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It was no April Fool’s gag…
09 Apr 2015
Artemis Racing’s AC45 – photo: Sander van der Borch/Artemis Racing
AMERICA’S CUP: The item we ran on April 1st from Eurobutt suggesting the America’s Cup was going to be a one design seems to have had rather more basis in fact than an April Fool joke, writes Peter Nash.
Because the latest we hear from Mr Ellison and Co is that the next AC is likely to use boats that are – essentially – one design catamarans.
And they’re small. At 48ft loa, the AC48 is smallest boat ever used for the 165 year old America’s Cup.
The boats were designed by Oracle’s designer and the wing, sails, hulls, platform/crossbeams are “standardised”.
So we now have an America’s Cup that was – for 165 years – always sailed in majestic monohulls, now brought down to 48ft catamarans that have absolutely no sense of power and majesty whatsoever.
They will, of course, be incredibly fast. Foiling has come a long way since the last AC. But is this going to be enough to make a sailboat series that was always a spectacle seem anything other than a few very small, very fast little boats racing around?
As one commentator put it – a small foiling catamaran offers nothing in tactical sailing. So there will be no real pre start jousting. There will be no tactical sailing upwind or downwind. All it can offer is speed, speed and more speed.
But, according to Ben Ainslie, the new America’s Cup wing sail foiling catamaran will be “more manoeuvrable” and “better suited” to Bermuda’s racecourse.
Mr Ainslie insists the new class is “absolutely essential for the long term good of the Cup”.
I hear far more people asking for a return to modernised 12 Metre boats. Or how about TP52s? That would give fast and furious sailing people could understand.
Mr Ainslie continued, pointing out the new boats “will be able to achieve speeds of close to 50 miles an hour, far faster than any other current racing series in global sailing, and a match for the 72ft boats that raced the 34th America’s Cup.”
But the speed of the new boats may be matched perfectly by the speed of Luna Rossa in withdrawing from the new look America’s Cup with its new choice of the AC48 after having spent millions in developing Luna Rossa’s AC62.
But as well as the change of boat, there are arguments about the elimination series, with the Australian round likely to be eliminated itself.
And, as the Australian government was due to be a major sponsor of Emirates Team New Zealand if the elimination series went to Auckland, that now seems to have put the team’s entry in doubt.
So now we have just Ben Ainslie Racing and the Swedish Artemis down as challengers against Oracle.
What a mess, eh? Not much of a spectacle in there. Except the spectacle of interested parties fighting for what THEY think is the right way for the AC to go.
And the latest is it seems the French squad led by Franck Cammas has been given some help by Oracle.
“We have some very good news: the Americans, Oracle, have decided to share their design and to collaborate with Team France,” Cammas told French radio station Europe 1.
As French AC sailor Bruno Troublé put it – rather well, think most people – “Golden Gate Yacht Club, and their Oracle Team USA, are great sailors but hopeless guards of the Myth.
“They managed to kill the style and elegance which prevailed for decades, those unique aspects of the America’s Cup for which was our main aim at Louis Vuitton for 30 years.
“What we have now is a vulgar beach event smelling of sunscreen and french fries. This is definitely NOT the Cup.”
I think Mr Troublé hit the nail on the head there…