Americas Cup

[herm]

sailing has changed a bit since 1851

[Airborne]

Have any of you done any serious sailing in a hobie cat? IMAGINE PITCH POLING THE ORACLE 90?? weeeeeeeeee

doubt its possible on that boat though...

[hbliam]

Have any of you done any serious sailing in a hobie cat? IMAGINE PITCH POLING THE ORACLE 90?? weeeeeeeeee

doubt its possible on that boat though...

Yeah, I flipped a Hobie 16 once or twice.  Flipping the Oracle would be dangerous as hell.

[herm]

hobie cats are da bomb.......until you flip one.
even better is screaming along on one hull, hiked all the way out..........and the windward stay parted.

[Statler]

sorry for the absence in this thread.   I'll be back to catch up tomorrow.   In the mean time...yay Hobie cats.   We learned to race on this old H18.  That's G on the trapeze (not enough wind to double trap that day).   sold the boat for what we paid for her.

[Monsterlover]

That looks like fun!

[Statler]

curved foils on multihulls proved lift and help keep the leeward hull from pressing deep into the water, but they aren't designed to lift the hull completely out like on Hydroptere.

There's lots of arguments about the definition of a hydrofoil over this...   hydroptere is a foil borne boat like a moth.   The America's cup boats are not.  You will not see them completely out of the water riding on foils.

But the more horizontal the foil the more it's providing lift.  Looks like the Swiss cat's foils actually are adjustable for rake.  They are a crazy S shape and spy shots are showing large trunks in the hulls set so that the foils can be adjusted.


These are not offshore boats like the 60 foot class of trimaran or G-class catamarans...they are designed for light winds in relatively protected waters.

Hydroptere (an updated one is being built btw) has suspension struts on its front foils...the guy down below at the computer was likely monitoring weather, but mostly boat condition and performance.   It has load cells everywhere.   They've broken several things on this boat and the previous design.

Apparent wind is an amazing thing.   My Corsair is fast enough to where you need to understand it to get the best from the boat.  I can do windspeed in many conditions. but she's a little heavy to do better than windspeed in anything but the perfect scenario.

Say you're in a car doing 60.   If there's a 60 mph wind from behind you the apparent wind would be 0.   If there's a 60 mph wind from in front of you the apparent wind would be 120 on your nose.   Apparent wind is what the boat feels versus what a stationary object feels.

If you have 60 mph wind coming from your left side and you are going 60, the boat feels something stronger coming from 45 degrees to your left.  The faster you can go the more the vehicle thinks the wind is from the front of you.

So you'll see these boats with tightly sheeted in sails like they are sailing upwind all the time, even though they are sailing on a downwind course...because the boat is fast enough.

So I sail an S course when trying to go downwind....  the fastest point of sail is wind at 90 degrees.   But as I accelerate the boat thinks the wind is now 75 degrees or so...so I turn downwind.   Same speed now but the actual wind is further behind me.   If I started on this point of sail I couldn't be going this fast.   The I lose the wind and I slow down...so I turn back up a bit, accelerate, and turn down again...allways playing those acceleration curves.   Fast multihulls never sail directly downwind...faster to gybe back and forth like above.  Travel further, but using the sails as wings/airfoils pulling instead of just big blanket being pushed.

Many of the mainstream sports articles written right now are not by sailors, so ignore some of the language about hulls out of the water etc.   The cat will sail on one hull.  The tri will sail on one hull (although Oracle is building another boat which may be a cat).  Neither will be truly foil borne unless there's something we haven't seen yet....but true foilers have not been successfull in upwind/downwind courses like this will be.

It's going to be exciting because of the boat speeds, not because of close racing.  I bet one boat will walk away from the other depending on weather.

[cyrus buelton]

Have any of you done any serious sailing in a hobie cat? IMAGINE PITCH POLING THE ORACLE 90?? weeeeeeeeee

I was a "mate" on a Hobie when I was 15 or 16.


we pitch poled it.


make the beast with two backs. That was scary.

[Airborne]

pics I got sent to me today from sailworld

[cyrus buelton]

Is that even considered sailing anymore??


Looks to be some futuristic hobby




I'd love to see the captains of these boats duke it out on a lake with MC's and a local racing club.


Be interesting to see who would win.

[Statler]

Is that even considered sailing anymore??


Looks to be some futuristic hobby




I'd love to see the captains of these boats duke it out on a lake with MC's and a local racing club.


Be interesting to see who would win.

That's like seeing if Rossi could beat the expert class guys at a club track day on a stock R1 versus him racing in the gp class on his racebike.   absent a crash or equipment failure it'd be the same result 99 out of 100 times.   Different level of proffesional.

[Statler]

defender is in the water and testing.   VERY big Court descision tomorrow out of New York so more news tomorrow night.

[herm]

well, if they cant use it, i will take her.

[derby]

10-14 more days until a court decision:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPuKC1liAAJ6ZtClHM10RjpXropwD99IVL3G1

video of the alinghi 5:

Alinghi 5: first sail

[Popeye the Sailor]

defender is in the water and testing.   VERY big Court descision tomorrow out of New York so more news tomorrow night.

So what's this court thingy about?