Did you notice the accent on the lizard video?
Now we have this:
Did you notice the accent on the lizard video?
Now we have this:
Nice, great concept. But sadly not for modest 'wallets' anymore. My son's trainer sails a Moth (5th at the World Championship) and he has stored his boat together with the boys' Lasers. I am always intrigued by the intricate concept of the this oh so flimsy looking boat. I guess that the AC racers are more or less the same...
About the Moth: 'The most expensive boat per kilo!' And Moth sailors reply with: 'The highest speed for your money!' Those Moths are eyewatering expensive. On the other hand, here comes the Waszp! The Moth's cheaper brother and the first step into foiling. Word is (I haven't found a conformation yet) that the Waszp's layout can hold an Optimist spar and sail! And that kids in Norway step onto a Waszp with their oppi-gear!
(As a sidestep: my son's trainer was one of the crew members on this famous pic of a 49'er in a thunderstorm -note the sail# as well...)
Last edited by thieuster; 24th November 2017 at 19:15.
While we wait for 2021, there will be the 2018 Golden Globe Race (wikiLink) starting fifty years after the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race:
To celebrate Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s historic 1968/9 world first solo non-stop circumnavigation in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Yacht Race, a new Golden Globe Race will be staged to mark the 50th Anniversary of that epic, starting from Falmouth on June 14th, 2018.
Like the original Sunday Times event, the 2018 Golden Globe Race is very simple. Depart Les Sables-d’Olonne, France on July 1st, 2018 and sail solo, non-stop around the world, via the five Great Capes and return to Les Sables-d’Olonne.
Entrants are limited to sailing similar yachts and equipment to what was available to Sir Robin in that first race. That means sailing without modern technology or benefit of satellite based navigation aids. Competitors must sail in production boats between 32ft and 36ft overall (9.75 – 10.97m) designed prior to 1988 that have a full-length keel with rudder attached to their trailing edge. These yachts are heavily built, strong and sturdy, similar in concept to Sir Robin’s 32ft vessel Suhaili.
No cyborgs allowed:
There’s a curious clause in the new class rule for the AC75 boat to be sailed in the next America’s Cup. It reads: “There shall be eleven crew members, unless reduced by accident, who shall all be human beings."
Boston Dynamics had a trick up their sleeves? A waterproof humanoid perhaps?
The tendency adopt foiling for all sorts of sailing nearly caused mutiny among ranks last week!
Over the winter, more and more snippets of information trickled down to the national sailing associations: World Sailing (like the FIFA is for soccer) mentioned the plan to skip a lot of the 'normal' dinghies and replace them for a more interesting... way of sailing: foiling. All for the spectators.
But, foiling is very, very expensive. Olympic Sailing in its current form is expensive as it is. Introducing foiling would turn this into a situation where 'syndicates' take over. Think about the way racing horses and jumping horses are owned: by companies and wealthy people etc. The current Nacra 17 (and the junior catamaran Nacra 15) are on the edge of 'bizarre' - price-wise.
Nacra was a Californian (Santa Ana) company and had gone belly-up. Two Dutch entrepreneurs bought the brand, the name and the tools. They started a new line. As a marketing tool, they lobby'ed to get the Nacra 17 an Olympic status. Which, to their surprise... succeeded. Then they came up with the junior version: the 15.
When you go out and buy a Nacra, prices aren't too bad. Only the 15 and 17 are 3x the price of the other Nacra family members... But these have no OLympic status.
Last weekend, London hosted the World Sailing meeting. Votes were cast and under pressure of current dinghy owners and a campaign on change.org, a lot of those dinghies will stay on the program until 2024
https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2...s-2024-events/
Drifting off topic slightly, foiling is now getting very mainstream.
We had bolt on kits for Lasers where I used to sail on holiday back in 2016 and it was a novelty although the laser is not best suited to foiling. I now spend a lot of time around Portland Harbour and Weymouth Bay and there are foiling water-skiers, Moths and Windsurfers everywhere, my wife swears she saw a foiling kite surfer!
These 2021 AC boats are very cool, can't wait.
Entry is still open...link...until 30 November 2018. Three challengers so far:
Circolo della vela Sicilia (Italy), represented by Luna Rossa Challenge, the Challenger of Record
New York Yacht Club (USA), represented by American Magic
Royal Yacht Squadron Racing (UK), represented by INEOS TEAM UK
Meanwhile the Cup (or some of it) is coming to London to be worked on: Up close and personal with the America’s Cup (video).
Dates and race courses announced for AC36 in Auckland
Two more milestone announcements of the 36th America’s Cup were made today at the America’s Cup Overture event in Cowes on the Isle of Wight as Emirates Team New Zealand’s CEO Grant Dalton, on behalf of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron officially named Auckland as the venue for the 36th America’s Cup Match Presented by Prada, in addition to notifying the dates of which the racing for America’s Cup Match will take place between 6th- 21st March 2021.
The Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand will race the winner of the Prada Cup challenger selection series in a best of 13, first to 7-point America’s Cup Match race series.
...
Meet...Ineos Team UK
I am not impressed by the video. I would have loved to see what happened after .44"! The boat nose-dived and then... How was the recovery? Lots of these new High Performance boats are too fragile. Only last week, another sailing-dad and myself helped out a crew of two with their 49'er FX. Parts snap off and apparently, you need to sail the boat with a spanner 13 and spanner 10 taped to the mast. Just in case you have to repair things between races.
That Ineos boat is like a hypercar: too fragile for the daily commute, impossible to do some DIY repair and when things go wrong, there's no end to the misery. Btw, can it be towed to a regatta by a normal car?
^^^^
The video is obviously meant for publicity and won't show anything untoward. We know from the last AC series that things can go very, very wrong with their hi-tech boats. The video and picture come from one of INEO's web articles (link) that includes:
...No team's full-size race boat can be launched until before the 31st March 2019, under the America's Cup rules. The boat began sailing in late June and has sailed regularly from the team's Portsmouth base through the summer.
Grant Simmer, INEOS TEAM UK CEO was keen to stress this is only the start of a long process of design and development, in the build up to the America's Cup in 2021...
Thanks for the 'heads up' on the Sailing Anarchy forum, where I found another video...link. I'm not sure how they scale the sea state from the 40% sized T5 to the full size AC67, but as a proof of concept and training boat it doesn't look too bad. Especially when you think back to the advances the teams made before and even over the series in Bermuda.
Meet ‘Britannia’
Ineos Tream UK have officially christened their first America’s Cup race boat from their HQ in Portsmouth, naming her ‘Britannia’ in homage to one of Britain’s most famous racing yachts.
The day marks a landmark moment for the British challenger; coming after eighteen months of the design, build and development of one of the most complex America’s Cup class boats in the 168-year history of the event...
See also...https://youtu.be/DQXT77OE4BQ
What a boat! The shape resembles the shape of a whale or shark with its fins hanging down. Marvellous. It's sad that the Dutch syndicate wasn't able to rustle-up enough money for participating.
One thing though... a ship should never be christened by a man. Bad luck. Sailors' wisdome doesn't mention a christening by a man and a woman. But I would not have taken the chance.
The 990 kg weight limit has to do with the fact that one needs to be ultra-strong and fit to stand a chance on a boat like this. Carlo Huisman (grinder on Team New Zealand) has the built of an Abrams tank and he alone is responsible for 10% of the combined crew weight!
To give you an idea...
During the 35th America's Cup we saw cycling grinders. That's no longer allowed. I couldn't find the original reason why not, but I suppose it has to do with safety: with their feet clipped to the pedals, it can be tricky to get off the boat when it capsizes or does a nose dive.
Last edited by thieuster; 12th October 2019 at 07:25.
Link:
...A couple of days later in Portsmouth (UK), Julia Ratcliffe, the daughter of the syndicate owner Jim Ratcliffe, did the honours to name INEOS TEAM UK’s AC75 ‘Britannia’ in homage to one of Britain’s most famous racing yachts...
Every time I see a picture of one of the yachts I am reminded of the Omnidroid from The Incredibles (www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqfYk4BnhXY).
...and a couple more (one newer and at least one older) of interest here: www.youtube.com/c/PlanetSailOnline/search?query=america%27s%20cup
Two weeks and we'll see the teams racing their AC75s (second boats)...Prada ACWS and Christmas Race 17-20 December:
On the 17th of December at 3pm NZT two AC75s will line up for the very first race of this America's Cup cycle. For the first three days of the PRADA ACWS Auckland (17th-19th of December) there will be four races per day of Round Robin competition when all of the four teams will race each other twice. The fourth day (20th of December) the PRADA Christmas Race will kick off and will be comprised of two knock out stages, the first stage consists of two head to head match ups, the winners of each will progress to the final, the losers to a 3rd & 4th match which will help decide the final rankings. The pairing of the Christmas Race Semifinals will be decided by the results of the PRADA ACWS Auckland double Round Robin.
Word is that Ineos is a dog and the team is falling apart as the blame gets kicked around ...
Just looked up the betting.
Seems the rumour mill is reflected in the odds.
https://m.nicerodds.co.uk/americas-cup
The Live Sail Die website is pretty good for the gossip
https://www.livesaildie.com/video-36...7rOKrpWFPY9LO0
Looks like Ineos are having a few problems with the practice races. It's going to be interesting to see how they actually compare on the 17th. The videos I've seen so far the Ineos boat just looks 'heavier' design-wise, and doesn't give the same impression of speed that the other boats give. So difficult to compare until they actually start racing.....I'm hoping it's just an optical illusion with Ineos.
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
Thing is there is no hiding now and with all the practice and technology available spectators can pretty easily assess the relative performance of the various teams.
Sadly looks like Sir Ben won't be breaking that losing streak ... which is a real shame as there can be no complaints this time around about the level of funding the GBR team has received.
It's no great surprise that TNZ and Prada are top of the tree as they have been in the game for decades with multiple cycles under their belts whereas SBA and his guys are on their second cycle so a long way behind the expertise of the others ... there is a huge raft of IP in the top teams that takes time to accumulate.
Hopefully Ineos will be up for another go ...
Don't make excuses. Sir Lipton tried many times and failed. France tried many times and failed. Switzerland succeeded the first time (I think) they tried (Alinghi, 2003)
And in this challenge all teams started from scratch as this is the first time AC75s will be used
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I was comparing Ineos to their current competition.
I was in NZ for the cycle you reference and the level of innovation with the ACC boats was nowhere near what is currently happening with the new foiling classes that have completely new types of craft each cycle. That established class was not the tech arms race we are currently seeing and so the barrier to entry for a new challenge was very low compared with the foiling generations.
Also note that the nationality rule was dropped for the Alinghi challenge so money bought Coutts, Butterworth and Simmer so even though they were a first time challenger they were not first time team leaders.
Last edited by Montello; 14th December 2020 at 20:24.
I am not sure I understand what you are saying. The class used for the 2021 challenge is a brand new one. No one had genuine experience, and you said that in the UK team budget was significant. When Australia 2 (I think, haven't checked) introduced its "winged" keel, or when the first ACC was built in "plastic", it was far a greater advance than having all AC75 limited to 2 boats, one for tests and one for racing.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
All the foil design and control systems are transferable from the previous cycle even though the platform is very different.
The Alinghi challenger was in a class that had been in use for 11 years and they bought up the NZ afterguard.
Anyway, hopefully Ineos can pull out some last minute improvements and be competitive.
I thought the foils were identical but I may be mistaken.
And yes for the Swiss challenge. But it was their first challenge, even if they ‘helvetised’ some Kiwis.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
The boats are incredible; I just hope they actually give us some good racing to watch.
If there turns out to be a performance pecking order then we won't have much in the way of match race entertainment.
Early on I am sure we will see some spectacular foil dismounts during the races.
Unfortunately, the will to entertain spectators (so the race remains visible from the shore) coupled with the fantastic speeds those boats (and the previous ones) can achieve have relegated the tactics that made match racing such a fabulous thing to watch to an also-ran status, save maybe for the start, and even this is likely to be secondary
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
A disappointing first day for Ineos. Americans did well.
https://www.livesaildie.com/video-am...-series-day-1/
At least the last race between USA and NZ gives some hope of close racing. For INEOS it was a day to forget!
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See this article link for:
...Speaking after Thursday's sailing, INEOS Team UK skipper Sir Ben Ainslie admitted there was no guarantee his crew would be ready to take their place on the water for day two because of the issue.
"We've probably lost weeks of this campaign on the water dealing with the foil cant system," Ainslie said.
"I can't speak for the other teams, but I imagine they've also lost a number of days. It's a challenge."
The foil cant system, a one-design component provided to all teams which is effectively the hydraulics that control the foil arms on the AC75s, was designed by Team New Zealand so the software is the team's intellectual property.
Ainslie suggested the Kiwi crew had been reluctant to share that software with other teams, but hoped the issues that saw them become mere spectators on the first day of competitive racing in an AC75 would prompt a better working relationship on the issue.
"I'm not saying it's any one team's fault, I just think we need to work together better than we are doing to resolve it, and we need some resolution for a team who loses races through no fault of their own, but through supplied software," Ainslie said...
Edit See also www.ineosteamuk.com news
Last edited by PickleB; 17th December 2020 at 12:23.
So Ineos experiences software issues that other teams don't or have resolved, and it's another team's fault. Right.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Apparently not...link:
...“This is supplied equipment,” said Ainslie of the foil cant system that is found on all the AC75 boats. “It’s certainly not our fault. You can’t go through the amount of time and energy that goes into these campaigns, and then you lose two races.
“It’s not very nice in this event but it would be a lot worse if it happened to someone in the Challenger Series or the Cup, so I do think I’d like to certainly call out to [umpire] Richard Slater and the Rules team. We need to resolve it.
“We tried to race but we didn’t really have control of the boat all day. Unfortunately we got round the first mark, tried to gybe and the boat just wasn’t operating.
“A challenging day.”
Asked about the issue again he said: “It’s been a problem since day one. All of the teams have been working to resolve it.
“We have one unit and we have a back up unit – the unit failed this morning and then we were getting software updates as late as midday for the foil cant system. Ultimately the foil cant system battery failed. It’s pretty complex, it’s definitely not simple.
“It’s propietary Emirates Team New Zealand intellectual property, so at some point that doesn’t all come across.
“We want to make sure all the teams are learning and helping one another.
“A couple of years ago we had the issues with the foil arm and the teams worked really well together to solve that.
“This foil cant system is not resolved. It’s our problem today but it could easily be one of these other teams in the next round or Challenger series or the Cup.
“I think it would be a shame if that ends up deciding the series...