Off topic: AC75 - The Missile Is Launched
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Not much here for die hard weather folk but for the sailors amongst us ( @ivo ?):
The first AC75 has been launched by Team New Zealand and I'm dubbing it "The Missile".
Imagine this at full throttle, fully flying at 50kn boat speed.
Completely outrageous. WOW!
Tongues will be wagging furiously, especially about the unexpected bulb like bulge on the centreline of the hull.
Stay tuned :)
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More info on the unusual bulge on the centreline of the hull:
@thespinoff.co.nz said:
Most surprising of all is a sort of bulge running the length of the bilge, a bilge bulge, like an undercarriage...
Being a lot heavier than the catamarans of the previous America’s Cup, it’s a harder boat to get onto its foils. So – as I understand it – the dolphin belly serves as a kind of smaller, secondary hull, minimising drag in that awkward phase between foiling and not foiling.
During those not-slow, not-fast times, “it’ll only be that bit in the water, and that part is far more like a multihull shape”, said designer Dan Bernasconi...