Ben Ainslie Racing

Originally posted by slop_idol Originally posted by Rupert As for flying the Flag upside down, why wasn't it simply designed symmetrical in the 1st place, so no one got beheaded for getting it wrong?   its to give the scottish section precedence over the northern irish.

I guess that makes as much sense as all the rest of it... at least NI gets a small nod - better than the western Principality called Wales.

Has anyone figured out if Mark got the union jack Y&Y logo the right way up?

Originally posted by SoggyBadger Originally posted by JohnW Yes agreed, the one with the gurt big flag is compliant.  But Ben's AC45 isn't (unless it is a Royal Naval vessel, which Im pretty sure it is not). If you referring to the photo on the previous page of this thread, I can't see any flag being flown. I don't think a Union Jack on a sail (or the hull even) is regarded as a flag.

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by slop_idol Originally posted by Rupert As for flying the Flag upside down, why wasn't it simply designed symmetrical in the 1st place, so no one got beheaded for getting it wrong?   its to give the scottish section precedence over the northern irish.  I guess that makes as much sense as all the rest of it... at least NI gets a small nod - better than the western Principality called Wales.

The red diagonals weren't added for Northern Ireland, they were added for the whole of Ireland, long before partition. The original flag from 1606 (designed to mark the 1603 union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England (the latter of which included the principality of Wales long before that) didn't have the red diagonals. They were added for the (formal) union with the Kingdom of Ireland in 1801.

The flag of Ulster, after all, is the St George's Cross with the red hand, not the cross of St Patrick. Arguably we should have gone back to the pre-1801 flag (which would of course solve the whole "upside down" issue).

Did anybody follow the recent AC43 series in San Francisco?   BA blogged it was all a bit of learing experience for him and he was happy enough with mediocre results.  It seemed to me (very subjectively - I know nothing about this sort of racing) that in the fleet racing he was quite often stuck behind or under another boat and that his results improved on the few occasions he managed to find a clear lane - which made me wonder why he did not tack off into clear wind in mid course more often instead of continuing on to the edge of the course.  In fact most boats seemed to sail to the edges of the course area anyway before tacking/gybing. Given the loss of speed in the turn, the AC43s maybe aim to reduce turns to a minimum.