America's Cup: Are you up to the Challenge with the new AC75?
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 31 Dec 2017 16:55 AEDT
31 December 2017
The America's Cup AC75 boat concept revealed © Emirates Team New Zealand
As 2017 draws to a close and with it the hype, reaction and counterpoint of the 35th America's Cup in Bermuda, Land Rover BAR's Grant Simmer explains the AC75.
Simmer began his America's Cup career at the age of 26yrs old sailing as navigator aboard Australia. He's seen the 12 Metre era, the IACC 75ft monohull era, the 2010 Deed of Gift Cup in 120ft multihulls, the AC72 and latterly the AC50 wingsailed foiling catamarans.
World Sailing tapped into one of the top intellects in the America's Cup world to get his perspective on how a keel-less foiling monohull will work from a design perspective.
Simmer's prediction is for the new boat to be capable of 50-60kts - making the AC50 look positively pedestrian. In this video he explains why - and gives some dimensions they expect to see in the new class rule.
One thing is for sure all teams go into the next America's Cup on a level playing field from a technology perspective.No-one has sailed or seen a boat like this before - which really only exists in a computer simulator.
Grant Simmer shows us how the numbers stack up (as a reference point the AC72 multihull had an all up weight excluding crew of just under 6000kgs, the AC75 will tip the scales at 7500kgs.
Entries for the 36th America's Cup open on January 1, 2018 (NZT), the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron is closed until January 15, 2018 and no announcements of entries are expected until after that time by RNZYS, and once the entries have been checked for compliance with the requirements of the Deed of Gift.
While it will be tempting for some teams to sit out the current Cup on the basis of an unknown concept, with one exception the America's Cup has never been won by a first time Challenger. While the AC75 may provide a technical challenge, there would seem to be little point for a Challenger to by-pass the 36th America's Cup taking a "wait and see" approach. The options to reduce costs are to build surrogates (using an existing monohull mould) and then commit to a one only boat campaign for the 36th Cup.