America's Cup: Youth, Womens crew and Electric AC75s announced in Draft Protocol
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 23 May 01:00 PDT
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Women's Team win the Puig Women's America's Cup Final - October 12, 2024 © America's Cup
Historic crew changes are proposed in the Final Draft of the Protocol released today by the America's Cup Defender. For the first time a Female and Youth crew members will be part of the six-crew lineup.
For the first time in Cup history the AC75s will be completely powered by batteries, and manual power is prohibited. The move to battery powered AC75s is a trade-off to requiring a female crew member, and negating the physical strength requirements that are inherent in grinder powered boats.
The success of the Youth and Womens America's Cup in Barcelona appears to have been answered in the Final Draft protocol for the 2027 America's Cup in Italy.
Several changes have been made in the crew composition, with grinders/cyclors whose role it was to provide hydraulic pressure, are gone, and for the first time in America's Cup history the America's Cup Class will be electrically powered.
The sailing crew has been increased to six, with four Open crew positions and the other two being allocated to Youth (below 25yrs of age) and a female crew member - without age restriction.
All functions on board the AC75 will be battery powered, with more details expected in the publication of the AC75 Class Rule, where the weight difference will be clarified. Previously al below the waterline functions were electrically powered, and everything above the water line was human powered.
The allocation of a seventh place on the crew line up for a Guest Racer has been made. The slot used to be part of the America's Cup Class and then the AC72s, however were dropped in the run up to the 2013 America's Cup, and have not been a feature of the Cup since. A weight of 100kg, with corrector weights, has been specified.
Allocation of the Guest racer spots will be aloocated 25% by ACP (the event organisers) and 75% by the competitor teams.
The legality of crew spots is still to receive the approval of the Defender, it has apparently been approved by the Challengers.
The new rule controlling the electrical power says that system will be supplied - presumably in the same way the rest of the electro mechanicalsytems are provided on the AC75 for the raising and lowering of foils.
In contrast to the 12 Metre and IACC eras of the Cup the role of grinders, the strong men of the crew, the sole purpose of grinders since 2013 has been to pressurise hydraulic systems. In effect they just pumped oil all around the America's Cup course. The move to all electric/battery power is symetrical with the some use of electric winch systems in race boats above 50ft, and completely in contemporary supermaxis.
The shift to battery power and push button adjustment facilitates the entry of at least one female sailor into the open gender crews.
"It is envisaged that this supplied power system will mimic the capability of human cyclors in terms of average power output, peak power, fatigue, and other relevant data enabling crews to determine how best to use the power available during a race. Sailing data from AC37 will be used to quantify such power requirement."
The same section of the Protocol also permits the "sale or transfer of design information and technology between Competitors is permitted
but there shall be no sale or transfer of performance data between Competitors"
That rule keeps the door open for teams to purchase basic design package off another team, as did the French team in the 2024 America's Cup to purchase a design from Emirates Team New Zealand. However the swapping of performance information remains prohibited.