America Cup action

[John Z Goriup]

Watched a little TV coverage of the America's Cup races over the weekend, enough to decide that it was probably worthwhile driving into the City on a weekday when things wouldn't be quite as crowded as on a weekend and catching the historic action first-hand and close-up.

Am I glad we did. Fascinating ! The boats are huge, much larger than you would suspect from seeing them on TV, but it's the downright silly speed of these giants that will simply take your breath away. To see these ultra high-tech crafts do a tight U-turn with both hulls in the water and then literally leap into the "foiling" position and accelerate to top speed in a couple of boat lengths is utterly jaw-dropping.......and eerily silent.

The biggest hurdle to understanding the principles that go into the design of these boats, at least from a personal standpoint, is how do you parley a 21 knot wind, as it was yesterday during the race, into 48 knots of boat speed. Obviously Ellison's designers and engineers don't understand it all either, because the Kiwi boat is visible quicker to respond and faster on the long upwind runs......at least it was in yesterday's rout of the Oracle boat.

And here I thought that F1 was a high-tech sport involving advanced aerodynamics.

All taken with a Canon 5D Mk II and "L" 400mm f5.6 prime lens on a monopod.

JZG

[yale]

Yeah I thought the races were so exciting as well, though I only get to watch them on videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k4FAnqPBM0

The boats can go faster then the wind because firstly they are able to lesson drag through the water with the foils and secondly, like all sail boats, they are squeezed through the water like a tiddlywink, the wind pushing on the sails and the hulls and foils pushing against the water. Same is true in ice boat racing where those boats can go over a 100 MPH because they are so low drag on the ice.

[Reza]

By sailing at an angle to the wind heading. Not sailing downwind, not pushed by the wind. At an angle to the wind, the "apparent wind" is faster, and the lift forces like bernoulli will mess up the math to make the boat speed faster than the windspeed

[ibmiked]

As a sailor myself I can't tell you how impressed I am that only 3 posts into the thread Bernoulli's principle has already been mentioned.

[Peanut]

Not only has the technology changed the speed, but it has really changed the looks of the Americas Cup boats. Does anyone recall the days of the graceful "old" 12m yachts? I remember the thrill of seeing them- for the SORC races.

My father was aghast when multihull boats appeared, but then again he was also thrilled if we held 8 knot speeds consistently.

[rhegra]

Last Year I had the pleasure to sail with a 12 m former Amerca´s Cup yacht - absolutely great.

More about that under www.trivia.de , unfortunately only in german.
The light green boat is the famous Krupp yacht Germania IV.

[Peanut]

Wow. Beautiful. Thanks for posting. Must have been a great experience.