Cup Experience

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Livestream of Land Rover BAR Base Opening in Bermuda Today

Update 7 February 2017   Full report on the opening ceremony in Bermuda here.

They put the boat in the water, but..  There were no daggerboards to count towards the limit.  Also no rudders for spies to see!

Watch a replay of the livestream:
Part 1

Part 2

Ben’s wife Georgie Ainslie does a Facebook livestream from Bermuda every Monday. This week we’ll see their base opening celebration – no doubt with the traditional Bermudian roof-wetting ceremony. They will “reveal” their AC Class race yacht, but will they put the boat in the water? Any daggerboards in the boat when it is afloat count towards the four board limit.

More video here of the celebrations, including the ceremonial champagne christening of the yacht and rum roof wetting of the base.

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Results of Practice Racing in Bermuda

Oracle published a report on the practice racing here. Jimmy Spithill said, “There was some great, close racing between ourselves and Artemis Racing and SoftBank Team Japan. All three teams won and lost their share of races and we all learned a lot I think. Unfortunately, the British seemed to be having issues and weren’t competitive which was a bit of surprise.”

BAR have just over 100 days to get things sorted out. Remember that Oracle was taken by surprise in the 2013 AC Match in San Francisco, but made a series of improvements over two weeks and staged their comeback.

Unofficial results, as reported by Oracle:

Artemis claimed on Twitter that Oracle used alternative facts:

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FLASH: 5 Teams Announce AC 2019 and 2021

The heads of five of the six teams met in London last week to announce that their yacht clubs have signed a Framework Agreement outlining the next two editions of the America’s Cup, to be held in 2019 and 2021.

Photo: ACEA

Racing will be held in a modified version of the AC Class yachts being used in 2017 (more details below). No surrogate test boats will be allowed. AC45F’s will be raced in the AC World Series until August 2018. From September 2018 onwards the new version AC Class yachts will race in the ACWS. The ACWS will include fleet racing and match racing. The final ACWS event will be held in the venue of the America’s Cup Match and the Challenger Playoffs will start right afterwards, followed by the Match.

The AC Class rule will be modified to allow racing in a wider wind range – 4 to 26 knots. This probably means adding a gennaker for light conditions and having a smaller wing for heavy air days. Remember that the original version of the AC72 Class Rule included a heavy air wing. The smaller wing was dropped from the rule, a move later regarded as a mistake, given the number of races cancelled due to wind above the limit in San Francisco in 2013.

The yacht clubs represented by Oracle Racing, Land Rover BAR, Groupama Team France, Artemis Racing and SoftBank Team Japan have agreed that if one of them wins the America’s Cup Match in Bermuda this June, they will only accept a challenge from a yacht club that has agreed to these terms. That could be one of them, a new team, or Emirates Team New Zealand, should the Kiwis change their minds and agree to these terms. The fly in the ointment is that if the Kiwis don’t agree to these terms and then go on to win the America’s Cup, this framework goes out the window. Such is the America’s Cup.

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Closeup Photos – Details of Test Boats

WARNING: This article gets a little “geeky.” But ergonomics will be critical to helping the crew, and the helmsman in particular, operate the complex control systems for the daggerboards, wing and rudders. When you see the iterations of Oracle’s steering wheel, you’ll appreciate that the solution is not obvious!

Last week I showed you this photo of Land Rover BAR’s “T3” test boat.

Did you notice that they are testing two different shape daggerboards?

If we take a closer look we can see they have a unique steering linkage, unlike the the other teams’ steering. It will be interesting to see if they have the same setup on their race boat – the rudders on the race boat will be mounted inside the hulls, not hung off the stern.

Zooming in a little more, we can see a series of yellow and blue buttons around the rim of the wheel. These may control the rake of the daggerboards. The helmsman adjusts the rake to control angle of attack of the underwater wing on the daggerboard. This varies the lift, to control ride height. If you look closely, you will also see a red and a green button on the hub of the wheel and a rotary switch right in the center of the wheel.

At the Detroit Motor Show, BMW Management Board member Ian Robertson presented a steering wheel, designed by the BMW Motorsport group, to Jimmy Spithill. This wheel has twist grip controls, like on a motorcycle (or, in Bermuda, on a scooter).

Oracle has tested a number of configurations of controls on their steering wheels.

Here is a variation with pushbuttons mounted in the rim, what looks like a toggle switch on one spoke, two buttons near the center of the wheel and a couple of black rotary switches. You can also see two controls at six o’clock and eight o’clock – could they be pressure sensitive? This wheel looks like they tried out a lot of ideas at once!

Here’s another Oracle wheel, with what looks like an early version of the twist grip that’s on the BMW wheel.

And this version has a twist grip mounted separate from the rim of the wheel, plus plenty of buttons on the hub of the wheel.

As I said earlier – finding the right ergonomics for controlling an AC Class yacht is not obvious.

Softbank Team Japan has also experimented with some original ideas. Here they tested a paddle-type control just forward of the wheel. You can also see that the wing trimmer has an impressive control panel to master.