It's all in the controls: Big changes for Americas Cup!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ส.ค. 2023
- Accusations of illegal automation have surrounded in the America's Cup since Oracle's miraculous comeback in San Francisco. But now automation is real, legal and is undoubtedly the biggest change for what it means to sail a Cup boat since the advent of foiling. Why is no one talking about this?!
Mozzy questions @EmiratesTeamNZ mechatronics engineer Ryan Thomas on how and why the rules have been opened up for the next America's Cup.
Thanks to @JustinMitchellTV for his clip of Te Rehutai's new jib car. See the full video here: • ETNZ Te Rehutai Right ...
Recon video and photos credit to Recon Photographer / @America's Cup
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You're the best Mozzy. The technical side, controls, foils, etc. is the most interesting part of AC, and you get us into it.
Thanks, that's a nice comment to read!
Good idea, When I take a reef, I’d like the kettle to go on!
As a control systems engineer who has done some sailing, this is the type of development that I would love to play around with. And don’t laugh about someone playing around with machine learning to analyze the data sets to find some type of control optimization (with all of the AI hype these days, it is probably unavoidable).
I don't laugh, developing an ML model in this situation would be fascinating ! It is as much a 'competitive tool' as any other on the boat. (The thing I do dislike is the use of 'AI', when what people really mean is ML. 'AI' is a misreading of Alan Turings 1950's paper - he was simply referring to the replacement of 'human' computers (which is what they were called in the 1920s and 1930s) with an 'automated calculator') Artificial Intelligence is rather from the 'failed' section of Science Fiction in the library as opposed to the 'enlightened section'.
@@GordonjSmith1
I hear you about the misuse of the term AI vs ML. I took a number of classes from and worked at a startup with an engineering Professor that lived / worked at the very beginning of the “neural net” era. He unfortunately had to compete for DARPA funding against the “Symbolic AI” group that won all the funding and ultimately accomplished basically nothing. He ended up inviting the field of “adaptive filters, adaptive control systems, adaptive neural networks of the LMS variety … etc.. Some of this work was done with one of his PhD students who later was one of the inventors of the microprocessor.
An interesting thing is that the work in adaptive filters and control systems was done to salvage his work from adaptive neural networks as the principles are very close. The issue was that he could not get any funding for adaptive neural networks or what is known today as machine learning (but ML today is a hugely expanded topic). It seems that he got the LAST LAUGH vs the “Symbolic AI” group but the experience so stigmatized him that he basically had to reinvent himself and for decades didn’t promote adaptive neural networks. Life can have strange turns.
The technical permutations of the foiling AC yachts are endless 👌
As usual, fantastic analysis Mozzy. Keep it coming as it adds a whole new dimension to watching the on the water action. 👍👍
Cheers Mozzie! You are the man who keeps me informed about the Cup. I don't bother with any other channel. It takes a great sailor to really understand and explain to us what is going on behind the scenes with these super technical beasts. It won't be long before these AC75,s will sail themselves although I hope that never happens. I hope they don't allow it to go far. Don't want a computer telling them the exact trim spot and basically control the entire sail set up. I can understand these yachts require systems that weren't required before because of the nature of foiling. I am old school and think it should remain in the hands of the people on board.
Certainly enjoy your points of view,while I'm no sailor I total enjoy the process and racing. Keep producing these videos and throwing fabulous ideas and your point of view on the cup sailing etc.
Thanks Mozzy - great work as ever. Totally love nerding out on this. For starters; I’ll go for spin halyard up = backstay, outhaul and cunning off. I can ditch a bunch of weight right there….although we will be drawing straws for dock side stay-cation at some point in the future….
Great talk with Ryan and big discovery, as always a great video.
F1 banned such 'co-ordinated' surface and suspension controls some time ago as they were so successful! However that was with good reason in motor sport. At this point in the technical evolution I think permitting such 'linked systems' is probably reasonable. It certainly opens up opportunities for competitive advantage. A very interesting and thought provoking vlog. In many ways your best yet!
Thanks for the comment. It's certainly a really interesting topic, as for me really cuts to what it means to be 'sailing' a boat and therefore is more relatable than other topics such as foil shapes and sizes
I think that is a fantastic point! At some point the tech will outweigh the need for continuous development and will keep the racing too tight. How far do you have to go until races are decided on gear failure, umpires decisions which will be argued for weeks afterwards (ineos and Prada last iteration) and one small error…..
Yes, I instantly thought of the active suspension allowed in Formula One cars 1992-1993.
Great video, once again! Thanks!
My pleasure!
Mozzie it’s amazing how you with your limited resources can offer better insight than the highly paid sailing websites and streaming programs
Great stuff Mozzy, so good to get some real insights into the AC instead of the bland soundbites and predictable, clichéd official newsfeeds. Thinking about applying the concept of linked controls to sailing in a wider context, it gets very complicated because just gearing controls together is an approximation which might be optimal in one set of conditions - where “conditions” is a multi-dimensional set of factors. No doubt the AC boats will have all these gearings (for want of a better way of putting it) mapped across the entire range of conditions they expect to sail in, aided massively by extensive simulation. They have a very limited range of conditions to map taking into account their very fixed course & race format. For the rest of us there will still (thankfully) still be a place for seat-of-the-pants fine trim of all the different controls even if they can coarsely (think one-string Merlin) be interlinked.
Another good analysis, Tom. Great to see AC yachting progress - although there will be many screaming heresy for sure. ;-)
Great video and spotting . 3 d sheeting seems very hydraulically power consumptive compared to arc track and variable jib tack height .Most interesting the possibilities of linked controls but it is getting close to PlayStation sailing . Keep up the good work
Very interesting stuff. Thanks. If my jib and main were linked I’d still want a control to allow the minor adjustment of the jib in relationship to the main. Best of both worlds, convenience & flexibility.
Agreed with everyone here, fantastic video Mozzy. Great find in the rules and getting someone from etnz on as well. Best source for AC news you won’t see anywhere else.
Glad you enjoyed it
ETNZ already have an AI sailor for the simulator. I imagine you could get the AI to optimise the parameters in the closed loop. Also nothing to stop you taking external data during the training process.
Great. Now I have to go sailing, so I can try to understand this video.
Great insight thanks. I’ve been thinking about this stuff since first seeing the foiling boats in 2013 and my view was that automated control of ride height and boat heel/trim would be a great application - we now appear to be seeing that in the new one designs making them easier to sail. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the sail and rig controls, I think not only adjusting secondary controls are of benefit but also automatically adjusting the rig for each gust/lull/waveset would be possible - a Merlin one-string on steroids! Keep the videos coming please.
I like to go around the top mark and push one button to let everything out/off. 😂 Sounds good
Excellent video.
cheers!
Hi Mozzy, keep on making this great stuff. The best sailors sail there boat, on feel never on numbers because you are always late because the technical delay in data and the brain to crush the numbers and then sending the actions to your muscles. Then go to the AC36 new extra rules. It's a no brainer that getting the force numbers from the most important controls, combine those and let them crush by a computer the outcome is increasing efficient and much faster and stabler boat. Who need AWA, TWA, TWS, AWS etc. So it end by a steering guys or women and the tactician. BTW Red bull has less windtunnel time but could use the windtunnel to test there new inlet and by measering the forces on the kit they coudl see if the body was kore efficient ;-) yust hear say
The effort to allow the AC75s to sail and more importantly take off in much lighter wind is impressive. The linking of multiple controls to a single input has the potential to greatly reduce the hydraulic power use. This means less grinders and lighter weight. I’m guessing this was the primary benefit. Fewer days of no sailing.
MATE Fantastic spot and topic to get the imagination running on this sailing tech of the future. I can see sail control linked jib and main. I can see boards and rudder linked. But can anyone get their head around above and below water line linkages?
Great show Tom. Thanks
Two minds. I feel that removing the scope for human error on the water puts too much competitive emphasis on back room lab tech. Same time, I’m looking forward to seeing how automation and expanded closed systems will develop our knowledge of sail and boat trim.
Damn these yachts for being so interesting!
Great breakdown as ever, thanks Mozzy, (are you getting any sleep yet 👶)? The ⛵ is a sanctuary ❤
A bit more sleep this week. The baby seems to be figuring out day and night which is a relief!
I believe I like both how you can trim on a "higher abstraction level" - like adjust the ratios of jib to main instead of the individual sail, and how it becomes a technical development area to implement and tune this well. Some of the "mechanics" and required routine of trimming well when racing will be lost though?
Also, I think part of it is just to allow smooth control of actuators such that you limit peak loads on the control system to conserve energy AND make the control surface change less abrupt.
Interesting developments ahead. Still at the end of the day the technical arms race search for speed depends on the skill of the crew in sailing the boat along with the strategic and tactical decisions on the water.
I would definitely link the hydraulic ram on the mainsail clew with the double skin mainsail battens along the mast so it’s possible to twist the leech in and out. Sailing the moth I would love to have another way of powering in and depowering out to maintain my heel in gusts, etc. other than sheeting in and out my mainsheet.
Such a linked system gives the opportunity to do so.
Also I would Link ride height with mainfoil angle. Because the higher you fly, the more leveled foils and so less drag you wanna have.
How do the SailGP boats approach this aspect of boat control? Anything that leads to close, entertaining racing on the water will probably be the ultimate arbiter for such policies I imagine.... Fascinating stuff Mozzie, thank you 👍
Thanks for your analysis I always enjoy your presentation.
This trend toward automaton is BAD for sailing every time you take the sailor out of the equation you strip away what it means to sail a boat and the knowledge a person needs to gain to be the best.
From my engineering point of view, this is great as long as boundaries are established, otherwise you can actually map out controls of the whole boat (up to Tesla FSD-like systems).
Have you been able to extrapolate control system boundaries from AC rules?
Combining mechanical controls could enable something like an analog computer to improve overall stability.
Brilliant for spotting this Mozzy!
Will it now be possible to have a suite of linked controls and simply choose which one you want to engage? For example, you may want to link jib track and main track so they work in unison, or indeed define the proportional relationship between them. You could have the jib easing say 70% relative to the main. This ratio could be infinitely variable, depending on which version you selected. If all linked controls have the ability to have a variable response, then from a single command input, plus the selection of your preferred response, this just about makes the boat automated in my book. I can only hope that they have so many variables to choose from, that they might get confused.
Yes, I think what you describe is exactly what is now possible
On a related tack, there has been talk of adding sail power to commercial shipping as a way of reducing their CO2 emissions. The sort of automation (and AI assistance) that's being explored in AC yachts and IMOCAs, among others, will presumably be an integral part of sail assisted shipping.
There are fewer degrees of freedom on an Archimedean vessel so you don't need the same degree of need for software logic backup. But my understanding is that all of the solutions targeted at shipping are governed primarily by computer already. Maltese Falcon was the first such system I heard of.
th-cam.com/video/afG7GYmyKVE/w-d-xo.html
You’re welcome.
❤ ETNZ ⛳
Mozy was missing your video!
Maybe about summer party?
Mozy always great watch U video.
Looking forward to a robot only crew
This is a fascinating subject. The number of things happening on the boat at any one time, what with the raking rudder, the cant angles, the flap trim, all of those will influence what the sail plan has to deliver across the hull to the water at a really low latency in order to maintain stable(?) and fast flight that reducing the mental workload with crosslinked systems can only be productive, and safer. Though, this level of electronic, and hydraulic integration does seem to add some weight to the moans of this being "not real sailing", or at least make it a little further from their safe space. Conceptually the idea of having a crew of people each skilled in their job applying their body to the task does seem to be diluted in a system like this. But the other question is: is any of that important? In terms of applicability to boats people sail, rather than romantic ideas of crewing on Endeavour or Shamrock, not that many seem to want a crew of a dozen just for sail control these days, singlehanded, and double handed seems to be where things are going regardless of boat size.
One of the most fascinating videos you have done so far Mozzy! It got me wondering about the rules around whatever the AC equivalent of parc-ferme is with respect to these systems. Would the parameters of these closed-loop systems be adjustable on the fly - i.e. during a race? While the possibilities for performance enhancement are significant, I am also wondering about what happens if you get your 'setup' wrong for a set of conditions or sea-state, and then the trimmer ends up fighting the automation in conditions that don't match whatever they had predicted from their sim?
I think on the fly they could select one type of automation 'pre-set' over another, which slightly different feedback settings dependent on race situation (upwind / downwind / tack, gybe etc.)
Love this channel as a real newbie to this type of competitive sailing. Agree with others the analysis is great. Not sure I understand it all but you were saying that it isn't allowed to take external conditions as inputs and automate responses from the boat. However could the information be fed to the "human" controller what the automated systems would be doing if allowed and then choose whether to follow that or do something different. In that way you could effectively have automated responses based on conditions.
In your opinion are the AC teams using / copying the navigation / control software mostly used by the (mostly french) IMOCA / Ultime boats?
Unrelated question: why is the RS800 so heavily dominated by the english ?
You mentioned the close loop only applies to control position and does not respond to measured input ie wind speed and angle ride height etc what if you could have the technology to analyze those data and recommend the ideal sail and boat configuration. It would in some ways be similar to how a pilot flies an instrument approach . The pilot applies yoke input and throttle input to remain on the ideal approach which is presented on a screen
Tom great to hear you on the Bar Karate podcast.
They're a good bunch of chaps for a chat, really enjoyed it
Long ago I raced Lasers. It would have been fab to have the plate drop whenever I hauled the sheet in at the downwind mark, and vice versa.
It’s very hard to know quite how far this could go. From the video I can see that we could have buttons for effectively sheet in and sheet out. These would then effectively change everything thing needed for the change in apparent wind angle. So sheet in might flatten the main, bring the main closer to the centre line of the boat and do the same with the jib.
But could it do more than that. Could the sailor have 2 inputs one for apparent wing angle and one apparent wind speed. Oh and maybe an upwind down wind mode switch.
So the sailor sets the boat to up wind mode. They then have two controls, one where they set apparent speed and another apparent wind angle. Are boat speed and position allowed inputs? If it is the boat could effectively sail itself, with just a short delay while the human inputs wind data. Is the rudder an allowed control? Could the boat machine learn the best route upwind and even decide when to tack? I’m assuming there would be a tactics over ride switch
A key notion here, is that ML or AI can analyse correlations between performance and trim values and extract relationships to utilize that humans may not be able to find intuitively.
Working on the automation of mast rotation with outhaul right now!
While some talk about controlling costs, it seems advancing technology just defies control. I really enjoyed the discussion.
It's a balancing act. You need to reel in areas that only incur cost without creating actual benefit and let them roam more freely in other areas.
In a motorsports analogue, often times F1 teams figure out ways to circumvent rules like the F-duct and then every team races to copy it. In the end it became a cost without benefit because everyone had the same device so they banned it.
computers and sensors don't cost much compared to building a boat! A team to write the programs could cost a bit.
Question: Would this cross-control design have saved American Magic in the last Cup? It couldn’t have anticipated the gust which flew them out of the water that day obviously, but can these new control rules provide for fail safe responses which will be fast enough to keep a yacht under control in extreme conditions?
Good example. The main got fouled by an unreleased running backstay. Automation could remove the need for a human to release the backstay (although they don’t have backstays now).
I dunno tho. Gets a bit boring if we remove the capacity for human error.
@@jameslittlewood7821 well, the other factor is that these boats don't have a lot of sheeting angle to work with, so while the main was right up against the backstay, it wasn't actually capable of easing much more anyway, especially with the deck sweepers.
only one I can think of is the crew trapeze adjuster.
Mast rotation, main skin control (outhaul?) could all be automated with traveler position. Trav down de powers the whole sail. I expect there is already some level of automation in the from the last cup.
Not a related comment to the post, but can anyone tell me why Alinghi Red Bull Racing where not out with the AC40 fleet during the race testing that has recently been conducted?
AC competition is about technology. If you want to test your sailing skills you sail one design. Different strokes for different folks
IMU tilt and accelerometer sensors for foil rake and flap control
Just like kite boats and electric unicycles
I think accelerometers are external inputs banned by the rules. Or, pausing at the rulebook highlights, I can't see anything that would allow an accelerometer.
I love the detail of your presentations, but what instruments are allowed on the boat? are they allowed wind speed, direction etc, if so then a pilot could simply read the instrument and move a slider control to update the computer with the actual real-time wind speed, direction etc and the onboard control computer could make all trained adjustments based on their inputs.
yes, they have wind speed and direction, both as apparent and true. Boat speed, course and heading (and so leeway). Plus ride height.
So yes, in an extreme case you could sailors just switching between presets depending on the readouts of the yachts situation. However, I think there also needs to be some longer term awareness: where you are on the course, looking at wind on the water ahead etc. So likely they will end up with trimming presets for upwind in different wind bands, plus presets for maneouvers. They then trim a primary 'roll' function which determines how much power they have and the automation links up optimum coordination of your usual controls (traveller, mainsheet, outhaull, cunningham etc.) to provide the roll balance (power) the trimmer is asking for.
... that's my theory at least!
Perfectly pitched explanation thanks Tom.
Closed loop controls in yachting is nothing new as Ryan says. By example 30yrs back super yachts had “safety” controls which eased sheets automatically when the boat heeled to the point where the guest’s gin & tonics might spill.
What’s new is the rule change to unite the control systems.
Whilst I’m as fascinated and captivated by these Cups as most, I don’t welcome such rule creep.
The obsession with speed (chasing F1 style entertainment) is shifting ever more tech onboard; replacing sailors that look at sails with tacticians that look at screens and button arrays, (cyclors are just for show let’s be honest and without them there’d just be a couple of guys at the back) and in so doing this limits ever further the opportunity for innovation incepted at Americas Cup level to trickle-down-benefit the mass market of regular yachties on regular 30 footers. The main beneficiary of AC this Century continues to be the superyacht sector and there’s a near total disconnect from that niche to mass market from both an economic and purism perspective.
The amount of electrical and hydraulic power required to race these yachts is ever increasing and (controversial opinion) that’s moving in the wrong direction for yachting as a global community.
The AC should (imho) be THE platform in today’s world that introduces and advances green energy solutions (e.g hydro-generation/ sail regeneration/“regen”) that CAN trickle down to the mass market to enable yachts to ditch their polluting diesel engines and optimise the wind, wave and other hydro energy sources in their environments. That space is crying out for research, advancement and innovation. AC could and should be leading the way, it’s an opportunity missed when it comes to rule changes.
For generations sailing was about switching off the engine and the yacht being 100% propelled thru the water by the power of the wind. With these AC boats, essentially the engine is never off.
What if? What if competing yachts could take no power onboard at all and had to start each race fully manual, but could create, apply and store (renewable) energy onboard, generated not by leg muscles but by the yacht’s own movement and interaction with wind wave and water during the race?
Imagine if American Magic had this last year, once the traveler load changes sides, the new leeward runner gets released… could have saved a boat 🤷🏼♂️
exactly!... of course there are no runners anymore, but automating these type of relationships is exactly what they will be looking at
Think they kinda had to as the ac40 is doing this anyway so it flies in a semi automated way. In some ways surprised this wasn't opened a bit in the last cup as a soon as you move to hydraulic actuation instead of feeling the force or displacement through a rope or equivalent you are looking at a number on a screen so spend a huge amount of time creating a control system that makes it as easy as possible for a human to match a number when the simplest option would be just to get the computer to match them and the human to decide where they would like it to be.
Ultimately it just allows you to get the most performance out of your design and the fastest sails/hull/foils match racers combination will still win.
Having done millions of dollars worth of home automation control systems and had a Captain's license with lots of racing, I would want a control system User Experience (UX) of an outboard motor tiller. The windward/leeward movement would control the position of the main/jib. The throttle would control the twist for both sails. I am not sure if this conforms to the rules, but you asked what I would want without the caveat of being legal.
The system would need a base line setting before racing to get the main/jib in synch and to calibrate the halyards, downhauls, vangs, cunninghams, travelers, and other control mechanisms.
Putting this on the AC40 would further simplify the UX as a class racer for the masses (VERY wealthy masses).
I also wonder about a pilot style helm that has fore/aft movement for the windward/leeward position of the the sails with a throttle grip to control twist. The concern I have about this type of UX is that the boat-to-boat interactions may require too much thinking from the helmsperson and overwhelm the human's ability to manage all the controls and dodge boats.
We know the burmuda cyclors were doing things no one knows about still. Etnz has the headscarf on this front too.
I mean, what if you had wind speed and direction sensors that a human was looking at and then putting into the “flight computer”? It’s pretty fascinating to see a sport that sounds so “old” arrive at the point technically where they’re kind of making up rules just so it won’t be almost all computer controlled. It’d be interesting to see what would be possible if it were unlimited - no rules. Onboard batteries or generator, all automated foils and sails, etc. Could be a wild ride.
My thoughts were similar on the sailor only needing to input apparent wind angle and apparent wind speed. I wondered if speed and position were allowed inputs? FYI everything below the water line is battery powered already.
Soon the only limitation will be the physical structures, I can’t wait for the AC to go fully virtual so we can see what AI can truely achieve!
I can see where this going! Robotic sailing here we come, 'sailors' will be passengers.
It's a little surprising to me they do not use the rules in a different way. Clearly FMH's need opening up mechantronically (or otherwise) in one specific way, which is to make it easier to take-off unassisted from displacement mode. Especially the match races where one boat touches down, they become near farcical. It can be tense in light air, but there's a good sporting tense and the other kind, the ridiculous. It's basically an immature sport otherwise, like archery but where the feathers fall off just after releasing the bow every tenth shot or so. Lots of tension.... but ... seriously, c'mon sailing nerds!
Sailing is only an interest to me but I would suggest as this is the formula 1 of sailing they should incorporate as much technology as possible and then allow that to filter down
Wot's Next, Radio Controlled AC 75 yachts?
Are they talking about ,adjusting Foil trim tabs,and sails automatically ,by computer decision : without human decision making ?
No, they can't link the foil control.to.sail controls. But they can link steering and all rig controls in.any combination they choose.
Why is no-one talking about this ?
Because it is well outside the scope and experience of most people.
And... this is a large part of the secret sauce of the Cup teams - so they certainly aren't talking.
I think from an athlete’s perspective I’d rather sail in classes without control linkages.
In my mind it’s similar to competitive video games where the best longest lasting competitive video games like csgo starcraft tetris or ssbm are all super mechanically challenging with very high actions per minute needed or very precise actions needed. If the controls were more simple it would have a lower skill cap, would be less challenging less hard to master and less interesting to compete in for the top players.
Basically all top level competitive video games have mechanics so hard a human can never optimize their inputs because too much is needed to be done at once with too much precision so you can always be striving more for perfection.
I feel like with linked sail controls the optimal setup from a design pov is to link enough to reduce the required human input enough to nearly perfect boat handling and trim and make the racing outcome purely dependent on tactics and design, IE each crew member would has one input they are responsible for and they focus on for 100% of the race without ever having to multitask or divert their focus. Which just seems less interesting to do.
AI in training, on board systems & eventually racing may become dangerous when the boats are in close proximity. Will the next step be on board full surround radar and multi camera sensing feeding into the loop. There will always be the case of a situation not learned by the AI and the the need for the crew to understand the intricacies of the programming to avert a situation. Not unlike test pilots flying a prototype aircraft. Lots of cases of aircraft crashing where the pilots didn’t know what the aircraft was doing.
Hi. Can you share how fast these new AC40's and LEQ12's are actually going?
I have some reported speeds from the chase boats, but they're only a proxy. Ball Park is low to mid thirties upwind and high thirties to mid forties downwind, touching 50 on bear aways
We all want to see a final race series decided after a 4-4 tie and then the best team winning from having the best sailing and design program. Yes being a Kiwi I hope Team NZ defends he cup. BUT I still want to see a really close competition with high tech boats, so allowing this tech will hopefully stop a back door approach hidden in secrecy like Larry Allison did back in Bermuda with the cheque book thrown at the Cup with last minute help from Airbus technology against the spirit of the rules. Having more aspects of the sailing controlled by smart systems won’t take away from the sailing team IMHO, rather it hopefully will mean small mistakes don’t cost the faster boat the Cup. Yes wishful thinking I know 😊 BTW great work as usual from Mozzy.
Increased automation changes skill priority. As the technology improves sail boat and sail setup a greater weight is placed on having the boat in the right place on the race course.
I think that could definitely be a plus
I suspect these rule changes will favour Team NZ, who were instrumental in getting the changes thru.
the question is can we scale these systems to a 200ft boat? What is the threshold?
I know superyachts use this. Boats like 'A', Maltese Falcon and the Black Pearl all have huge amounts of automation. I think they're all in the 200-300ft region
👍
Can you augment the sailors with haptic feedback or let's go too far muscle control electrodes?
At least then there's always a human in the loop
Hmmm. As with the other comment here. I am 2 minds as well. It seems to be removing the human aspect of making the boat go well, which takes away from the sailing skill.
Ok, so maybe im not really of 2 minds. We are so close to just having 2 pilots and no sailors.
This type of development would lead to analytics and flowcharts controlling everything;."if this, than that, except when" etc. Analysts, modellers and engineers to rule, sailors to power the hydrolics, sit up and say thank you yes please I'll have some more of that.
That will expand for a couple of years and go over the top at which point people will want to revert to the good old days. AC would go back to more manual controls, the robotics will land all over the place. A 10Y development cycle trickling down into more normal classes, all good in the end though you will lose some hardcore sailors along the way.
Having said that, in the F1 days with active suspension, sometimes cars did not quite respond the way people expected or wanted to with - shall we say - interesting effects. Mind you, overcomplicate systems, overestimate your understanding of all dynamics involved and Hubris will kick you in the thingies.
Spectacular it will be no matter what the timeframe and eventual outcome, this is the way we do things in this era
The last step will be full automation sub AI control terminator style😂
Well that's it then, Arduinos will be the competitive element in the Americas cup !!
For cruising, short or single handed sailing I can see that automation could take a lot of work load off the sailor(s), as long as all the systems and sensors acutally work. For competitve sailing I would have none of this, as sailing, for me, is all about the crew working together. The piece of kit they are sailing is almost meaningless.
Sounds like automation to me. AI to follow? Likely already there.
Keora m8t questions Wie don't tem new Zealand ìnvent a retractable ruder shaped like bat wings wat do you say!
So expecting sailors to actually be in control of the yacht is now "old fashioned"
What's next leaving them ashore and racing drones ?
There has to be a point at which technology stops.
Soon we won't need any crew!
How long before it’s just turned over to AI .
And run entirely in a simulator. No expensive boats and shore bases required! :)
@@MarkMcLT yep just nerds with algorithms. It could come down to who has the fastest chips !
Let AI take complete control over all settings in the practice boats. Then the clever bit will be the human learning why the AI did what it did
Not a fan of automation slippery slope. Is this a race for sailors or coders.
Here’s an idea build boats and sail them to rules that can be controlled by the crew . The more tech the worse the racing .
All automated systems off. Sail the way we all learned. Make it the best sailors and designer wins. The cup has always been a design type contest, but sailed by human beings!
It's all in the integrated collision avoidance system ❤
Undefined X Unrevealed: ~ )_@m ~
A two flue problem 😀
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Fact is, a modern AC boat could no longer be sailed manually using simple blocks, winches etc. without exceptionally fast moving hydraulics, actuators and servo’s. To keep the hard work element alive, humans are used to generate the hydraulic power, something that really is unnecessary and is only there to pay lip service to human power generation that requires exceptional athleticism to turn it into a true sport.
Maybe it’s time to remove the human muscle element and go fully automated with humans simply controlling an endless supply of hydraulic power to move every moveable element in any direction?
Stop saying yacht!
What would you call them?
you don't need to be good sailor. you just need to be good at videogames. what a waste of usage of Olympians and world champions
In before the luddites take over the comment section. 😂
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