The America’s Cup move to a mostly one-design platform was hoped to benefit low-budget syndicates like Team France. It turned out that the reverse is true: by restricting development to a few narrow – extraordinarily expensive – areas a team that is famous for free-thinking and innovation lacks the space to take the risks that might just have delivered the performance they need to compete
HOW TO WIN THE AMERICA’S CUP – Jack Griffin The first phase of America’s Cup racing begins on Friday 26 May, but two teams already have points on the scoreboard and one team may start with a score of minus 1pt. The America’s Cup Match itself begins on 17 June and the competition format is a bit complicated; here’s what you need to know to understand the scoring. Racing starts on 26 May with the double round robin America’s
Cup qualifiers. All six teams participate in the qualifiers, including defender Oracle Team USA. Land Rover BAR start with 2pt, their reward for having won the America’s Cup World Series. Oracle start with 1pt, as runner-up in the World Series. At the end of the qualifiers one challenger is ‘excused from further competition’. Ties at the end of the qualifiers are broken based on the final standings in the America’s Cup World Series. After the qualifiers the four remaining challengers face off in the
challenger playoffs, beginning on Sunday 4 June. The challenger playoffs are first-to-5pt semi-finals and finals, to select the team who will face Oracle in the America’s Cup Match. Of note is that no team will win the Louis Vuitton Cup, which
apparently has been retired – there is no trophy for the winner of the challenger selection series. This is the first time in America’s Cup history that the defender
races in the challenger selection series. To make sure they sail to win in every race in the qualifiers, there is a bonus point for the Match at stake. To win the Match a team needs 7pt, with each race worth 1pt. This is not ‘best of 13’ since one team may start with a score of minus one and need to win eight races to reach 7pt! The negative point comes into play if one of the teams in the
Match won the qualifiers. In that case, their opponent in the Match starts at minus one. If the defender wins the qualifiers they start the Match with a 1pt lead. If a challenger wins the qualifiers then makes it through to the Match, they start with the 1pt lead. The Match starts all square if a challenger wins the qualifiers but then is eliminated in the semi-finals or finals of the challenger playoffs. Races are expected to last about 20 minutes. Compared to San
Francisco, the course is shorter and the boats are faster, so they will do two and a half laps of the windward-leeward section of the
course. As in San Francisco, the teams will enter the starting box downwind, with the port tack boat allowed to enter 10 seconds before the starboard tacker. After two minutes of pre-start man - oeuvres they start on a blast reach of less than a minute to the first mark. This is followed by a short downwind leg and then two times upwind/downwind before a reaching leg to the finish, set a few hundred metres from the America’s Cup Village at Dockyard. The teams will have had about 20 days of practice racing in the
weeks leading up to the qualifiers. We may think we have already identified the likely contenders and the also-rans, but when racing in earnest begins we should expect surprises. During training we have seen crew go overboard, Oracle capsized
their test boat and then did it again with the raceboat. Daggerboards and rudders have been badly damaged by hitting underwater objects. Crew work will have huge importance – one bad gybe can hand your opponent multiple boat lengths. At the bottom of the wind limits, in 6kt, the boats will not even
fly a hull; 0.5kt more can get a hull out of the water, and at 7-8kt the light-air boards will enable foiling. Crossover conditions will make the decision of which boards to use crucial. The light-air boards will allow flying in lighter wind but the extra drag will limit top-end speed. Even the race schedule will have an effect, especially in the
qualifiers, when every team must race twice on some days, often against a team that is fresh. In the challenger playoffs teams will have to race three times. Two crew substitutions are allowed between races but one national has to be onboard in every race. The foiling AC Class cats will be ‘exciting’ racing machines. The
demands on the crews, both for stamina and for manoeuvres, will be severe. If Bermuda delivers enough days with 12-14kt winds and flat water, we are about to have one very exciting America’s Cup.
BUILD UP – Terry Hutchinson The past month has been the final bit of recharging for the year. In front of me is a heap of racing (for which I am incredibly thankful) in the RC44 Nika, Bella Mente, TP52Quantum Racing and the Farr 40 Plenty. Yes, the Farr 40 is alive and kicking! Funny thing about the Farr 40 is after 20 years it still produces great racing – the same
SEAHORSE 11
w
ELOI STICHELBAUT
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 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88
