Team Oracle Penalized For America's Cup Rules Violations 190
whoever57 writes "On Saturday, Oracle Team USA and Team New Zealand will begin racing for the America's Cup in the amazing AC72 boats. However, the Oracle team starts with a significant handicap. It was recently discovered that members of Oracle Team USA made illegal changes to the boats used in the America's Cup Series (which is sailed in the smaller AC45 boats). After a hearing on Friday, the International Jury has decided on the penalty: Team Oracle will have to pay a fine and sail without some team members. More significantly, they lose two points before starting the America's Cup races against Team New Zealand. A tiny amount of weight had been added to the kingpost, in violation of the measurement rules for the class. This was reported to the measurement committee some weeks ago after its discovery by boatbuilders working for America's Cup Regatta Management (ACRM), not members of Oracle Team USA."
Re:How do I? (Score:3, Informative)
Two choices. Get it while it is in the submission queue and vote it down, or don't post in it if it becomes a story on the front page.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Actually i watched some of the races in the run up to the cup and found it pretty interesting. The boats are sailing at as high as 50MPH with hulls nearly fully out of the water. There's tons of telemetry and the announcers are doing a decent job of explaining what's going on - it's actually fun to watch and you can see it takes a great deal of skill. Scoff if you want but I for one found it interesting, adding all of this telemetry really does add to it I think. It helps too that the boats are so damned advanced and fast!
Re:"miniscule" (Score:2, Informative)
Oracle are playing down the advantage it would give, and the local
media are lapping up that spin. Obviously if you are going to risk
your career over such a move (and make no mistake, the tampering is
no minor issue, look up the water ballast fiasco of a few years ago,
in the sport these guys are now the equivalent of Lance Armstrong)
you'd be damn sure in your mind that the advantage gained would be
worth that risk. The AC45s love the extra weight up forward and
since seconds count and the boats are supposed to be identical,
every little change translates to a big advantage.
This is intentional cheating, the scandal will be if they don't get
banned from the sport for years.
Re:The only thing cool about this article... (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks for sharing, that's pretty awesome [youtube.com]
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
The America's cup is watched by millions. Team costs per syndicate are in the hundreds of millions making Indie racing or formula 1 a joke in comparison. What's more it is the least regulated form of racing (current situation not incumbering) of all the professional racing sports. 30 years ago they were racing mono-hull sailboats pounding through small waves. Now they are racing multihulls that litterally lift off the water on wings going faster than the traffic on the golden gate bridge and almost leaving the speed boats that trail them in the dust.
From my personal experience sailing a boat over 25knts the splashes start to feel like pebbles and then rocks hitting you.. the intensity of having a vehicle of that size moving at that speed is akin to taking Caterpillar 797 through a downhill from Pikes peak. It's amazing and a great sport at any level.
Re:"miniscule" (Score:5, Informative)
The "king post" is what keeps the bow sprit from moving aft when pressure from the sail is added to it. The only reason for adding weight to it in this situation is if the bow happened to be rising to quickly. The rules imply that any wing shape added to the keel/centerboard must stay in the same angle/plane for the duration of the race. Designers skipped this rule by creating a moveable lifting plane on the bow of the boat. Tilting this plane lifts the boat up off of the water. However, this is a balancing act. It takes a lot of skill and design compitence to create and run one of these rigs. The NZ team was the first to figure out the cheat, and everyone else has been playing catch up. Team Oracles boat designed by Paul Burke, was not designed with the lifting planes originally intended. In this case some of the team members took it upon themselves to level the feild by adding weight to keep the bows from popping up to quickly and losing control of when they would and would not plane on the hydrofoils. It is a bit picky, but those people involved knew well what they were doing and went through lengths to cover it up. If they had just put a hunk of lead up there, judges would probably just have said "hey you can't do that".. but instead it was found buried purposely put there. That is pretty much willfull defiance of the rules. I'm an american shipwright from the northwest where these boats are built, so I'm definately on the US side.. but I see the significance of the decision, both ways.
Full jury decision (Score:3, Informative)