Americas Cup
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Dean Barker did his best choke ..this time to help NZ, but we were not good enough to take advantage..happy to see racing though, rather than just talk
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@Bovidae said in Americas Cup:
Too many mistakes from TNZ so far, starting with the pre-start.
I have a mate whos a hard out sailor, has a boat he competes in, I was talking to him about how at least we have a competitor in USA, I didn't see loosing as a big deal
his response was we were sandbagging it, trying not the kill the whole thing off before it starts
I don't know if I would go that far but we definitely seemed to be taking the hard option at every turn, doing stuff we didn't need to, to me it looked like we were trying to put some pressure on ourselves to see what we needed to work on. Considering we made up 500m on the second to last leg with on decision, got in front and then added another jibe that we didn't need to do according to the commentators...I hope im right
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@Kiwiwomble I don't think TNZ were sandbagging but this is their only opportunity to try things in match race conditions, and all the pressure that comes with that. They will be using these races to learn more about the boat. But you can bet they will want to beat Barker and co on Sat.
As to the coverage, the live footage seemed a freeze occasionally as the boats stopped and then jumped ahead.
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@Kiwiwomble said in Americas Cup:
@Bovidae said in Americas Cup:
Too many mistakes from TNZ so far, starting with the pre-start.
I have a mate whos a hard out sailor, has a boat he competes in, I was talking to him about how at least we have a competitor in USA, I didn't see loosing as a big deal
his response was we were sandbagging it, trying not the kill the whole thing off before it starts
I don't know if I would go that far but we definitely seemed to be taking the hard option at every turn, doing stuff we didn't need to, to me it looked like we were trying to put some pressure on ourselves to see what we needed to work on. Considering we made up 500m on the second to last leg with on decision, got in front and then added another jibe that we didn't need to do according to the commentators...I hope im right
Maybe some "dry powder" going on but we were experimenting / practising a few things it seemed.
Re the coverage - I wish they would put up the VMG more, rather than boat speed. They can go as fast as they like, but it has to be in the correct direction. It's like saying how fast Dmac is running across field.
It did appear that we could point higher, as well as a bit better downwind when we were trying to catch up for most of the race after the botched start. We will tidy up our execution of some of the foiling maneuvers, we did in Bermuda.
Love the boats though. The cats were more of a drag race. These beasts have more speed, can point higher and therefor have a little more scope to play with lay lines v boatspeed, can play the actual match racing game - as the Americas cup should be (Barker showed that with all of his covering) and all of the technology / design as well.
The yanks also did well to get a Kiwi skipper and remove a bit of the local knowledge advantage that we have.
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@Snowy said in Americas Cup:
@Kiwiwomble said in Americas Cup:
@Bovidae said in Americas Cup:
Too many mistakes from TNZ so far, starting with the pre-start.
I have a mate whos a hard out sailor, has a boat he competes in, I was talking to him about how at least we have a competitor in USA, I didn't see loosing as a big deal
his response was we were sandbagging it, trying not the kill the whole thing off before it starts
I don't know if I would go that far but we definitely seemed to be taking the hard option at every turn, doing stuff we didn't need to, to me it looked like we were trying to put some pressure on ourselves to see what we needed to work on. Considering we made up 500m on the second to last leg with on decision, got in front and then added another jibe that we didn't need to do according to the commentators...I hope im right
Maybe some "dry powder" going on but we were experimenting / practising a few things it seemed.
Re the coverage - I wish they would put up the VMG more, rather than boat speed. They can go as fast as they like, but it has to be in the correct direction. It's like saying how fast Dmac is running across field.
It did appear that we could point higher, as well as a bit better downwind when we were trying to catch up for most of the race after the botched start. We will tidy up our execution of some of the foiling maneuvers, we did in Bermuda.
Love the boats though. The cats were more of a drag race. These beasts have more speed, can point higher and therefor have a little more scope to play with lay lines v boatspeed, can play the actual match racing game - as the Americas cup should be (Barker showed that with all of his covering) and all of the technology / design as well.
The yanks also did well to get a Kiwi skipper and remove a bit of the local knowledge advantage that we have.
That's what I thought
something else was going on though as I thought we were always pointing higher and with comparable speed...but didn't seem to gain apart from the one leg
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@Snowy said in Americas Cup:
Re the coverage - I wish they would put up the VMG more, rather than boat speed. They can go as fast as they like, but it has to be in the correct direction. It's like saying how fast Dmac is running across field.
ha ha ha, I was reading your first sentence and immediately thought of the comparison with DMac! Fern Groupthink.
ps - DMac's quality
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@Kiwiwomble we did things (your hard options) because we were trying to get separation which effectively says that on that course yesterday we didn't think we had enough boat speed to compensate for the lead Barker took at the start and the bad air he caused us. Barker covered everything we did in classic match racing.
Burling has said there were some technical issues in the pre-start and that he threw in the quick gybe at the last mark because of a possible collision. Maybe there were some issues but I don't think there was a possibility of a collision although didn't both boats protest?
Really early days. Can't right off anyone. Remember how Oracle turned it round over a weekend.
These boats are an engineering marvel. They were pushing 90kph out there through the water in moderate winds.
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@Kiwiwomble said in Americas Cup:
something else was going on though as I thought we were always pointing higher and with comparable speed...
I think they were playing with things. Good experience. So many variables, especially when you are behind. Turbulent air from being covered, wind shifts, pressure, etc. Not easy sailing in there. They even mentioned how tough it was around the Tamaki yacht club which amused me. I sailed P class there as a kid, half the fleet of beginners had to be towed back to shore. It was a nightmare. Completely unstable wind direction, but mostly offshore, dead calm at times with an outgoing tide and nowhere to aim for other than the club boat ramp itself. Not easy to go and get yourself onto the beach a bit further down as rule, pretty rocky, seawalls, etc.
Anyway chasing the game in a match race with the other boat all over you is tough.
@dogmeat said in Americas Cup:
These boats are an engineering marvel.
Whoever came up the concept should get a medal. Best of both worlds, foiling cat speeds plus some, with proper match racing. Sailors on a knife edge to get it right.
Interesting commentary too. Lester said that basically below the water line was electrically operated, above was hydraulic with accumulators and the jib was a manual winch. I thought that it would be all hydraulic. Anyone know where the electric power is coming from? That just seemed weird, lifting the foils must be hydraulic...
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@dogmeat I don't know what im saying that makes people think im writing them off, firmly in the position of we were trying to do more, test stuff, get separation as you say etc, all valuable training
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@Kiwiwomble said in Americas Cup:
@dogmeat I don't know what im saying that makes people think im writing them off, firmly in the position of we were trying to do more, test stuff, get separation as you say etc, all valuable training
I don't think that anyone has written anyone off yet, nor that you said so.
Ainslie is a great sailor and they have huge budget so even the Brits are likely to be competitive very soon. We have them twice today so hopefully they have fixed the reliability issue. The speed one seems unlikely (for today).
This little regatta is testing and training for everyone under match conditions so there will be quite a lot of pissing about technically and with skills for the guys on board.
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That was a good race!
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TNZ got air
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@taniwharugby said in Americas Cup:
TNZ got air
Both of these races have demonstrated the small margins which could lead to a catastrophic error.
