Americas Cup

Snowy

What I don't love is when 1 boat is just ridiculously more advanced than the rest and its no longer F1, its like putting a Mercedes F1 car in a Saturday morning cart race.
Whilst I appreciate and really like having a significant design element to competing, I do want to some level of sailing skill retained.

Which makes it eactly like F1. There is nearly always one team that is faster than the others, it's more like Mercedes versing Haas. Driver skills have to be there, but as they say with the yachting, the fastest boat will win and you still need good sailors, but the boat wins just like the car in F1. If the crew / driver make an error that screws it up but they both have many races to counter that.

Snowy

@nzzp said in Americas Cup:

@Snowy said in Americas Cup:

You are correct in one sense though, if a boat is sailing directly downwind it can only achieve the speed of the wind. Does that make you feel better?

Sailing, yes.

On land, however, downwind faster than the wind is a 'thing'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(land_yacht)

Nice one, but it is rotor powered, which changes things a bit.

Who knows, we might have Americas cup boats foiling with rotor power next time around. @Kruse will move to Salem and start hanging people.

dogmeat

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

What I don't love is when 1 boat is just ridiculously more advanced than the rest and its no longer F1, its like putting a Mercedes F1 car in a Saturday morning cart race.

Like any sport. Thing is despite all the hype emerging around TNZ's new boat I don't think anyone has a handle on who may have the best boat. Also reckon with the way these absolute beasts are sailed there is no margin for error and so sailing ability will have a great deal to do with the result.

Glad PoA relented so we can see racing on the inner harbour. Should be spectacular.

Machpants

@dogmeat the 360 Luna Rosa did was amazing!

voodoo

@Snowy said in Americas Cup:

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

What I don't love is when 1 boat is just ridiculously more advanced than the rest and its no longer F1, its like putting a Mercedes F1 car in a Saturday morning cart race.
Whilst I appreciate and really like having a significant design element to competing, I do want to some level of sailing skill retained.

Which makes it eactly like F1. There is nearly always one team that is faster than the others, it's more like Mercedes versing Haas. Driver skills have to be there, but as they say with the yachting, the fastest boat will win and you still need good sailors, but the boat wins just like the car in F1. If the crew / driver make an error that screws it up but they both have many races to counter that.

I dunno. If you go back to the Oracle debacle, watching us lose 8 straight and just being totally powerless to even defend a lead if we won the start was pretty shitty. Pretty hard to flick a switch like that in F1 and watch your car suddenly become light years ahead of the 2nd best. I'm sure there was plenty of skill required to sail that boat, but it bloody looked like you amd me could have done it whike consuming a few beers and some lobster along the way !

Kiwiwomble

yeah, its the downside with going so much faster, a small percent fast actually equates to a few knots and over the length of the race...its all over.

With the old monohulls it did feel like a good tactician and spotting a wind shift before the other guys might be all that was needed to make up for a slightly slower boat

Kruse

@Machpants said in Americas Cup:

@Snowy said in Americas Cup:

@Kruse said in Americas Cup:

@Snowy said in Americas Cup:

@Kruse said in Americas Cup:

But how the fuck does a sailing boat go faster than the wind which is propelling it?

Apparent wind.

The boat is generating its own wind by moving. Freaky concept ay?

That's bullshit. Any "apparent wind" being created by the boat moving, is in the wrong goddamn direction.
I don't like it. Witchcraft has no place in sport.

Some people call it "science" or even "mathematics" (but it is fucking weird) and is definitely not in the wrong direction. Going forward is what generates "lift" except it is horizontal from the wing. Planes don't fly without airspeed either and that is really witchcraft as well getting hundreds of tonnes into the air. I know that you are taking the piss but it is pretty amazing tech.

You are correct in one sense though, if a boat is sailing directly downwind it can only achieve the speed of the wind. Does that make you feel better?

Whatever you do, @Kruse don't look into quantum level science!

Oh, I have. And I'm not particularly fond of that either - although I'm willing to accept it's just some fucked up shit at quantum level. What was that TV show that Ron Swanson was in? That was kinda cool.
But boats going faster than wind... fuck off. Just fuck, right, off.
Thanks @Snowy for the confirmation that when boat is going directly downwind, then the witches lose their power. That actually does make me feel a lot better about the whole thing.
And now that I'm actually working for the bad guys - I'll hope to get some free tickets, or a tour of the boat, or something - and both: A: figure out whether it's just sigils/symbols on the inside of the hull, or active blood sacrifices during the race; and B: sabotage the fuckers.

Snowy

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

Pretty hard to flick a switch like that in F1 and watch your car suddenly become light years ahead of the 2nd best.

Not quite what happened in my view. They sent the traitors from my town up there to make them faster and they did. Unlimited funding helps.We got seriously "unlucky" with conditions and cancelled races too. We were still faster in some conditions. F1 do those mods mostly in the off season I think, but they certainly do it and tweak the cars all season. Mercedes have stayed ahead as well. Some teams can master wet conditions better than others like we were better in some wind speeds than others. There is more room to change things in AC because you are dealing with 2 fluid dynamics within the formula, things are more regulated in F1 which is why we see more legal challeges in AC.

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

I'm sure there was plenty of skill required to sail that boat, but it bloody looked like you amd me could have done it whike consuming a few beers and some lobster along the way !

I'd certainly be up for that and it did look like it at times but yeah, nah, those guys really know what they are doing. Spit hill included (pile of spit). They all make mistakes, just like drivers, but boat speed, car speed can even cover up for that.

canefan

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

@Snowy said in Americas Cup:

@voodoo said in Americas Cup:

What I don't love is when 1 boat is just ridiculously more advanced than the rest and its no longer F1, its like putting a Mercedes F1 car in a Saturday morning cart race.
Whilst I appreciate and really like having a significant design element to competing, I do want to some level of sailing skill retained.

Which makes it eactly like F1. There is nearly always one team that is faster than the others, it's more like Mercedes versing Haas. Driver skills have to be there, but as they say with the yachting, the fastest boat will win and you still need good sailors, but the boat wins just like the car in F1. If the crew / driver make an error that screws it up but they both have many races to counter that.

I dunno. If you go back to the Oracle debacle, watching us lose 8 straight and just being totally powerless to even defend a lead if we won the start was pretty shitty. Pretty hard to flick a switch like that in F1 and watch your car suddenly become light years ahead of the 2nd best. I'm sure there was plenty of skill required to sail that boat, but it bloody looked like you amd me could have done it whike consuming a few beers and some lobster along the way !

The worst decision, IIRC, was Dalton letting them have a day off, which gave them an extra day to make their modifications. Coupled with that race that was abandoned with the line in sight due to TV scheduling, and we lost. It was dodgy that you are not meant to have any sort of mechanical devices in the boat, but they seemed to have one that kept them up on the foils for longer....

taniwharugby

so when ~~is the team named~~ does the racing start?

canefan

@taniwharugby said in Americas Cup:

so when ~~is the team named~~ does the racing start?

December 17th? Pre-Xmas regatta. The boats were out practicing head to head today in preparation. Peter Lester was on TV1, reckons TNZ look good

JK

Really looking forward to it as well and stoked that they have been able to get that course B or C as able to be used as those two are just awesome from a spectator perspective. I expect North Head and Mt Vic to be humming when the racing is on. They will be great viewing points.

Course A is also just straight off taka beach so can pretty much watch that one from home. Will definitely check out the pre xmas regatta and then the second half of the prada cup as we will be away all of Jan.