Originally Posted by samc99us
Its all in the rules: https://www.americascup.com/en/news/2583_KNOW-THE-ESSENTIALS-AMERICAS-CUP-RULES-101.html

6-24 kts, taken as a 5 minute average between 8 and 3 minutes before the start.

I feel for TNZ on this one, but the damage could have been much, much worse. I'm sure they will be back out there tomorrow.

The safety of the one design aspect of the boats certainly shone through yesterday, but I still don't entirely agree with this. The one design beams I'm okay with, the one deisgn #1 element on the wing I am sort of okay with, the rest not really. FYI the #2 element (trailing edge flap) and wing controls are not one design and open to interpretation. My understanding is only the structural main element mast is really strictly one design. I think TNZ would have gone with more margin in the hulls rather than relying on Oracles lower volume prescribed hull design, if given the flexibility there. Would it have saved them? No, they were on the foils going down the mine and it was too late by the time the bows hit. If anything a bigger bow section would have hurt. The emphasis on the controls and foils clearly favor Oracle, who have more experience than any other team besides the less well funded TNZ campaign. I understand the AC is never very fair but I preferred the run what you bring and your wallet can swallow over this glorified AC45F racing. Frankly the same level of racing could be had with a box/open rule AC45F.

I'm really disappointed Oracle sailed in the initial LV challenger series. I think that was rather unfair and unsportsman like. I'm also not okay with the 1 boat rule for the challengers. That clearly favors Oracle whom I suspect have a second boat in the shed just in case (with the amount of money thrown around, why wouldn't you?). One designing the major structural elements of the boat made it pretty feasible that a second boat could be built on the cheap. This puts Oracle in a position to effectively force races in conditions that are otherwise very hairy and marginal, yesterday wasn't deadly but it was a bit marginal. By the time the challenger gets through to the finals, they will likely have done some damage to their race stead and be operating at a higher weight as a result. Far from ideal if it goes light, but good for Oracle!


Jesus some of you guys are a buzz kill! I seriously doubt Oracle has a second boat. There's not THAT much hangar space out there and they would get called out on that in very short order if they pulled something like that out of the shed. lol.

This has been a fantastic event so far. Oracle was in the first round robin series and it has been controversial. Questions should be asked and discussed - no harm in that. It was the compromise to reducing cost by going to one boat campaigns - Oracle has no second boat to race against and test with and the other teams thought it unfair if Oracle was allowed to have two boats and they weren't.
It would be really obscene to expect Oracle to have no opportunity to race head to head against anybody and go straight into the final round. I would be over pretty fast and it would seriously negatively impact their chances of holding the cup. Oracle needed something in exchange for reducing the campaign cost by agreeing to one boat (and let's face it, Larry Ellison would probably fork out the money pretty fast for a second boat if he could). It sounds reasonable to me.

The camera footage and video assembly has been OUTSTANDING. The summary of yesterday is chill inducing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3rd9rjKKx4)

I think they do have some real calculating to do on the best way to assign and clear penalties. It's been a real point of contention in several races. I think they need to go back and eventually reconsider some sort of course changing maneuver instead of the GPS derived thing...cross a beam reach and come back to course or something...maybe these boats turn fast enough now that a 360 is reasonable (though I kinda doubt it)...or maybe even just an easy to understand flat-out finish time penalty for each incursion (5, 10 seconds?).



Last edited by Jake; 06/07/17 06:37 PM.

Jake Kohl