Comments on: Unveiling the mystery of Alinghi

By: Boat Comparison- Cupinfo.com « Thoughts from the Blue

Boat Comparison- Cupinfo.com « Thoughts from the Blue — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:22:14 +0000

[...] we have mentioned before, both Team New Zealand yachts seem to be incredibly slab sided, while the Alinghi design is [...]

By: Giulio Z

Giulio Z — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:06:31 +0000

I understood that in the second day of practising it was Presti at the helm of Luna Rossa.
But I don’t know when was the video taken.
On valenciasailing there was an interesting report of that.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:01:14 +0000

Nice find! If Spithill was another half boatlength ahead he could have lee bowed Baird there.

By: Giulio Z

Giulio Z — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:01:29 +0000

Hi.
In our forum I’ve found a link to this short video regarding Alinghi and Luna Rossa recent training.

Giulio

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:30:12 +0000

I think by having the Acts, any speed advantage that Alinghi had in 2003 may have soaked up by the challengers.

Speculation is high and I am loving all the baseless predictions that people are making.

See you at the start line/

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:46:58 +0000

SUI91 and SUI100 are supposedly very close in performance.

By: Richard O'Reilly

Richard O'Reilly — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:45:05 +0000

Hi all, so not long to go now & the suspense is killing me!!

We are currently living in London & the coverage apart from the Sky stuff has been very limited here.
On the current debate of whom has the boat speed I think you defiantly have to rate the Alinghi boat with the advantage. Remember the act just before the L.V series, it seems ages ago but must be taken into account. Alinghi were the only boat that could make significant gains from positions that it found itself in that weren’t ideal. No other boat even looked capable of turning on the speed that these guys had.
Having the knowledge of how Alinghi played it last time in ’03 you would have to expect that SUI100 is faster. So in my view it will come down to how much TNZ has improved over the LV series & how much quicker SUI100 is than the older SUI91.
My prediction is that NZL92 can now match the speed of SUI91 but SUI100 will be half a generation ahead again. This was also conveyed by Dean Phipps at the Semi final stage of the LV.

So I can’t wait till it all begins as my partner & I had the foresight that TNZ would make the final so we booked our trip months ago.

Go TNZ you beauty!!!!!!

By: Giulio Z

Giulio Z — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:32:48 +0000

Couldn’t it be that Alinghi is stressing sails and equipment to the limit or in odd situations just to make sure nothing bad happens during the finals?

Do you think that the result of race 1 will be the key to understand who will win the AC?
Or do you expect a closer competition than a 5-0 or 5-1 score?

It seems to me that the top team crews are so good and the boat so optimized that a small edge in boat speed is enough to win… just like in Formula1.
Lukily the wind is still a variable!

Giulio

By: jays

jays — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:53:02 +0000

Alinghi seems to be trashing a (relatively) large amount of equipment out practising.
If stuff was going wrong for Alinghi, I would normally say that they are just trying to throw the opposition off the scent.
However…..blowing spinnaker after spinnaker and other miscellaneous items is expensive.
While we know good ‘ol money bags aint short of a quid or five, these sort of breakages are beyond “show and tell” and are indicative of perhaps some deeper problems. Only problem really is that they have happened BEFORE the AC and not during. This means that they have a chance to rectify them .

I still maintain that giving SUI-100 the old Rainbow Warrior treatment is a possible fallback position in case of emergency

By: vanilla

vanilla — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:47:51 +0000

can’t wait!!

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:00:17 +0000

damn, i meant Paul, and i wrote peter (twice), sorry about that…

ok. for the rest: finally i found the link.

http://www.seahorse.co.uk/americas/eu/

and click on the download a digital copy of “there is no second”

(i typed the right words in google a few minutes ago)

By: jays

jays — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:46:30 +0000

Thanks guys, I thought thats when the time was but be buggered if my poor old brain could make its mind up!!!

Much to my wife’s disgust, we are going to my fathers place (about 100km away) for next weekend so we (he and I) can watch the 1st race together .

I guess by the end of the1st race, we will know the likely outcome of the whole series.

Once again…

Oh AC God who artin ValeNZia, hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, please aim BIG GUNS at those b%stards on SUI-100.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:36:32 +0000

Peter,
Not a problem Peter it a very cool sort of special edition of the UK Seahorse magazine with articles from Paul Cayard, Russell Coutts , Tom Schnackeberg among others…
Thing is that i couldn’t find the link where I found that pdf a few months ago… it was completely random how I got to that pdf. I got it searching info about the AC.
I got to rant a bit about the lack of info from the official AC site. The PDF is secured so no one can “copy and paste” the text.

Send me and email and I’ll forward it to you I tell you this document is good.

By: David G

David G — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:29:49 +0000

G’day Jays. It is confusing alright. Andy is correct. The first race is Saturday June 23 – VALENCIA time, which of course is the early morning of SUNDAY 24, our time.

A bloody good reason for bringing the Cup back to NZ – so we can all get some sleep and let the Europeans sit up all night, eh! Ha, ha. Cheers, David G.

By: Damien

Damien — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:06:10 +0000

You should’ve yelled out “A’hoy there Mr Butterworth, how goes it?”.

Of most interest are the continued gear issues Alinghi are having. Reported breakages to rudders, sails tearing… are these just from simple mistakes? Look forward to when the serious puffing starts and tension is ratcheted up some.

As the region gets deeper into summer – does the wind normally get stronger or should we expect more of the same?

Cheers,
D.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:48:24 +0000

jays,

I just checked on the tvnz wesbite (I hope that they have it correct as they are broadcasting it). Coverage starts at 2335 on Saturday and finished at 0300 on Saturday morning. At the same time as South Africa is playing New Zealand in Durban….. big night

By: paullester

paullester — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:45:18 +0000

Hey Andy – would you be ok with me posting it on here for everyone??
Here is the NZ TV schedule Jays –
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1031731

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:45:00 +0000

Race #1 will be starting Sunday 24th 1 am NZ Time

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:43:35 +0000

Jays,
Send me an email to andymena (at) gmail.com and I’ll send you back a PDF with many articles written by important AC personalities, Russell Coutts amongst them, he explains how it is possible to make predictions based on pictures and software, etc. The whole document is brilliant but the article from Russell is a manual of “how to build your own AC campaign” is for me the best bit.
Then you’ll see that we don’t know what both ETNZ and Alinghi know already.
I’ll keep hoping for the right outcome: The Auld Mug back in a glass box at the Squadron headquarters.

By: jays

jays — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:41:51 +0000

Maybe we can hire Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur to give SUI-91 & 100 the old “Rainbow Warrior” treatment and problem solved!

But seriously, I am gonna be a bundle of nerves come next week.

Hey David, does it start 1am Saturday morning or Sunday morning? I have seen conflicting reports and with all the time zone differences, I am struggling to figure out which on is right!