America's Cup Costs Cut in Half
Press Release
San Francisco, April 1, 2012
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Oracle5 AC22.5 model (top),
and Spyshots of the AC22.5 reveal radical new configuration,
(bottom) Photos:©2011 Manu Holl |
America's Cup organizers have found ways to reduce competition costs for the next defense of the America's Cup. Sparked by changes to the San Francisco event plan, the regatta will be no longer be raced in AC72 yachts or AC45 yachts, but the new AC22.5 Class.
Russell Coutts denies that the San Francisco plans were the catalyst, though. "Actually, the inspiration was a half-hull model AC45 that Team Owner Larry Ellison presented to our crew following the ACWS in San Diego last fall. Larry saved a bit of money on the model by commissioning just a half-hull, and even more on the shipping costs, and that got me thinking...."
Grant Dalton, Head of Emirates Team New Zealand, jumped on the idea right away when it was proposed in a competitors meeting last January. "For a team that's working hard to scrape together every sponsorship dollar, we had been exploring along the same lines. Why build two hulls when you only need to sail on one of them at any time? We can downsize crew, to 2.5, though for humanitarian reasons we'll just round that down to an even two."
Fewer hulls, fewer rudders, fewer daggerboards, smaller crews, and decreased transport costs are all part of the equation. Likewise is the increased performance made possible through reduced windage and dead weight. Sail area to displacement ratio has gone up steeply, and if the crews do capsize, they won't have quite so far to fall.
"The 22.5 is the sort of out-of-the-box thinking that we need to get out of boxes. It has the power-to-weight of a multihull, but it's still a monohull which will satisfy the old school crowd, too," said Limball Kivingston of SAIL Magazine Planet Blog Newsletter.
"A shorter boat would not have complied with the Deed of Gift, but the Deed is silent on beam requirements, so this is a neat fit."
The new design will race only upwind, and only on port tack, which lets Race Management dispose of much of the Racing Rules. Distractions like crossing, tacking, and gybing will no longer interfere with viewer engagement. "Mark roundings are just too confusing for spectators," said Aussie trimmer John "Lefty" Strineman. "Boats coming this way, turning that way. Is it the 'right side' of the course when looking upwind or downwind? I could never keep that straight," said Lefty, who has since been let go by his team since you started reading this paragraph. The new race course will consist of a single 3-minute beat to windward, preceded by zero-length start sequence, and followed by a concert.
"People just don't have time to download a whole 18-minute America's Cup Race these days," said one media consultant highly paid to dispense his personal opinions with an air of certainty, "and with the demise of unlimited smart phone data plans, viewership is going to hit a wall at that first windward mark anyway."
"You have to understand, young people these days are
basically illiterate lab rats trained to seek the next pellet of novelty in
increasingly short time frames. Unless you want to change the entire
sailing crew to attractive 18-year-old girls who have to hunt each other
with bows-and-arrows, you don't have any choice but to accept these sorts
of changes. If the race were being run this year, I'd say that you
need to attract the Pinterest generation instead of the Facebook
generation, but that won't work for 2013 since even by this fall Pinterest
will be on the back side of the curve. To succeed, you'll have to tie
into whatever new social media is going to be hot in the second half of
2013."
CONTEST:
Win the Oracle Racing 5 Coutts AC45. A single lucky reader will
receive this "one-off" realistic model of an AC45, lovingly rendered and
mounted on marble (30” x 6”). Or maybe it's an AC22.5, we can't tell
for sure. If you win, you can decide for yourself. Hardcopy
entries must be received by regular mail at the CupInfo World Headquarters
no later than close of business 5:00 pm PDT on 04/01/12 (that's 01/04/12
for our Euro friends, or April Fool's Day, as if you have not figured that
out by now).
Additional Links and Info:
Visit Official America's Cup website
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