Artemis AC72 continues to generate talk...

 

The AP, AFP, Reuters, HuffPost, and everyone else in the mainstream media have had a field day with the Artemis crash; it has all the elements they love: Powerful imagery, Olympic medals, Rich guys getting brought down to Earth, and the death of a beloved icon with a great nickname. But more than all of that, it seems those ‘journalists’ really just love saying “Zone of Death” or “Death Zone” in an article, regardless of their total lack of understanding of what the term means.

Following the Artemis AC72 capsize there has been a lot of talk about the “Death Zone” or “Zone of Death” by a lot of people who don’t seem to have a clue what it’s all about. The death zone is the transition during the bear away from going upwind to downwind on an ultra-high performance boat like a beach cat, skiff, or AC72. The reason this is known as the death zone is because when a really fast boat bears away, the apparent wind speed increases a huge amount, putting a large load on the sails and foils as the boat accelerates like a mofo. The sail plan also tries to push the bow down during the bear away, hence the reason why skiffs and multis tend to pitch pole during the bear away. The key to a good bear away is getting through the death zone as quickly as possible, but the driver and trimmers need to be on the same page. It’s not like a keel boat or even a dinghy where you just ease the sheets and turn. The death zone is also very hard (nearly impossible) to sail in on a skiff. They do not like to jib reach, plain and simple. You either get to go upwind or downwind, otherwise there is too much apparent windspeed and not enough stability (mostly speaking from Aussie 18s), ending in either a pitch pole or digging a rack and cartwheeling.

Long story short, anyone who thinks that a bear away in 25 knots on a high performance boat should be as simple as just turning doesn’t have a clue.