America's Cup - Conner's claims on Cup costs questioned by Emirates Team NZ
by Richard Gladwell 28 Nov 2017 20:44 PST
29 November 2017
Claims by 'Mr America's Cup", Dennis Conner that a campaign for the 36th America's Cup in New Zealand will soak up USD$150million have been questioned by Emirates Team New Zealand.
Last Tuesday, Emirates Team New Zealand the team of Defender Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Luna Rossa (Circolo della Vela Sicilio), announced the concept of the next America's Cup class, the AC75.
The radical foiling 75ft monohull, a genre which has never been sailed previously, featured ballasted T-foils which protrude from the topside.
But otherwise it appears to be a high-performance version of the popular 52 Super Series which had its design roots in the TP52 class. The latter is sanctioned in the Protocol governing the 36th America's Cup as an allowed development class. Otherwise, all test boats must be less than 12 metres in length.
The radical T-Toils on the AC75 have not previously been used in this way in sailing. However, T-Foils are the most common foiling system in use after being adopted by the singlehanded foiling Moths - the first racing class to become a foiler.
Conner said that sailing world was expecting "something special, and boy they didn't let us down."
"We got the boat with no keel," he added.
Conner makes the Freudian slip of describing the three foils as "an engineering nightmare" before correcting himself to calling them an "engineering opportunity" - America's Cup code for "black holes" - which soak up a disproportionate percentage of Cup budgets, often for minimal gain.
He predicted the AC75's would be tremendously complex in the build. As for the operation of foiling systems, "they will have to be totally reliable - which is saying a lot", added the only skipper to have lost the America's Cup and then won it back again.
Conner notes that full picture will not be known on budgets and complexity until the class rule is released. He expected the Cup to be contested only by very high calibre teams, who were extremely well financed.
"We know the costs are going to be horrific - well horrific if you are Dennis Conner or a low-budget syndicate."
"You're talking a budget of at least USD$100-150million dollars (NZD$145-200million) - which is a tremendous amount of money to the regular folks in sailing."
Emirates Team NZ's CEO Grant Dalton told Sail-World they expected their sailing program for the 36th America's Cup to come in well under the budget alluded to by Dennis Conner earlier in this week. He added that at USD$150million Conner was 50% more than they expected "a seriously funded team might spend".
The team's campaigns in 2000, 2003 and 2007 using International America's Cup Class of around 75-80ft long, spent around NZD$100million or USD$70million. The New Zealand team had to slash $20million from their budgets after Bermuda was announced as the 35th America's Cup venue. But still developed a faster boat, and arrived much later than the other teams at the venue.
While the canoe body hull weight and deck gear of the AC75 and the IACC-V5 are similar at around 4,500kg and should have a comparable construction cost, they differ in their keel and ballast. The AC75 has just 2000-3000kgs of ballast in its T-Foils while the IACC-V5 carried keels of about 19,000kgs.
In a separate interview, Emirates Team NZ's Design Director and leader of the AC75 class concept development, Dan Bernasconi told Sail-World that he expected the t-foils in the AC75 to be constructed of steel and with lead ballast rather than the carbon foils of the AC50 and AC72.
Unlike the the AC72 and AC50's, on the AC75 the foils are dual purpose, providing righting moment on one tack and lifting force on the other.
In his podcast, Dennis Conner, a four-times America's Cup winner didn't explain specifically why he was expecting to see the cost of the AC75 escalate budgets substantially from previous campaigns.
Team New Zealand appears to be suggesting that their budget will be in NZD about $20million more than the Bermudian campaign (at NZD$78 million was one of the lowest).
On the cost increase side of the Cup ledger, the teams will build one or two AC75's and keep those in sailing condition right through the campaign. In 2013 and 2017 teams built up to five development and race boats.
In 2017 three of the other teams built up to four development boats (AC45S) plus the AC50 race boat, with the New Zealanders and French building only one AC45S and one AC50. Softbank Team Japan built one AC50 and borrowed an AC45S from the Defender Oracle Team USA who had a technology and training partnership agreement with the Japanese Challenger.
Depending on whether teams bother with surrogate boats, the inventory should just drop to two boats maximum per team. Earlier Dan Bernasconi told Sail-World that the logistics of doing a surrogate were almost as complex as building an AC75, and the smaller boat wasn't worth the effort.
Both Bernasconi and Dalton have told Sail-World that there would be items on the AC75 which would be one-design components used on all boats and those would further lower cost of the AC75.
The AC75 will use electric motors to power the hydraulic pressure driving the foil height adjustment - obviating the need for teams to design and develop manual energy systems.
The AC75 will also return to a conventional soft sails rig. It remains to be seen if they are more or less expensive than the wingsails of the AC72 and the AC50, and if cost reduction measures are introduced to limit sail numbers.
For several editions of the America's Cup, Dalton and Team New Zealand have been calling for a stronger crew nationality rule and now have a 100% nationality rule (by one of two systems) in the current Protocol.
Historically, America's Cup team personnel coats are generally reckoned to be 60-65% of the team budget, but with the 100% nationality rule for sailing crews in place, Dalton says there should be plenty of scope for salary reduction from current levels. Crew salaries escalated with the involvement of tech-billionaires in 2000 and 2003. But that trend should be reversed as the professional crews are locked into sailing for one country/team - removing their ability to run an auction between teams for their services. The ability of the sailing crew to move between teams is also restricted by the criteria specified in the 100% Nationality Rule.
Further cost reductions come from prohibiting teams to sail two AC75's against each other - meaning that only a single sailing crew is required, plus reserves.
Hull design will obviously be a critical factor, however, is well within the capabilities of current mainstream design expertise. The construction rules are expected to be specified in a way that will not permit "throwaway boats", and reducing the incentive to design ultra-light hull structures.
Most of the design work is expected to be in foils, where the AC50's were also open. Rig and sails are also expected to be more open, pending publication of the AC75 class rule by the end of March 2018.
Expensive tank and wind tunnel testing has also been prohibited for the 36th America's Cup, with teams restricted to computer simulation testing and on the water testing only. They are also allowed to only sail one yacht at a time and are not allowed to train with other competitors in a "co-dinated way" outside of official events or practice.
Shrouding of the boats is also prohibited - meaning that design features will be easily visible to other teams.
The first AC75's will start construction about six months later. The earliest date for sailing is March 2019.