The Cup

Now, the downside.  

From Sailing Anachy

The expense and complexity of the boats and their support technology has grown beyond reasonable limits. Immediately following AC36 the McKinsey company was boasting that their Artificial Intelligence program for ETNZ had, in effect, won the Cup. They claimed that their AI simulation program had quickly taught itself to sail the AC boats better than the skipper and crew, who then improved their skills by imitating the computer’s performance. Apparently there is no longer any place for human talent, skill or flair.

The made-for-TV courses are too narrow and short, so the opportunities for truly tactical racing are severely limited. A fractional advantage in boat speed should not, on its own, be enough to secure a win in the America’s Cup. 

The pre-start period of two minutes is much too short. This forced the boats to limit their risks and usually resulted in just one engagement before they both dashed to the line on the same tack. 

Even the youth match-racing circuit allows five minutes of pre-start combat. It is often the most exciting part of each race (in Auckland it was usually the only exciting part of the race). There should be more pre-start time – up to 10 minutes – for the kind of tactical battles that test sailing skill and thrill the spectators. 

Restricting the boats to a jib-and-main sail plan robs the event of significant interest. Trim is minimal. In reality, the boats could be operated by remote control. Sailors – and the general audience – want to see real people pulling ropes, hoisting and dropping spinnakers, trimming, tacking and gybing. 

Instead, they have to watch an incredibly complex machine crammed with electronics and hydraulics that can’t sail properly – if at all – without the assistance of huge amounts or stored power and a myriad of instant computer calculations. None of this is visible to the spectators or TV viewers. 

The lower wind-speed limit (6.5 knots in Auckland) was far too low. We need no further proof of this than the unseemly sight of power-boats having to tow the AC75s until they eventually stagger up onto their foils. 

When the Italians ran out of breeze in Race 8 – through no fault of their own – the race should have been abandoned. If the Race Management team decides to postpone a start because of too little breeze, then they must also abandon the race if the wind later drops below that minimum. For the current foiling monohulls a more practical lower wind-speed limit for fair racing would be 8-9 knots.

Are all these criticisms no more than a nostalgic plea for the Cup to return to the days when yachts sailed with their hulls in the water? Well, it was easy, a generation ago, to scoff at those red-trousered, straw-hatted, blazered buffoons of the New York Yacht Club America’s Cup Committee. But at least they kept the event within reasonable, human dimensions. 

True, they answered to no-one and twisted the rules, yet the racing they controlled was straightforward, easy to understand and adhered to its fundamentals for decades. It connected directly with every keen sailor, and also attracted the interest of many non-sailing sports fans. 

Progress can never be stopped or reversed, but the Cup in its present form has been incited into such rapid and extreme development that it risks losing all relevance. 

There is no ‘trickle down’ benefit to we lesser mortals of the sailing world. There will be no swing-foil monohulls in the next Transpac; the Etchells will not be adopting twin-skin mainsails; AI-driven hydraulic trim will not appear in the Laser class.

There must be a simpler way.

– anarchist David