Blog Page – Page 6

Winner of the 2013 America’s Cup in San Francisco, USA 17 has become a permanent exhibit at Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. She will be the highlight of an America’s Cup exhibition, “Speed and Innovation,” which will open in May 2017. I got the chance to climb over and inside USA 17 during my recent meetings at the museum in my role as “guest curator” of the upcoming exhibit.

AC72 Winner America's Cup at Mariners' Museum — *USA 17 –* AC72 – Winner of the 2013 America’s Cup, at Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia

AC72 Winner America's Cup - mast step on crossbeam — The view from near the middle of the forward crossbeam made me realize how BIG this yacht is! And, how much higher the top of the pod is compared to the hulls. In manoeuvres, the crew were scrambling up and down much greater heights than you think when you see the videos. Athletes? You bet!

America’s Cup Geek Warning!

If you read on, I’ll take you deep in the weeds with details only America’s Cup geeks like me enjoy. Proceed at your own risk.

In the previous photo, did you notice those two circles on the centerline? The forward one is the mast step. The aft one was not used, but was prepared when the designers considered moving the wing aft to counter the lee helm problem. I wrote about this in my book “Turning the Tide” – so it was very cool to see it.

AC72 Winner 2013 America's Cup in San Francisco - starboard helm wheel. Oracle Team USA — Jimmy Spithill’s view. Notice the black buttons on the inside of the wheel – controls for daggerboard rake. Do you see the black button on top of the post for the wheel? Before a tack or gybe, Tom Slingsby would cross over to the leeward side to prepare the wing winch, and then hold down that button until the moment it was time to let the daggerboard come up.

Here’s a video that will show how important the button was. This is from Race 4, at Gate 2, the end of the first downwind leg. Ouch! In spite of the error, Oracle won this race, their first win. The error shows that early in the America’s Cup Match, they had still not mastered how to sail the boat. But by the finish of Race 8, their second win, they had improved dramatically, and were on their way to winning, even though at that point the score was 6-0 for the Kiwis.

Grinder Simeon Tienpont was called “Hydro” because he ran a lot of the hydraulic controls on the boat. Some of his controls are shown in the next two photos. Not shown are the controls to switch the flow of oil between hulls and the controls for daggerboard cant. A lot of hardware was stripped out of the hulls long before USA 17 was donated to the Mariners’ Museum.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - daggerboard control panel — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – daggerboard control panel connections in Simeon Tienpont’s cockpit

AC72 Winner America's Cup mast step - 2 positions — AC72 Winner America’s Cup mast step – two positions. To correct the lee helm problem, the designers considered moving the wing aft but decided against the move. Do you remember the story about the famous lay day, Monday 16 September, with the score 7-1? ETNZ rejected Regatta Director Iain Murray’s suggestion to race, in order to get back on schedule. ETNZ did not sail that day, but Oracle did, testing a simpler solution than moving the mast step aft – they put an additional 1.5° of rake in the “mast.” They thought this might help reduce their lee helm problem, but it did not, so they went back to the previous rake setting, and they never changed the mast step position.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - mast step inside pod — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – mast step inside the central “pod.” That post is just below the forward circle in the previous photo. Presumably they would have needed another post like that, had they moved the wing aft.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - electrical panel inside pod — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – electrical panel and battery brackets, inside the central pod

AC72 Winner America's Cup - daggerboard seen from forward cockpit — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – daggerboard seen from forward cockpit. That’s the daggerboard you see through the circular hatch. This is the cockpit where Shannon Falcone and Joe Spooner worked the grinding pedestal. BTW, just to the right of that red arrow, you can see one of the scuppers.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - daggerboard & box inside hull — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – daggerboard & box inside the port hull. The daggerboard “cage” has been removed, with the mechanical feedback foil control system designed by Dmitri Despierres (still with Oracle) and Neil Wilkinson (now with ETNZ). This is where the imaginary “Little Herbie” would have been installed, had it existed. I’ve actually corresponded with the retired Kiwi 747 pilot who wrote the (unsigned) description of the mythical “computer controlled gyro-stabilized Stability Augmentation System” that got the Kiwi media all aflutter. He said the media blew his document all out of proportion. My conclusion: Little Herbie either did not exist or was the best coverup since NASA faked that landing on the moon.

Some Interesting America’s Cup Artefacts

The next three photos show polar info that was left in the hulls.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - polars wing trimmer — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – polars pasted next to the wing trimmer’s position.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - polars deltas — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – polars deltas.

AC72 Winner America's Cup - polars & daggerboard settings — AC72 Winner America’s Cup – polars & daggerboard settings. A couple of things to notice… The table is dated 8th September 2013 – the second day of racing. It has data for boards Nr 9 and Nr 10. On the first layday, Monday 9 September, they tested an asymmetric setup, with boards Nr 5 and Nr 10, but they chose not to race with that configuration. Oracle used the symmetric setup with boards Nr 9 and Nr 10 in all 19 races.

Gordon Baker developed and tested Monitor in the 1950’s. Monitor could get up on the foils in about 13 knots of wind and sail at about twice the true wind speed. Top speed was reported at over 30 knots, with some reports claiming 40 knots. At 40 knots, cavitation would probably have set in.

Monitor is on display at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia.