"Personally I'm yet to be convinced that multihulls are a better match racing vehicle than monohulls." - James Pleasance.
very much on the design and speed of the boats. What I feel is missing are the match racing tactics, the dial-ups, the crosses, and many of the traditional racing manoeuvres we have seen in past Cups. For example, we saw Spithill in a pre-start dial-down on Alinghi at the helm of the BMW Oracle trimaran in 2010. That was one of the most exciting - and defining - moments of AC33, and it was a traditional match racing move. But we’ve yet to see two AC72s go into a fierce dial-up. It seems they are more likely to be sailing at 40 knots some distance from each other. Ian Williams is the reigning Alpari World Match Racing Champion and this season is gunning for his fifth world title, which would put him ahead of Peter Gilmour’s four titles. “Match racing skills are about getting your boat to the finish line ahead of the other boat, and there are many ways of doing that. At the moment the Cup is a design race more than a sailing race, but it’s still match racing.” So, what of the idea of match racing multihulls on the Tour? “Well, we did a little bit of match racing on the Extreme Sailing Series. For sure you can match race catamarans. I think the problem is that the races tend to be a bit processional because manoeuvres are so expensive in a fast boat. As a general rule, if you're ahead you can make the boat behind do two more tacks, and if those tacks are expensive, the boat behind will need a big shift or pressure advantage to overcome those extra two tacks. They've got around that in the Cup a little bit, with reaching starts and straight into the
49 Image credit: Brian Carlin/WMRT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67