Good news bad news. The expectation is that, having ended the last America’s Cup cycle comfortably ahead of the rest in every department and having done all the modelling for the new AC75, Team New Zealand are at this point ahead with work on their own new America’s Cup yachts. That conclusion was further reinforced when Ben Ainslie’s first test boat for his latest challenge was seen flying successfully in late July – thus validating the tools used by the Cup holders. Meanwhile, losing defender Larry Ellison (right) can be forgiven for having had his fill of the Cup and stepping aside this time… in which case why is he apparently now going ahead with his planned ‘world circuit’, using equalised AC50s purchased from the teams in Bermuda, aside, of course, from the Cup winners who understandably are rather less keen on technology sharing. As for the other boats, what was there really left to hide…
strategies and in the early outings providing some training wheels to prevent expensive crashes. The rig is a conventional soft sail set-up; anyone looking for big performance gains from the sliding luff arrangement proposed for the Cup Class will, I’m afraid, be disappointed. Some of the challenges to come are
signposted from looking at the boat’s set- up; for example, the flotation bags under the wings. Keeping the boat right side up at slow speed will be a challenge, to such an extent that the Class Rule imposes a mini- mum stability measure to stop boats being too narrow. The Defender and Challenger of Record
have been working hard to issue the new Class Rule in a timely manner. The first and most obvious thing to see is that it is
just that: a new Class Rule. Finally, some- one has bitten the bullet and started the text from scratch rather than using existing boilerplate, some of which dates back to the 12 Metre days. It’s a brave new world, but it’s a long way from the mainstream. The language and contents show just how tough to police things have become. There are more sections on hydraulics and controls than on dimensions. The new class is a monohull, and thus
respects Luna Rossa’s red line on that. The boat is going to be expensive to build and campaign, to the extent that no start-up or team with a modest budget can realistically contemplate making a challenge. This is the plan: Luna Rossa do not want a large chal- lenger fleet because this would reduce their own chances of racing in the America’s
Cup Match. Having paid the piper they are calling the tune. This removes one obstacle to a safe passage to the Cup Match. For the Defender’s peace of mind the
new AC Class is a ‘restricted’ class very much in the way that the AC50 catamarans were. If you think in terms of an Inter - national Moth, the unrestricted design elements are: the hull shape, provided it fits round the cant axes and meets the mini- mum waterplane inertia; the rudder and T-foil; and the foil arm wings that must fit within a prescribed volume. Sail shapes are open but the dimensions
are fixed. Having such a high degree of uni- formity in the class takes away the anxiety that someone might come up with a game- changing design that makes the racing completely one-sided.
SEAHORSE 47
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