is guys !

Wouter

You don't have to bear off and drive at them, you can also hold your course and ease sheets, slow down so they cannot duck so easily, to make them tack or go way below the layline. Either way, Alinghi did nothing to stop them.

And remember how BMWO ended up behind Alinghi in the first place, after having won the start? The also viloated Rule #1: Stay between you competition and the mark.

After having won the start they went way out to the left instead of tacking back to cover Alinghi. Alinghi got a good lift and BMWO missed out, ending up behind.

I dont know if this is a fact, but if A5 was as unprepared, not knowing what gave best VMG in all and any condition as it looked like, what have they been doing while sailing the boat?

I'm pretty sure that the only match racing rules that applied were the starts and the penalty system (and the last minute decision by the PRO to have starboard roundings). Fleet racing rules applied in all other areas - done so apparently out of concern for safety and handling. Alinghi couldn't hunt BMWO on that crossing because fleet racing rules applied there.

The other problem is that both boats tacked so slowly and when you are tacking, you have no rights until the new tack is established.

BMWO nailed the layline which kept Alinghi from being able to tack underneath them. They were too close to BMWO to be able to tack on their line because they wouldn't have get through the tack without incurring a penalty. Lastly, if they tacked too close above BMWO's line, BMWO could have (potentially) gotten a lift and/or steered more to weather also incurring a penalty to Alinghi. Alinghi had to get far enough away from BMWO to do her tack.

So you're saying that was the best possible move for A.?

It was all they had without standing a substantial risk of another penalty.

Hmm, rules again. If BMW/O was already on the layline, would they be allowed to sail above it?

I thought A. could have tacked sooner.

Oh come on, that implies that BB knows a little something about getting around a race course, that can't be can it? (yes that's my flavor of sarcasm)

Butterworth was on the boat? My questions are more about understanding the rules than second guessing the tactics.

Crew List

Bow 1: Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen (NED)
Bow 2: Curtis Blewett (CAN)
Bow 3: Jan Dekker (RSA/FRA)
Pitman: Rodney Ardern (NZL)
Trimmer upwind: Simon Daubney (NZL)
Trimmer downwind: Nils Frei (SUI)
Mainsail trimmer: Warwick Fleury (NZL)
Traveller: Pierre-Yves Jorand (SUI)
Helmsman: Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI)
Tactician: Brad Butterworth (NZL)
Strategist: Murray Jones (NZL)
Navigator: Juan Vila (ESP)
Floater: Loïck Peyron (FRA)
Pre-start: Peter Evans (NZL)


http://www.cupinfo.com/en/alinghi33-press054-race-two-crew-feb-14-list.php

They would if it was their proper course...they could have been anticipating a header and were trying to get as much height as possible to ensure they could fetch the mark. Proving otherwise would be very difficult.

Wisely, like most here, I'm not going to pretend to be a match racing expert. And, I didn't get to see the races, so all I know is what I've read here.

But, it's very possible that on an open course at full speed, they were not comfortable getting into match racing maneuvers or tactics. Regardless of whether the match racing rules applied, the mindset (tactics and strategy) of racing just one other boat could have led them to try things that would force a penalty rather than get them around the course faster. But, they chose to go for speed.

To a person (and yes, they're all monohull sailors), I've talked to a number of folks at the high end of USSA, and if you listen between the lines, the main reason the next cup is likely to be on monohulls is that they don't consider fast boats (as fast as multis) to provide good match racing, and they believe that at its core, that's what the AC is supposed to be.

From what I've read and heard elsewhere, the best match racing boats are boats that are well matched (to one another), and go roughly the same speed upwind and downwind. This is to prevent a boat from getting so far out front that it becomes a horse race. They want to see a knife fight from beginning to end.

The other reason the next cup will be on monohulls is that no one at that end of the game really has an interest in multihulls going forward. Several months ago, there was a press conference with Alinghi, BMWO, and several other folks. One of them (I forget exactly who now) was asked about using multihulls in a future cup, he started to explain why he thought it would be a good idea, and the facial expressions, body language and groans from everyone else in the room was incredible. They all looked like they wanted to puke and leave the room.

As for this cup, I agree with the others who have said it was all about boatspeed. Especially in race 1, when BMWO simply ran past them. Yes, this was primarily due to design, but from the accounts given on this forum, my sense is that they also had better boat handling to keep the speed going on all points of sail.

Mike

Calls to bring back the mono's to the AC. Mostly due to the fact that the 2 multi's we just saw were so slow in maneuvering....


Our days in the sun are over I'm afraid. Its become blatantly clear to me that we've made very few converts and even made some hate us even more for some reason.

Just my casual observation.

Not that surprising is it? When I told my dad the 33rd AC was going to be sailed in giant 90'+ multihulls he literally sneered at me ( I grew up crewing for him on 4kt sh!@ boxes, had a blast too ). Tad I'm afraid is spot on here, and there is still only a minority of mono sailors that are even open to the idea of another AC on multihulls, and the rally cry will be they can't tack. Larry has made it clear that the cup race will be mono's again.

If you are directing this at my article, Swiss Miss on Sailling Anarchy (scroll down, no link yet), I'm gonna tell it to you like it is right now, just like I've done to you for years.

You do one post above explaining how USA 17 worked over Alinghi, then you start cry-babying right after that. Sounds like you should have come to the show here so you can throw EB some softballs. I did say it was a windshift. Listen to the broadcast. The gain Alinghi did make was because of a pressure patch. In your childish rant above, you even said that USA pulled away from Alinghi during that time. Don't put words in my mouth, like "turbo boost." I never said that, only that they pulled away......AND THEY DID! I had a nice talk with the wing desingers and they gave me some insight about the move and MORE, which I'll do a piece soon.

I have never taken the high ground and SA has never claimed that either. You obviously have no idea how this all works.

Wouter, if you're going to call out someone, just come out with it and don't say "like" in front of it. There are no other sites like SA.

We did tell it like it is this week. You know your buddy EB banned us and any other media who ask him the tough questions, right? To me, if he wanted to set it straight they would invite all media, not just the ones that help boost his Stalinist grip of the Cup, but he got owned in every way, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

What am I thinking, you are the absolute expert on multihulls that nobody has heard of in Holland. Keep bringing it! I get so much joy every time I decide to waste my time replying to you.

JC, what did you think of "the cross" coming up to A mark? It's very tough to judge speed and distance from my little computer screen, did it look like Alinghi could have put a lee bow on BMWO, or slowed down and forced BMWO to 2 tack in?

As soon as they let them go by, still on the layline, I knew that race was over. What did it look like out on the water? Was there anything they could have done to prevent that?

They would have gotten rolled. I only saw a 20 meter lead on Virtual Eye.