Andrew Troup
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Mar 29, 2010, 12:29 PM
Post #15 of 19
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Re: [The Publisher] What does the next America's Cup boat need?
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Craig
You asked for agreement or disagreement with your comments, which this thread has so far been short on.
Firstly
"the consensus among the stakeholders is .... a more modern boat with greater performance is needed for the event. "
That's an interesting assertion, and I guess it depends who you count as stakeholders, and what weighting you apply. Does the guy who grinds, calls tactics or works the traveller count?
After all, they don't put up money, like sponsors.
Nor, unlike the mass-market TV audience, do they persist in buying things they don't need with money they don't have on the basis of whatever advert happened to fly most recently in through the narrow window of their concentration span.
Sponsors and their prey, ie couch potatoes and kids*, seem to be the stakeholders to whose tune the Bertarellis and Ellisons of this world seem keenest to dance.
Do the deep-dyed fans count? The ones who understand just what an incredible piece of drama a dial-up in a breeze in IACC boats represents, who realise that the longer it lasts the more dramatic it becomes - combining elements of arm wrestling, balancing a team on a loose, slippery high-wire, and a face-to-face gunfight? A few of these people will have helmed such a boat through a tack or helped grind in a headsail after such a tack (which anyone who can afford an air ticket and a modest day-sail fee can do).
Of course they don't count, any more than the AC sailors do. You'd think these two groups were the key stakeholders; the core performers, and the core audience ... but clearly not. "Progress" apparently requires that we abandon those who support us in favour of those who do not.
We've probably seen the best era of America's Cup competition, because increasingly, the people who are being invited to call the shots are people who don't care and don't matter. What makes it worse is that Ellison et al have forgotten that adulthood is a time to leave childhood behind and venture into the realms of complexity, nuance and compromise.
Choosing a design rule by raw speed makes about as much sense as choosing a rock group on decibels produced, or a chicken Vindaloo by the number of taste buds (or lives!) it has claimed. Those who simply equate speed to excitement are showing about as much maturity as I was last time I applied these criteria.
Getting back to the head of this thread:
"Okay, but onboard action and drama are vital too."
You said it, you nailed it, but no-one on this thread, apart from the first respondent, seems to get it. No-one has responded to your list. Once again the conversation is all about performance, as measured in knots. (Or 'knots per hour', for 60% of the target audience being fought over. Another 35% wouldn't even recognise that - they'd think they were being invited to watch cub scouts rearrange string against the clock.)
Anyone remember the footage from the Twelves off Fremantle? You couldn't ask for slower boats. There are people who could practically swim to the windward mark faster than these boats in some conditions. Yet you would be hard pressed to find a LESS boring spectacle.
In case someone who is independently wealthy AND a grown-up wins the AmCup before I die, I am going to respond to Craig's invitation to add a few items to his excellent list.
* Obviously Louis Vuitton have a different quarry they're mining from, and they've also got Bruno, who is clearly a grown-up on matters pertaining to sailing.
6. Polar diagrams which don't become too funky out towards the corners of the rule, so races are not determined by random variability of weather conditions. This alone probably rules out multis.
7. Manoeuvrability, and enough heft to be able to mix it up at close quarters without cancelling too many contests, combined with enough fragility to make the stakes 'interesting' to the participants
8. Structural reliability, and broad enough bands of permissible wind and seastate. Races should be able to be held on most days in most venues, stability of direction being the main criterion
9. The boats need to be difficult to sail well, there should be lots of different jobs to do (putting a premium on teamwork and leadership), and they should be rewarding. The guys who REALLY need to find it fascinating are the sailors; if they're bored, we're going to be bored. If they're post-pubescent and at the top of the sailing game, they're going to need more than 'knots per hour' to engage their interest over a long campaign.
10. The boats should preferably lean over quite freely - this is a tangible manifestation of their power source, helping to make subtle variations visible to those who aren't lucky enough to be on the spot. It also adds interest in close combat situations - aerial swordfights and all that.
11. Draft should not be ridiculously deep - too limiting on venues, too tough on spectators and schedules. Beam should not be too wide (relates to point 9 considerations also)
If the sailors -- and I'm not talking about the 'look at me' celebrity sailors, whose primary focus is on their personal profile, but the rank and file -- say the IACC should be discarded, I would find that extremely persuasive.
If they say it should be tweaked, that would surprise me less and please me more.
Even without tweaking, the IACC rule satisfies all Craig's points and most of mine too. What are the chances of getting it so right with another shake of the dice? Andrew Troup
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