Great start. LR has shown improvement. . . right up to the boundary penalty.

Here is the full replay and the edit of the jib incident.

ETNZ impresses me more every time they hit the water. Sure hope Oracle can answer. These guys are ridiculously fast...

Mike

check out the high tech hobie bob.

Good point...but they're not throwing stuff in the water that I have to dodge as we proceed up the course. Consider if LR had been closer and they couldn't avoid hitting the jib and got fouled up in it. What then?

Of course there are rules to cover this. LR would have wasted no time protesting had there been a foul.

It would have been nice if the announcers walked us through the rules that applied. If they did, I missed it.

Mike

That'll be useful when the top half of the wing breaks off. I can't see it doing much more than that.

So now dropping stuff in the water is actually a valid strategy.

All that teams need to do is get a roll of cellophane, and drop it to leward to try and foul the opposing boat?

Isn't there a rule that says that you cannot discharge anything off of your boat according to the RRS? They had to stop using rubber bands on spinnakers because of it.

I know in the 45s you could drop a crew member and not have to come back. We've seen the old AC monohulls drop kites and stuff off the boat with no penalty. I would presume the rules allow you to drop stuff on the 72s (clearly since NZ received no penalty) but I would hope it limits the James Bond devices. ;-)

Hence the new term "drop it like a bad jib".

Maybe Snoop Dog will re-make his song for that....

Yes there is a rule in RRS. No, the AC does not use all of the rules we do...

Mike

Just watching the replay. It seems Tucker and Andy have never heard of A and C class cats and really don't have a concept of what headsails do. Stating they won't be able to go as HIGH without the jib. Clueless.

Any body have any more info about the "strings" in the wheel that Andy Green said control ride height?

I have thought for years they should have full contact cat racing on the X-games... that would get people back interested in the sport ...

kidding aside, amazing foil to foil gybe's without the headsail...

I had wild visions of green and red yarn attached to the wheel trying to figure out how in the heck they would use this, attached to a wheel no less, to control anything.

I think I remember seeing someone (Oracle) with some sort of wire that went around the inside perimeter of the wheel - I thought it was structural to keep the wheel as light as possible but maybe it's part of this string system they mentioned.

I agree - but our group will be a tough crowd to get the details up to our standards while appealing to the masses!

I was astonished at how little (if anything) NZ lost without the jib. It looked like NZ got hooked into a big puff on their first jib-less downwind run but LR wasn't going to catch them anyway. Jibs will be important to maneuverability at the pre-start but maybe we see them put them on furlers and just get them out of the way as the wind builds?

LR and oracle both have a line around the inside of the wheel, but like you, I can't see how it controls anything. I've heard it mentioned twice. Plus ,I thought all that foil stuff had to be fixed/ non-adjustable.
The only use I see for the jib is getting out of irons if you got luffed up in the pre start, and the drag penalty may not be worth it. You'd have to believe with all the money dumped into R&D they'd have this figured out. C's and A's use only mains/wings because it is the most efficient use of the allowed sail area. Marstrom also advocates this on their cats big and small.
The other idea is maybe ETNZ dumped the jib on purpose to give their sister ship a chance at getting a point and not being behind the 5 min. cut off.

Rudders are fixed but daggers are fully adjustable.

From the camera angles shown, I was very impressed by how aggressive ETNZ was during the final minute before the start.

Mike

I'm not a fan of the 2 minutes of time in the box. That just is not enough for any real jostling for position. You pretty much seal your fate in your initial positioning.

It's wet.
Let's wish them good luck.
Artemis Racing Launches Blue Boat