America’s Cup

[dialtone]

Is this an accepted topic? It’s racing and many F1 principles apply here as well, and plenty of shared technical knowledge between F1 and AC.

Plus these foiling beauties fly at 100kph over the water. Also I sailed plenty in my life so when I see manouvers like what Prada did to American Magic at the start on day 2 I just get massively pumped up.

Anyway, Louis Vuitton preliminary regatta is on right now, then LV later and the winner goes to AC against the Kiwis.

Looks pretty close between the top ones, French are definitely a bit behind right now.

[sp8472]

I am with you in watching this. Strategically and technically thrilling, just like F1


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hollus]

High tech carbon fiber racers designed with millions of CFD hours to suit an artificial and extreme set of performance constrains with absurd vertical dynamic forces first and foremost, ran in far away locations at enormous expense, with teams of hundreds focusing on tiny speed edges in short races.
I say that’s on topic!
Didn’t they even have a Newey once?

Moving it to general chat, though.

[dialtone]

Day 3 is starting to show that really Prada and Emirates are the 2 boats to beat.

It’s interesting because they have seriously different approaches in their foil shape but they end up fairly similar at the end. Too bad their match was ruined by Luna Rossa’s computer going haywire for 20 seconds.

It doesn’t look like INEOS has the pace to compete and maybe just American Magic and Alinghi RedBull can keep up with the top 2.

It must be said that like F1, once the start is done, not that much has been happening in the race because the boat performance is quite different.

[Airshifter]

The Kiwi's might be really tough to challenge. They've executed very well and have solid handling. In all fairness, it does seem to be similar to F1, with the start being a huge factor in this regulation. Once a boat can defend, they seem closely matched enough that only errors prevent them from a solid defense.

But just like F1, crazy things can happen. It surely wouldn't be the first time.

[dialtone]

The penalties for LR sucked but frankly was a great match, clearly LR has performance in the boat, might even be more performance than the Kiwis despite the loss, they have to be proud of what they built, best race of the preliminary regatta so far, coming back from 400m behind into a lead in 3 legs is mad speed.

[Airshifter]

Yeah, they had great boat speed but managed to hurt themselves too much with penalties.

But that final day showed us a lot. It proved a boat can make up time from behind, and more importantly that New Zealand is not always flawless. And some teams seemed to be able to rebound somewhat from earlier issues as well, meaning that a clear challenger might not yet be seen.

One thing seems sure, no matter who ends up going up against the Emirates team, they will have to be nearly flawless and aggressive to have a solid chance to win the cup. As it should be.

[dialtone]

First day of LV Cup.

Surprised by Alinghi losing to the French, good one point earned for them.
Shocking bad pace from INEOS against AM starting over 700m ahead and barely winning in the end, they should be very upset about this.

LR pulled one of the worst moves I've ever seen when racing, leebow tack downwind and less than 60m ahead, basically committed suicide between that and always choosing the right side of the course downwind that leg and the previous 2. When I saw them tacking leebow I immediately thought they had lost the race. So far LR racing has been somewhat sloppy against the Kiwis, first the computer malfunction, then the double penalty and now this imho senseless tack.
And now against the French almost lost the rudder and plenty of bad manuvering.

LR has to tighten up their game if they want to win the AC.

[Airshifter]

Interesting day of racing overall, and it proves that none of them can get it right all the time. At this point I think everyone barring INEOS has shown enough pace to win races, they just need to make less mistakes. I think it would take miracles to keep INEOS in the hunt, even with improvement.

I sure hope the damage to the New Zealand boat is none to minimal. I think it's more than none based on a video I saw, but hopefully easily repaired. It would be a shame if something beyond their control had a major impact on the series.

[dialtone]

Good racing day today frankly. INEOS struggling to beat France seems indicative they have pace issues.

LR, AM and NZL are on their own with imho a bit of margin to LR but need to convert better in the race, stronger wind seems to make LR better.

France is too inexperienced and had 2 manouvres that made totally no sense, they were 60m ahead and decided to go under INEOS when they could go above easily amd then leebow tacked from 10m instead of then crossing behind, totally threw the race away there despite 2 penalties against INEOS who is frankly very sloppy in their tacks, boat ventilates a lot.

Races are much tighter now though, turning into a very fun event.

[dialtone]

Good video:


Going back to when I wrote that Luna Rossa seems to get better with stronger wind, this video seems to confirm that what I saw really has some truth to it.

After day 6 IMHO it's clear LR is the stronger boat/crew of the lot, easily fastest if they keep it cool and have good execution, no lead is safe with them basically.

Finally Alinghi showed something and that they belong there. And racing overall has been quite exciting I have to say, definitely far from the race is over at the start, with lots of dueling, of course at some point the boat ahead can make everything safe and the race is frozen, but even then if you're off the foils, like it happened plenty today with NZL-FRA, the race reopens quickly.

[Airshifter]

No doubt Luna Rossa seemed mighty in stronger winds. Though it was a rare mistake by Team NZ, they really blew that start for a change.

INEOS has made a strong move forward from the early races, but it looks like most likely Luna Rossa will end up being the real challenge. It's impressive to see that they are even with Team NZ through the two round robins thus far.


Incredible boats, and it seems incredible progress by the teams since arriving. Even the teams at the bottom of the standings have had some strong races, and might have been one simple mistake or strategy move from more wins.

[Airshifter]

Well it's looking more and more like INEOS and Prada Pirelli will be facing off to see who takes the challenge to the Kiwi's. They have both been strong, but not error free either. I think Luna Rossa overall is a faster boat, but at times the Italians have really pushed limits. Their loss to American Magic was just pure bad calls, several of them. And in the end it finally bit them.

[dialtone]

Yeah, for some reason on occasion LRPP just shuts off their brain and decides to do dumb crap. 2 penalties and a totally brainless attempt on the inside of the mark only to lose the foil when they were clearly faster through the race. Hopefully they don't repeat this any more.

[dialtone]

Fair play to AM, they were great.

LRPP was obviously better boat and team and still dropped 3. There is something impulsive that LRPP has been doing in races against NZL and AM and others that worries me. They don’t seem cold blooded and able to have confidence by having the clearly superior boat, but instead try to rely on difficult manouvers and debatable strategies.

Somehow LRPP needs to get that sorted against INEOS and NZL if they get there, but for sure NZL needs to be afraid as both INEOS and LRPP are strong.

Will be a great Louis Vuitton Cup, looking forward to it.