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:The only thing cool about this article... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do I? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you ever actually analyzed the engineering requirements for a good boat? Oh sure, rednecks love those power boats with a V10 Dodge Viper engine driving some screws by brute force in the most inefficient way possible; but have you ever actually looked at boats?
Let's put it this way: The Chinese Junk is the best boat ever made. It's harder to sail than a modern sail boat, but functionally superior when handled properly. It was the inspiration for sealed partitions--thousands of years ago you could sink a boat by holing it, and then the Europeans found out that the Chinese put a bunch of rooms in the boat and made it possible to seal them so you'd only take on so much water. They started storing rum in some of the partitions. The rigging on the sails allows for better agility and faster sailing in all winds--including directly into the wind.
Modern boats have surpassed the junk in some respects and trailed it in others. They're easier to sail and faster in some conditions; they're designed to hold level and sail more efficiently than old models, but these adaptations can go back to the junk easily (the main difference in a Junk vs a modern boat is its sail rigging); they're made of better materials that decrease drag and improve balance and handling, allowing for straighter and faster sailing and less risk of capsizing; and so on.
All in all, in thousands of years of engineering, we've managed to make some improvements and some trade-offs... very little in the way of actual advancement. Not only is it hard to engineer a ship that can sail and sail quickly, but it's hard to pilot one. It's hard to maintain one. You have to deal with wind going the wrong way and then you have to manipulate the sails to harness power from the wind and directly turn that into driving force--you're not turning a turbine, you're catching the wind going east and making the boat go northwest. It's not even as simple as cutting in and then turning and dropping out; the goal is to keep as much wind in your sails as possible--to pull in the full of the wind 100% of the time while sailing directly in the opposite direction from where the wind is trying to push you. Not very easy.
It's a huge, huge engineering problem. It's complex and these are fairly amazing machines. But by all means, go ahead and go out there with a few two-by-fours and some wax and a tarp and build yourself a top-tier sailboat, and see how quick you can cut across the harbor. Make sure the coast guard's there too; your mommy might need to come pick you up when your little boat sinks.