Looks like removing the right to appeal jury decisions has come back to bite them 2-0 up - boys looked comfortable today.

Might seem like a stupid question, but did they have to end up altering their boat to comply or just the penalty?

[edit] Never mind. i took the time to look it up myself

evlPanda said..

Just watched the first race (bit of insomnia). Closest race so far. Great stuff.

If you haven't been following Oracle USA received a penalty for their boat design breaking the rules. They receive no points for the first two races, win or lose.

The interesting thing was the rule breaches concerned the AC45 boats, they were pretty serious breaches but 250k in fines and 2 points in the main AC72 series seems a bit harsh to me.

The first two races were great, super close and OTUSA have been pretty aggressive! The boat speed between ETNZ and OTUSA is much closer than the previous matches...I'm not sold on which one has the edge yet, I tend to think ETNZ has an upwind advantage, OTUSA maybe a touch of an advantage downwind. You can't deny though that in the first two races ETNZ's teamwork made the difference, so so slick

18-sec deficit on the 2nd leg was turned into a 29 sec advantage at the end of leg three - massive difference in boatspeed - some amazing skills from the TNZ and Dean Barker is dominating. 3 to -2!!!! Game on.

What a boat. Gybes without dropping below 30 knots! Sails in 5 to 33 knots with the one rig!

I'm still getting up to speed with this new spectator sport.
So the boat handling members of the crew use electronics to distribute the hydraulic power generated by the grinding crew members. But the design rules don't allow storage of energy other than in small springs, computer batteries and shock chord. That's not fair, no wonder the grinder crew are puffing and blowing keeping the hydraulic lines constantly pressurised.

www.sailingworld.com/racing/americas-cup-34-power-oil/

Ian K said..

What a boat. Gybes without dropping below 30 knots! Sails in 5 to 33 knots with the one rig!

I'm still getting up to speed with this new spectator sport.
So the boat handling members of the crew use electronics to distribute the hydraulic power generated by the grinding crew members. But the design rules don't allow storage of energy other than in small springs, computer batteries and shock chord. That's not fair, no wonder the grinder crew are puffing and blowing keeping the hydraulic lines constantly pressurised.

www.sailingworld.com/racing/americas-cup-34-power-oil/

Good observation, and intriguing Ian. Complete nonsense to use exclusively crew muscle to power pumps , then hydraulic ram.
What about wind power ! Small wind turbine could power hydraulics pumps.
That reminds me Titanic with crew manually shuffling coal into furnaces or ancient rowing boats. As a storage energy compressed air should be allowed at lest.
Ideal will be covering sail or wing rather with imprinted photo voltaic cells. at 240 m2 that could add up to extra 24kw of power. Sort of hybrid wind - solar boat.
One day Americas Cup boats could be scaled up to cross the oceans and carry passengers or freight.
At speeds > 50 knt on free wind and sun energy ! That is where I appreciate every penny spent on Americas Cup now - the best investment in the future ever!

Macroscien said..
*snip Complete nonsense to use exclusively crew muscle to power pumps , then hydraulic ram.
What about wind power ! Small wind turbine could power hydraulics pumps.

Because that's the rules. When class rule for these boats was proposed they came up with the fastest boat that could be powered by humans by why of grinders etc without powered assistance. BOR90 etc in the last up had complete powered hydraulics, simple generator or two in the hull, boom, easy, crew just chills playing with switches; there is no way you could sail that boat without powered assistance. In this cup they ditched all that, they are allowed electronic switching of the pump output circuit/s etc but there can be no energy storage, IE in a pressure accumulation vessel, it must be flowed by the pumps, by the crew, as required. I think this is a good thing, it's real sailing!

The ability to grind is not the determining factor in this cup, both teams would have a suitable amount grinding fitness in reserve, sure it's hard work but look at ETNZ, Grant Dalton is on the grinders, the dude is 56yo. To call it a rowing race is just ridiculous, what do you think they did back on the 24m-ish monos...they used grinders. The only cup where they had full powered hydraulic assistance was the last cup, which while the boats were incredible, was a total fiasco. I think having manual grinding is a good thing (without accumulation). The design and technology in those hyrdo circuits to allow for maximum efficiency and control would arguably be far more sophisticated that if you could just whack in an electric pump and a few solenoids.

And are you seriously arguing that the old monos as sailed in Aukland are as spectacular as these boats...have to be taking the piss. The AC has never been this spectacular, much smaller course, close to the spectators not 10km offshore...and you can't deny these are the most spectacularly sailing boats the AC world has ever seen...by a mile.

Race 3 was a cracker. . A question on the rules. NZL got a penalty at the first mark for not leaving buoy room. But don't they need to do a tack and gybe to discharge it? It looks like they just kept on racing?

sausage said..

Race 1 vid of Joe Newton (Yeppoon boy) going overboard on race start. Wouldn't want to be doing 40 knots when slipping over board

Looks like G-forces from the boat turning gave him too much momentum......

Its Funny but I did my apprentice ship at barlow marine & we made the old coffee grinders that actually won Australia the Americas cup & then because we had the recession we had to have & our dollar was dirt cheap & just about every overseas boat that raced in the Perth Americas cup had Barlow winches saved freight & was cheaper buying here .
We were so inundated with orders they put up a $26000 bonus if we made them all on time to be divided up in the I think around 140 workers.
The factory manager would lock the door to get so every body would have stay until we hit the daily target & Australia didn't get there winch order in on time so they had to buy from overseas at an exorbitant price compared to everybody else .
Its come a long way since the winged keel .
I have seen the current round of sailing & gee those people are flying .
Its a funny really Alan got us the Americas cup
But
Clive is building the titanic

longwinded said..

Ian K said...
Race 3 was a cracker.

. A question on the rules. NZL got a penalty at the first mark for not leaving buoy room. But don't they need to do a tack and gybe to discharge it? It looks like they just kept on racing?

They just need to lose 2 boat lengths to complete penalty.

I didn't know that. Thanks.

Oracle just called for a postponement to race 6 so all over for today. I think they're getting rattled.

Ted,
As you mentioned the telling stats were in the upwind leg as follows;
Ave Speed NZ 22.6 USA 21.43
Max Speed NZ 29.79 USA 28.98
Distance sailed NZ 7696m USA 8238m
No. of Tacks NZ 7 USA 8

Geez they really did f#$k that bottom turn watching the replay. Feeling for Joe but great to see the Kiwi's smacking USA's ar5e.

Max speeds for R5 NZ 46.94kn USA 44.93kn

^^^

Highlights for Races 1, 2, 3 & 4