hoom

That was the key success of the AC45 concept: a robust & cheap 'one-design' available early, small enough to be easily shipped & not disruptive of the main race boat programme. GD complained about even having to send the crew away & sent B teams to some ACWS events, imagine the stink he'd have made about having to send his single race boat off to Italy & back just for a few days of sailing

But single boat teams learning a completely new concept of boat will have to pack up, send it all to the other side of the world & if its damaged in process/shipping they will have to wait for it to be returned to base before they can fix it. And I think most/all teams will have only 1 boat at the time of at least the first event so that risk also applies to them. Edit: also some good stuff here https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12173564 Suggests not separate China & Japan teams but a joint China-Japan team Apparently the Malta team is the 2nd Italian team backed by Altus, switched due to the Club demanding a big 'donation' to use their name...

There are no shortage of examples of teams that entered & later pulled out of previous iterations, including 2* CoRs in the last AC. Until they launch boats there's every possibility that teams will not eventuate & there's even been a few who pulled out after launching their boat. People wanted more relatable boats with some actual sail-handling. The only way to get sail-handling is slowing them down & that means displacement or semi-foiling. These JC Lizard boats have soft sails but if they're doing full foiling round the course they're probably not gonna use their Code 0s & twin-skin mains aren't exactly relatable. I don't believe teams have shipped race boats around the world for prelim regattas other than the finals location except for Valencia 2007. Those events were mostly held in Valencia, several in other Western Med ports and relatively close Sweden. Italy is nearly as far as possible from Auckland There were several generations of IACC around by then & teams were only bringing current-gen race boats for the last few. Before that you have TNZ prelims using matched pairs of previous generation & 'Worlds' held in finals locations.

Only when we actually see 5+ teams put JC75s in the water. 5+ teams being accepted is nice but as others pointed out there's still a long way to go & previous ACs have had a lot of entries drop out. Me. I still think a 60-65' non or semi-foiling wing cat would have been more immediately convincing, have produced spectacular racing & more useful design solutions for 'normal' sailors. Going straight up to 75' Jesus Lizard design is still a huge risk & with no smaller AC45 equivalent the teams are going to have to ship them off from their bases to ACWS events soon after launch, losing practice/testing time & risking their single boats in unfamiliar waters.

Something something darkside doom & unmitigated failure...

5 makes for a proper competition Hopefully more to come! Talk of 3 'super teams' was just icing on what was shaping up to be a poop sandwich.

Honestly I'd like to hear some complaints from the other teams, their complete lack of complaint is actually kinda worrying. Even if its just a 'we're not big fans of this aspect but we'll cope'.

Apologies I look forward to seeing if you were right.

This is many more late challenges than I'd expected. Even if most don't actually work out any extra is very much welcome I recall someone (Nav?) pointing out that the testing limits don't apply to teams that aren't entered yet -> some serious teams would wait till the very end of entries to get maximum benefit from not being entered yet, I wonder if any of these teams have been up to that kind of thing? Happy to see that Hobson Wharf extension has indeed been up for cutting if Wynyard isn't full, previously has been suggested that LR would demand it regardless. Hopefully enough of these new challenges work out that Hobson will indeed be justified. I wonder what Protocol change conditions other than having an ACWS event might have been requested by these teams?

Yes actually.

OK so HI did at least have nav lights on then. Did also check-in? Then VTS has apparently failed to keep good track on it since it took quite a while to make the ID. Yeah, assuming that radar track is correct the collision point was around 1km off the side of the fjord (by Google Earth measurement) so the claim of insufficient room for the frigate doesn't hold up.

Yes the tanker was coming out of the terminal fully loaded -> couldn't have gone right earlier. I believe yes had a pilot aboard, was in contact/coordination with the port controller (VTS) whose job is exactly 'looking down the the road' to prevent this sort of thing. My understanding is there is mandatory check-in with VTS on entering the area & HI failed to do so. Had HI checked-in with VTS it'd have had proper fore-warning of the tanker & had its avoidance course planned out long before getting close. Aside from not checking-in with VTS there is 0 excuse for HI not being aware of the tanker long before the recordings start: 100Kton tankers with nav lights & AIS on are pretty hard to miss for a high-tech AEGIS military ship. Its home waters of the Norwegian navy (main base is at the South end of the fjord) so there's no excuse for not being aware of the presence of lots of heavy commercial traffic or the requirement to check-in to VTS.

Since not posted here, this has the radar path & translation of radio I know its all the rage to blame Putin for everything & most definitely not reflect on your own shortcomings but seriously can the 'Russia jamming GPS' ppl please engage brain for a second? Even if we assume that Russia was jamming GPS in that area, tell me, how does GPS jamming also disable: multiple military radars, AIS, nav lights, rudder, throttle, E/O systems and the crews' Mk1 eyeball on the Frigate, (while not having similar affect on the Tankers' systems) causing it to barrel down the fjord at 17kt straight into a 100Kton tanker? Just like the nonsense claims that Russia/China hacked freighters & forced them to ram the 7th Fleet ships this is clearly & unambiguously yet another case of shitty seamanship by the warship crew.

Because lightweight, unbumpy hulls with a sharp entry, clean flat run, fractional rigs with big mains & relatively small jibs is definitely not what became the norm shortly afterward... Remember, '89 WRTW was the beginning of the end of shitty lumpy pregnant cow IOR hulls with pinched ends & 200% overlap masthead genoas. As I mentioned up-thread Fazisi wasn't the first but it did help popularise the move toward actually fast hull shapes/rigs. Also, 'dat flare & sheerline

Man, I hope someone steps up to get it sailing again. Some nice pics on that listing When I think of Fazisi I see basically this. BTW The Card losing the mast: The faint of heart best not click the link to see its end https://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Whitbread-Race--The-Cards-final-resting-place/-140677