...And didn't get one.

Game over. Let's hope they keep clear heads and cats. Let's also hope we get a USA contender for the next one.

Mike

This has saddened me much more than I thought it would.

I was in a funk all yesterday afternoon. Sigh.

I hadn't even thought of that until this morning...indeed. What if Ellison isn't interested in it again?

I don't think there has ever been one without an American team in it, though.

One thing for sure - Nathan and Draper don't agree with me very often - hah! I couldn't hear the broadcast because of my conference call (that I'm still on...as you can tell, the call is really exciting).

Don't know if this should make you feel better or worse, but remember that they weren't in the booth because they were winning...

We need a USA team that can take the Cup back. There was at least one recent finals without an American boat.

Mike

Well if the rumored 80% rule goes into effect then a lot of standing rosters are going to be changing. Wonder if Jimmy is going to survive as skipper at OTUSA... I love the guy but a lot of the pre-starts could be laid directly at his feet and we all know how Larry is...

I'd love to see NYYC go after it, just so it has a prayer of coming back to Newport.

Mike

SA is posting Luna Rossa IS the next challenger

Confirmed, Luna Rossa.

Scroll down this page for a video with Ian Cook making the announcement (7:35 am, Kiwi time):

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/spo...dmits-he-stunned-team-nzs-transformation

Mike

Well we know that Luna Rossa isn't totally opposed to multihulls in the cup - what do we expect to happen with the AC50 class? Same thing as what happened to the AC72?

I don't know about you guys but I thought this round was incredibly boring, with very few lead changes during the racing. I blame the course layout for that, starting with the very first leg being a blast reach rather than a traditional upwind leg, where tactics and strategy figure in just as much as speed. With the first leg being a blast reach, it became just a drag race causing enough separation by the time they turned upwind, all the lead boat had to do was cover the trailing boat.

Blow the start?

Game over.

But even when Oracle won the start, they got rolled right away, which wouldn't have happened if the first leg had been a beat. Sure, they probably would have gotten passed later in the race, because it looked to me like ETNZ's boat was just faster, and/or Ashby is just that much better at trimming the wing.

I have much respect for and congratulations to ETNZ, they were clearly the better boat/team, but I still wish the course had been upwind/downwind rather than starting off with a blast reach. It just made it so dull to watch, not at all as exciting as the last cup in San Fran.

Perhaps the greater wind and tide out there in the SFO Bay added to the constant lead changes as well, but this time around it was really dull.

Not sure i'd agree with that Timbo, but I haven't seen an upwind start with these boats. Maybe they would push each other around more before hitting the line, but in my mind, it would end up being a very slow start to the race with each team trying to luff the other.

At least with the offwind start, they can hook or gap... Or maybe even peel a boat off at the mark?

I'd love to think these multihulls are good for more than one AC cycle, but I doubt the costs would justify.

I like the youth AC series, but only because it's fleet racing with folks that make more mistakes than the pros. Kind of like farm league for baseball.

Nationality rules would be cool, but we'd probably get destroyed unless USA could come up with a funding mechanism to attract the top talent.

And I REALLY want Ashby to spill the beans on all that development...

Press Conference here

Well, even IF there is a nationality rule, there are ways to become a citizen of another country. There have been nationality rules - particularly when NZ last held the cup if I remember correctly...and the people that were going through the paperwork to re-declare citizenship to meet the letter of the rule almost made it a farce. I do support a nationality clause but it won't ever work out close to the ideal that yearns for it. Added to which, instead of looking for that US talent, they'd probably look for ways to speed up citizenship applications....but I'm not convinced that we would necessarily be down and out if we had to draw largely from US talent resources. There would certainly be some long term needs to be addressed, though.

I do hope they don't move too far from this format so we can get another cup cycle within two years. If the go back to the drawing board, it would probably be at least three years before we have another event.

OK, so back to NZ control systems...the rear cyclist does have some sort of detailed controls and Outteridge suggests that he is indeed controlling the flight of the system. Having heard that before, I had wondered how he could possibly accomplish that with his head down...there is one shot showing his control device which is an interesting twist on the manual input:

So he seems to have a display that shows where the board is and where the board SHOULD be for stable flight. He has a slider lever that he can move up and down and chase the target. The slider switch should technically constitute a separate and isolate-able device from the data feedback system...and the input is manual. That's an interesting solution to the ruleset.

https://www.facebook.com/americascup/videos/1791831947509897/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

Well is that what it's come down to?

Not just the sailing, but really foil control?

Seems pretty stupid to me that they don't just let it be an 'open' format based on a box rule.

What I'd like to see is a max/min weight, max sail area, max foil area, and max hull length, then let the designers figure out what's fastest.

Brings up another issue, how do the A cats (and any other full foiling class) measure/handicap each other?

Do they restrict max sail area and foil area, min wt and max beam? Or just measure foils and sail area and minimum wt?

It seems to me, once the boat is up on the foils, all that matters is sail area (horse power) and foil lift/control. As we just saw, keeping the boat up on the foils, going fast, for the entire race is most critical.

Our 'Old School' idea of max hull length is no longer valid if you are going to spend the entire race up on the foils.

But still the physics is the same; Thrust (sail area) plus Lift (foil surface) must overcome Weight and Drag.

So, do we need a new measurement formula that measures Thrust+Lift vs Weight+Drag?

Can a Moth race head to head against a full foiling A Cat, if their L/D numbers match up?

That's what I'm wondering about.

Great vid! thanks

In the end, it's really about cost isn't it? Or at least, the PERCEPTION of cost. By going OD on a lot of the boat elements, conceivably an entry level team could spend less on getting into the event. By having more of the design open to development, that's more money and time to spend on developing the boat, more need to have multiple boats, and more need to have large crews to sail and man them all. The OD wrinkle was added to try and get the costs down so more competitors would sign up.

A-cats have a pretty basic set of design rules. It literally fits on one sheet of paper with the exception of the interpretations. They're available here: http://www.a-cat.org/sites/default/files/ISAF%20A%20CAT%20rules%202010_0_0.pdf

Rule #8 was added in order to limit foiling and it specifies a minimum "tip distance" for the daggerboards in a down position from the centerline of the boat (to limit the horizontal section of the foil) and that the boards must be inserted from the top of the deck. It does not limit the dimension of the board in any way other than those two parameters. If you build a board that's too thick or too long, you eat a drag penalty. Two short or too narrow and you don't get enough side bite or lift.

The rule works, mostly, but I think the guys figured out work-arounds faster than imagined. I would argue that the rules now making foiling difficult, but not impossible, but still pretty impractical for the common person sailing in the normal conditions. They've essentially straddle the fence with the rule and perhaps it was the right call. A-cat participation isn't terrible but practically none of the foiling guys show up to our lake regattas anymore (the conditions are not very likely to suit them) and I would argue that more than before choose to avoid events based on the forecast conditions. On the other hand, a full on foiling rule set would have made an entire foiling switch for the class and probably caused a lot of a-cat sailors to cut bait. Or a tighter rule making foiling all but impossible might have driven guys with money and time to other classes where they could foil. All decisions would carry some sort of damage to the class and I think all options were not great but that the class choose the better path.

At any rate, my point is that the a-cat class has a very short and very simple rule set - and it works. However, we also don't have billionaires in the ranks and the equipment war has been kept somewhat to a minimum just by cost and the free resources of the people that currently participate. You will spend a good deal of money to live at the pointy end of the fleet but you can also have a good result with an older non-foiling boat if the conditions are reasonably mild. Personally, I love sailing the boat...it's incredibly responsive and easy to handle/maneuver. I got back into A-cat even though everyone else is foiling just because it's a great way to spend an afternoon on the water.

What were the AC 'box rules' going into this regatta?

Seems they were allowed to change their foils, it was mentioned several times in that last race that Oracle had 'added some tip length' to their light air foils.

Was there a restriction on max foil size?

Still, I thought the last event (2013 in SFO) was much more exciting with more wind and more high speed sailing, (45kts vs 22 in Bermuda) with more lead changes, etc. and the tide in/out of the bay made picking the right side of the course so much more important as well.

This light air regatta in Bermuda about put me to sleep on most races. I wonder exactly where the Kiwi's will hold the next AC regatta.

Um, didn't they have reaching starts in SF???

Mike