America's Cup

[Swoop]

The racing has been a surprise. I was expecting a far less exciting spectacle, but race three proved that the first beat was as good as any monohull race!
Sadly, the costs involved are ruining the international participation of the event and we will see a return to monohulls to appease the "average" IQ viewer of this event...
Team NZ 2 have come back to win race 4. Sadly a gear breakage will mean that a race will be lost by the smallest of margins. Having 2 races on the same day will also create problems, especially when we see that the challenger has been wearing out their boat and the defender comes in in a better position equipment-wise.

Cat's are an interesting problem. Stupid-fast and pitch-pole like a bastard. Fucking stupid choice of yacht really...


Hopefully NZ do well. Coutts can suck my dick if his faggots lose.

[Edbear]

I'm just gobsmacked at the speed and especially the acceleration! TNZ hit 44 knots in race two yesterday!

[awa355]

Re Swoop's post. I dont know why people get hung up on Coutts. Him and Butterworth are professional sailors who like rugby/league players are entittled to go wherever they find a new challenge. NZ would probably never have had the cup to start with without them.

One man doesn't make a team. The current sailors are proving that.

[Bassmatt]

Yes , once on foils drag is gone , lots of it, they don't ARF scoot along
Personally I don't think it's sailing, you need albatrosses and bare feet and to roger the cabin boy ,,,now that's sailing

Stephen

PS , if ever there is something to show that NZ can punch above its weight ,,,the cup is it , not only is it expensive ,,,but right up there tech wise

Fixed that for you, Cap'n

[onearmedbandit]

Short piece (in the middle of a longer video) on the foils. Clicking on the link will take you right to the piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...DSd4P2o#t=3228

[Berries]

What amazes me is in the pre-start, going slow, right, race is on, boats pop out of the water and accelerate away... Uh? Accelerate? Wind speed is wind speed, but apparently not.

Don't quote me, but I think it is something to do with the batteries. You know, the ones where they fail and the boat can't go anywhere. On a sailing boat. Apparently.

[Drew]

If the boats are going directly with the wind, their terminal speed is dictated by the wind speed.

By cutting across the wind at an angle, you can be traveling faster than it. Same principle as being able to sail into the wind by tacking left and right.

How they hold them back, so as to accelerate like that is a mystery. I imagine the foils are just angled down to try and pull the boat into the water.

[Mental Trousers]

The America's Cup has always been great racing when they actually got out on the water in the same type of boats.

Going back to monohulls isn't a bad thing if they're foiling monohulls. Have a look at on youtube for things like bladerider, r class foilers and trifoiler. Scale those fuckers up to 5+ton and step back.

[caseye]

Now MT, that'd be a sight wouldn't it! 10 ton Ocean going racing yacht on a single blade at warp factor 9, look out whale, op's theres 2 now.

[Drew]

Now MT, that'd be a sight wouldn't it! 10 ton Ocean going racing yacht on a single blade at warp factor 9, look out whale, op's theres 2 now.

There ya go then. Helps with increasing the falling whale numbers too!

[Ocean1]

If the boats are going directly with the wind, their terminal speed is dictated by the wind speed.

By cutting across the wind at an angle, you can be traveling faster than it. Same principle as being able to sail into the wind by tacking left and right.

Aye. And with most monohulls the best angle to get to the mark is about 45 degrees, don't know what these things are sailing at but it's more, more distance traded off for much more speed.

How they hold them back, so as to accelerate like that is a mystery. I imagine the foils are just angled down to try and pull the boat into the water.

Nope, the foil's not articulated, it's a fixed part of the centreboard, what you're seeing with the abrupt leap out of the water is pure acceleration caused by sheeting in the windsail. The load on the whole system must be fucking unbelievable.

[ckai]

Re Swoop's post. I dont know why people get hung up on Coutts. Him and Butterworth are professional sailors who like rugby/league players are entittled to go wherever they find a new challenge. NZ would probably never have had the cup to start with without them.

One man doesn't make a team. The current sailors are proving that.

I have this discussion with the old man every time the Cup got mentioned. It's like arguing with a 2 year old. I think I finally got through to him when I brought up Gatlin, Henry and Deans. "oh, but that's different".

How's so? Because they didn't beat nz? Build a bridge. Yeah he's a dick but it's also his living. People are telling me they would pass up a 500% pay rise because it was against their own country? Fuck off.

On another note, foiling is here to stay. In some way at least. The cats will either be scaled down (45% chance) or monos will be brought back with the tech (46% chance). The other 9 is for the chance of usa winning it again and racing the 45s, which would be gay because the crew is too small.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Winston001]

I don't think Sir Russell Coutts is a dick. He was the toast of NZ a decade ago. Good for him being the best he can be. We should celebrate that.

Anyway as a rule I've been pretty cynical about the Americas Cup over the past 25 years. Yes its enjoyable to see New Zealanders competing at the top but its a very narrow and exclusive group of people which are largely unknown by the rest of the world.

Even in the United States, the Americas Cup gets brief coverage despite what TVNZ has breathlessly assured us over the last 25 years. I have a kiwi mate living in the USA who is into small yachting and follows the Cup but he acknowledges it's at the back of the sports pages over there. Not much TV coverage unless they are winning.

But this time...

[Winston001]

...gotta say the first time I saw shots of the NZ yacht hydrofoiling on Auckland harbour my jaw dropped. Damn and Damn again. This is science fiction. A boat which flies!

So yeah I'm entranced and it doesn't matter who wins. The sheer pleasure of watching such extreme high tech being pushed beyond rational limits is plenty reward. Its like high risk skiiing or motorcycle racing - absolutely on the edge.

[oldrider]

Americas Cup technology is ..... shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit hot! There will be some carnage before it's over, IMHO! Great stuff!