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Oracle USA

OldMadBrit said:
My buddy agreed to the effect of "who's going to buy a 40-60ft racing mono-hull when you could have a 40ft foiling cat and rule the Bay".
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Hell, even on the lower end, I wonder if Hobie is going to sell more TriFoilers, now...
 
TheBoatDude said:
Hell, even on the lower end, I wonder if Hobie is going to sell more TriFoilers, now...
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God I hope so - massively underrated boat :thumbup

Hopefully this will get people interested in boats better able to use the amazing wind we have in the Bay instead of the mono-hull barges that work in Chesapeake Bay but are always overpowered here.
 
I doubt most people who sail here want to go much faster than 10 knots anyway. They just treat it like having a picnic on the water with friends, food and wine. I find most sailing pretty boring as you toot along like a snail.

However, now i remember my last sail was actually quite fun. It was a J-24 or something along those lines out of Sausalito one evening. Once we hit the fog line the winds cranked up to at least 20 to 25 knots. The boat was keeled over further than i ever thought possible. You had to literally hang on for dear life or you were in the water. We came back completely soaked. Ok, that was a blast, but i was probably the only one who enjoyed it! ;)
 
jc2ducati said:
I doubt most people who sail here want to go much faster than 10 knots anyway. They just treat it like having a picnic on the water with friends, food and wine. I find most sailing pretty boring as you toot along like a snail.

However, now i remember my last sail was actually quite fun. It was a J-24 or something along those lines out of Sausalito one evening. Once we hit the fog line the winds cranked up to at least 20 to 25 knots. The boat was keeled over further than i ever thought possible. You had to literally hang on for dear life or you were in the water. We came back completely soaked. Ok, that was a blast, but i was probably the only one who enjoyed it! ;)
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True, there are folks that fancy the "Wine and cheese tack", along with wearing ascots and sailors caps, like this guy

thurston-howell.jpg
.

But there is something about sailing fast. I learned to sail on J-24's (out of OCSC in Berkeley) - second day out I was burying the leeward rail and damn near standing upright (I needed to learn some about sail trim).

When I bought my Hobie Getaway (plastic hulls don't break when you slam in to the dock) I got a better taste of going fast on a sailboat, with the added benefit of staying flat, which is nice.
 
jc2ducati said:
I doubt most people who sail here want to go much faster than 10 knots anyway. They just treat it like having a picnic on the water with friends, food and wine. I find most sailing pretty boring as you toot along like a snail.

However, now i remember my last sail was actually quite fun. It was a J-24 or something along those lines out of Sausalito one evening. Once we hit the fog line the winds cranked up to at least 20 to 25 knots. The boat was keeled over further than i ever thought possible. You had to literally hang on for dear life or you were in the water. We came back completely soaked. Ok, that was a blast, but i was probably the only one who enjoyed it! ;)
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You are right the average Bay sailor has no clue how good this wind resource rally is. On any given afternoon, most have at least 2 reefs in because their hull is at its max speed and cant go any fater.

I learned to sail on a Windsurfer and 38 years later am still addicted to the thrill of blasting along at 25-35kts treating everything else as a gybe mark :laughing

Blasting downwind at >30kts with the sail close hauled because the apparent wind is coming in the opposite direction to the real wind, never gets old. And neither does planing upwind at 25kts with a plume of spray off the transom with the rig and board screaming. :thumbup

Watching the AC 72's finally make the most of the wind we have was something I had almost given up on. Absolutely brilliant :thumbup

Sailing changed for ever this week, history was made and we got to see it :thumbup:thumbup
 
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?
 
Antarius said:
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?
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The one thing they share is that they float on water and use wind...that's about it. It's like comparing F18s with P58 Mustangs.

The AC72 moves above the water, rather than through it. That reduces drag a LOT. Yesterday the Kiwis hit 50mph at one point. The 12 Meter boats of old would hit maybe 18mph? (12 Meters does not represent length, but is a formula derived from many factors)
 
OldMadBrit said:
My buddy agreed to the effect of "who's going to buy a 40-60ft racing mono-hull when you could have a 40ft foiling cat and rule the Bay".
Click to expand...

Does that mean I'll be able to pick up a used Swan 48 cheap?
 
Antarius said:
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?
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Wut.

they're kinda like Android vith guggle voice, vs. a Palm Pilot. Everything is different and faster.. but they're both phones :)))
 
I'm talking about the "boats of the past" as in, the boats in the last few Americas Cups....

To me they seem the same? Basically the F1 of sailing? I can tell the difference between your average sail boat and Oracles' boat, but between Americas Cup racing boats? I dunno, they all look like they're designed the same. What's so ground breaking about Oracle's design if the Kiwi's are the same, as is every other teams?
 
Poxy said:
Does that mean I'll be able to pick up a used Swan 48 cheap?
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We can all live in hope :laughing

What he meant was that racing (as separate from cruising) may move more and more to multi-hull foilers.
 
Antarius said:
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?
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Yes it was massive although the basics have been around for 25 years.

The biggest changes was the use of foils. Foils drop drag by a couple of orders of magnitude, so the speeds are massively higher. The top speed of a 70ft Mono-hull is about 25kts in a fast downwind "reach". The AC72's were averaging 40kts and hitting 50kts. This is so fast that when the AC72's are running down wind, the apparent wind (the direction that the wind appears to be coming from inside the boat) is always off the bow and the sail is always pulled in tight. This "close hauled reaching" is very, very challenging and easy to get wrong.

For a bike analogy - consider the first guys to slide the rear on a MotoGP bike and how we all went :wow - only on an AC72 11 guys are coordinating their actions in real time to pull it off.

Previously only Windsurfers and a few specialized racing dinghies were fast enough to reach "close hauled". When they crash (and they do) the sailors get wet. When an AC 72 crashes - sailors get killed.

By the start of the America's Cup NZ and Oracle had both figured out how to foil downwind all the time and to foil upwind occasionally and with difficulty. And the sailing world was doing a collective :wow :thumbup :wow

Then an even bigger breakthrough happened 1/2 way through the AC series, when Oracle figured out how to foil upwind consistently - this gave them a devastating advantage on the upwind legs. We were watching something absolutely brand new happening right in front of us. Up to that point we all thought 20kts upwind in 19kts of wind was incredible. Then Oracle pulled off 30kts upwind on its foils in less than 20kts of wind. :wow :party :wow

Its amazing to watch but causes a really scary situation when they come to round the top (windward) mark. Any drop in boat speed as they round the windward mark causes the apparent wind (the combination of boat speed and wind speed) to veer to the side of the boat, if the sail is not adjusted quickly enough to compensate the boat will flip over. It must have been a hell of a white knuckle ride when Oracle did it the first time.

Now its all over and the world has seen what foiling sailboats can do - competitive sailing will never be the same again and the industry is struggling to deal with what's coming next.

Foiling craft don't need to be big to be fast, since speed is not a function of waterline length. So who's going to buy a 60ft Swan for ~$1mill only to get trounced by young punks on 30ft foiling cats?

Hobie's now discontinued Tri-Foiler was clocked at 42kts in the Bay. It was 16ft long, only needed a crew of 2 and cost less than $25K - and could use 60ft Mono-hulls as gybe marks. :laughing

[youtube]zXSgZCDVWOM[/youtube]


Foiling Moths go like hell in almost no wind.

[youtube]YZU_SqMW_5Y[/youtube]

Until now, foiling sailboats never sold in numbers partly because not enough people go to see what they could do. The AC just changed all of that - as of this morning used Tri-foilers became a hot ticket item.

Another factor is that racing at 25-40kts requires very different tactics and skill sets. Figuring out how to make the most of a boat that always sails with the sail close hauled with the apparent wind always coming over the bow is a big change.

Sailors with experience racing high performance windsurfers (where you have very similar conditions and always have the apparent wind off the bow) may have more to offer than guys with mono-hull racing experience.

Sailing has just got a lot more exciting :thumbup
 
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Antarius said:
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past?
Click to expand...

There were only two boats this year and in the past there were a lot more. :laughing
 
Antarius said:
For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?
Click to expand...

Ummmmm yes. Like Orville Wrights first flight compared to NASA blasting off to the moon. Oldman Brit gave a very good explanation. I'm a lifelong sailor and windsurfer as well. I have a bit of experience with ice sailing and surfing as well. Ice sailing in the right conditions you see very very very little resitance to forward movement (friction), and was the only place we would see these kind of speeds (ie sailing so much faster than wind).

In my lifetime, I never would have thought I would see sailing watercraft reach these kind of multiples of the windspeed, let alone large boats foiling. Oracle, however they did it, learn to do faster than the Kiwis. All the teams were learning eash day on the water. Its just the beginning of the curve.

That said, I dont think we are going to see a huge shift for the general sailing population. Some racing yes. Its kinda like, but less so the performance we starting seeing with sportboats and planing hulls. I have some experience on Melgas 24's and family owns a J-80 (a slug in the world of sportboats). Everyone asked why anyone would still own a displacement hull when this shift began. But as many folks soon found out, they tend to be very tender, and not really family friendly for a gentle cruise. Sportboats are still a fraction of sailing market for that very reason. I'll take my slug of an old Hunter 25 over a sportboat when entertaining girls on a mimosa cruise to Angel Island. Sometimes going slow, dry, and comfortable is preferable.

In addition, the entire sailing infrastructure would have to change. Where are you going to berth all these new boats with the wide beams?

Regardless, it was truly special to see what we saw. If the cup stays in SF, I hope they do a much better job. Besides the final week, it was a clusterfuck.
 
OaklandF4i said:
Ummmmm yes. Like Orville Wrights first flight compared to NASA blasting off to the moon. Oldman Brit gave a very good explanation. I'm a lifelong sailor and windsurfer as well. I have a bit of experience with ice sailing and surfing as well. Ice sailing in the right conditions you see very very very little resitance to forward movement (friction), and was the only place we would see these kind of speeds (ie sailing so much faster than wind).

In my lifetime, I never would have thought I would see sailing watercraft reach these kind of multiples of the windspeed, let alone large boats foiling. Oracle, however they did it, learn to do faster than the Kiwis. All the teams were learning eash day on the water. Its just the beginning of the curve.

That said, I dont think we are going to see a huge shift for the general sailing population. Some racing yes. Its kinda like, but less so the performance we starting seeing with sportboats and planing hulls. I have some experience on Melgas 24's and family owns a J-80 (a slug in the world of sportboats). Everyone asked why anyone would still own a displacement hull when this shift began. But as many folks soon found out, they tend to be very tender, and not really family friendly for a gentle cruise. Sportboats are still a fraction of sailing market for that very reason. I'll take my slug of an old Hunter 25 over a sportboat when entertaining girls on a mimosa cruise to Angel Island. Sometimes going slow, dry, and comfortable is preferable.

In addition, the entire sailing infrastructure would have to change. Where are you going to berth all these new boats with the wide beams?

Regardless, it was truly special to see what we saw. If the cup stays in SF, I hope they do a much better job. Besides the final week, it was a clusterfuck.
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Yes good points. We are not going to see the end of monohull cruisers that's for sure.

The idea of Stadium Racing seemed to work though. My wife asked "why don't they run PWA Windsurfing competitions at SF's waterfront?" I think she made a good point. I was disappointed that they didn't think to organise a Formula Windsurfer race or two as support race - that would have kept the crowd entertained and opened a few eyes. We certainly have the local talent to put on a good show. :thumbup
 
OldMadBrit said:
Until now, foiling sailboats never sold in numbers partly because not enough people go to see what they could do. The AC just changed all of that - as of this morning used Tri-foilers became a hot ticket item.
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See, this makes me wonder if there could be a kit to retrofit foils to, say, a Hobie 16.
 
TheBoatDude said:
See, this makes me wonder if there could be a kit to retrofit foils to, say, a Hobie 16.
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Been thinking the same thing - but how about a kit for something a bit more useful like a Corsair 36. Then you could have the best of both worlds. Stable day sailor with shallow draft to get to places others can't and a screamer when you want it to be.
 

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