April fool?

AC62 out? The America's Cup powers are considering a smaller boat for the 35th America's Cup

The America's Cup issued the following release last night: The competitors and organizers of the 2017 America’s Cup are planning to implement a series of rule changes to dramatically reduce team operational costs, primarily by racing in a smaller boat.

“After reviewing prototypes of the new AC45 sports boats being tested on the water over the past several months, it is clear that if we raced smaller boats in 2017, we could dramatically reduce costs without sacrificing any of the spectacle or the design, engineering and athletic challenge fundamental to the America’s Cup,” said Commercial Commissioner Harvey Schiller.

“We have a responsibility to think of what is best for the long term health of the America’s Cup as well as improving the value equation for team principals and partners. Racing a smaller boat in 2017 and beyond is a big step in the right direction.

“The existing operational costs of teams is much too high with a boat like the AC62. We discussed making this change early last year at a Competitors meeting in London but at that stage only ORACLE TEAM USA and Emirates Team New Zealand were in favor of using a smaller boat.

“But now that the teams have seen these new boats in action there is a clear majority of competitors who support the idea. I’d like to be able to say we have unanimous support from all the teams but that is not the case.”

Boat speed in the new boat is expected to be similar to what was achieved in the last America’s Cup through increased time foiling and advances in design and engineering.

“This will be a big change, but it is a necessary one if we are to create a sustainable America's Cup for the future,” said Sir Ben Ainslie, the skipper and team principal of Ben Ainslie Racing. “These boats will create a significant cost saving whilst still providing a real challenge for sailors and designers alike.”

“For Team France this will be a game-changer,” said skipper Franck Cammas. “We will be able to have a very competitive team for about half the budget. With the smaller boat we can imagine that a budget between €15-20 million would be enough to win the America’s Cup.”

To lock in the cost saving measures over the long-term several competitors, including Artemis Racing, have committed to using the new smaller class in the next edition of the America’s Cup should they prevail in this one.

“These changes may help some current teams be more competitive, but this is clearly also about building the future of the America’s Cup,” said Iain Percy, the team manager of Artemis Racing.

“By making a commitment now to using the smaller boat next time, it will be that much easier for new teams to join as they’ll have access to existing boats and technology. So this has required us to look a little bit beyond the scope of ‘what’s in it for us?’.”

The rule changes are being drafted and teams will be asked to vote on these changes before the end of March.

Editor's comment: Is this for real? While we applaud any cost cutting measures in sailing events it has been argued repeatedly that the bulk of costs, particularly in a Cup campaign lie not in the hardware but in the personnel. Certainly an AC45/50 - or whatever size is deemed to be the right one - would require less people to sail it and run it - but would the more well resourced teams really spend any less on their R&D programs?

If cost cutting is really on the table, the event and its teams should really look at salary caps? When we have spoken to Cammas in the past his comments on the cost of an AC campaign has criticism the cost of the hardware but the size of salaries AC personnel seem able to command. 

The proposed initiative also seems to fly in the face of Russell Coutts' ethos for the Cup - that the America's Cup should be an elite event only open to the very best teams. Whether 'best' is the same as 'richest' is open to speculation but certainly he is right - the America's Cup will loose its status if it becomes 'just another' regatta circuit.

Both Artemis Racing and Oracle Team USA have recently turboed their AC45s, so that they are now very much mini-AC62s. They spent a couple of days racing them on San Francisco Bay before Oracle packed up.

The turboed 45s are fundamentally different to the standard one design 45s - they are literally scaled-down AC62s to the extend that they have more beam and the position of the daggerboards is similar to the bigger boat. They also have pedestals and wheels and rather than just a spine system running fore and aft down the centre line of the boat, they have a D35/AC72-style pod here.

Both Oracle and Artemis have made similar overall mods to their turbo AC45s (they agreed to do it this way) to the extent that Oracle supplied the Swedish challenger with its pod.

Also - the introduction of such cost saving measures at what is effectively half way through a Cup cycle, sounds like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. All of the top teams have already had legions of designers working for months on AC62 design (even before the AC62 rule was introduced).