Many America's Cup fans say this is their best source of information.
Following a report in the San Francisco Chronicle that Russell Coutts said the Protocol and the Class Rule would be delayed to summer, the America’s Cup website published an article saying both documents are on schedule to be released in March.
Negotiations with five potential sites for the 35th America’s Cup will continue until summer.
A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle bore the headline “America’s Cup cost to S.F. more than doubles.” Supervisor John Avalos, a strong critic of the event, requested the report. San Francisco’s budget analyst revised his report on the cost to the city of the America’s Cup, showing a total cost of $11.5 million, almost double the amount in his original December report. The revision added $5.5 million of costs to the Port of San Francisco to the $6 million from the city’s general fund. The Port’s expenses are covered by rent from port properties. City general fund expenses are covered by taxes.
Not surprisingly, supporters of the event tend to talk about the benefits but not the costs. On the website of the Bay Area Council, a business sponsored policy advocacy organization, we find a report stating that San Francisco received as much as $7.8 million in tax revenue related to the America’s Cup. The Bay Area Council study also reports up to $550 million in local economic activity including $280 million in direct spending by the teams.
The Chronicle’s sports editor, Al Saracevic doesn’t try to sort out the dueling statistics, saying, “The bottom line: San Francisco should strike a fair deal with Coutts and his Oracle team. It might have cost the city money, in terms of free rent and utility connections, but there was trickle-down economic impact throughout the city. If the Oracle team acts on the lessons learned in 2013, it should be smoother sailing.” Saracevic noted, “There were thousands of people on the shores of San Francisco screaming their heads off for a sailboat race. That had never happened before.”
Read more (SF Gate – sports article)
Clarification from Coutts: Protocol and Class Rule not delayed.
Russell Coutts told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Protocol and Class Rule for the 35th America’s Cup will not be released in March as planned, but would be delayed to summer while the venue selection process continues.
Citing unresolved negotiating points with San Francisco, Coutts told the Chronicle that the America’s Cup Event Authority is now looking at four other potential venues, including San Diego, Hawaii and a “northern state” venue – presumably Newport, Rhode Island.
Selecting a venue is not the only thing delaying the announcements. There have been reports that the challengers, led by the Challenger of Record, Australia’s Hamilton Island Yacht Club, have been pressing for more control over the Challenger Selection Series. There has even been speculation that the defender proposed using the America’s Cup World Series to eliminate all but four challengers. The final four would then compete in the challenger selection series in July 2017, in the new class of yacht, in the venue for the America’s Cup Match. Read more here. It’s hard to imagine the challengers accepting such a plan. Finding the sponsorship needed for a serious campaign would be virtually impossible, since a team could not guaranty it would get past the elimination round. With the AC World Series sailed in different boats – possibly foiling AC45’s – and in different venues, it would serve little purpose in selecting the best challenger to design and build a new boat and race it in the venue selected for the America’s Cup Match. If the defender has proposed these ideas, it’s no wonder the challengers have not agreed to a protocol.
A little history
In 1970, for the first time, multiple challengers were allowed to have a regatta to decide which of them would challenge the defender in the America’s Cup Match. Called the Louis Vuitton Cup from 1983 to 2013, this regatta helped the challengers two ways – selecting the best challenger, and giving the challenger racing experience. New York Yacht Club – defender until they lost the Cup in 1983 – had had these advantages with their “defender trials” to select the yacht to defend the Cup. In 2007 and 2013, the Challenger Selection Series was organized by the defender, giving rise to complaints that the challengers have lost too much control. The challengers now appear to want to run this regatta again, as they did from 1970 to 2003, so they can organize it to improve their chances of a successful challenge.
Showing that the “USA” in the team’s name is appropriate, OTUSA announced their design team for the 35th America’s Cup, stressing that 11 of the 18 designers are Americans.
Among the returnees from previous campaigns, wing design manager Scott Ferguson (USA) is back for a third successive America’s Cup with OTUSA. Wing designer and aero specialist Tom Speer (USA) also rejoins the team.
New team members include Len Imas (USA) and Hal Youngren (USA), who worked with Team New Zealand during the previous Cup, contributing to the design of a Kiwi boat that came within one race of winning it all.
“It’s still amazing to think that the final was so close, and that it all came down to one last race,” Imas said. “Now, it’s great to sit down with these guys, learn what they were thinking and to start work again with the new team.”
Design team members: Paul Bieker (USA), Dimitri Despierres (FRA), Len Imas (USA), Hal Youngren (USA), Aaron Perry (USA), Bryan Baker (USA), Juan Vila (ESP), Scott Ferguson (USA), Christoph Erbelding (GER), Thomas Hahn (GER), Steven Roberts (FRA), Jose Luis Vela (ESP), Tom Speer (USA), Eric Jolley (USA), Andrew Gaynor (USA), Ian Burns (AUS), JB Braun (USA), Kurt Jordan (USA)
Pete Melvin
Pete Melvin recently reported on progress writing the Class Rule for the 35th America’s Cup. With partner Gino Morrelli, his firm were the lead designers writing the AC72 Class Rule for the last America’s Cup. Hired by the Defender and the Challenger of Record, he is working with the teams and other stakeholders. The consensus is for a 60 to 65 foot long foiling wingsail catamaran that will cost significantly less to design, sail and operate than the AC72’s. Cost reduction will come from smaller size, lower construction costs, one design elements, fewer crew and fewer personnel needed for logistics. Remember that it typically took 30 – 40 people one to two hours to launch or retrieve an AC72.
In a separate interview for Yachting World, Russell Coutts talked about an “AC60” with seven or eight crew, capable of foiling upwind as well as downwind.
While the cost of design and construction will come down, the essence of the America’s Cup – the emphasis on design and technology – will be be maintained. Design areas that can consume a lot of resource for marginal gains will likely be one design, leaving the teams freedom to develop other areas, like foils and control systems.
In addition to cost, safety will be a major consideration in the new rule. Oracle’s capsize while training in October 2012 showed the inadequacy of plans for righting a capsized AC72. When Andrew Simpson’s life was lost in the Artemis capsize in May 2013, the importance of rapid crew recovery led to major changes in the safety regulations for the regatta. The lessons from these accidents will certainly affect the rule for the new class.
Interestingly, there has been no public mention of wind limits. The original version of the Protocol for AC34 called for races to be held in wind between 3 and 33 knots. The final limits were 5 and 23 knots in the America’s Cup Match, with an upper limit of 20 knots in the Louis Vuitton Cup round robin. The lower wind limits combined with TV-oriented time limits combined in strange ways – races abandoned or postponed because of being over the upper wind limit and Race 13 being abandoned, with Team New Zealand apparently on their way to winning the America’s Cup, when the boats could not complete the race within the 40 minute time limit in light air. How will the new Class Rule and the Protocol combine to meet the conflicting requirements of safety and racing in a wide enough wind range to eliminate TV delays? The boats will need to have configurations for non-foiling, light air conditions, medium conditions and “fresh to frightening” conditions. Race management will need more flexibility in setting courses of the appropriate length.
Gino Morrelli
Following their job writing the rule last time around, Morrelli and Melvin went on to work with Emirates Team New Zealand, joining a design team that came within one race of winning the America’s Cup this past September. Melvin hopes to make a similar transition to a team this time. “It’s not a major focus right now, we have a lot of work to do to get this rule out, but it would be great to end up with a team again,” Melvin says.
For the 35th America’s Cup, we are likely to see exciting boats that are difficult to sail and which reward good sailing technique. The foiling gybes and roll tacks we saw in the AC72’s are likely to be joined by stable upwind foiling and new techniques, yet to be developed. We are in a new era of America’s Cup yachts. The AC72’s were just the beginning.