Americas Cup
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@No-Quarter said in Americas Cup:
I'm pretty ignorant to racing but can of the experts on here explain what happened the last time around? Seemed like we had the faster boat to get to 8-1, they made a "modification" and suddenly they had a significantly faster boat. I don't think I've ever read a reasonable explanation for that?
To elaborate on Virgil's succinct summation:
There are actually two schools of thought
The most common explanation here in NZ is that ETNZ were short of money so Oracle offered them some cash in return for an extra lay day, which Dalton gratefully accepted because ETNZ was seriously underfunded and no one could see any way back from 8-1.
Oracle then put 40 boatbuilders from the Warkworth company involved in the development of ETNZ's boat on a plane to SF where they worked solidly for 72 hours to improve the Oracle boat.
None of the above is contested by Oracle. The kiwi cheating argument is based around bribing the Warkworth crew to divulge ETNZ's IPThe OR counter-argument is that the two boats had similar speeds but ETNZ were sailing better and that the fundamental change to get them back into the game was the replacing of Kotsciezki as tactician by Ainslie which allowed OR to improve their sailing performance and hence take out the series and that all the cheating allegations are just sour grapes.
OR's position is actually pretty popular with neutrals mainly because unfortunately their an awful lot of Kiwi ferals out in the sailing blogosphere who have pretty shameful chips on their shoulders and who have already started with the triumphalism.
Personally I find OR's argument a little suspicious because while I think Ainslie did make a hell of a difference pre the break in racing OR's big issue was they couldn't consistently stay up on their foils but after it they had no issues. It is possible this was all to do with Ainslie and more experience foiling but hey why the Warkworth "traitors" then.
With hindsight I think there were two critical decisions - gifting OR the extra time to improve their boat and also covering their boat in the race that ran out of wind. If you recall we could have won the Cup but for a race in which we were minutes ahead being called off because it ran out of time. OR through in a series of tacks which we covered (which is match racing 101) however these tacks slowed the race down. What we should have done is trusted our boat speed, ignored OR and dragged for the line. All easy after the event huh.
Whatever it does make me nervous still about what rabbits OR can pull out of the hat in the next 5 days.
Or as Virg says - cheating fuckers
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@canefan said in Americas Cup:
Just like the other crews before them I noticed at one point the Oracle grinders looked poked, whereas out boys just kept keeping on
The other point mentioned by the commentators was that the cyclors on TNZ have their hands free to do other tasks, e.g. Tuke. You have to be impressed with Joseph Sullivan's transition after the rowing debacle.
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@dogmeat said in Americas Cup:
Oracle then put 40 boatbuilders from the Warkworth company involved in the development of ETNZ's boat on a plane to SF where they worked solidly for 72 hours to improve the Oracle boat.
Great post but a minor correction - the Oracle boat was built in Warkworth not ETNZ and they flew 5 traitors to San Fran. With both them and Ainslie...the rest is heartbreaking history. Although we could still say that we built the winning boat - I actually saw Larry's millions being launched in Sandspit.
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good post dogmeat.
My biggest fear is the fact Oracle have two boats and zero scruples.
What's to stop them on the last day ramming our boat, ostensibly accidentally, then bringing out their other boat? Burling needs to stay clear. Sometimes he's getting a little close.
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Just watched the highlights. Burling was a boss in the starts, particularly when he rescued the start of the second race after losing power and position early. We totally outpaced OR in pure boatspeed and our crew work was superior too. It's not over yet, I'm nervous about the long break but we look good for the lead so far. As long as we continue to improve the boat and don't choke like dogs on the racecourse it's looking good. As one of the comms said, the fastest boat always wins the AC
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The only reason that Oracle came from behind and won the cup last time was because of Ben Ainslie. Spittle just isn't good enough
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@canefan said in Americas Cup:
IIRC Oracle would have had to show their boat by now but opted against a second boat, using the Japanese boat as a defacto backup for testing
Our friends from Warkworth said they hadn't built a second boat for Oracle on TV tonight.
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@Bovidae said in Americas Cup:
@booboo Are you wanting me to expand?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/rowing/10118990/Repeat-golden-quest-over-for-Joseph-Sullivan
Yes please
And thank you
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I have only caught up with watching full races on the day after replays over here. I don't get the channel that has it live.
The race that has me wary is that second one on the first day. Spitball sailed one of those legs way way better that we did and with a lesser boat speed took better lines and made up huge ground. It was like McCaw running from breakdown to breakdown, finding the best line to get there. It was only a mistake on the first gybe after turning that let us off the hook.
I did wonder though if OR had used a huge amount of energy from their grinders in catching up and the hydraulics were requiring more and more effort to get back up until finally they ran out. -
@Crucial That second race where Shithill made up all the time was a wind shift I think. We did better covering today, it cost us some of the lead but kept us in the same air. I think they learnt from race 2.
The hydraulics are a bit of a mystery. An accumulator should really hold enough pressure for the boat to maneuver a few times I reckon, but I haven't read anything that explains the systems at all. Probably all top secret.
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@Snowy said in Americas Cup:
@Crucial That second race where Shithill made up all the time was a wind shift I think. We did better covering today, it cost us some of the lead but kept us in the same air. I think they learnt from race 2.
The hydraulics are a bit of a mystery. An accumulator should really hold enough pressure for the boat to maneuver a few times I reckon, but I haven't read anything that explains the systems at all. Probably all top secret.
I'm the same. From what I can guess it is all a bit like blowing up a balloon that then gets used to power stuff while the crew swaps sides or when pressure is needed to hold things in place or tweak them. If you keep using more of the air in the balloon than you can put in eventually you are going to get weaker.
I see the kiwi guys all have data pads on their arms which I guess show them the reserve levels and how hard they need to be working to keep things topped up.
I think the reserves aren't that big either. That time when NZ sat down before the line and let BAR catch up, they said the cyclors had to work super hard to wind up the pressure again.
