America's Cup 2021, the hydrofoil AC75

[cglazier]

For those who don't like this new fangled stuff, here is some classic sailing.
The days of wooden ships and iron men!
Who needs to ever go over 10 knots.


(sorry, completely off topic.. I am just surprised at the resistance to newer faster sailing craft)

[wingnut]

Dumb question. Could a square rigged clipper actually go upwind ? Probably not well I'm thinking.

[wingnut]

That video is likely a red herring from the Kiwi's who will have some other plan to show up with on race day. This way Team Oracle will have spent all of Larry's money trying to make that thing work. lol. Remember boys, pump with your legs.

[Lokihel]

Dumb question. Could a square rigged clipper actually go upwind ? Probably not well I'm thinking.

It could sort of go upwind. Similar to a kite twin-tip, but a lot slower.
The whole Clipper Route was one long downwind course.

By the end of the clipper golden age they were fast ships. They could average more than 15kts over 24 hours, which is about three times what a 'modern' family cruiser does over 24 hours

[gbrungra]

I crewed for one day of racing on Columbia. Beautiful boat, and fun teamwork, and tight racing against other 12m class boats of that vintage.

Awesome...in my early teens my friend and i built 2 1/2 foot long to scale fiberglass models of 12m class boats and sailed them in the bay at our boating club
We use to follow them with rowboats...they were so elegant to watch heel over and slice the water
Mine was a copy of Gretel and my friend was of Intrepid

We also built 2 1/2 foot long Wing masts catamarans models...they were quite fast...but not as graceful to look at

I think I've raced against Intrepid, but I've only been on Columbia, Onowa, and Nefertiti. All beautiful.

I guess the AC guys had an tough dual-mandate: fast (foiling), and elegant (monohull). They've come up with a novel solution, but that's the best I can say about it...

[Slyde]

Cant wait for it. The tech they get from designing their T foils will directly influence kitefoils. The only thing I dont get is where are they going to get the power and the lever arm to hinge one of those foils down while underway. There seems to be no way you could get enough manpower to do that considering the loads

[PullStrings]

This racing sailboat...America...won the first cup...in 1851

[Mossy 757]

Keep in mind that this design is a product of the Kiwi engineers that took Oracle's design specs last time and beat them at their own game....massively. Now, that team has been unshackled from the defender's format they can engineer their own ideas into a class format. Sounds like a win to me, at the end of the day it's likely that the lasting impact the last 2 cups have had on the event will be to maintain a VMG at or around 25 knots. Nobody's going to want to pay for TV rights to watch the boats be less exciting and go slower.

[TomW]

Wait a sec. The 2017 boat had a standard one-design setup with hulls, sails ( wings) bring the same. And foils and control systems were bespoke.
It was a platform, and it worked to create the most exciting America's Cup of all time.

I was hoping the kiwis would at least replicate the platform idea or at least tight rules so we don't end up with a Mono hull racing a multi hull. It becomes mostly an architecture competition, and the smaller teams can't compete.

[BWD]

@gbrunga: that's great! A friend of my family owned intrepid for a time and I saw her at the dock but did not sail (it was a cold winter visit)...


@mossy: I think it was the cyclors and the control system/duty assignments that nailed USA. Spithill was trying to do the job of 2-3 Kiwis, and every overcorrection on the foils and steering cost his grinders more sweat. The stress ate his confidence.
Do you think the NZ boat was really a lot better in areas besides these? I watched racing but didn't closely follow the postmortem analysis.