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America's Cup

Just watched day 3, great work by the winners. Work to do for a certain other team, the issues seem very peculiar.
 
Yes, not a good outing for Rita but hopefully Ben likes to come from behind. But the Kiwis look quick!
 
Yeah, they do look slick. I hope Ben gets the technical issues properly sorted, he’ll slice through the pack then!
Looking forward to the Christmas Cup tomorrow.
Really missed our Regatta this year, fingers crossed for May.
 
First time I've ever really watched a sailing race, apart from the Olympics. But I really enjoyed seeing it happen on Sky this morning.

Interest was piqued because of the Martin Whitmarsh / Adrian Newey connection and of course the fact that Britain has never won the Americas Cup.

My money's on the Italians though. That is one sexy looking sleek design.

Rita? hmmm. Those outriggers don't look too clever. Comparatively speaking.
 
The British boat does not look like it has good boatspeed or tacks well considering how much money must have been spent it is by far the slowest boat ,(maybe designed by Williams F1 )
A great shame as Ainsley is probably the best skipper and should be in with a chance of winning the cup , upgrades are supposed to be on the way so fingers crossed
 
Yes let’s hope they haven’t gone for technological advantage over basic practice practice practice. We’ve seen it before
 
It’s a spectacular show, absolutely. But for me it’s greatly soured by a political edge to it that I detest. It’s massively subsidised by rate and taxpayers for fundamentally no return. There’s even a Minister of the AC! Also, AC bigwigs from overseas who have been too lazy to get their shit together are trying to get preferential treatment at quarantine. Fark ‘em, over and over. It’s a private regatta for the super wealthy: let the participants sort it by themselves.
 
It’s always been a private regatta for the super wealthy but it drags our humble sport into the current century. I have no great love for the Ineos guy but if it eats his bank account, then fine.
Foils and stuff are now becoming commonplace. It’s to my eternal regret that I will never lose enough weight to sail a hydrofoiled Moth.
 
I’ve watched each day’s racing on the (free) official YouTube channel & the coverage has been excellent. But three teams have got it together to be similarly competitive - any of the three could have won this first mini series by making one or two less mistakes - and Team Ineos are, so far at least, an embarrassing disaster. Significantly less boatspeed, greater technical problems and inferior boat handling (it’s unclear how much of this is down to the boat rather than the crew).

Ainslie is the only skipper who is also the overall team leader : bad idea. Outstanding sailor that he is, his great successes have been in one design fleets, not match racing in a development class.

It’s not impossible for them to catch up, but a very difficult task at this stage.
 
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Durmbo said:
It’s a spectacular show, absolutely. But for me it’s greatly soured by a political edge to it that I detest. It’s massively subsidised by rate and taxpayers for fundamentally no return. There’s even a Minister of the AC! Also, AC bigwigs from overseas who have been too lazy to get their shit together are trying to get preferential treatment at quarantine. Fark ‘em, over and over. It’s a private regatta for the super wealthy: let the participants sort it by themselves.
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Brings a lot of money into NZ hotels and restaurants, especially in a normal year. And intangible tourism publicity for NZ. Although I agree they must all be tested, isolate and retest.
 
jtrade said:
I’ve watched each day’s racing on the (free) official YouTube channel & the coverage has been excellent. But three teams have got it together to be similarly competitive - any of the three could have won this first mini series by making one or two less mistakes - and Team Ineos are, so far at least, an embarrassing disaster. Significantly less boatspeed, greater technical problems and inferior boat handling (it’s unclear how much of this is down to the boat rather than the crew).

Ainslie is the only skipper who is also the overall team leader : bad idea. Outstanding sailor that he is, his great successes have been in one design fleet, not match, racing in a development class.

It’s not impossible for them to catch up, but a very difficult task at this stage.
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I'm trying not to write Ainslie off at this stage, but it is a bit depressing. Rita just doesn't have the legs. I can't believe that the plucky Brits are trailing with technology, especially with the Mercedes F1 team on board, but there is a significant gap. Don't tell me we have to wait another four years for another go. For heaven's sake, even the Swiss have won it, and they don't even have a coastline!
 
The British boats foils were working very badly today in the light winds and NZ lapped them , very embaressing ! they have definately made a mistake with these , the other boats have a similar shape to each other and are performing well with some close racing
 
"Ironically, for a team that had a deeply frustrating third day where they failed to finish both races, they were the fastest boat in a straight line with a top speed yesterday of 43.3knots."

So there's nothing wrong with Rita's speed in the right conditions: whether there's time and know-how enough to make her perform in light airs as well remains to be seen. (Is it a function of hull profile or the foils themselves? Presumably you can 'tune' the latter?)

43.3 knots.....the mind boggles.
 
[QUOTE="davidjt, post: 4208737, member: 25183]
(Is it a function of hull profile or the foils themselves? Presumably you can 'tune' the latter?)
[/QUOTE]
Each team is allowed to build 6 foil wings (I suppose this means 3 pairs) and 20 adjustable flaps for the wings (presumably 10 pairs). My very limited understanding is that every team has already built the full quota - remember they were supposed to have two warm-up regattas last summer, which would have brought them all much further along the development curve by now - so Team Ineos cannot just order another set.

That said, the three challengers seem to have similar foils, whereas ETNZ, at least in the lighter winds, had smaller and significantly flatter (ie. not an inverted Y shape) foils.

Why the Brits are finding it more difficult than the others to not only stay foiling, but to both tack & gybe smoothly & quickly (they are keeping both foils down in the middle of these manoeuvres longer than the others, which is inevitably slower due to increased drag) is a complete mystery. The individual crew members are all at the highest level.

But at least they’re learning the hard way what doesn’t work, so maybe there’s hope...
 
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