

Betrayed by the America’s Cup - creeble
https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/32f120565d88

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jdietrich
I wish OP would have learned something about sail racing before writing his
screed.

Boat trim is an integral part of racing, even in many strictly regulated one-
design classes. An eighth-grader racing an Optimist dinghy at their local club
will spend a large part of their day tuning their rig, carefully adjusting the
shape of their sail to eke out every last ounce of power.

Criticising a race crew for making their boat go faster is preposterous,
because that's what most of the crew are there to do. If Oracle did a better
job of that, then they won fair and square. Money certainly helps, but it
can't win races if you don't have the skill and expertise to turn that money
into speed.

An equivalent article would be to write an outraged expose of Formula 1 motor
racing, complaining that the top teams "cheat" by having a huge team of
engineers, aerodynamicists and strategists to make the car go faster. All that
stuff is an integral part of the sport and nobody has ever pretended
otherwise.

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bigiain
I've heard from several sources (mostly New Zealanders, admittedly) that
Oracle didn't just tweak their trim, but fitted active stabilization to their
foils.

After just now doing a bit of Googling – it's pretty clear all the rumours I'm
hearing are all based of (and contain verbatim chunks of) this:

[http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Americas-
Cup:-Speculatio...](http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Americas-
Cup:-Speculation-on-Oracle-Team-USAs-foiling-system/115070)
[http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1309/S00253/americas-cup-
la...](http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1309/S00253/americas-cup-lawsuit-
mooted-for-herbie-foil-trimming-mod.htm)

Not sure how much truth there is in that claim – or even if it matters much,
but there's clear;y some controversy about why Oracle got so much faster after
race 9…

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snowwrestler
The America's Cup has always been this way--a battle of money and technology
as much as sailing skill.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Cup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Cup)

It's not a normal sporting competition the way we think of sport today--a
contest conducted by standard rules using regulated equipment under the
auspices of a neutral governing body. The governing body of an America's Cup
race is the yacht club that holds the cup. The rules are whatever they say
they are.

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pgcsmd
It had previously been held as a competition between nations and with some
level of integrity. This Oracle campaign and the previous Alinghi campaign
have been the most self-serving in the America's Cup 150 years of history.

Money has been a part of the cup, sure, but making it so you can't win without
dropping half a billion is a new low.

~~~
bigiain
I'm not sure that's true - didn't some previous incumbents tweak the rules to
require challengers to sail their boats on the open ocean from their home
clubs, while the Rhode Island based boats could be built much lighter since
they didn't need to be trans-ocean-capable?

I think this particular race has a century-long history of being all about the
defender writing their own rulebook…

