Bring on the Cup!
I can't wait for some close racing.
Amazing, it might even come down to one crew being better than another, imagine that!

I thought the racing in the last AC was much closer than expected... well for multi-hulls it was.
How epic was it when they dropped the headsal and using only the wing, sailed higher and faster...... awesome.
But your right t03y, we can only hope for round-ups, tacking duals and over-taking!
Woohoo

Yeah its going to be a terrible Americas cup, theirs only 8 teams registered including an Australian challenger, its going to be very boring to watch... ;)

Personally I can't wait, the old cup formula was stagnant, boring and the newer bread of super maxis were arguably faster. The AC to me, since they binned the 12m class (which was really the end of close tactical racing imo) has really been more of a design challenge and it was no longer at the cutting edge. That all went out the window when Alingi tried some shenanigans and Larry Ellison called their bluff. BOR90, to me was single-handed coolest bloody boat i've ever seen in my life, we probably won't see something as fast as that thing for a long time....it was insane in every way.

The boatspeed differential between Alingi and BOR90 was so mismatched that the last cup was a bit of a throw away in terms of racing but I think under the new rules it should be a lot closer. Sure, with the speeds of these boats you you won't get monohull type close racing, but I think it will be exciting none the less.

the speed is irrelevant in my opinion, match racing is not about speed. Sure, it might make better TV coverage, but it doesn't look that fast on TV anyway. I'd much rather watch the world match racing tour anyday. Close racing, tack for tack, aggressive tactics the whole way up the track etc. I do think the evolution of these boats can be a good thing for sailing technology though

I believe the AC all together is old. I like what Oracle is doing with this cup. Making the boats one design (as someone mentioned, last cup was awful because of speed difference. But you must also remember the cup is/was a design race). I'm much more excited about the challenger series than the actual cup though.

t03y said...

the speed is irrelevant in my opinion, match racing is not about speed. Sure, it might make better TV coverage, but it doesn't look that fast on TV anyway. I'd much rather watch the world match racing tour anyday. Close racing, tack for tack, aggressive tactics the whole way up the track etc. I do think the evolution of these boats can be a good thing for sailing technology though

I believe the AC all together is old. I like what Oracle is doing with this cup. Making the boats one design (as someone mentioned, last cup was awful because of speed difference. But you must also remember the cup is/was a design race). I'm much more excited about the challenger series than the actual cup though.

The cup isn't one design only these AC45 boats are, they have been developed to give the teams an 'introduction' into winged sailed multihulls and to have something of similar concept to sail until they get their programs up an running. The cup is now run under the AC72 rules which still has a massive scope for different designs. You won't however get two designs so radically different as in the last cup.

Ramona said...

CJW said...

t03y said...

the speed is irrelevant in my opinion, match racing is not about speed. Sure, it might make better TV coverage, but it doesn't look that fast on TV anyway. I'd much rather watch the world match racing tour anyday. Close racing, tack for tack, aggressive tactics the whole way up the track etc. I do think the evolution of these boats can be a good thing for sailing technology though

I believe the AC all together is old. I like what Oracle is doing with this cup. Making the boats one design (as someone mentioned, last cup was awful because of speed difference. But you must also remember the cup is/was a design race). I'm much more excited about the challenger series than the actual cup though.

The cup isn't one design only these AC45 boats are, they have been developed to give the teams an 'introduction' into winged sailed multihulls and to have something of similar concept to sail until they get their programs up an running. The cup is now run under the AC72 rules which still has a massive scope for different designs. You won't however get two designs so radically different as in the last cup.

Yes these boats have little to do with the AC, they just muddy the waters. The next AC will have the same mediocre TV coverage as the last. May be even less. Unless there is some drama, wing masts falling, new fangled materials snapping hulls etc, then the great unwashed wont be interested.

Watch the yachting TV shows we have now, 50% of the time you have to watch what the wives wear to the ball/presentation night. Audi cars ripping around a celeb circuit. Sponsors want their moneys worth. The big boys putting up their own money have already walked.

Lets face it in todays world the AC is pretty redundant, for at least the last 10-15 years it's basically been a pissing contest between rich billionaires. I love the fact that these dudes are prepared to spend cash like this and push the boundary of whats possibly under the power of the wind (BOR90) but the AC will never reach it's former glory days (in terms of global recognition) such as when we beat the yanks, it's just no longer relevant and kids just aren't into sailing like the used to be; the competition from all sorts of other sports, computers, the internet etc is just too great.

Sailing was huge in the 80's and 90's, the 18ft skiffs were on during the lunch break at the cricket ffs, you don't really get more prime time than that....since then it's been a slow decline for a lot of classes/clubs.

NB: I reckon the coverage of the last cup was pretty good, sure, it wasn't on prime-time tv but every race was streamed live on the web with proper commentary, can't expect more than that imo.