I am not a sailor. I did sail when I was a kid and teen in little sailboats on a lake and loved it but comparing that to this is like comparing my Big Wheel to a Bugatti Veyron. Still, I love sailboats and think they are really cool vehicles.
But these new AC75 boats are a whole new thing. Part airplane (not kidding), part boat. They almost fly over the water and are a whole new kind of sailboat:
I have read it is possible for these boats to hit 50 knots (57 mph)…which is just nutso for a sailboat. Apparently their upwind sailing is unparalleled. And just try to consider the forces on the boat all handled by those little bits in the water (compared to the boat). A true marvel of engineering.
The boat in that pick is somewhere around 7 tonnes (spelled right here) and it is standing on just those two points. The sails are basically an airplane wing standing upright. The arms are hydraulically controlled and are raised and lowered by the crew. I think I read there is a battery on board but also that the crew has a role in charging them with cranks…I am really unclear on that part.
Also, they are apparently exceptionally difficult to sail. Most boats steer on the axis down the centerline of the boat (through the hull). These pivot on the bit off the side of the boat below the water. The American boat today nearly tipped over and you can see videos of these boats almost pitch-poling (boat noses into the water and tries to flip over stern to stem). In a post race interview the captain mentioned that they honestly don’t know what goes wrong sometimes…these are just too weird and complex that no one has figured it all out yet.
My only complaint is the races are over too fast now. There was something nice but they (kinda) slow pace previous races happened at. Now these things are stupidly fast for a sailboat.
Anyway. Neat stuff. Here is day 1 below and day 2 has been posted (linked above in the boat tipping over bit):
Yeah…the last one had catamarans that raised up on hydrofoils. We can certainly see a line of evolution in these boats but apart from being on hydrofoils these new boats are a whole different beast.
Question: In the videos you can sometimes see the a chase boat (powered) getting really, really close to the back of the sailboats. Are these cameras trying to get a good shot or something? Seems crazy they would get so close (they are not always that close…just on occasion).
I suppose they figure the sailboat is not likely to stop fast but I’m not so sure. They are fast when out of the water but if they put the bow into a wave or settle the whole hull back into the water they slow down real fast. A chase boat following really close would have very little time to react.
Or so it seems to me. I know nothing of this stuff. Everyone there is cool with it and they know better than I do.
Watching it live right now (there’s a Youtube stream available for free) and it’s just crazy. 35 knots on 10 knots of wind. Absolutely beautiful, and very unforgiving. Team UK just missed a jibe and dropped off the foils, cost them a ton of time.
Maybe I should have said “heel” here. Not sure. The point being the normal dynamics of sailing are somewhat out of whack on these boats. Enough to give experienced sailors a difficult time.
I just can’t get my head around that for a sailboat. Few consumer speedboats go that fast. (I’d wager the majority top out around 30 knots…of course you can buy faster ones but they are uncommon and you will pay a premium for it.)
So, last race of the day between NZ and Italy, and apparenty around 8-9 knots wind the boats can only just barely stay up on the foils. One tiny little mistake and they lose the foils and give up hundreds of metres on the other boat (unless it falls off the foils too).
Also, if Italy wins, then NZ, US, and Italy are tied and the winner of the round robin is determined by draw.
They haven’t won a single race in the round robin. There’s like two things going on here I think, the round robin is one contest but it awards seeding for a second competition that starts Sunday? So UK will face the winner (either NZ or if Italy wins this race then the winner of the random draw) by “virtue” of losing all their races. Sorry if I’m a bit incoherent but I’ve been consuming a bit of rum this evening.
Nevermind, NZ just won over Italy by 16 seconds, so seeding is NZ in first, US second, Italy third, UK last. The boats look pretty even aside from team UK which is clearly a bit slower. The actual America’s Cup regatta isn’t for a few weeks, so all teams still have time to tweak things and I wouldn’t rule anyone out of things.
That’s interesting. As I understand it the sails and arms (and hydraulics that run them) on all the boats are identical per the rules.
The boats differ in hull shape and the hydrofoils on the bottom of the arms.
The ships look nearly identical but the commentary I have heard suggests the wing design of the hydrofoils and shape of the hulls is where it is all at and there are subtle differences you can see in both between boats (and those differences are apparently more important than one might guess by looking at them).
And, of course, the abilities of the crews but at this level I’d be surprised if one crew clearly outshined the other. Maybe they do but these guys are competing at the bleeding edge. Differences are likely razor thin.
Which is a bit of a shame. I’d rather the race be about better sailors than better tech.
Well, I’m barely even an informed observer let alone an expert on the topic, but hasn’t the America’s Cup always been about both sailing and engineering? If you want contests of pure sailing ability using identical tech, there are any number of sailing classes with defined boats.
