America's Cup

[Alpe d'Huez]

Anyone watching? Anyone here from NZ?

It isn't over, but huge props to Dean Barker and team NZ. He was left with a bag of rocks just a few years ago when turncoat Coutts left for $uisse and now the U$ team. Now, he's outsailing everything the Americans have, despite being at a total disadvantage throughout the regatta.

 

[Ruby60]

I'm watching! Seeing those cats up on their foils going 40+ mph is quite the sight!!! Too bad the regatta is about over...

 

[Merckx index]

Total disadvantage? The U.S. team begins the series with negative two wins and three of their best crew banned? Sort of like a team going into the WS having to win five games instead of four, and not allowed to use one of their best players…

Anyway, what kind of sissies can’t sail when the wind is > 23 knots?

The anticipated crowds never came, SF is losing millions over this, can only hope Ellison ponies up.

 

[Ruby60]

I never did find out just how the Oracle team CHEATED, but they were caught at it and penalized. Seems a bit harsh, but none the less.
And I believe it was after the cat in the trials capsized and a crew member drowned that the COAST GUARD stepped in and set the wind limit. The crews on the boats want to sail in the higher winds... those dudes are built like nfl linebackers!! (except for the helmsman and tactician)
Man, those boats are HIGH TECH!!
I wonder what they'll come up with for the next Americas Cup?

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Total disadvantage? The U.S. team begins the series with negative two wins and three of their best crew banned?

I meant for the entire Regatta. The defender comes in having all the advantages. Here is a link, on why Oracle did have advantages, and were outsmarted and sailed by the Kiwis, and Coutts going over to the dark side. And we cycling fans should know as well as anyone that cheating is cheating, thus the Oracle penalty seems fairly just. Even if they had not been penalized races, they have simply not been smart in prep or racing. Link here to the cheating.

Still, I wanted most of all to credit Dean Barker. Those who followed what happened with team NZ when Coutts left him holding the baby, to see him and team NZ racing so well is terrific.

Agree on the speed limit. A bit overcautious.

As to the next Cup defense, there's a lot of talk of returning to mono-hulls, but we'll see about that. It's going to be a few years, at least.

 

[Ruby60]

You're correct that team NZ has clearly outsailed Oracle. Oracle has made so many tactical errors...
Thanks for the link to the cheating methods... seems that when there is big money at stake, cheating becomes an issue. Apparently this holds true for all sports... and games.
I liked watching the 12 meter yachts of yore, but these cats are thrilling!!

 

[hoerpi]

NZ seem to be completely out of touch at the moment.

 

[Ruby60]

Amazing Performance!

Teaam Oracle has won 7 match races in a row! In todays second race, Team Oracle comes from behind to blow out Team New Zealand.... Amazing!!
Series is now even... one race decides the cup winner!
Sail fast and smart Team Oracle!

 

[Merckx index]

The series may be officially even, but Oracle has won 10 races to NZ’s eight. The only reason this isn’t over is because of the two race penalty that the series began with. If NZ wins the series now, I think that will taint the victory somewhat.

Maybe Oracle cheated, but isn’t this a strange way to punish them? If a cyclist gets caught doping, he gets banned, but his clean (or at least negative testing) teammates aren’t given a time penalty in their next race. The MLB players involved with Biogenesis are serving suspensions (except ARod), but their teams aren’t being docked wins. Why should the rest of the crew pay for what a few of their members did--in a race in the past? Oracle already forfeited the races in which they cheated.

The implication is that the entire Oracle crew shares some of the blame now for what a few members did in the past. I guess they can’t all be banned, not at this late date, because then there would be no Cup at all. But how is it fair to let the team compete, but only at a decided disadvantage? A disadvantage, in fact, that is far more onerous than anything a weight in the bow of the boat could have accomplished.

You either let a player or a team compete on a level playing field, or not compete at all. This seems to me a classic case of assuming that two wrongs make a right. The result is a no-win situation. Oracle’s crew is punished for something they didn’t do, while if NZ wins the series, they will have to live with the knowledge that they didn’t actually win a majority of the races.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

I'm watching! Seeing those cats up on their foils going 40+ mph is quite the sight!!! Too bad the regatta is about over...

Yeah, first time I saw that I'm like "Woa". Wonder if they ever hit any floating debris. Wonder what the crap the dolphins think (BLEEP-BLEEEEP-BLEEP-PFFFFFT).

 

[Ruby60]

Have to agree with Merckx about the penalities.
Team Oracle has completely turned around concerning the tactical issues since they changed their foreguard. Now it's Team New Zealand making the mistakes...
I thought this regatta was over with days ago, but Oracle has proved to be a competitor right to the end.
Getting ready to tune in now...
Go Team Oracle!

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Kiwi win nailed on now the pressure switches.

Obviously I'm rooting for a British win - amazing what happens when you switch a yank for one of Her Majesty's subjects.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHdmviq1kyg

 

[Cyivel]

Kiwi win nailed on now the pressure switches.

Obviously I'm rooting for a British win - amazing what happens when you switch a yank for one of Her Majesty's subjects.

Hopefully this Olympic Knight of the Realm wont let us down like earlier today

 

[hoerpi]

This is tense but feels like the kiwis have thrown away a good start again like in the second race yesterday.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Lots of American flags for a boat which is only using American gym rats and pay cheques.

 

[Ruby60]

Team Oracle WINS!!!

Team Oracle blows them away!!!

 

[ChrisE]

That was pure crazy. I watched the first races a couple of weeks ago, and how that boat gained that much speed over the last week is out of whack. This is pure physics, and without radical change to hull shape, sail configuration, and above water aerodynamics (which obviously none of those changes happened), I just don't get it. This boat was engineered to achieve max speed. What happened the last week that made the design that came from that engineering that much faster?

Edit: Just heard on the TV that maybe they will divulge some of the secrets at the press conference.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

Lots of American flags for a boat which is only using American gym rats and pay cheques.

Your grapes are souring.

 

[movingtarget]

The American boat had one American on board and a lot of of Aussies. Kiwi boat was a mixed crew as well though not as much as the the other boat. Can't believe the Kiwis lost it after dominating the earlier races. The amazing thing is the boats. They really fly.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Your grapes are souring.

My team won.

I was just amused that America can get that patriotic about paying other countries to do stuff they can't do themselves.

 

[Merckx index]

How they did it:

Six weeks before the Cup began on Sept. 7, Oracle examined a sailing technique called foiling. This involves lifting its boat's two hulls out of the water, by balancing on L-shaped boards called foils, to reduce drag and increase speed. The boats had already foiled downwind, so the team studied whether it could do so on the course's upwind leg, where boats must sail about 45 degrees to the wind and make a series of zigzag turns.

The problem was that the yacht needed to be moving especially fast to elevate on its foils. And to get the extra speed, the boat would have to avoid headwinds by sailing on a less-direct zigzag course.

Oracle didn't like the test results and decided against the tactic. "They had it so wrong out of the blocks," said Ken Read, a former America's Cup skipper and current NBC Sports analyst. "It's shocking how much technology they had at their disposal and came out so wrong upwind."

But when the regatta started, one team did foil upwind: New Zealand. The Kiwis trounced Oracle in six of the first seven races, building enormous leads on the upwind segment.

During that first week, a flustered Oracle team called a "timeout" to postpone a race and regroup. The team's 11 sailors spent the off days studying upwind foiling again. They realized the technique had two advantages: the speed boost offset the greater distance the boat had to travel. And they could better maintain speed on zigzag turns, which are called tacks, with the boat's hull above the water. "You cover more ground, but you're going into the tack at a faster speed," Oracle chief Russell Coutts said Sunday.

Oracle adopted the technique and immediately started equaling the Kiwis on the upwind leg. Then, in the last few races, breezed past them. "We just had to configure the boat properly," Ellison said Wednesday. "The guys on the engineering team finally...broke the code. Russell talked about driving the boat lower and faster, rather than higher and slower."

Oracle also started aggressively outfitting its boat for weather conditions. On the yacht's front is a spot for a giant pole, called a spine, for an auxiliary sail. In the first week of racing, Oracle had been keeping a spine there for a bigger sail designed for light winds. But the first week of racing featured only heavy wind, so the spine added unnecessary drag to the boat. It was like carrying an umbrella if the forecast called for a 40% chance of rain. After the first week, Oracle started removing the spine if the forecast called for heavy winds. "We were probably too conservative in those early races," Coutts said. "If you don't have it and you get that wind condition, game over. You're screwed with a capital F."

Then there's the matter of luck. Twice during this event, New Zealand had a commanding lead in a race—only for it to be called off. The first time was a result of high winds that exceeded the strict limits that were put in place after a fatal May accident involving the Swedish team.

The second occurred Friday, when New Zealand, needing just one more win to return the Cup to Auckland, had a nearly mile-long lead, but could not finish within the 40-minute time limit because the wind was too light.

 

[The Hitch]

Reading the UK newspapers today, they really do make out like Ben Ainsley just won an individual event called the Americas cup.

My team won.

I was just amused that America can get that patriotic about paying other countries to do stuff they can't do themselves.

Hows that any more stupid than the whole concept of patriotism in sport in general. Supporting a boat created on the same land mass vs supporting a person who was born on the same land mass, even if that person is a noob.

People can support who they want but its stupid to mock one and not the other.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

My team won.

I was just amused that America can get that patriotic about paying other countries to do stuff they can't do themselves.

You mean like when the England imported Zola Budd, from a country that forced people of color to live in squalor and inequity, just so they could medal in the Olympics...you mean like that? Or like when the Aussies paid a Belgian who worked at Duke University in NC USA to design a winged keel? You mean like that?

Edit: Oh yea, I also seem to remember the cup being called "America's Cup" for a reason (I feel pretty certain that we got the cup name accomplished with American crews...)...but you know, we didn't start the importing of crews members from other countries, we just perfected it. Toodles!

 

[Parker]

Or like when the Aussies paid a Belgian who worked at Duke University in NC USA to design a winged keel? You mean like that?

Ben Lexcen isn't Belgian. He's from New South Wales.

Edit: Oh yea, I also seem to remember the cup being called "America's Cup" for a reason (I feel pretty certain that we got the cup name accomplished with American crews...)...but you know, we didn't start the importing of crews members from other countries, we just perfected it. Toodles!

It's named the America's Cup after the yacht which first won it - called 'America'