America's Cup Recon: What we've learnt so far...

[@mcslashvideos]

Always enjoy your informative postings, more please.

[@grahamb8191]

Thanks Mozzy for all your great content! Always top class.

[@Gefionius]

He’s ALIVE! :). Moz been waiting for ages for your post Jedda video. Thank you.

[@MozzySails]

😁

[@GordonjSmith1]

It has been a very interesting year with all kinds of 'happenings'! I too am looking forward to 2024!

[@andrewwiffen1900]

The only way to right the INEOS ship is for Sir Ben to walk the plank

[@Chris.Davies]

Holy Moly - what we learned is that the AC is going to be freaking amazing.
GO KIWIS!
I am not a sailor, and I do not like sailing. But I am absolutely addicted to SailGP, and now the AC series. It is so exciting I get goosebumps during the starts, and when things get interesting. I hope I get a chance to ride in such a boat before I check out!

[@greenstripeypaint]

I'm always so pleased when a new Mozzy vid turns up. Thank you for a great year of comment. Roll on 2024. (Would still love to see you and your mates in Christmas jumpers picking a highlight of 2023 - and talking about what you are looking forward to most in 2024 - you could do it live-stream to save edit time)

[@timjones3094]

Great analysis, really enjoy the commentary , thanks from Oregon, US

[@MozzySails]

Much appreciated!

[@trathje424]

Great summary, booked my flight to Barcelona for September 2024. Merry Christmas

[@jackkorovev5217]

Mozzy is truly a hard worker

[@jhideout]

Absolutely LOVE your videos! They're so insightful. Do you plan on doing a video that makes predictions of what the next gen AC37 boats will look like. I'd also like to see if you can come up with deign loopholes or out of the box thinking. I'm not too familiar with the rules of controlling the boats and I thought I heard mention that there has to be a 2 second delay when engaging actuators,controls or other systems. Just curious, could you create a control that has micro actuators that in essense move ever so slightly but not to the point that it changes the direction or height and then after 2 seconds, do the "actual" controls without delay since you already began manipulating the micro controls 2 seconds earlier. Keep up the awesome videos! Cheers.

[@floodo1]

Perfect summary of my feelings about Ineos there at the end … I keep seeing flashes or brilliance but am pretty sure it’s not going to end well hehe

[@Dough29]

I think it also summarizes Ainslie's SailGP campaign pretty well. There's that slim chance that his brilliance will override his uncanny ability to consistently f*ck things up.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@Dough29 he's got sort of a dual personality, taking all-or-nothing risks, or being safe and hoping for the right opening. The trick is filling in the space between those. An AC challenger wins on consistency, while the Defender only needs the right boat and crew for like a week.

[@peterwor]

Great top 6, love them.
I think I might have put the 2 boat testing as #1, I'd forgotten about the 'mast'.
I have one take away from the Jeddah racing I have to share, as a sailmaker I was stunned, at how much that mainsail's traveler car is moving, all the time it seems, all the boats.
I'm very interested to see if the big boats behave like that now or if that's unique to the 40's.
I know it's obscure but it really stood out to me.

[@weatheranddarkness]

I fully expect to see just as much in the new 75s. It's a very effective way to stabilize the righting inputs with the forces on the lifting foil. It also has a few other uses and sheeting to windward quickly is one of the techniques they use when transitioning from hullborne to foilborne

[@weatheranddarkness]

Really fascinating to see so many of the foils in high res back to back.
It seems to me that the "W" foil was primarily a validation exercise. There was much hay made about how INEOS wasn't happy with the correlation between their sims and on water performance. I expect they were also attempting to explore some in situ behaviours they weren't able to with the old AC36 version. The new one had equal angles and a longer span of the outer section so they were definitely looking at some other things. Whether they were legitimately hoping to pursue that direction I personally doubt. I think nobody knew enough about the type of boat when they first did it and it probably seemed more promising on the drawing board at the time.

[@mauriziocanale1669]

Buon Natale Moz!

[@MozzySails]

tanti auguri di buone feste!

[@ChrisCanMakeStuff]

I think, given how long Ineos have been behaving like this, that Ineos is just in shambles 😊 If it was genius just gone slightly wrong you'd have to expect one of the gambles to have paid off by now.

[@strayliner11]

You also wonder if pairing with Mercedes is going to solve their issues, considering how bad they got there F1 car at the start of the F1 season.

[@augustkoch9763]

Chewing your gums - comments are not even educated guises - just speculation disguised as intellectual jargon
- speculation is regarded as fake.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@strayliner11 they still finished second in the championship. It's not like they hired Williams in 2018; and since the environments are so dissimilar... who knows. Frankly any conclusion about Mercedes involvement at this juncture is counting unhatched chickens. These boats are not just complex mechanically, they are complex dynamically so evaluating what design/engineering risks are going to be compatible with every other element of control and structure is a very complex task. This was also compounded with the very complex decision matrix just around what to build and when, and then where to sail it.
What I'm saying is, there's a whole multi axis web of factors that don't matter to the results but have to line up first to providing a package that has the "potential" to win across the whole autumn in Bca; and subsequently has to be developed to that point without leaving too much margin for other programs to surpass.
One thing the Italians showed last time was that taking fewer risks but developing well can get you very close. But clearly the Kiwis had given themselves far more liberty to experiment and did have more speed available in the platform. It's a lot to balance.

[@strayliner11]

@@weatheranddarkness What I meant by mercedes was that they struggled with there car at the start, they needed to play catch up. Red bull stopped devolopment once they won and consequently other teams caught up. Anyway I've been following every Americas cup since 1987, I work in the marine industry as a boat builder, my boss is a professional sailor thats done 2 Americas cups and I have mates building parts for current Americas cup campaigns. So I'm not just a guy on a couch making comment, there is a lot of thought, and observations behind what I say. I enjoy its technical side as much as the sport. looking forward to it especially after the last AC40s races, They were epic, was Gutted for the Italian young guns to finish the way they did. have a good day.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@strayliner11 my point, having been watching the technical side of F1 for decades, is that there's really no telling who's going to find the magic balance. Mercedes' "disaster" was the result of the most drastic rules change in F1 ever, and they still were only behind the top team and still won races shows that they aren't some kind of failed enterprise. To be second in the championship you really have to know what you're doing. Even the least successful in F1 are top notch engineering teams.
And that's much like how the AC, particularly now with these complex boats, is a very complex balancing act.

[@simoncable8352]

love every vid you post.... v excited for the main event this year. I am sure you must have been watching sail gp. Any chance of some commentry about whats been going on there? That last start where gb got disqualified needed a bit more explanation for noobs like me..

[@TJohnsonLLC]

Excellent. Cointing on you for the best analysis of these foiling marvels.
Does anybody disclose the rate of adjustment on the foils and sheeting controls?

[@SxWerks]

Watching designers balance between too complex to underperforming simplification makes these technological machinations so fascinating.

[@roythompson6137]

Thanks for another great insights video. It's gonna be a long wait till August's racing... Do we have any predictions for launch dates for the AC75s?

[@MozzySails]

I think we'll see the boats launch between March and end of May, so quite a wait

[@davidtydeman1434]

Thank you for the analysis - this truly a sport of marginal gains

[@Paul_Thomas]

I think that ETNZ and LRPP both intentionally introduce a small amount of air into their hydraulic system. You can see it on their foils and in the sheeting. I don’t know how their travelers are powered but much smoother than other teams. They both did this in AC36 and same with these small boats. They both point better and have higher VMG. They can load the boat much harder and when they get puffs the main is moving in and out faster than anyone could trim it and so are the foils. It’s like it is riding on suspension and everyone else is running a rigid soap box derby car. In my mind this makes it much smoother all the way around, until you are at the limit, and then would be unpredictable as the boat is unloaded rapidly.

[@nathanaustin7485]

Good insight there

[@Paul_Thomas]

I watched the datapoint video after this one and it would make a lot of sense that more adjustment would be needed if there was a little more “give” in the hydraulic system. Think about it-if you get a huge puff that pushes the boat leeward it could push the foil slightly lower in the water and ease the sheets an almost imperceptible amount. Brilliant actually to have a quasi self easing sail and a non rigid foil system.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@Paul_Thomas not sure, as there's no damping to work with in the system. If as suggested there's air in the hydros it's acting as an undamped airspring.

[@Paul_Thomas]

⁠@@weatheranddarknessI think this is why they need so many adjustments. Also the datapoint video is input from the controls but not necessarily the actuation by secret means. Americas Cup has always been about gaining a secret edge, this is what I would do. You want to be able to load the rig as much as possible and not snap the mast or the hull. We have seen many teams have this issue over the years. Any slight edge to overcome potential over and over will eke out imperceptible gains, all without any data showing what you are doing when you leak everyone’s data.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@Paul_Thomas well sure, but it also has to work. And without being damped I don't think it _would_ work.

[@fightinfalcn1]

@MozzySails, whats your thoughts on team NZs new port/stbd foils? Looking forward to your next anaylsis vid!

[@MozzySails]

th-cam.com/video/8q-2pZzuSE0/w-d-xo.html

[@J3zzaG]

Can you do a video on how the AC rigs rotate, they seem very different to a conventional rotating rig, especially considering the spreaders

[@simonpuxley7374]

Fab update thank you so much!! What are your hopes / predictions / things you’re looking out for in 2024? Is it too early to put money on a team to compete with the Kiwis? Seems a massive hill to climb perhaps more than ever.

[@dmurphy1578]

Inios has made a few rules missteps this cycle. Being the challenger of record puts a lot more pressure on you.

[@Supasarge]

Ben’s face is brim full of woe. If their AC37 campaign is actually in good shape they are hiding it well.

[@HB-we1ln]

I am still amazed with the whole AC setup including not one additional boat type but two.
And all this is going to have reduced the development and running cost? Hard to imagine.
The AC40 semi-one-design has been sailed by AC75 crews and is nice marketing for sure.
It will never be a fair resemblance of development of the AC75, they are just too different.
The AC is interesting but thank bob there's classes where sailing supersedes engineering.
I really hope that future AC programs will develop the actual cup vessel instead of others.

[@mariosampaio108]

hats off guys, your data analysis is the only thing about the ac i enjoy, the joystick racing itself ...

[@nathanaustin7485]

With your recon access do you get access to digital data? Like flight height, cant angle, vmg etc? It would be good to see or do some analysis on this, even if its just for the ac40s

[@MozzySails]

Just photos and video, plus a report from the recon team saying what the conditions were and what sailing the team seemed to be doing.

[@SxWerks]

I wonder if a swept wing design for the foils would reduce cavitation at high speeds as fighters do when going supersonic?

[@weatheranddarkness]

Yes, I think that's why we saw that collection of features on that tubercule Alinghi foil. The problem comes in balancing between the needed low speed performance and the desired top speed. As Mozzy related in a previous video, the margins one has in Barcelona for getting away with a top-speed biased foil are very thin, and the cost of biasing TOO low is also pretty high.

[@Chris.Davies]

Question: How long do you think it will be until onboard technology rises to the level where the immersed foil is encapsulated in a supercavitation bubble created by expelling high pressure air out of the leading edge of the foil, dropping its drag to almost zero.
The Russians made a supercavitating torpedo called the Skhval which cruises at 370km/h underwater!
Theoretically, it's possible to create a supersonic submarine using the technology. But you wouldn't want the bubble to collapse. That would be bad.

[@Dough29]

Hate to answer a question with a question, but doesn't supercavitation come with a massive drop in lift? That would equate to an extremely fast nosedive 😮😢.

[@jsytac]

Recce not Recon and Int not Intel
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇺🇸
Thanks for the great update on AC Tech.

[@ruggericci]

sorry, i'm just replying to the title. No, it's sheer competence.

[@CarkeekW]

Seawater at sea level is about 830 x as dense as air I thought ? Its only 1000 x or much greater if you have a comparison between seawater and air at altitude eh ?

[@MozzySails]

Correct, seawater is 1023kg/m3 and air st sealevel is 1.29kg/m3... so 1000 is some liberal rounding!

[@peterebel7899]

@@MozzySails The difference in flotation in air vs water is nearly neglectable.
Not so the resistance generated by exceed of front area/surface area due to ballast implementation.

[@BR-du3fn]

Are you going to do a Jeddah event video? What your thoughts were...

[@MozzySails]

I thought jefdah was great. Finally getting to see the ac40s at there potential. The performance of the Italians was a real highlight and added some intrigue to what was otherwise an easy win fr the Kiwis.
... not sure if I'll have time for a video though!

[@kevanwhittaker8379]

@@MozzySails hey there thanks for uploads.....i have a question that may not have an answer, but i'll ask anyway....after watching the great action in Jeddah there was a great problem with the boats coming off the foils, and now i just saw a vid posted of ETNZ on the water in Auckland.....could you say that the 75's are more capable of staying out of the water than the 40's? i know there is no data onwind speed in this vid, but it doesn't look stronger than that of Jeddah recently......th-cam.com/video/W0xhm5kJQtQ/w-d-xo.html ....i just realised that this vid is not an AC75, opps, anyway is the question still a viable one?