Here is my shot....this should be like Aussie State of Origin....which is the most compelling sport on the globe.
You play for where you were born...end of story. Should apply to design, managegment, crew and manuafacture.
The sailors have plenty of other places to make money.
Get rid of ALL electronic gear. Globe compass and that is it Baby.
That twat on Alingi with the Borg eye thing is just plain wrong and Dean Barker whould have to sing us a song if he is going to be miked like that.
It is like the Formula One.....Get rid of all that electro crap off the steering wheel and start button and whatever.....start buttons??? these guys don't even have to deal with the clutch off the line.
No wonder people are leaping through the air on mototrbikes....No wonder it is popular,,,,real people doing real things.

By the way, in this 4th race....is Alingis tacking so superior to NZ that NZ just cannot tack and just follows Alingi strait out to the lay line with no fight....give me a break. So tomorrow we try to hold the starboard entry advantage and the next day we try to force a penalty in the start box.

butterball... : )

At a Society of Automotive Engineers convention a few years ago, there was a forum led by a team manager from Formula 1 and a team manager from NASCAR. A member of the audience asked, "What rule would you like to see changed?"

The Formula 1 manager answered, "Eliminate all restrictions on computerized car controls."

The NASCAR manager answered, " Eliminate the restriction on women wearing miniskirts in the pits."

You misspelled "tedious".

"Well they finally got it right today" = Dead giveaway! NZ won the last two, so it wasn't them.

I felt like I saw some real racing today (although it was a bit boring). On the first upwind beat, NZ was within meters of pushing Alinghi away with a lee bow, then a shift, and they were struggling to minimize the damage (a tack then would put them in a position where Alinghi could stomp on them), then the shift back and it looked like they might have a shot on a leebow again on Alinghi - then they ran out of course and had to go to A mark. To tack and duck on the part of New Zealand anywhere in that first beat would have been certain death as Alinghi would just tack right on top of them and kill their air. Tactically NZ was pinned but almost broke free if they could have gained another 1/2 boat length.

Sorry Jake, by "They finally got it right..." I meant the tactics were finally what match racing is supposed to be, not meant to give away the race.

But I would like to be able to discuss the racing as it happens, or at least right after the race live, without having to wait until you have finished watching it. So could you please not log on to threads about the America's Cup if you don't want to know the results? Otherwise we all have to wait 10 hours for you to watch your Tevo before we can discuss the race. And by then everyone is in bed, except those guys on the left coast (JW??)

Thanks.

I'm confused, maybe some of you race guys can explain, why the Lee bow tack when you have rights? I.E. NZ on Starboard and they tack below Alingi (Race 3)?? Why not hold your course and make them tack, then cover????? I really don't understand this tactic!!!!

I am clear what NZ was doing but even making them guess a little with a flse tack. Then a real tack...whatever..At some point we needed to take the race back into the middle of the course.
My worry with this is that I have not seen NZ win a race yet I have just seen Alingi lose two.

You don't understand it because it does not make sense.

Because someone thinks the right might be favoured over the left.

If two boats meet on opposite tacks, one is going in the right direction, the other is going in the wrong direction. Starboard tacker can tactically choose which direction it goes in by either lee-bowing (forcing port to tack to stbd or get gassed), or forcing port to tack onto starboard (and subsequent risk of being lee-bowed itself), or ducking the transom of port (which can't tack until clear because stbd has called port to hold course). Depends which side of the course (or the opposition) you want to be on.

I think State of Origin players are picked on the basis of the state in which the first club they played football for (not sure if that is as professional or amateur), not where they were born. Unless ofcourse you were born on a football field, then they would coincide.

The idea of some sort of nationality rules and limited electronics I think would be good for the America's Cup. It would bring some passion back into it, you can have a team. Hell, there's enough Aussies in the cup to make our own team, but the dollars drew them away to other teams, and they still didn't win! (This is a dig at Spithill and some of his comments before ditching the last Aussie syndicate to go to OneWorld. His move led the syndicate to fold.)

If you want your sponsorship dollars to go far, you need to engage spectators. The way to engage spectators is to give them something to be passionate about.

Rant over, back to life...

QUEENSLANDER!!! (State of Origin related)

Thanks for the clarification.

Spithil is great, pitty he had Torban Grail in his ear.

There is a point when globalisation just becomes a beige colour of so what. Stick some company colours on it and call it a ferret.
Some company from San Fran just bought Coutes and his buddies from Alingi for the next cup and on it goes.
Thank god for the French and their crazy tris...now there is some passion.

How about start a new thread that's clearly about current events and not tagged onto something about the day before...that is common net-etiquette. You should see the barrage of pain people on Sailing Anarchy received for doing the same thing. Oh and leave out the "New Zealand Wins!" in the thread title <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I came in here prepared to discuss race 3.

Because then you get leebowed. If you force your cross, on these monohulls, the leeward (port) boat is going to tack right under you and the windward boat will have bad air and slide backwards.

I'll do that for you tomorrow Jake. But if it were me, I would avoid the sailing boards alltogether because you know somone will put up a post like "TNZ wins!".

On the starboard cross/lee bow thing, if you are the starboard boat and you want to prevent that, you should head down about 5 degrees and aim directly at the helmsman on the other boat, ease the main and pick up a knot or two, that throws off his estimation of when he should tack to lee-bow you. As soon as he starts his tack you can use your new speed to go back into pointing mode and usually roll him. That's the plan anyway.

I'm sure these guys all know that. But what was with that tack by TNZ directly into the bad air of Alinghi at the second A mark rounding?? Nobody forced them to do that.

If we limited things soon enough, nobody would be sailing monohulls today. This will only restart an old discussion:
What is this game about: Best boat? people? nation? tactics? technology?
This was discussed for the Tybee (or another distance race) and can be discussed again for any sailing event.
For me it is about our passion for boats and the sea. The rest are details.

Ok, I'll bite it.
Nobody is the best all the time in sailing.
Torben Grael is great, but even I won against him when our family's boat was better than his family's boat (and we didn't make mistakes).
The AC is not only match racing, the boats are not equal - and tactics are important but not the only key to victory. It is a game and even luck plays a role.

Good try but no dice. The fact you beat him is not exactly a convincing argument but at least you got to tell us! : )

When you race ballasted monohulls designed under a rule anything can happen, especially in variable conditions (the norm in Rio).
We probably had to try 10 to 15 times to beat them once, but this doesn't stop me from telling the story 100 times... <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

First let me say that I dislike match racing because for me it's boring, particularly 'one on one' matches. To me, it's just an opportunity, given the chance, to put bulk crap on your opponents. No fun for me either way.

It's commonly known that nine times out of ten, in sailboat racing, the first boat to round the top mark wins. The reality is, as I see it, that the boat which wins the start usually gets to the 'A' mark first and usually wins the race. This is particularly true in 'one on one' match racing. Try it on Tacticat. Go to a field, get a boat and reset. Then remove all the bots but one and race it. You will have no problem winning the start [windward boat on STBD tack]. Then you simply maintain the cover to the Port layline and tack. The leeward boat [your competitor] is then forced to tack beyond the layline, having over-stood and is from then on clearly behind. Of course it is dependent on both boats have evenly matched skippers and exactly the same performance, and I'll come back to that, but essentially, the tactics which gain the advantage all take place in pre-start maneuvering, i.e., before the race begins. Its' something like two runners jostling each other for the best lane before the gun.
So, there you have the basis for the America's cup or any other 'one on one' match race for that matter. A decidedly boring race which is basically over as soon as the gun sounds.
This problem has been addressed in the AC races by having the boats enter the start area from opposite ends after drawing straws or flipping a coin and hence forward in subsequent races they take turns at coming in on Port or Starboard. I guess you could say that given the high degree of technology and crew skills, if both boats have exactly the same performance the whole thing is pretty much decided by a flick of a coin and the race it's self is a mere formality.

Excluding silly mistakes and/or gear failure, and massive shifts, [remembering that in a lift the boat behind gains and in a knock it looses] the only variation to the above is if both boats do not have the same performance, as in one doesn't point as well as the other. Here, the better pointer is always going to win even if they are leeward from the start. In this instance, cover cannot be maintained from the dominant windward position without suitable separation and the only alternative for the deficient windward boat is to tack away to avoid being luffed, and to try for separation and the hope of gaining an advantage in better wind. The other boat should of course cover immediately, and with it's better pointing ability will always reach the layline first, game over.

The organisers know this as do the skippers and in the spirit of competition, and to make an interesting race / series of it, [keep the sponsors happy] they choose not to cover and allow fortune, chance, luck, [call it what you will],to effect the outcome to some degree.
It's the only way to make a very boring procession into decent spectacle.