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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 9:40pm
Originally posted by mozzy

Remember the first foiling moths took a while to be comprehensively faster. Cats already had huge leverage and a low drag hull.  I think people always realised that a cat was a good platform for foils, it's just the benefit of flying the boat was smaller. You can see why in a fleet race scenario it would be a huge risk take and not completely obvious it would be faster. 

... hindsight  makes it obvious now, post san-fran; but I seem to recall most people being pretty shocked when reports came out ENTZ was foiling, and people were shocked when the boats took off upwind in the cup. 


The superfoilers should be interesting... half of it is the boat, but also the line up they have already. Why couldn't the 18s get Ashby, Jenson, Outterridge? 

The interesting thing about small foiling cats is the performance differential. The Small Cat Handicap Rating System initially rated foils as adding 7% speed, then on analysis of race results it dropped down to 4%. Interestingly, that's roughly the same as adding a kite to a cat, which is probably a bit easier and cheaper than adding foils. The other thing is that Texel results seem to indicate that current doublehanded foiling cats are actually slower in light winds than their non-foiling sisters.

I can recall a little bit of overblown hype years ago when the new breed of spinnaker cats came out, about spinnakers being the future of cat sailing. That proved a load of old b**locks, of course. Kite cats are fun - I love mine - but for most people they aren't worth the hassle. Why adding 4% to speed with foils should cause a revolution (as some claim) when adding 4% with kites didn't is a mystery, perhaps best explained by the fact that most of those screeching about them in the media don't own or even regularly sail high-performance boats.

Re the 18s; I haven't spoken to the club for eons but I feel that their aim is more to provide sustainable club racing than to get TV spectators, as MikeBZ says. McCartney and his team are on the opposite end, so it makes sense they would get different sailors.


Edited by Chris 249 - 12 Dec 17 at 9:40pm
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Posts: 353 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Riv Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 8:26pm
The problem is that when I've seen " speed and jeopardy" a few time it gets dull. Big AC cats turning corners is fun for a few mins but quickly looses it's interest. Crash and burn after a few times is dull. All different but essentially the same.

I don't like watching sports where people take stupid risks for my "entertainment" and the profit of entreprenneurs. Occasionally extreme professional sailors get killed or injured. I do not want to watch people doing it for my entertainment. I find it distasteful. Bread and circuses (Juvanal, AD100)  to keep the proles (Orwell 1949) quite!! 

As DH Lawrence said "Folks should do their own f-----g', then they wouldn't want to listen to a lot of clatfart about another man's. (Lady Chatterely's Lover 1928)
 
In another thread there are lots of good comments about Star racing. Here we have a familiar game being played, one we can all appreciate, skill and strength with few/no injuries to distract. No crash and burn. 

The assumption that speed and jeopardy is an answer to sporting coverage just produces a rush to the bottom. They will be sailing with spikes soon so the proles can see real blood.
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Posts: 536 		Post Options Post Options   Quote MikeBz Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 4:02pm
Originally posted by mozzy

...Why couldn't the 18s get Ashby, Jenson, Outterridge? 

...

Originally posted by mozzy

... if the 18s want to keep it a professional series then viewers are key.

The 18s are not a 'pro' series, they are Sunday afternoon club racing with financial assistance - a large chunk of which comes from the businesses of one long-standing enthusiastic participant.  It's based out of a single location, a club which makes fair amount of money from pokies, and has a degree of relatively low-budget internet coverage.  You don't need to be rich nor a superstar to participate.  All this is a good thing as far as I'm concerned - and is in its favour as far as its longevity is concerned.

I don't think going down the foiling route is going to help them - if you want to get from A to B why start from C.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 12:47pm
Originally posted by Jack Sparrow

Originally posted by mozzy

 I used to watch quite a bit of 18s, but seeing 7 win by minutes got tedious. 
It's not like that now. 
Yeah, I've watched a couple of races, though it's early season it seems much closer. However, it feels like it's mostly because 7 stepped aside, rather than new sailors came up to challenge them. 

Maybe it has always somewhat been the case, but the last few years it's felt like the main challengers to 7 were old boys funded / sponsored by their own companies. Really, what they needed was top sailors coming up from youth, or from other parts of the sport battling with 7. 

It seems like they're trying to address that now. 

Originally posted by Jack Sparrow

Originally posted by mozzy

The superfoilers should be interesting... half of it is the boat, but also the line up they have already. Why couldn't the 18s get Ashby, Jenson, Outterridge? 

I guess this is my point. Is this ultimately the death rattle? Have the Sydney 18's become another class that only survives by bringing on the young sailing family members, of sailors in the class, like N12's? With the ultimate reduction in interest. 

It will be interesting to see what they come up with. As the tip bit I heard was that they are testing would not be 'fully foiling'. But I can't really see the benefit. That's going to make them marginally faster. But much less 'bouncy' and spectacular. Where as the Superfoiler is, mega fast and crashes pretty bit too! So quite spectacular.

Maybe to stand out again. They need to be thinking bigger? Do something akin to the new AC rules boats?
Hard to tell. For me the 18s are on the faster side of what makes good viewing. The round the cans courses mean you have enough straight legs that you can see them line out. And the crashes and spray make up for the greater distance splits than you'd get in slower boats.  So on the whole it makes for good viewing. 

But yeah, it hard to tell if they need to change something to become 'the place to be'. Is that foiling? Having a foil that you can't see, and doesn't quite lift the boat being a major performance differentiate would make poor viewing for me. I'd vote for more media tech, more professional sailors and investment in A/B or youth teams. 

When do the super foilers start racing? 
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Posts: 2965 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Jack Sparrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 12:06pm
Originally posted by mozzy

 I used to watch quite a bit of 18s, but seeing 7 win by minutes got tedious. 

It's not like that now. 

Originally posted by mozzy

The superfoilers should be interesting... half of it is the boat, but also the line up they have already. Why couldn't the 18s get Ashby, Jenson, Outterridge? 

I guess this is my point. Is this ultimately the death rattle? Have the Sydney 18's become another class that only survives by bringing on the young sailing family members, of sailors in the class, like N12's? With the ultimate reduction in interest. 

It will be interesting to see what they come up with. As the tip bit I heard was that they are testing would not be 'fully foiling'. But I can't really see the benefit. That's going to make them marginally faster. But much less 'bouncy' and spectacular. Where as the Superfoiler is, mega fast and crashes pretty bit too! So quite spectacular.

Maybe to stand out again. They need to be thinking bigger? Do something akin to the new AC rules boats?


Edited by Jack Sparrow - 12 Dec 17 at 12:07pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 11:52am
If it makes them faster and easier to sail, it would be a bad thing for viewers. If the 18s want to keep it a professional series then viewers are key.

Less boats but better standard. Harder to sail, crashes + spray (i.e. the type of speed and jeopardy that is perceivable through a screen). But not too fast that they split out and you don't get more than a couple in camera-shot at once for the next hour. 
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Posts: 669 		Post Options Post Options   Quote ifoxwell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 11:40am
If they were to use foils like the 14's and 12's do then that wouldn't be a bad thing would it. Cant comment on a 14 but in our 12 it makes it faster and easier to sail once you get the hang of it... a win win!
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 10:59am
Remember the first foiling moths took a while to be comprehensively faster. Cats already had huge leverage and a low drag hull.  I think people always realised that a cat was a good platform for foils, it's just the benefit of flying the boat was smaller. You can see why in a fleet race scenario it would be a huge risk take and not completely obvious it would be faster. 

... hindsight  makes it obvious now, post san-fran; but I seem to recall most people being pretty shocked when reports came out ENTZ was foiling, and people were shocked when the boats took off upwind in the cup. 

Back to 18s. I used to watch quite a bit of 18s, but seeing 7 win by minutes got tedious. The fleet seemed to be a lot of by-gone top sailors who were now also-rans. Unless it was honking and a chance of crashes I wouldn't really watch. I think the depth in talent fell out of the 18 fleet; most going moth sailing instead. But, moths really make a crap platform to watch on screen; great for short clips, but too spread out otherwise.  

The superfoilers should be interesting... half of it is the boat, but also the line up they have already. Why couldn't the 18s get Ashby, Jenson, Outterridge? 
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 17 at 10:28am
The other odd thing about the current foiling mania in multihulls is that the potential has been around for decades. The current multihull platforms are a fairly logical extension of some of the stuff the speed people were trying in the 70s and 80s. OK the speed people had a tendency to get stuck in the "sit in the middle, windward foil pulls down" blind alley, but its striking no-one picked it up. Then after some false starts the Mothies were forced down the single foil in the middle route by their rules, which turned out to work like crazy, and people in the catamaran world started to pay attention to what had been in front of their noses with the weirdos for years.

Edited by JimC - 12 Dec 17 at 10:29am
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