TOPIC: America's Cup

Has nothing to do with classic,actually more with the future. Those hulls with the reverse bow look along with the foil on Cat approach is just mind blowing to me.The race that once seemed to take hours is over in seemingly less the 30 minutes.A drag race now !! Nothing like the possibility of having a sailboat past you like your standing still with speeds in the mid 50's and in 3-4 foot sea's.

Doesn't seem to be too many wind fans here. I always wondered why they were not represented here. I always wanted to try it. But I guess I like my fossil fuels to much.

They really are amazing machines. I remember when Dennis Connor first brought a cat to the race and I was pretty pissed at the time because he was breaking with tradition. Now I can't wait to see more cool stuff out of those guys.

I am just an old duffer I guess. When the rules changed, I lost interest. What is wrong with the sloops? Speed is all relative anyhow, but the classic lines of the 12 meters and the J boats, were just beautiful.JMHO

I believe that the winner gets to mandate what they are going to use for a hull at the next America's Cup and that is how they evolved into what you are seeing now. It took me a while to get used to the hydrofoil cats. They are unique and can cause bodily harm to the crew if anything goes wrong at those high speeds,so there is that going on vs the old and slow sloops.Face it two boats going 45 mph on a collision course is more entertaining than the slowww mono-hull sloops doing the same thing. They still try to out tack the other boat and play the cat and mouse game,only much much faster.NZ will probably win out today,event on TV starts around 4-4:30 EST NBCsports.To me most boat's are enjoyable to look at,tugboat scull,destroyer,lake freighter,you name it,there all good!

As I have mentioned here before, I am a long time sailor and am totally hooked on the America's Cup. Of course spending 18 years racing beach cats (Hobie's, etc) doesn't hurt. This is what I used to do on a lot of steriods. I got into glassics because there is not a lot of wind around here in August and I needed something to do.

A little history:

The America's Cup is governed by a document called the Deed of Gift that was established in 1857 when the owners of the schooner America gave the trophy to the New York Yacht Club as a challenge trophy. There are very few restrictions on boat design in the Deed (90 ft waterline max, etc). It opens itself up to whatever the current state-of-that-art technologies allow. The Deed permits the Defender and Challenger of Record (first challenger) to determine the format. Whoever wins the Cup, look for a challenge to be issued a few seconds after finishing.

Interestingly, wing sails are not all that new. In 1980 a catamaran named Patient Lady V won the International C-Class Catamaran Trophy (aka the Little America's Cup) with a wing sail. After that, most of the C-Class cats had wings.

The revese sheer bows (also called wave piercing bows) have proven to be way more efficient going through the water. Most small cats built since 2000 use this technology.

Hydrofoils are not that new either although their application to sail is more current. There is a dinghy class called a Moth, which is a development class (few restrictions on design). They have been sailing with foils for several years and most of the sailing, both upwind and downwind, is done foilborne. Foils have also shown up as test platforms on other classes of racing sailboats. There is a boat called L'Hydroptere (ironicall in SF right now) which is a hydrofoil sloop which held the world sailing speed record (51+ knots) until it was smashed about a year ago. They are currently gearing up for a SF-HI recoird challenge.

Any new class has it's problems until everything is figured out. When the IACC class boat (the last monohull class used in the AC), the Australians had one break in half while sailing and sink in 2000 ft of water off San Diego. The J-Class boats from the early 1900s were considered too large to handle safely. Fortunatley no one previously had died, but it was harrowing. There have been a lot of safety precautions added since the tragic death of Andrew "Bart" Simpsom (including all sailors carry oxygen tanks in case they get trapped under the boat during a capsize).

Everyone is on a learning curve, which Oracle seems to be getting better with every day.

My guess is that the next cup, whoever wins, will be sailing in 72s or something similar. Technology does not go backwards. As far as its impact on the boating world, you will probably see foilborne beach cats sailed on a regular basis in the next 2-3 years. Experience and development will increase safety, speed and handling. Wings are too expensive to be practical at this point. This exposure of multihulls to the sailing community will probably make them more mainstream.

I have always thought that those that take something into the future and those that preserve the past are equally important and should learn to peacefully co-exist. I live in a county which is home port to 3 square-rigged ships and about a dozen nuclear powered submarines. Each one respects the other.

Pardon my going on a little bit, but I thought some might like a little background.

Watch the races. It is really amazing,

Hats off for the USA squad. Down 8-1 and now tied up 8-8,winner takes all Wednesday afternoon,must watch this barnburner!!!!

Thank you for the background and your observations Tudor and Mr88. It is fascinating and this is an exciting race. Time difference makes it difficult for me to watch it live but I see clips on the news. What amazing craft they are!
I share you passion for marine craft of any kind, especially G3's.

Ken