So... whose watching the america's cup races?

[coleman]

The reason that Oracle had their crazy comeback and beat NZ from an 8-1 deficit is that Oracle figured out how to foil upwind. While NZ had an entire 72 foot hull dragging in the water, Oracle was flying (not 100% of the time but they started pointing lower to go faster to fly generally) with 2 ft of hull dragging in the water (the foils). As a result, both boats were even downwind, but Oracle smoked them upwind every time.
q1kyg

No they didn't figure out how to foil upwind they fitted the self tacking jib. In other words they cheated.
Which is why ETNZ are now taking legal action. Word is out that there's an insider willing to spill the beans. Watch this space. Everyone knows it's to good to be true to be on 8 match points & getting flogged to winning every race & now doing the flogging


The Racing Rules on the matter are very clear RRS42 Propulsion states: A yacht shall compete only by using the wind and water to increase, maintain or decrease her speed. Her crew may adjust the trim of the wing, sails, rudders, daggerboards and hulls, and perform other acts of seamanship.

The vital words are at the opening of the second sentence 'her crew' - meaning that an automated adjustment which works independently of crew intervention is illegal.

Get your facts straight. Kiwis have self tacking jib on their boat as well.

http://spinsheet.com/key-for-the-kiwis- ... cking-jib/

[edt]

Right bwd. I think the most important thing is oracle learn to tack in race 10... one on hand what took them so long on the other hand once they learned they dixit better than the kiwishere's the schematic of the automated trim control

http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-c ... /PI_49.pdf

I'm not convinced how much that helps you, still have to trim it by hand, but instead of yanking a line you press a lever and a crew spins a hydraulic line for power.

[laxman8689]

So, obviously saying foiling upwind is an oversimplification of a very complex issue for how they won. There were a multitude of factors that went into their improvements that led to their comeback. When you look at the facts, upwind is where they turned it around, early in the series Oracle would be ahead and lose it on the upwind every single time. End of the series, Oracle almost always made their passes on the upwind (Case & point, last race, NZ was ahead and Oracle passed on leg 3).

Oracle figured out how to tack better which improved their upwind speed, and then foiling upwind added even more. 1) Listen to the commentators during the last race, they comment on it all the time. 2) Watch the speed differential between the boats on the upwind on the last race, Oracle is consistently like 2 knots faster.

Self tacking jib is just wrong; self tacking jibs are on a track system so that when the boat tacks it just slides across on a track. Watch them track, you watch the Jib get released on one side and pulled in on the other. Oracle (And NZ) both didn't have one.

As far as automatic systems, the systems on the boats were powered by hydraulics. When those guys were cranking away on the coffee grinder winches it was recharging a hydraulic system. When you want to pull in a line using a winch, you just pressed a button which used hydraulics to pull everything in. Case & point, listen to the commentators when NZ almost flipped; the hydraulic system wasn't charged enough to release the wing hence they almost flipped. The boats had TONS of electronics on board but humans actually powered the boats.

Lastly, I just learned about this auto-stabilization package which I guess came from Boeing.... The rules say specifically that foils must be fixed and stabilization systems are against the rules. I don't know the details of it enough to commentate, but, if the system was stabilizing the boat on foils continuously, sounds illegal to me. If it simply calculated the optimal angle to set and lock the foils based on wind speed, wave conditions, etc. it would prob be within the rules. Will be interesting to see where it falls out. Also, just FYI, two ways of adjusting foil angles, the rudder foil angles and centerboard foil angles--> Rudder angle had to be locked 5 minutes before the race per the rules. Centerboard angles could be adjusted continuously via a hydraulic ram. if the Boeing system was playing it constantly, well that is just sketchy.

Ainslie changed the dynamic of the team and helped get them up front. Shore crew had a lot to do with it too. And that is my rambling response.

[Tiago1973]

can´t really understand half of all the gibberish, but somehow seems to be related with the discussion

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1309/S ... ng-mod.htm