Blog Page – Page 38

March 28, 2016 By Jack Griffin

Tickets for New York America’s Cup World Series

Event Village

The Event Village at Brookfield Place is free.

VIP Tickets:

America’s Cup Legends Club, on the 44th floor of Brookfield Place. Individual tickets available.
America’s Cup Legends Suites, on the 2nd floor of Brookfield Place, for groups up to 50.
Information and reservations available here. Or contact Shannon McCoy at Quint Events: SMcCoy@quintevents.com or +1-954-444-4598.

Boaters

Register here if you are planning to watch from your own boat on the water.
For overnight mooring, you can book space at Liberty Landing Marina across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Contact Graham Murphy by phone +1 201-985-8000 or by email: gmurphy@suntexmarinas.com.

On race days you can pick up or drop off passengers at Liberty Landing’s Pier 25 in Manhattan. You cannot tie up, but Liberty Landing will have staff on hand to help you approach and leave the dock.

As more info becomes available, I’ll keep it up to date here.

March 28, 2016 By Jack Griffin

Beast Mode – How to Trim the Wing

All four AC72’s that raced in San Francisco in 2013 used a mechanical linkage from the grinding pedestals to the wing winch. The grinding pedestals can be switched between pumping hydraulic oil and mechanically driving a winch. The mechanical linkage is more efficient than hydraulics for driving a winch. On upwind legs, three of the four pedestals on Oracle’s boat were dedicated to powering the wing winch, allowing trimmer Kyle Langford to trim the wing constantly, enabling stable upwind foiling. But this was a lot of work for the grinders, who called it “Beast Mode.” Here’s a video that shows how it was done.

Recently, a poorly informed journalist wondered in print if this constant trimming was legal. It was. The umpires in San Francisco were well aware of it. Oracle’s opponent, Emirates Team New Zealand did not protest. And, the umpires for the 2017 America’s Cup have issued a ruling to clarify that Beast Mode is legal. You can download that ruling here. Did you watch SoftBank Team Japan’s video in last week’s Cup Experience Monday News? You could see them training in Beast Mode on their experimental boat in Bermuda. As I mentioned in my article, you could see all four grinders turning the handles while wing trimmer Chris Draper constantly trimmed the wing.

March 28, 2016 By Jack Griffin

Near Collision Artemis – Oracle in Bermuda

An amusing but apocryphal story claims that in 1895 there were only two cars in the US state of Ohio, and that they collided. Well, on Bermuda’s Great Sound Artemis Racing and Oracle Team USA played out their own version of that story last week, nearly crashing their experimental boats. Watch:

Splashdown – Quick reflexes required

Here’s how Oracle described the incident:

“Artemis Racing, closing in at speed from the left, is on starboard and has rights, so the original call was for ORACLE TEAM USA to heat up – to turn to port (left) – and pass behind Artemis Racing. But then, the Swedish boat came off the foils, nearly stopping. Andrew Campbell, (offside helmsman during the gybe), had to make the call to turn to starboard (right) instead, bringing his boat off the foils in a spectacular splashdown.

Tom Slingsby, the regular helmsman, had just run across the boat and had his hands on the wheel as well. By the time both boats had come to a near stop in the water, just a yard or two apart, Slingsby was on the wheel, and Campbell was on his feet, heading the wing to push it to leeward by hand to help get the boat moving again.”

March 21, 2016 By Jack Griffin

Australia in Q1 2017?

Australian motorsports professional Tony Longhurst is heading up a group trying to bring the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series to the Gold Coast, near Brisbane. AC Regatta Director and Australian sailing legend Iain Murray has been there for meetings and press briefings.

Iain Murray pointing out a possible Gold Coast race area. You can read more here. Photos courtesy Ocean Magazine.

ACEA has previously announced that the teams agreed to hold one AC World Series event in the first quarter of 2017. Nothing has been confirmed.

March 21, 2016 By Jack Griffin

Preparations Continue in Bermuda

The infill work continues in the South Basin at Dockyard. Our Bermuda friend who took this photo reports that work is scheduled to be complete by end of June.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of action on the Great Sound. Loïck Peyron of Artemis Racing posted this photo of four AC45x experimental boats – two from Oracle and one each from Artemis and Team Japan.

Artemis has also been two boat testing on the Great Sound. If you look closely, you can see that their newer boat, Turbo 2, is further from the camera. Turbo 1 has only one grinding pedestal per hull; Turbo 2 has two. Photo courtesy Artemis Racing.

The M32 catamarans were back in Bermuda in March, as we see below, with the two Oracle experimental boats. Photo courtesy of M32 World.