Podcast with Spithill and Russell Coutts

USA Today - Is this the America’s Cup equivalent of storming the court?

USA Today - America's Cup: Believe in miracles!

USA Today - Oracle pulls off stunning comeback in America's Cup

Who was giving the motivational talks?

Setting his sights on the America’s Cup World Series in Venice, Fowler flew himself to Italy on his own dime, lending a hand to the ORACLE TEAM USA shore team.

Meet Kinley Fowler

Think Jake's screaming at the screen right about now? Ha

The best part of the presser: Larry said that it would be great if more kids start sailing, and if they sail HOBIE CATS instead of Lasers!

He later botched it a bit by talking about Lasers a lot, but did circle back and again mentioned getting kids onto cats!!!!!

We need to find a way to tap into this momentum...

Mike

Computer science wins the 34th America's Cup

From the above quoted article: "This is an automated computer controlled fly-by-wire system that adjusts Oracle's hydrofoils automatically."


I'm just a little skeptical of the above "Fly by wire" report. Not because it's not possible, certainly it is, but in order to have a system like that, one additional thing you need is a stable reference point (in airplanes we have laser ring gyro's) to define whatever 'stable' attitude you are trying to attain.

Now, if instead of saying 'fully automatic' he meant 'electric/hydrolic' vs. manual, for control of the foil tilt system, that I would believe.

OR...maybe they actually did install some type of gyros into the hulls, and hook them up to the foil tilt system?? That would explain why all of a sudden Oracle was able to start foiling upwind?

Timbo, that's pretty easy to achieve:

a) they can put a laser ring gyro or MEMS 6-DOF sensor on the AC72 for AOA and a host of other variables (likely existed from day 1)
b) multiple sensor technologies exist that give you height above water.
c) all of it is pretty darn cheap, save a laser ring gyro which is unnecessary (not navigating from point A to point B 3000 miles away)

I've been thinking about this all week, it's really the only solution I can see making a notable speed gain in the short time frame they had to modify the boat. I'm not sure it's class legal, and I'm not sure I believe the report that it's true.

This guy is full of it. He bases his opinion on what TV commetators have said. Good luck with that.

Many years ago (16?) when I was teaching a kids sailing class in Optis, along comes the Hobie Wave. When I saw it I thought it would replace the Opti, the kids hated the slow, small, solo little Optis, but they LOVED putting two or three of them on the Wave, and going much faster too!

I know we've had this discussion many times before, and the reason the Opti is more popular as a youth trainer is only because a Yatch Club can buy/store/maintain more Opti's on site, easier, than the same number of Waves. I'll bet if Hobie could design some type of a storage rack system, and cheap/light/easy type of beach wheels to launch the Waves, they could sell a lot more of them to the Yacth Club youth programs. Still, you'd need a beach at the club to launch them from, and many Yacth Clubs just don't have a beach available, but a set of floating docks, which makes it a PITA to launch/retrieve a Wave from.

I once saw a Hobie 16 that lived on a 12'x 12' floating square, because there was no beach anywhere, but that was just one Hobie 16, you'd need a pretty hefty rack system to store 10 Hobie Waves on a float like that. (and a bigger float!)

is there anything more official about this or just standard internet bs?
It would explain a lot, but not buying it until I hear something more reliable.

Didnt find an official statement but this guys resume gives it some credibility: http://oracle-team-usa.americascup.com/team/tom-speer

The system would never be fully automatic though, it would just tell the crew what setting to use.

It would also have to have very quick action to the daggerboards/rudders to be able to adjust them so quickly, they'd have had to completely re-design their inputs to the hydrolic control systems. Not saying they didn't but man, that's a lot of R+D work in not much time!

The 777 has stability augmentation through the fly by wire control inputs, that you never even notice when you are hand flying it. When you hit turbulence or change your configuration (flaps/gear) it puts in opposite controls to dampen out the bumps/changes, so quickly (supposedly many times per second?) you never feel a thing.

I suppose Oracle could have put a similar system on board their boat, to control their foil tilt, that would be a game changer for sure, and probably against some rule, so no wonder they won't tell anyone what exactly they changed to get that thing going faster upwind!

I heard some rumblings that NZ started to lodge a protest (or at least an inquiry) over a system like it a week or so ago and I think they asked for an interpretation of the rules. I think the consensus was that as long as the motive power was from the sailors, that having a computer adjust the position of the foils was OK. I think ironing this out was a big part of Oracle's new found upwind speed.

Wow, that's going to change a lot of stuff going forward!

So, do we "Go Back" to 100% human power, no computers, or do we go to the next step, fully automated Drone Foiler racing?

Heck, you could sit on the dock with a joystick and never even get wet, and still win the America's Cup!

I hate to sound like the Old Fart Monohull Only proponants, but really, where do you draw the line on this stuff?

Yeah, but his blog "insinuates" that the SAS was the reason they started winning 10 days ago. The reader can interpret it wrong and it gets lost in translation through the web. Watch the presser, they talk about what changes were made. Also listen to Coutts in the podcast.

Anybody watch The Today Show this morning? Spithill and guys were interviewed after partying all night without sleep, and it showed. Good for them, wish I was there with them.

Tom is an aerodynamics guy, not a controls guy. The fields are linked, and Tom is a genius in many ways, but they would need additional expertise to get the automatic foil control implemented. All is doable with enough $$$