Americas Cup

~~ From what I can see, the AC 45 have 6 for crew... I couldn't find anything for the 'NEW' 72's..... The monos used to have 16 or 17 for crew >>> article here >>>> http://32nd.americascup.com/en/acclopaedia/understanding/beginners/actors.php ( I think I did it right ) yup I did

DamonLinkous wrote:
Can someone hook me up to ride in the passenger basket at the back of the boat?

~~~ I looked it up... I'am in the back of the boat,,,,, Go find another !! 😆 ~~

tacks at a closing speed pushing 100 mph!

I would expect there will be upper racing speed limits similar to last AC so racing about 18 knots is not likely. Last AC's vectors were extreemly impressive (doing over 40 in 15knot wind) but i wouldn't expect to see these cats breaking the speeds of last race (with bigger cat/multis)

Edited by MN3 on Aug 12, 2011 - 07:20 AM.

popeyez7 wrote: ~~ From what I can see, the AC 45 have 6 for crew... I couldn't find anything for the 'NEW' 72's.....

The AC45 has crew of 5. Total weight of crew not to exceed 437.5 kg. The 6th person you see is part of the on-board guest program, and that guest is regulated to specific limits and requirements.

The AC72 has a crew of 11. Total weight of crew not to exceed 1012 kg nor less than 957 kg.

That BMW oracle boat is just gorgeous. It really is amazing what can be acheived with modern composites and carbon fiber type construction techniques. I would bet that boat is as light as a feather too despite it's gargantuan size.... Watching the videos of it out on the open ocean slicing thru waves is truly impressive and the effortless speed they achieve is astonishing. Truly state of the art in hull and sail design... peace

Pete

MN3 wrote:

tacks at a closing speed pushing 100 mph!

I would expect there will be upper racing speed limits similar to last AC so racing about 18 knots is not likely. Last AC's vectors were extreemly impressive (doing over 40 in 15knot wind) but i wouldn't expect to see these cats breaking the speeds of last race (with bigger cat/multis)Edited by MN3 on Aug 12, 2011 - 07:20 AM.

In past AC's the boats were tuned and only able to sail in a narrow wind range, this was a big problem for television since the races often didn't start to fit in a TV slot.

Part of the design brief of the new AC45 and AC72 is being able to race over a range of 5-30 knots. If these boats start a race in 25+ they might come close to the world speed record while racing!

Design Brief summary from The Daily Sail

A catamaran was selected as one element to transform and enliven the America’s Cup for the future. A multihull is the ideal dynamic class, capable of being raced hard in winds from 5 to 30 knots to minimize racing delays due to winds too light or too strong.

Well then that settles it, I'm praying for 25+ knot winds!!! I wanna see what these babies can really do. If that information is accurate and the new boats are THAT much lighter than the previous ones we could see some VERY fast action. I cannot believe they have 130 foot high masts on them. Incredible.... I am beginning to see why you say that the AC45 boats are just the hors d'oeuvre's to the main course of this Amazing America's cup action. Bring on the big boys!! peace

Pete

Wow guys,
My wife and I have REALLY been enjoying watching the action at Cascais, Portugal with the AC45 racing. Been rooting for Spithill but that Team NZ is really on their game. I thought Spithill had that match race on day 5 but it is really amazing how a tiny little mistake can be taken advantage of and you watch that fast black and Red boat go blowing by. The coverage and video as well as the audio from the boats is amazing and really fun to watch. Those Koreans are learning that boat pretty quick and the Artemis boat is also impressive. All of these guys really know how to read the wind and it looks like the Kiwis wrote the book on it. I am anxious to see how Saturday's match races end up. Please Don't blow it for me if you already know I wanna watch it on youtube with my wife as soon as they post it.

How many different venues are in the World series here? Day Five had some serious wind pressure and it was nice to see these boats pushing 40+KPH. What is also amazing is how fast they seem to accelerate out of the turns....

Team Korea Damn near pitchpoled around that first turn and that looked pretty cool, it was a great save and I think if they had more time on the Boat that Team Korea could be a real contender. They show a lot of speed at times and good strategy but they seem to make a lot of the easy mistakes that you cannot afford to make with the competition they are up against. This stuff is really cool to watch. Anyone else watch the full broadcasts on youtube like that? Pretty sweet. Peace

Pete

Congrats to America's Cup AC45 Team Oracle Racing Spithill for a well earned victory over Team New Zealand. That was a really exciting couple match races to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed the coverage of the races on high definition youtube. Can't wait for the next venue and more of this really cool and challenging racing. It really makes me want to take my boat out and learn more about how to sail her. Anyone else watch this? I was not able to watch it as it was posted last afternoon but finally got to watch it after church today. Great stuff!! peace

Pete

Pete,
I've been watching it too...loads of fun and I was also pulling for Jimmy Sptithill....the youngest AC skipper ever if I heard it right. I still have not seen Sunday's final fleet race but seeing Jimmy in the match races against his boss and then against the Kiwis was awesome.

I agree, you can learn alot by watching. Even though most of us don't have the ability to incorporate the technology they have. If you think of it as the next evolution (or the next) of what we do have, it makes it very enlightening. But at the root, it's the same game.

Makes me want to plan a vacation around one of the other stops on their tour.

Edited by Beest on Aug 14, 2011 - 04:13 PM.

I can't say I would not drive a good ways to see these boats in person.... That Spithill team showed some very good boat handling skills and strategy in those last races against the Kiwis. Especially the dance as I call it at the starting box. That first one they really put it to the kiwis leaving them basically dead in the water. Kinda shocking after watching them whoop up on the rest of the teams all week. These boats are really cool to watch, I especially love when they turn at the gate and grab a big bite of wind and that hull gets ripped off the water while the leeward hull starts to dig and you can just see the power of that huge wing and the gennaker pushing the boat away. Really impressive stuff. Reminds me of the first time I floated a hull on that Hobie 14 way back when I was a kid. It just FEELS fast and I could just imagine what the AC45 boats feel like when they get that massive push and take off along their state of the art Carbon fibre way.... haha peace

Pete

petefromtn wrote: Congrats to America's Cup AC45 Team Oracle Racing Spithill for a well earned victory over Team New Zealand.
Pete

Uh Peace, I mean Pete, NZ won the AC World Series, and Spithill was third behind Artemis. Winner takes all in the fleet race. If your referring to yesterday's match races, NZ had issues with their head sail which costs them the match series. NZ dominated the week long series, including the championship and the speed trial, and beat Spithill earlier in the week in a match race.

Oh, and I'm a huge Spithill fan. PEACE

Then what the heck was I watching today? They had the finals for the week and spithill beat the Kiwis twice and they had the winners circle and champagne and whatnot? I heard they are sailing on Sunday too but it was supposed to be a fleet race. The video I watched showed that they were the Cascais World series winners? Perhaps I am missing something? Would not be the first time... Oh yeah and PEACE!!

Dude it IS Sunday, and it's already Monday in Portugal.

Oh yeah man I am aware it is sunday, if you read my post I watched Saturday's race on sunday after church and what does that have to do with who won? The video I watched as I said showed them as the winners of the Cascais World series event? The races were not even posted to youtube until well into the afternoon my time for each day that they sailed in portugal. I would have been watching it on Saturday evening but I had to take care of some things and could not get to it till sunday afternoon... Sabe? Peace

Pete

Not sure if the confusion cleared up....Pete, Saturday's race was the Match race championship....Spithill won....Super Sunday was today. That was the final fleet race...Sounds like you may have another day's worth of coverage to watch still. I just finished watching the final day and all of it was great. I'm already marking the calender for 5 weeks from now....they'll be in Plymouth for another series/stop on the tour.

I just spent 10 minutes reading the results page
http://www.americascup.com/en/Events/2011-2012-world-series/2011-cascais-portugal/Results-and-Highlights/
on AmericasCup.com and couldn't make heads or tails of it.

They have "AC Preliminaries", and then "Seeding Races" and Match races, and more Seeding Races and then qualifying match races then Match Race Championships and then AC World Series Championship Cascais.

Finally I figured out that "Emirates Team New Zealand" on the "AC World Series Championship Cascais" (next one will be Rhode Island), and "ORACLE Racing Spithill" won the Cascais AC Match Race Championships.

Ok, I found something that clears the fog a little on the "how it works" page.
http://www.americascup.com/en/Events/2011-2012-world-series/2011-cascais-portugal/How-it-works/

Sunday August 14th

AC World Series Cascais Championship:

This title is at stake on the final Sunday in a winner-takes-all fleet race, where all teams will have a shot at the title, regardless of results to date.

This is a 40-minute, adrenalin soaked, fleet race, designed to identify the best team under the pressure of a single race format.

I couldn't find an overall "World Series" schedule on the site that shows future dates and locations.

I've only been able to watch a few hours of coverage from the first two days. Which days had the most wind? Were any of the match races in 15+?

Any links to the best of the YouTube videos to watch would be appreciated. The videos aren't titled very well, so it's hard to pic which ones to watch. I want the full length with announcers and graphics. And then maybe some good onboard feeds.

2011-2012 America’s Cup World Series Schedule

Event One: Cascais, Portugal, 6 – 14 August
Event Two: Plymouth, England, 10 - 18 September
Event Three: San Diego, 12-20 November
Event Four: Newport, June 23 - July 1, 2012

The 34th America's Cup consists of three main stages - the America's Cup World Series (schedule above), the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America's Cup Finals. The Challenger will have to win the Louis Vuitton Cup to earn the right to race the Defender in the 34th America’s Cup.

Man that is really strange... SO they go thru a week of fleet racing to EARN the right to race in the top six match races on Saturday. Then they race those races and declare a winner with champagne and everything yet the next day they have a winner take all fleet race and THAT person is the overall winner of the Cascais race?? I just don't get it I guess and I agree with Damon, that diagram is more confusing than helping.... All I know is it sure was fun to watch these guys go at it with some really sweet catamarans....

Well wouldn't ya know it, my wife had to work all weekend and yesterday we had winds gusting gusting to 15 knots here and now today she is off and we can take the Cat out for a sail and there is NO DAMN WIND!! It is supposed to pick up in the afternoon but right now there is NOTHING!! oh well I wanted a sailboat right.... peace

Edited by petefromtn on Aug 15, 2011 - 07:36 AM.

This was day 6 and the last 2 races had plenty wind.... http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup#p/u/14/bmsFAgXqL5g

Man, am I glad you guys are confused....I was just keeping quiet cause I thought it was me.

Pete, it's two categories Match Champion and Fleet Champion....yes they seem to feed off each other along the way but here's what I saw. On Race Days 1-3 (W, Th, Fr), they had three "seeding" races each day. The points for those were only used to determine who raced "whom" in the daily match race. Then, those daily match race points were the ones that went forward. So, points from seeding races were only used to determine the match lineup for that day. Then the points from the daily match races were used to determine the top 6 for the winner take all match race held on Saturday. Then, they all came back for the final fleet race (all boats, no elimination needed) for the winner take all fleet race. I THINK.

The last time I looked at the "standings" on the AC page, I got totally confused because it seemed like they didn't show the entire progression in the correct order and likely mislabeled. I also think the race days are numbered differently on the youtube videos vs the event schedule...probably because there were some "preliminaries" (last Sat Sun Mon)...The youtube videos are numbered up to "day 7". So something is off because I only count 5 race days that mattered. Whatever.

They had ok to good wind throughout except for one day (I think it was thursday) when they aborted a race in progress and opted to move the whole course off shore. That was sort of interesting in itself. About an hour delay and then they got after it. On those days when they were close in, it was spotty so the trick was finding the wind on the course. I even heard one comment that the teams complained one day about the helicopters messing up the wind...Overall, it was the typical slower wind to start and building.

I would guess their best winds were Sunday and I think it built to 15+. 38 KPH was noted. They were in shore and it seemed rather like the other days (no bigger seas). I only saw Spithill and Korea stuff their bows...and I think Spithill did it on purpose at that awesome start line stunt on Saturday Pete mentioned....stuffing allowed him to stop quick then duck behind the Kiwis and get rights...pushed them into irons and powered off....perfectly done.

Yeah man Spithill really stuffed them at the start of that race, it was BEAUTIFUL.... I think that what I said is pretty much what happened in my post and is pretty much the same thing you just said. The fleet races all week were to get to the final top six teams who were to match race each other on Saturday to find the winner who was Spithill after two very successful runs where the Kiwis had issues with their Gennaker sail. Not both times but it was the kiwis biggest issue overall. They were damn near flawless everywhere else. It seemed like they never really did figure out what was causing it because they changed sails and had meetings apparently to discuss it but it just kept happening. I especially like watching the strategy of the teams and how they choose to go around the course and how they find the big wind. It is pretty impressive to watch and when I think how slow I go on my Nacra it just shows me more and more how DAMN GOOD these guys really are. I wish I had half their skills....

I think that the reality is that there were two different wins happening here, one was the match race and the other was the winner take all fleet race on sunday. I do not understand the reasoning behind the sunday race, why would it be necessary to have that race after the weeks fleet races and winding down to the winner on Saturday? It is confusing but I still enjoyed the hell out of watching it all transpire.. good stuff!!