I guess that cost would be an issue? How much for a wingsail? $10-15K?
Wingsails are also very impractical and fragile when pitchpoling, could also be a factor.

USA17 is without a doubt the most impractical boat on the planet, it is not able to go into any port that doesn't have breakwaters and 2 monster cranes.

I can think of 2 partial wing designs that were tried in N.A. In 1988 John Lindahl tried a partial wing i.e. large leading edge made of composites and a soft trailing edge (sail material) and in the late sixties there were 2 early A,s with the same arrangement in Canada. Don't know about Europe.

Fred Smith

Anyone have any pictures of the wings the C Class cats are using? I'm wondering if they have a slot like BMWO?

Am I the only one who thought the A5 had a major design flaw by virtue of its "undercarriage" structural design? It often created substantial drag when the boat came down off flying a hull to tack or jibe ... unless the water was flat calm. Just one of many elements that put her at a disadvantage.

As to the wingsail, curved dagger boards and other elements of the BMWO tri...do you have to get hit in the head with a brick before you realize what you just witnessed?...the boat characteristics you cling so tenaciously to were just thoroughly crushed by the future of multihull design...doesn't matter whether you acknowledge it or not...its here.

I think the C-class wings are more complicated in some ways, and less in others, than BMWO`s wing. The C-class have 3-part wings with 2 slots, as they need to be more efficient as they have no headsails.
BMWO has the 9 or so adjustable flaps all the way up the wing - this is actually not a very aerodynamic solution as there must be tip or edge vortices off each top & bottom end of each flap when they are opened to simulate a twisted mainsail.
I believe Cogito had a way of inducing twist up the trailing edge of the rear flap of the entire wing, without having any gaps between the sections, which would seem like a more refined solution, probably why they won the LAC several times with the same mostly unaltered design.
BMWO designers probably took this all into account and chose the simplest solution which they could, knowing that a headsail would assist the wing develop power, something missing from C-class cats. They also know that they were up against a soft sail, so ultimate efficiency was not a priority, as long as it was more efficient and versatile than a soft sail they knew they had a winner.
Stop me now if I`m talking rubbish.

Couldn't say it better.

What I wanted to say is that we see only the result but never the reason of what happend on TV. We don't know about wind, waves, other boats around, black out of systems, whatever. We just see the boat is in irons or Alinghi is in the no go zone. And without knowing any details, I will not judge about the crews.


I haved sailed boots with wheels and tiller. I always prefer to have a tiller. Go sailing in the night and you know what I mean. You can have sensors and indicators but the information you get through your hands ears and eyes is the fastest and easiest to understand. My personal opinion, but I think many will agree.

One special thing on both boats is that the boards are very forward (in front of the front beam). A normal boat would have inacepatble strong weather helm and might even be directional instable, if not compensated by special means. Maybe the rudder control is an irreversible servo control system, maybe with an artificial feel system. I know that's quite nerdy what I am speaking about and I will not go into detail, but it gives you an idea that these boats are much more than just big beach cats.

Cheers,

Klaus

Dig through this. I think there a couple of links with pix.

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=101656&hl=fred

Wouter-
Dude, I wasted my time beating you down in this forum years and years ago and I'm not going to anymore. It all started eight year ago when I schooled you on the Marshall plan and the US rebuilding Europe. I was just starting back racing catamarans then. If I didn't love the sport so much, I would have never returned to this forum after reading your posts. I guarantee you drive more people away from this forum and catsailing than anything productive you have ever done in your life.

With that being said, goodbye.

JC:
For the last year or so SA has been on the warpath against anything related to Alinghi and EB.
IMO some of this stuff has turned into a personal vendetta between Scott, Clean and Alinghi, this has made their reporting very biased to BMWO and any outcome not resulting in a win would not be acceptable to them.

I just hope you dont get pulled into their anger to much. :-)

Anyway, the ice is thawing next week so we can get some sailing in!
Cheers.

Ben didn't do much sailing with that wing before the worlds or after it. I guarantee you if he built another it would be different and better. I think it all boils down to a point of practicality. The C classes don't race regularly, therefore the hassle of the wing is justifiable,and the venues are spaced(physically) accordingly. If someone wanted to deal with all the inconveniences it could be a dominating force,but it would take a lot of time,money and care.

"Although the Americas Cup is raced in the match racing format, it is not (and never has been) a "match race". Match racing is meant to be run with identical boats. It is a test of boathandling and tactics, not boatspeed. The Americas Cup is a technology race, intended to award the fastest boat."

I know, and agree. But, that is the line that a lot of these folks like to take to make their case to return to monohulls. They, of course, will then spend all sorts of money to get the fastest boat that they can buy (technology).

Mike

I've raced against Ben at Lake Hopatcong with his wing upwind, and my 50lbs of leverage advantage was about the same as his wing, and we were equal at times, and he (in my opinion) was afraid to put the bows down and use the wing to its full advantage, if he got it right, he was way faster. Downwind the wing was way faster and with practice he would have had a bigger advantage. BMWO proved that wings are faster than soft sails. On a small boat, making it work it is difficult, but with a crew of 10 BWMO absolutely had an advantage.

This cup was won by 1. the wing, 2 sailing mistakes made by A.

Wouter - where have you been hiding?



Wouter you are a socialist idiot. This had nothing to do with 50 states, this was 2 billionaires spending 100M each on a boat race.

I've missed your point of view, ever though you are dope.

Bill

I'd quit sailing if I had to deal with a wing that doesn't keep me airborne.

Karl, if you got it going fast enough and then leaned it sideways, (cant it to windward) or just before you crashed, it would get you ariborne. Keeping yourself airborne is a skill you would then have to learn, kind of like the Moth sailors have to learn how to stay up on the foils. I think the wing concept has a lot of potential, it just needs more development time.

Time and Money that is...If I had unlimited time and money, I'd be on the phone to Mr. Hall right now, talking about a new wing for my new fully foiling, canting wing, 100% carbon A cat. Maybe I could add a kite-board type sail for the downwind work? ;^)

There was a windsurfer type thing called a wind weapon, that had the sail mounted on a central pivot. You'd turn it vertically to get speed ,then rotate it horizontally and take off and hang from under it. I've still got some VHS tapes(yes Jake, tapes) of them using them in the Gorge.

Another thing a lot of folks aren't thinking about with the wing fever that's going around is that when you flip generally it's catastrophic.Smaller cats tend to flip more than bigger ones so add that into your budget.

What Budget??

Performance potential yes. Worth it, er, um......eek! I'm pissy when I have to take the boat apart anyway. Having to deal with and transport a 30' wing sail would probably end with a click, pop and then the back of my head exploding.

I watched Ben mount his wing, he had it in a box on the trailer, in two sections. It didn't take him too long (less than an hour) and actually it looked much easier than me rigging my spin cat by myself. Now, on the crash thing, yeah, you don't want to land on it! That would slow you down and be expensive, I don't know how hard it would be to right it either, might be easier as it would float quite high and the wind would help you much more than with a conventional sail.

Just finished reading the thread and someone asked for photos of C Class wings, maybe you? Anyway, the best pictures were posted here, or at least the link to their site, for I have them on file. Just send me a PM with the email and I'll send them. They exceed the 100Kb size allowed for attachments here.