America's Cup - match racing at 50 mph

[softbootsurfer]

Congratulations are in order...a Farce is rooting for your side and when they lose saying the whole thing never mattered !!!

That was Incredible Sailing and thats that

[BlueB]

Well done Oracle.

Does any of this design goodness make its way back to powered boats?

The foiling actually came from the power boats. When I was kid, about 35 years ago, Yugoslavian commercial fleet had passenger crafts that coul carry about 100 people. Navy also had some patrol craft. I belive that USSR navy had quite a lot of those too.

Here is a pic:

Note that all the tug boats in the pic are steam powered!

[Gcarve]

Congratulations are in order......

That was Incredible Sailing........

So true. I won't soon forget images like this.....

[Gcarve]

...........or this

[SunSurfer]

Sad we lost but no doubt that Oracle finally worked out how to sail their boat, and it's foil automated stabilisation system, faster than Team NZ. The faster boat won.

For me it's been extraordinary to see the culmination of ideas I first saw as a teenager in a book called "The 40 Knot Sailboat". Aero-hydrofoils now sail competitively round a race course.

[dingbat]

For me it's been extraordinary to see the culmination of ideas I first saw as a teenager in a book called "The 40 Knot Sailboat". Aero-hydrofoils now sail competitively round a race course.

Same here.

I find it humorous that much of the conversation I've heard/read about this race is bent around the idea that sailing suddenly changed over night. In reality, this has been a long time coming. I checked that same book out of my grade school library in the mid-'80s. It was published in 1963 and describes work that was going on since before the '50s!

[bigwavedave]

Windsurfing is like sailing the foil without the boat.

The golden era for America's Cup competition was with the 12m boats when they still adhered to the "nationality rule" part of the "deed of gift", ie; all boats had to be designed, built and sailed by talent from the country of origin. It always has been partly a technology race, but a fast boat sailed poorly will loose races and a slow boat sailed well can beat the faster boat, so the sailing talent is essential. If they went back to the nationality rule, at least for the sailing talent, it would make it more interesting, but they also need to get the cost to participate down, otherwise it's always gonna be the guy with the most money who has the advantage, kind of like this time. That said, this was a great show. Now that Ellison has everybody's attention and figured out how to monetize the contest by making it accessible to a TV and shore-stadium audience, he needs to figure out how to level the playing field for the next contest.

My favorite AC contest was in 1986 off Freemantel in heavy open ocean seas and seaworthy boats. Televised live for the first time with on-board cameras (had to get up at 1AM to watch it here). That was the first time New Zealand entered a boat and they almost won the Louis Vouiton challenger Cup (where the best racing usually is). That was the last year of the 12m boats and observance of the nationality rule.