what did we learn from AC2013?

They need to get back to sailing by human hand only. To me electronic controls fall in the same area as any other non human power system system. It equates to putting traction control computers on race cars. It is no longer the sailor sailing the boat. It takes a lot more skill to trim sails when you a grinding them in and out vs charging a hydrolic system the pressing a servo switch to trim in and out. Technology is great but lets keep the cup a SAILING race for SAILORS.

I hope they keep it fast, on foils, but hey, you never know what Larry's got up his sleeve!

Here's the Hobie Trifoiler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXSgZCDVWOM

I was at the Wildcat Regatta, Lake Eustis, FL many years ago when there were several Trifoilers (last time I saw one) but the wind was very light and there were lots of weeds in the lake, needless to say, they were not foiling, they were incredibly slow.

I think one of the things that made this such a great AC was the LOCATION, Larry picked a great spot, with WIND!! Guaranteed Wind, on just about every day, but you saw in that one light air race, just how slow a foiler is when it's too light to foil!

Kenny and Gary mentioned going back to Newport, but as I recall watching the AC's in Newport, they were mostly light air affairs. Same with San Diego. If you want to go fast, you need WIND! EVERY DAY! The only place (in the USA) that has that kind of wind, almost every day, is San Francisco Bay.

As Ian Murray said when that race ran to the 40 minute limit,

All that stuff underneath that makes them so fast in heavy wind, just adds drag in light air.

I agree, if they would bring it back to the 45 footers, soft sails, nationality rules, and allow full foiling, they could do it all by hand, with no hydrolics or electrics allowed or needed.

I know that would be a step backwards, in development, but if they really want 10-15 teams to show up, they are going to have to reign in the costs.

That all sounds boring, this is the AC!

You're right, this IS the AC, the AC that only a couple teams can afford to compete in, which may be exactly what Larry really wants. He stands less of a chance of losing that way.

Soooo...you guys also don't want to see them have GPS units and PDA's either? Heck, let's just not even allow computers at any point of the process...3D and other digital design, gone. Digital flow or computer performed stress analysis, gone. Wait a minute! Calculators have IC chips too...gone! Design the boats with a slide rule, baby! Give the boys a sextant and a sail tied to two logs and let them go at each other! Hell yeah!

I don't have a problem with it as long as the motive power comes from the wind or the muscle on the boat. America's cup is about technology.

I think that if you try to restrict it too much, you lose the allure of the cup. However, if you leave the doors wide open then you'll just get HAL9000 driving the boats which isn't something that we want either.

I think that the way the next cup should works is that when teams sign up and put down their entry fee, they get a

template boat

. Not a design... not a set of plans, but an actual BOAT. If you want a second one, then you can buy a second one but no more than two (unless you destroy one of them)

From that point forwards, the rules allow you to make modifications to that boat to a certain limit.

What this means is that the playing field is more level. The major design costs would be manageable and you'd basically all be starting on square 1 in terms of build/design/technology.

You guys sound like a bunch of mono-hull sailors did about a couple years back whining about the cup being on multi-hulls and how awful it would be.

So Jake, you'd allow a computer to control the ride hight on a foiling AC cat, as long as the hydrolics are human powered?

So how about letting the computer help steer the boat too, and trim the wing, just like it does with the foils? I see no difference.

Like I said earlier, where do you draw the line on what the computers get to control, vs. the humans?

Humans can turn a handle and pump up a hydrolic reservoir, and let the computers do the rest, but is that Sailing?

W T F?

How about we let them have all the electricly powered hydrolics they want, but NOTHING is computer controlled, ie HUMANS have to trim the wing, and the foils, and steer the boat. Humans would have to actually SAIL the boats, what a concept!

I say we let them make it as automated as they like. When R2D2 wins the cup one day we can re-evaluate. Until then we can all enjoy the trickle down tech and enjoy faster boats.

Jake - I'm not poopooing the event whatsoever. I'll be happier than a pig in **** if they just keep the current format honestly.

But we all realize that we need more competitors in the LV in order to keep this thing sustainable.

Both sides in the finals clearly stated that there needs to be a way of keeping costs under control. Unlimited development isn't the way to keep costs contained unfortunately.

I think you're vying for a spot on a team as an engineer <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

let the LV series be

standardized

. The AC finals should not be.

Look at the potential trickle down technology (that's now proven somewhat) that might eventually enhance our own amateurish sailing

All they really need to do now, to ride the wave of this AC, is modify the AC 45's they've already got, to foilers, and run the same AC World Series regatta next summer, in all the same ports around the world, see if they can get 10-15 teams entered and let them all lean to foil.

I wonder how fast one of the AC 45's will go on foils?

Only problem with that is, there were some pretty light air races (and locations) around the world, so it wouldn't be nearly as exciting to watch if it were a light air location.

Perhaps each team would stock two sets of boards, one for big wind foiling, and one conventional set, for lighter air?

The whole foiling thing only came about because the Kiwi's realized SFO Bay has enough wind to make it worth while. That kind of wind is hard to find in many other locations.

There is a little more to it than just installing another set of boards.

I would like to see the AC45s return, largely unchanged. I don't think used 45s would bring many if any new teams because the cost of the boat is small in the grand scheme.

Fair point. I'll have to ponder that. Even F1 limits traction control and slip feedback to the driver and I wouldn't want to see a boat that has a bunch of football players just grinding...I'm not sure it would come to that though....

Don't forget this a design and tech competition also and hydraulics have been on sailboats since the 70's at least.

So how does that work? The grinders are compressing air or...

Hydraulic fluid. They have hydraulic accumulators onboard and they are pumping up the pressure so the push button stations (and apparently computerized valves) can do the rest.

This morning when they were talking about the AC on some news channel, they did mention that there IS a Football Player grinding on Oracle! I missed his name, and it may have been a European or Aussie Footballer for all I know.

The point is, if all you need the humans on board for is to grind up some hydrolics, well, what's the point? Hire a bunch of professional bicycle racers, put foot cranks on the pumps, sit them down in the wells and let them peddle up some PSI, then let the computers fine tune the foils, trim the wing and tweak the rudders too...

Is that

Sailing

or is that HAL running a sailboat?

Is these races, humans were still a huge factor. Getting a computer to be a team of humans around a course would be a MAJOR feat.

If it ever comes public out that Oracle did have some type of computerized foil trim system, and that's why all of a sudden they got fast going upwind, I'll bet we'll hear a lot more about it!

Is that

Sailing

or is that HAL running a sailboat?

I think we're along way from that. Remember you've often stated a preference for Boeing over Airbus.

Yup, and that's exactly why. Airbus wants the computers to fly the airplane, I'll show you how that worked out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEH7OpnA-I4

In the name of Safety, they have tried to change the Pilot's job from flying the airplane by hand, to loading a computer, and then let the computer fly it, because, computers NEVER make mistakes, right?

Ask that guy operating the Airbus in the video above, he was the lead test pilot on the (then) new Airbus A320 doing a low pass at the Paris Airshow! After the low pass, the pilot was supposed to climb, go around again, and come back to land, but he could NOT override the computer to make the airplane

Go Around

.

The airplane said,

Nope, we are going to land now...

I guess it didn't know the runway was BEHIND it!

No, we are not. The technology exists right now, what we need to decide is, how much technology are we going to allow onto the boat? If it turns out that Oracle did indeed install some type of computer system that was trimming the foils for them, well, what's next?

I guarantee you a computer controlled wing and rudder trim system will be better than a human, right up until some programming error causes it to land in the trees, just like that Airbus!

Oh, bye the way, right now, Boeing and Airbus are working with Federal Express on developing a pilotless Cargo airplane, a huge drone if you will. Here, read this, from an aviation info web board:

Shlomo Tsach, IAI’s director of flight sciences, told the Jerusalem Post the technology already exists to fly passengers without pilots but

the world is not yet ready to be flown without a pilot at the stick.” However, he said, a study by Boeing suggests there’s no such resistance to sending packages without direct human intervention, so the idea of a pilotless cargo plane is gaining some traction."

Will a pilotless Passenger airplane be next?

Would you buy a ticket on such a plane?

All that stuff underneath that makes them so fast in heavy wind, just adds drag in light air.

Seems to me the only extra stuff is the horizontal wing on the rudders. The

foil

is just a bent dagger board. If they straightened out the foils would they be any longer than the optimized normal board? Isn't there an AC72 formula rule that constrains the foil length, straight or bent?

As Jake suggested, could they have swapped to straight boards in a light air race? Wouldn't the bent

foiling

dagger be pretty feeble going upwind compared to the old straight or banana boards they started with?

I want to see the old USA 17 trimaran getting a retrofit so it could foil! At 90 feet with a 223 foot rigid wing it would be a sight to see. Maybe the 17 tons would need special foils.

Melvin and Morelli stated somewhere that they had looked at making the tri foil but that the most lift they figured they could generate was realistic something like 30% - 50% if they went nutz with it (I'm not sure the exact numbers...but it was something like that).

the funny thing is that these boats are probably faster than that tri monster.

JFC....
Was this America's Cup a massive endorsement for us or not? I'm going to go with yes.
I was in the Post Office today chatting to the postmaster of a post office in the middle of dirt worshipper nowhere. He was watching some of it, and was really into it. That is so completely unbelievable to me. While it will be extremely short lived, at least we're being noticed, and NOBODY gave a crap about the AC up until now in the general population.

So the kiss what if there was some auto adjusting trim of the board AoA? What if there was a dumb butt wand doing it like a moth?

I'm with Jake on this, that this is not a case of purely automation making the boat go, but helping it along. Keeeriist, some people just want us to sit in caves terrified of the sun. None of the upper echelon motor sports, (which this is, just not of the internal combustion variety), would be where there are without some sort of automation taking some of the control. F1, MotoGP, WRC, etc... all have something going on to keep it on the bleeding edge. I don't want to see an Airbus either, but I don't see it going that way, and if it did it would be at the events own peril. Completely because it would take the part that makes the viewer and enthusiast interested, and that is humans doing human things. Their trials, tribulations, and triumphs are what make it interesting and engrossing. There's no hero's with two robots duking it out on the course. Nobody gives two shakes of a limp dick about watching two computers play a perfect game of chess in .000003 seconds. I can promise you, that if a fully automated race were even the slightest bit interesting to the general public, we'd be seeing it already in some form or another.

So calm the kiss down, and think rationally, and let's not go backwards.

I can't speak to costs, a half billion dollars isn't **** to more people, corporations, and countries than you can imagine. The AC isn't a game for you or I to play, its for that top 1% who know how to play.

Top 1%? Top 0.00001%!