AC90 Rules

So what are everyones impressions of the new AC90 rules.

My own opinion is that the images shown and the initial guff, gives the impression of something along the lines of a scaled up VO70, however after a bit more digging into the rules, I think that a beamy VO70 shape is highly unlikely. For a start there is no maximum keel weight, and with the boats all between 22900kg and 23000kg you can see where most of the weight is going to be ! With the likely scenario that most competitors will be able to use this to carry the maximum sail area the key driver is going to be designing an optimised hull shape for an AC course. Unlike the VO70's this entails an equal amount of upwind and downwind sailing and therefore hints at the reduced drag of a somewhat narrower boat than shown in the pictures presented yesterday.
It will certainly be interesting to see what the design boffins come up with once they've run a few iterations through CFD, but I cant imagine we'll have the crash and burn looks of the volvos, more likely a longer sleeker plumb bowed canoe body that while graceful wont be that entertaining to watch.

We shall wait and see !!!

Paul