America's Cup
 

Have you guys seen these boats? These things are insane!!! 40 kts!? Hydrofoils!?

http://static5.businessinsider.com/i...ericas-cup.jpg

Now I'm kind of a purist, but these boats would be insane to sail. Not sure on my opinion of the affect it has on the racing though.


Also, while I'm not keen on the racing in the alyout of the course, kudos to the course designers for keeping the entire course within viewing distance from the shore of San Fran Bay.

At some point they will cease being boats and be more like very low flying aircraft. :haha:

And the old lady who gave the cup its name. :sunny:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(yacht)

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps29cf9e35.jpg

No joke... They basically are now.

The mainsail is no longer a 'sail' per se. It's a rigid, morphing, sail. It is literally a vertical wing. And my guestimation, it's about 25 stories high, comparing to the size of the guys. (You can see the Taper of the mast in the pic, that actually does taper down to a point) The only 'true' sail is the jib, and I'm guessing that's only there for the rules (if it wasn't required, I'd guess a bigger main would be faster!). I can see it being used on a true downind leg though, as the main can't let out that far. They are actually jibbing back and forth downwind! The apparent wind angle is such that the rigid main can then accelerate the boat to about 1.5x the wind speed.


I am already planning to build a working RC model. Just need to get me a 3D printer!

The Americas Cup is a great spectacle and one I've watched for years.

Each year the boats seem to step up a gear in most aspects, especially speed and design.

No time to talk but were going to win it again kthxbai.

I wonder how hard it is to rent some time on some elses printer?

Pretty amazing to see. It's been quite a while since I've watched any of these races so your post had me check some of it out on youtube. Here's a clip of the Kiwi boat losing her jib:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jlAqFxHSyM

I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for this sport. Sailing these vessels requires an enormous amount of physical strength, and above all teamwork.

You'd be surprised at how little strength is actually required to handle one of the big boats. A few years ago I was given a chance to take one of the America's Cup New Zealand boats out for a day cruise with some friends (and a charter captain). The grinders on the boat do take some effort, and I would want to train for it if I was actually competing, but a team of average joes can handle it just fine. When I sailed one of the smaller 2 handed Olympic class boats around here, those took a lot more physical strength and stamina to sail. Constantly adjusting body position to shift weight distribution, manually pulling the sheets, raising the spinnaker, etc, took a lot of effort.

What takes the most effort, IMO, in the big boat races, is the sheer perfection required. The skill level at these events is so high, you have to be perfect, not make any mistakes, and take full advantage of the smallest slip. In Fridays race, The Norwegian boat was making a tack into the wind pre-start, and the Italian Boat saw this, swooped in at high speed, got into a position of right of way, and forced the Norwegians back into the wind, luffing them dead. This allowed the Italians to sprint to the start line. Also, they never de-planed while jibbing. The Norwegians were de-planing every other Jib. Those hulls hitting the water lose so much momentum. It's a game of mistakes. Did the tactician take the tack on this leg? Did the navigator predict the wind wrong? Did the grinder overshoot the sail setting? A game of mistakes.

Two things I fail miserably at :)

I have a week of racing coming up and two previous americas cup challengers are going to be racing each other over the week, Crusader and Italia 12 metre class yachts that raced in Freemantle in 1987, should be good to see.

America's Cup 2013
 

I love to sail, hell I lived on a blow boat for eight years and travelled. As much as I liked being underway and under sail. I can't say I was ever much of a America's Cup Boat race fan. Watching one seemed to me akin to waiting for water boil, a serious yawn factor.

I checked in to see what the haps was this year. Holy farking cow have things changed with the new AC72 winged sail cats. Those things fly at 40 freakin' knots on foils, 2 times faster than the wind that drives them. Watching them compete certainly keep my attention now especially too with the the computerized graphics helping to describe the course and the boats relationship to one another.

If you've never watched one or were like me and lost interest due to boredom. Give it a look IMHO its pretty impressive to watch now

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