So far we have a bow shot. It's a cat at 90x90 with a 50 meter mast and it seems to be they said it weighs only 3 tons. Should hopefully have a few more pictures around 11pm tonight (soon).

Sweet bows! I see a trend.

I got the whole thing......

Always wondered about shortening a FX1 to fit into the F12 class

3 tons??

Wow... the thing must be held together by fishing line.

remember team phillips?

Wow

More pics out this morning. There's some considerable doubt with the 3 ton weight...perhaps that's just the hull and beam platform. Decent article up at Sail-World by Gladwell who has really been keeping on top of all things AC related (although he wasn't invited to the closed "embargoed" press release by Alinghi...presumably because he tends to favor the American/BMWO perspective).

Also note that they have also released info about the Russian helicopter they are bringing in to lift the boat to the water (and presumably air lift it all the way to the Mediterranean since Switzerland is land-locked). If it only weighs 3 tons, why did they need the biggest heavy lift helicopter in the world?

Gladwell's Line

A- cat wave piercing hull coupled with Hobie 18 front cross bar!

To cope with the windage on it when they move it around. yes, it's 3 tonnes to pick up, but

a, once it moves you have drag to contend with.
b, once it is in the fair, even the slughtest wind will have a serious effect on the whole opearation.

I've lost track, so someone put it all together for me please. The BMO AC boat is a Trimaran and the Alinghi boat is a Cat, right?

Or is BMO now going to build a Cat to race the AC?

Should be an interesting shake down period! How many times do you think they will crash?

(stupid question I know, "Once" is the answer, and then they'll go back to racing mono's!)

The last time we saw DoGzilla, it was a trimara. its been in a shed now for quite some time, and the speculation is that either DZ is radically changed at this point or there's a completely new boat being launched. The latter seems to be the consensus opinion since BMWO has been curiously evasive regarding the CHR for DZ to this point...

I wouldn't say they've been curiously evasive...I would say they simply haven't reached their final configuration yet so they could present the measurement certificate. Alinghi has been trying to make it look like they've been "overly evasive" about it but there's historical precedence of the CHR being presented only weeks before the event. The Deed says "as soon as possible".

Word is that BMWO has a catamaran in the shed that we'll probably see sometime in August but only after Alinghi announce the venue for the match. They'll probably trial the cat against the trimaran to figure out which boat to bring to the table. Personally, I'm wondering how they don't pitchpole a catamaran that is 90' x 90' with a length to width ratio of 1:1 AND a bow sprit that extends 40' in front of the bows. Rumor is that Alinghi has water ballast but it could be a sticking point if they have to use combustion engines to fill the tanks.

BMWO took delivery of their new Hall spars mast earlier this past week and it is 6' from leading edge to trailing edge and is at least 180' tall.

So where is the wing? Surely one of the teams have a solid wing in a shed somewhere that they will whip out as a last surprise.

That 6' wide mast is going to look like a wing, a Glider Wing! But 180' tall? Ouch!

I hope it stays upright.

Alinghi seems to be contemplating a rigid sail and no foresail, like an oversized C Class. Simple, fast and effective.

If things stayed as they are today, we would see an oversize/overpowered ORMA Open 60 racing against an aversize/overpowered C Class.

Note that it is relatively easy to add a central hull to a wide cat as well as removing the central hull from a tri, so both sides can choose to go either way.

The key decision is between a rigid wing requiring no central structure/hull, against a rig with foresail, requiring the hull/structure.

Chances are that we'll see a match between two 90 x 90 cats with rigid wings and without foresails. They sail upwind all the time anyway, so a big wing is all they need to dump tons of hardware and crew.

Best thing is that we already know the name of this race: The Monster Little America's Cup.

Alinghi will have soft sails at first. They stated they are working on a rigid wing and will see which is better/easier to manage. BOR's new boat will probably be a catamaran and lord knows what we're going to see there. It's possible we might see some of it sometime on Monday.

David Hubbard is working for Ellison, Duncan MacLane for Bertarelli.
Guess what...

Ohh YEaahhhh!!!

Finally,
America's Cup using cutting edge technology. We need to see lifting foils...

My bet; that will never happen. We will see foils that will provide some lift but nothing that will clear the boat from the water. While lifting foils work on super lightweight and low aero-drag moths, on anything of any size lifting foils have not yet proven to get to weather efficiently enough to be an advantage around a technical course. They tend to be more of a "drag" upwind as the boat can't get airborne at high angles of attack and turn out to be a source for a lot of slowness. Yes, Hydroptere absolutely rocks, but she doesn't go to weather well at all...all video you see of her is a very deep beam reach since she generates such incredible apparent wind.