A/C 45 pic

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2011/AC45EnergyTeam405.jpg

Here is an interesting pic of the underside of an A/C 45. Is it a optical illusion, simply water running off the bottom of the hull, or is there some sort of hole in the bottom of the hull that water is draining out of?

I think they do have some type of water ballast tanks in each hull, maybe they are draining it?

Looks like a drain to me and one at the stern.

It is going to be bloody hard work running about for a whole day on that spongy tramp

that looks to be pretty far back for a daggerboard trunk...but I don't see the daggerboard trunk. I believe the teams are allowed to develop their own foils for the 45s...perhaps these guys have some sort of gasket with a drain in the daggerboard case?

I hadn't heard anything about water ballast on these boats.

edit...it's likely that this hole is in the stern scoop just after the joint where the hull's stern meets the main hull. The last 5 feet of the hulls are bolted in-place and removed so they fit in a standard 40 foot shipping container. The stern is open so maybe there is some sort of drain there in front of the rudder because perhaps the hull bottom slopes forward there? I do see a seam running up the side of the hull from that drain hole...so, yeah, this hole is definitely in the bolt-on stern scoop.

Drain for the ****?

Think so too.
Looking forward to watching the webcast tomorrow, hope the quality is decent enough...

>ALEPH-Equipe de France starts to windward of the fleet for the first race of the Dress Rehearsal day in Cascais. This was filmed by Julia Huvé who was the on board guest and writes for americacup.com in French.<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91AnsHhrPg0&feature=player_embedded

Nice video to get a feel on-board a AC45 to bad they are looking at transoms.

porta potty

Drain for the beer cooler, duh

There is no ****...it has rounded top decks with a hatch for electronics to go inside. I'm Pretty sure it's a drain for the open scoop stern.

It's a practice race...so they're probably not pushing to hard. Nice onboard look though...pretty cool. Coverage of the event starts tomorrow morning at 9am EST at www.americascup.com

Wouldn't it have made more sense to slope the bottom of the stern scoop aft so it drains without needing to put a hole in the bottom of your multi-million dollar boat?

I can get my chores done before start time!

Not a bad way to spend at least a portion of the day since Emily screwed me.

Race 1 abandoned, no wind.

No. The stern scoop follows the hull rocker so to make the bottom drain aft would require an additional "floor" piece of carbon that otherwise is obviously not needed. A hole is lighter, easier, and cheaper and would not be in the actual boat hulls anyway.