America's Cup...

[RacingManiac]

I know nothing of sail boat or sail boat racing, my passing knowledge of the competition is that I know these things are very advanced, and Adrian Newey's dream is to build a winning boat for America's Cup. The interest was really spurred by the fact that NBC Sport covers the event this year at San Francisco, and it was just about the most facinating thing I've seen in a long time. The insanely big catamaran with 40m tall composite rigid sail(more like wing), weighs 7 tons, and yet they can go 40 knots running on skinny hydrofoil and turn(by 20+m boat standard) on a dime....and all operated by 11 men and wind power...



Add to it is what seems to be the most improbable sport story of a team down 8-1 as of last week for a series that races to 9 wins(and the said down team started with a score of -2). And as of yesterday the score was draw even after 2 weeks of racing, and today(weather permitting) one race will decide the winner...

All in all very intriguing as a sport story and as an engineering object of interest, considering also the operating budget for one of these sailing team is about as much as a F1 team....with similar level of technology....

[Matra et Alpine]

Been watching it since race 12.
Home / Americas Cup has had live feeds for every race.

AWESOME
More overtaking than F1 !!!

Team USA onshore team clearly did some magic on the boat as it clearly had 2-5 knots in any wind. That and bringing Brit SIR Ben Ainslie on to run the tactics made it a walk in the park really. The last race was a lesson !!!!!

Well done Team USA
Would have my 100% support if it wasn't for Ellison

[Wouter Melissen]

That was quite a remarkable comeback. I would not want to be a member of the NZ crew right now.

[RacingManiac]

Yeah the on board shot of the NZL crew after the race was incredibly awkward...

I finally caught the final race itself last night. The race was tight until mid 3rd leg and US boat just took off...

Still am in awe than they can round those buoy at top speed....

[RacingManiac]

Some time killing material on the Cup, especially the AC72 boats...
America's Cup 2007 2010 2013 - Feature Articles Index - From Cupinfo.com

[Matra et Alpine]

Speed of the US boat just so dominant, even with that cock up at the helm when they dropped both hull noses and STILL were back in lead by mid way on that run

[RacingManiac]

There are some rumor of US boat has somekind of automated foil control that contributed to their better stability of staying on the foil. From perusing some sailing forum a lot of people are calling it cheating. Though I can imagine some kind of passive/reactive mechanical system probably can achieve some effect? I mean you can do a lot with a hydaulically linked system in cars these days that are completely passive and achieve some pretty interesting results(Kinetics Suspension in various cars, F1's ride height/pitch control). I can see something like that being possible...

The technology behind these things is the most fascinating of all, as well as the sheer scale of these boats...



How something that big can turn like they do is absolutely remarkable...

[RacingManiac]

BTW Something I thought was pretty interesing

Talking about the design of the hydrofoil daggerboard design

America's Cup 2013 - Gino Morrelli Talks Foils - from CupInfo

“It becomes a material science problem,” Morrelli says. “We’re building those things as thin and as deep as humanly possible given our level of technology and understanding. They’re pretty much solid carbon, but the way we build them, the way they are manufactured under high intense heat and pressure, it’s really the most aerospace part on the boat, is the daggerboards.”

“They take about three months to build, once we have a set of tools. They are super labor-intensive.”

There appear to be differing schools of thought when it comes to building daggerboards, though. “In fact, we were shocked when Oracle’s broke,” Morrelli says. “The first day sailing they broke one of their daggerboards and it popped up and it floated away.” That’s not what the ENTZ guys would have expected. “Ours would sink like a stone ... and be down in 18 feet of mud.”

[Ferrer]

weighs 7 tons, and yet they can go 40 knots running on skinny hydrofoil and turn(by 20+m boat standard) on a dime....

Kind of give the expression "handles like a boat" a whole new meaning...

More overtaking than F1 !!!

Not that this is something especially difficult.

[RacingManiac]

Kind of give the expression "handles like a boat" a whole new meaning...

Yeah kinda want a car that can do that....lol

[crisis]

Actually had not seen them inaction until yesterday. Most impressive. Some mates were saying they should go back to the original style of boats however I personally think this is one of the few areas in sport where the money no object approach is better. This totally advance technology in massive leaps.