Americas Cup AC40s: Welcome to the Club

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All images source & credit by the official Americas Cup Twitter account: twitter.com/americascup. Follow it long of web www.americascup.com, as the media work done is excellent and almost any additional coverage is redundant on the quantity and quality of this Cup cycle official coverage.

Americas Cup AC40s: Welcome to the speed & pitchpole Club

The other day we were commenting with a group of friends about the Sail GP and how some venues selected on the commercial aspect bring the show down. Also there is a domination by Slingsby and his team, plus not much action in terms of that Classic pitchpoles the usual sailing snob used to laugh at Catamarans.
Cats were always fast but second level alternatives for the Sailing status quo.

That changed with Russell Coutts and the Oracle Trimaran vs Alinghi Cat Americas Cup Challenge, later on the AC72s and F50s. The Foiling Catamarans shook the grounds of sailing as a sport.
Remember Team New Zealand´s Tractor spy photo training at home waters, we were all trying to analyze if was a mere photoshop trick. But it wasn’t…

Long story short, Foiling cats showed superb performance and excellent Match Race capabilities within the Americas Cup realm at San Francisco & Bermuda.
But some were not content enough with the show, as the old label of “catamarans are not proper yachts” remained in the head of many traditional & influential people like Patrizio Bertelli who after Bermuda demanded Team New Zealand to get rid of those beachcats and re install a proper monohull.

As TNZ design team scratched their head on how to please their AC partner, they came up with an extreme Alien idea, I remember too an AC Design Pro laughing at the initial renders, it was an unbelievable concept.
But Team New Zealand are #1, they were the driving force behind the same AC72 Flying Tractor Cat, they managed to get this new radical concept to work.

Initial tests were tricky, specially in light winds stability. But with more hours on board AC teams got the proper trim and the AC75s delivered an excellent show past Cup.
Main critic was the limited wind range of operation.
On the rest, ufff what an achievement to put those crazy concept renders to such real life weapons.

In 6 months we will have the second generation of these foiling monohulls racing at Barcelona. Meanwhile the AC40s keep pushing the limits and continue to deliver a pitch pole show only worth of those peasant racing Catamarans.

They have become a real show and a Class fun to follow, specially on the constant foil design innovation and with the course & conditions Barcelona waters might dekuver we are sure to witness another interesting and entertaining Americas Cup.

So we are happy to welcome the foiling monohulls to the elevated speed & pitch poling realm, now you can share with Multihull sailors the high adrenaline and unique sensation of sailing & racing such fun weapons.

We are pleased to be contemporary of this great Americas Cup era.

Wonder if Bertelli has changed his mind about multihulls now that AC monos have entered same league.

We don’t know for sure, but we want team Luna Rossa to take next Cup as every time the enter the AC, and of course we root for Ruggero & Vitto!