In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
These guys are about halfway around the world. Seems to be similar technology. The single-handed nature of the Vendee Globe race astounds me.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
These guys are about halfway around the world. Seems to be similar technology. The single-handed nature of the Vendee Globe race astounds me.
914Driver said:alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:They haven't been 12 Meter boats for 30 years now.
I'm sure there are parameters to be followed, know what these are called, what class?
Not like the 12M were, just AC75's. I don't think it's an equation that the 12M meant.
'Way way back' during the 2007 AC races, the boats were high tech but they resembled yachts that a sailor from the 1750s would understand. The recent era of foiling boats turns that on its head--current AC hulls are intended to touch the water as little as possible while racing, a concept that would have been unthinkable to sailors prior to our era. It's wild stuff.
In reply to NOHOME :
The Vendee Globe boats have been designed with a lot of lessons learned from past AC innovations, but the hulls still glide through the water. It's a subtle difference visually, but a pretty profound difference in terms of engineering and performance.
Live racing right now, this link works up in the great white north but not sure about the US
914Driver said:pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:I don't know what you call it, but blunt-front ships are so cool to me.
Isn't that the Stem? i.e. stem to stern. The only advantage I can see is less bashing on the bow, cutting waves better.
In sailing those are Scow bows and L'Occitane above in NO HOME's picture is about as close as you can get in an Imoca 60. In the Mini Transat these are getting pretty popular as it takes the most advantage of the limited length of the boat.
Hugo is a fun guy to follow along as he gets ready to do the Mini Transat.
In reply to adam525i (Forum Supporter) :
We don't get to see it live. NBCSN is going to show it, sometime... Get to watch highlights instead.
They just mentioned in the live stream that yesterday they had 12 knots of wind and saw a top speed of 49 knots from one of the boats, incredible.
So having watched the highlights of the Prada Cup, I don't like the racing for the AC75s.
This is just going to be a drag race finding the wind- like previous AC's, no tacking duals at all.
It was tried- to cover your opponent- and it failed miserably. One small mistake, and you go from a 100m lead to a 500m loss. The risk of a mistake is worse than the benefit of good sailing practices ( from what little I know).
Even New Zealand made a mistake, once, and they lost big. The speed difference between foiling and not is just too big to take a chance making extra maneuvers.
Then there's the luck factor. If you happen upon a wind gust, the fact that these sail SO much faster than the wind means 1 knt of wind difference is a huge deal. So add in the fact that splits are just going to happen means that if you luck into better wind, you win big, too. So instead of running from barrier to barrier, they are just watching when the wind drops off and then a tack or jibe.
These boats are not racing each other, they are just racing the breeze.
So it's not a bad thing we get the highlights, as one can compress the major highlights of 4 races into a 25 min highlight, of which you just need to see maybe 5 min.
Anyway, what the boats can do is very amazing. And it's clear that the order is:
New Zealand
US
Italy
UK (by a wide margin here).
After so much hype, it's pretty clear the UK's losing streak will extend for another 4 years. Make the original challenge, and never get it back.
We are into day three of racing- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPOBLXM0BA&ab_channel=America%27sCup
This is the first round of the Challenger Series- the Prada Cup.
After looking pretty good during the exhibition races, the American team has not won a single challenger series race- as a matter of fact, while leading earlier today, they capsized. And I saw another video where a pretty large hole is in the hull. It would be an amazing comeback if they can make this happen.
On the other hand, the UK team has made an amazing turn around- after having massive problems in December, they are fast and have not lost yet.
That being said- instead of watching the entire 26 min of highlight, given that the racing is mostly about who is in the lead at the start, and then the race just a long drag race. So much risk when making any maneuver, they don't. Just turn the required amount, and ignore the other team. Sometimes a wind shift happens to close the teams, but largely if you are faster out of the gate, it stays that way. Other than the marvel of seeing the boats on foil and going REALLY fast, the racing is pretty boring.
I've been trying to keep up on AC racing since the 80s- but there's no way I'm going to spend money watching this live. Foiling hulls are cool and all. But it's going to be a while until the perfect it enough to have interesting tacking duals and whatnot- where the following boat can block the wind. Even then, given the risk of falling off the foils- I never really see that happening.
Video of capsize in the article...
48 knots
Big puff
Can't ease the main. Seems they did not blow the leeward runner.
John Welsh said:Video of capsize in the article...
48 knots
Big puff
Can't ease the main. Seems they did not blow the leeward runner.
That was one helluva capsize.
The boat was trying very hard to sink after the capsize, took all of the other teams support boats to keep it above water.
Hopefully the Magic didn't fall out through that hole in the hull (speculation says it was batteries or hydraulics).
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:
It was tried- to cover your opponent- and it failed miserably. One small mistake, and you go from a 100m lead to a 500m loss. The risk of a mistake is worse than the benefit of good sailing practices ( from what little I know).
Even New Zealand made a mistake, once, and they lost big. The speed difference between foiling and not is just too big to take a chance making extra maneuvers.
So they're momentum boats :)
I love the tech. I don't actually watch the racing so I just appreciate what they're capable of doing.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I love the tech, too. The speed they can get from foiling is amazing- who knew those kinds of speeds were capable?
But the problem is when one goes off the foil, the penalty is that you pretty much automatically lose. Saw the Italy-UK race- and it was a race of raw speed- cross over to cross over until the UK boat pulled ahead. Even circle track racing has more interesting stuff going on.
I remember back in '95 when the defender series was won due to some creative racing- that was riveting. This is just boundary to boundary until you hit the lay line.
In reply to adam525i (Forum Supporter) :
They had lost the magic before starting the Prada Cup racing. Before going ahead in that race, American Magic was the slowest of the challenger boats. And now they have 4 days to fix the damage and fix what is wrong.
I think the challenger final will be Italy v UK.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah, I agree. If they had the next week to focus on making the improvements needed rather than trying to patch their boat back together they may have had a chance. The Brits were dogs in the Christmas series and turned it around, there's no reason another team couldn't do that.
Oh well, back to the Vendée where there are 5 boats with a chance to take it all after 70 days of racing and another 10 or so to go. Or for pure speed Gitana is making a promising attempt on the Jules Verne trophy at th moment as well, unlike the AC boats it doesn't fall on its face if the wind isn't between 10-20 knots.
Adam525, I didn't think the bow of a Scow was all that bulbous, but OK.
WILD
apparently nothing fell out. the structure buckled due to the impact:
"would have been fine if we'd landed straight on the keel"
So 55mph, catch air, and then slam back into the sea and almost sink. Wow. I'm good here on dry land!
How did it self-right so quickly?
In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
Really crazy that part of the hull could buckle like that and pop out so cleanly. Wonder if they accidentally found a flaw....
Well bob, lemme think a minute .......
914Driver said:Well bob, lemme think a minute .......
that's a whole other level of Nope from me! Ice racers are cray cray.
What? You can't drown!
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