DO YOU REALLY WANT TO MAKE WATCHING PAINT DRY INTERESTING AGAIN?

Washington Examiner chief editor Hugo Gurdon asks, "Whatever happened to America's Cup?"

The best way to understand America's Cup racing over the years is as the waterborne version of Unlimited Class motor racing.  But it's a bit jarring to Mr Gurdon.

Sailing has been radically transformed since I caught the bug as an early teenager in 1970. That summer, when I was learning to plane in a sailing dingy, big, sleek sloops were racing off Newport, Rhode Island, to see who’d defend the America’s Cup, which the New York Yacht Club had won against global competition again and again without interruption for the previous 119 years. The trophy became known as the America’s Cup because no one could take it away from the Americans.

It might be more accurate to think of the "radical transformation" as, first, coming up with racing sloops that could plane on the power reach (America³ had that capability in the 1992 defense) and, later, writing the rules in such a way that souped-up planing dinghies could compete in the races.  That's long been the tradition in America's Cup racing.  In the beginning, a pilot boat called America sailed to the Solent to compete for the Fifteen Guineas' Cup in a race around the Isle of Wight.  That yacht put such a horizon job on the local boats that somebody informed Queen Victoria, "Your Majesty, there was no second place."  It's also possible that America cheated.  But, as America sailed the Atlantic to get to the race, the New York Yacht Club's rules required that any contending boat had to sail to Long Island Sound for subsequent races.  That kept Canadian boats from floating down sheltered waters on the Hudson.

But that was then, and this is now. Australia, in 1983, became the first non-American boat to win. Controversy over its winged keel led to a period when designs went haywire and totally different types of boats raced each other uselessly. A little American catamaran beat a 90-foot New Zealand monster off San Diego in the 1988 final. Teams spent most of their time in court wrangling over the rules. To prevent a repeat of that fiasco, uniformity was reimposed, but with a completely new class of boats. On March 6 this year, the latest America’s Cup finals will start off Auckland, New Zealand, where the defending hosts are challenged by Italy. Both will be racing AC75s.

These “boats” are a lot closer to the Sailrocket than to the elegant yachts of yesteryear. Like the world record holder, they lift entirely out of the water on hydrofoils, one on each side amidships, as long as the wind is 10 mph or more. Usually, only one foil is in the water, with the other hanging in the air to reduce drag. The only other part of the boat that is submerged is the rudder, which is extra long so it can reach down from the elevated stern and steer. Thus, a 75-foot boat weighing nearly 8.5 tons surges out of the water, balances on one leg, and moves at three times the speed of the wind. When these boats are up and flying, they really — fly. They’ve been recorded at 49 knots, or 56 mph, and New Zealand’s team claims to have topped 50 knots.

On occasion, qualifying races take place inland, such as in Chicago's inner harbor in 2016.  Fitting.  Those foils are technological extensions of the bilgeboards on the Inland scows, some of which had a tunnel hull to mimic the waterline profile of a catamaran, which is what the AC75 boats are, if a bit more expensive.  But by reducing your resistance you are able to move your apparent wind forward, which is the trick for getting speed out of your Laser, your Inland scow, your windsurfer, or your catamaran.  In fact, "coming about" on an AC75 is a lot like "coming about" on the Inland scow.

When tacking, they lower one foil and raise the other, looking similar to those desert lizards that avoid burning their feet by lifting them alternately off the scorching sand. But these are not land lizards. They are marine predators. With their black hulls and black triangular sails shooting over the water, they look like a velociraptor crossed with a shark fin. The sails carve the air like blades, hardly changing position whether they’re running, reaching, or close hauling. The sails are really wings, not old-fashioned canvas buckets to catch the wind. You’ll never see a spinnaker on one of these.

Why not? On a performance aircraft, the engine exists to drive the airfoil through the air. On a performance sailboat, the skipper trims the airfoil to use the air most effectively. The fundamentals of racing are still the same.

Some sailing purists complain that the AC75 races aren’t exciting because sheer speed eclipses canny tactics, and the races are sprints, only lasting 20 minutes. There is some truth in this. But the America’s Cup still pits the best race sailors in the world against each other, and they still dog each other, for example trying to force opponents to luff up and fall off their foils sluggishly onto their hulls. And then there are those supreme moments when these vast black scalpel blades are skimming over the blue of the southern Pacific, leaving motorboats floundering in their wake. If that doesn’t make your heart race at least a bit, you should check whether it is still beating.

I suppose Laser sailors don't qualify as "sailing purists."  Fine.  You can get a five-race regatta in in an afternoon and still have time to close the bar that night.  In addition, a number of those "best race sailors" have some Laser hardware in their trophy rooms.

Find an America's Cup trial near you and go watch it.  Extra props for chasing the action in your Laser.