Capsizing in the Americas Cup: Cats vs Mono
Photos: 05/06/2017 – Bermuda (BDA) – 35th America’s Cup 2017 – Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Playoffs semi-finals, Day 2 – ACEA 2017 . AC75 shot by Emirates Team New Zealand.–
I’ve been talking yesterday with two good friends, one is recently graduated from Naval Engineering and the other a Naval Architect, both sail cats but also monohulls which is their initial background indeed.
Discussions were around TNZ AC75 Concept & Capsize. My position right now on the concept is AC75s have a great flaw on this aspect (lets see in the future) and they minimized current scenario justifying it with “Cats also Capsize”… Lets analyze the AC72 vs AC75 Classes:
Initial AC72 Multihull Class Rules:
The Class rules of the AC72 were thought to forbid & discourage full foiling. Emirates Team New Zealand thought otherwise and got immersed on fabulous R&D process which targeted full flight. To do so they made several scaled down tests. 33 foot cat platforms were used to test alternative foil configurations. The concept was pushed to the limit with many prototypes and only when they thought they had a viable solution they selected one to be implemented in their AC72. See the finally unveiled work by TNZ here.
Meanwhile Oracle and the rest of the teams trailed down big time. Oracle’s spies weren’t greatest at the time and they went for a hard Ls main Foil solution which were tested first on their AC45s. That hard 90 deg L foil concept was directly fit later on the 72.
Artemis first goal by then was to skim downwind only, later we know sadly what happened on a breezy day at SF with the sad lost of a great sailor like Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson. Aside any possible handling issue by now word is a structural failure was involved in the accident.
Oracle went to sail their AC72 with those hard 90 deg L main foils and also suffered a tremendous frontal capsize of their own, it was a breezy day too, plenty of power involved.
By the time Oracle’s R&D project flying AC72 was clearly a total Fail. And the AC72s transition from a Class thought not to Foil but forced by the Teams Design squads , was not looking that good. The transition was not an official rule aim or change, it was forced by the Teams themselves.
Team New Zealand continued their tests on the AC72, after an incredible R&D maintained in a KGB secrecy level, the ‘Tractor’ always looked pretty stable at Hauraki Gulf. I remember publishing first shot, analyzing in disbelief if it was photoshop or not.
Remind again this AC72 float to fly process was done after the AC72 Class Rules were written and published, which for the nth time were not defined for a full foiler Cat.
SF Louis Vuitton Cup
Team New Zealand reached the Louis Vuitton first race with a solid development and testing process behind. In the meantime Oracle went to do a proper copy paste of the Kiwi foiling solution and Artemis design & sailing crew did an amazing job implementing a flight package of their own, considering the little time , tough situation all involved were literally suffering. Artemis team effort was sublime and in a way they honored Simpson completing a work not many would have endured in those truly hard hours.
So in short, we had at the start of the LV some proper foiling AC72s, which were not capsizing say in 5 or 10 knots and managed the SF breeze and strong current in a pretty good way, more taking account the Rules bypass process noted above.
Team New Zealand had a big advantage on performance and reliability and went 9 to 1 vs Oracle in the Final, the rest we all saw what happened.
At the LV and AC finals , the AC72s behaved impressively good. The Flying AC72 Concept was a great success thanks only to Emirates Team New Zealand.
Americas Cup 35 Bermuda: AC50s
For Bermuda it was decided to continue with the foiling cat platforms, a proven concept by now. The AC50s end displaying an enormous amount of flight power with races reaching 100% foiling time even in the lightest of breeze.
Who were once again ahead of the pack in terms of R&D, reliability and performance? Team New Zealand.
But things in the AC change rapidly, while Match Racing against the ‘Animal’ , TNZ was forced by Ainslie to a complete disaster on the most spectacular sailing capsize ever saw, which happened once more on a pretty breezy day plus handling errors were involved as Ainslie & crew were able to bare away no issues from the same stop position.
Either way, AC50s also could flip and capsize… in say +25 knots. The rest also known , TNZ went to humiliate Oracle in the Finals.
Team New Zealand once more were the mighty winners in both areas: R&D & Sailing skills.
AC36 & Foiling Monos
Annoyed with ‘beachcats’ in the AC & Ellison? Dalton and Bertelli discarded the super proven foiling Cats showing incredible Match Races skills, to go back to Traditional Monohulls. Or so we all thought.
In 2020 a slow floating mono coming after what we saw at Bermuda was not an ideal solution, so the best Design team on the planet, Team New Zealand one, decided to give a shot to a foiling monohull.
Many would have thought an IMOCA like solution was due while proven too in advanced, but TNZ Design , who were responsible to implement in a successful way the greatest development ever in the history of the Americas Cup (and sailing in gral) , went for an incomprehensible monster. I mean, that was the first reaction many had, even AC level Design professionals had a grin wondering what was all about.
AC75s
Jumping to current times, the AC75 concept is a reality, it flies pretty well and a hard Wing is not required to achieved 40-50 knots. That initial tinkering concept punched back hard. The AC75s have great potential.
— NOW, even the prototypes had a big flaw (left aside the hanging mainfoil arms guillotines) which is capsizing sideways in the lightest of breeze. –
Video published yesterday shows the mighty TNZ Team going down like a big Whale in our Patagonian coasts. It doesn’t look good, wind might be around 10 knots tops? Boat speed not much either.
Objectively there is a big issue with current concept, there is not much mono vs cat discussion involved.
Same issue would have been TNZ showing up to San Francisco LV Regatta with a foiling solution like Oracle hard / 90 deg L mainfoils. It would have been a total failure no doubt. Not the case in the end as described.
So leave both sides of Mono vs Cat fanaticism behind and objectively analyze video from yesterday and current AC75 situation.
The AC75, a new class thought from scratch to foil 100% to surpass the performance, reliability & Match Racing abilities of the Bermuda AC50s, is currently having big control issues while sailing and flying in moderated breeze.
– It is an indisputable Fact, end of the story in this regard. –
The R&D process TNZ did in the greatest of secrecy for the flying ‘Tractor’ trying to bypass rules not meant to foil, is now being done based on actual flying targeted Class AC75 Monohull Rules, but in the open sky for everyone to see.
What do you want any of us to comment or thought? Do you see the difference between both AC72 & AC75 flight process plus original Rules?
Do you think Dalton & Bertelli are going : “…well, cats also capsized, all good boys, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, let the Cat fans talk, this never happened, and if we see the AC75 flipping down like bowling pins in 5knots of wind in the LV & AC Finals, so be it…”
Above is a similar attitude my two friends are having right now justifying a 5 knots capsize with those cat ones previously mentioned. I would be pretty worried right now being head of any of current AC Teams. Cat fans are the less of their worries.
Comparing both platforms one thing is a chance to capsize in the breeze a la TNZ at Bermuda and quite another what is going on right now with the AC75 concept in light winds.
All above being said we want the AC75 to solve or minimize current issues for these platforms to perform in any given wind / sea conditions, we want to see them blasting the Hauraki gulf as the AC50s did from 5 to +25knots at Bermuda.
We are eager to see great Match Racing, and specially we would like to see Ainslie & crew to be handed with a proper weapon this time around.
The same for Prada specially & American Magic.
After the Cup we will see or discuss if the AC75 are better than the AC50s, right now we describe what we are seeing, it is not that complex or someone reaching final conclusions.
In the end, Nothing beats the Allure, Tradition and Prestige of the America Cup.
No Sail GP , no GC32 or Ultime Offshore foiling Trimarans can match this Regatta. The Americas Cup can be raced in Foiling Optimists while us spectators will be enjoying big time seeing Burling, Spithill , Ainslie and company going for the Glory of winning the Oldest & Most prestigious sport Trophy out there.
