Oracle AC72: Alienware
History Channel has been showing a sometimes funny Alien visitor in our Past series, I read the original book by Erich Von Danniken when I was a kid, and somehow thought it was an interesting theory, as there is quite a little chance in almost infinite possibilities on being the only ones in the entire Universe.
Another theory is that those ancient Alien visitors were time travelers from our own future.
Whichever the case, imagine if that the native Americans treated the Spaniards as ‘Gods’ or visitors from the Stars on their antique equipment, what would they have thought on seeing this vessel arriving their coasts?
Quantum Physics and other theories also validates the possibilities of parallel universes and time travel. Although if we go 100-200 years in the future I can´t figure out any further conceptual development on a wind powered yatch than foiling, next step would be literally flying above the water, but that would become just a glider.
The level of technology being developed in this Cup is just amazing, if an Alien lands tomorrow, we would ask him many unsolved mysteries, tehcnical & energy related matters… and sailing fanatics will surely ask them how about the latest technologies being applied in their local waters, and I can´t imagine the concept being too much different from this.
Photo: Guilain Grenier / Oracle Team USA
Well let me take a shot. If there are no specific rules… ie they have been relaxed and relaxed over the years and now its purely up to physics. The sailers will be in a enclosed fwd cockpit like a jet fighter aircraft. There will be no soft sails and no external rigging. There will be one or two vertical solid wings. The hulls will have main foils, rudders and fwd canards. The foils will be in the water at all times and the windward foil will be pulling down allowing increased righting moment and roll over control. The platform will be an airfoil and use in-ground aerodynamics as a motion damper. 60 knots will be common. We would have allowed electronic control a long time ago so driver skill is more to do with racing tactics, boat reliablity and rig selection. To keep things interesting we will, like now have 3 rig racing. The team or sailor that picks the right rig for the day (which comes down to how close you can fly to the water called skimming) would win. We may have large kites that get the boat up to a resonable speed before the apparent wind kicks in for the solid wings but I think we may have swing wings like on some aircraft so we increase the wing size for taleoff then swing them back to decrease the sail area as we go faster. We may have sliding slats and flaps like on commercial aircraft to get us going. Sailing ids still unlimited in what can be done… Peter s
Yes, that is why I talk about the concept and not on specific design details.
As a conceptual view, you float, foil or you fly, and if you literally fly then you are gliding.
So regarding the concept per se, not many places to go from here without becoming an hybrid glider with an hydro take off.