It depends what you sail.. Also, it's not really about what old school sailors like us want to see.. The sailing industry's got us already :-) It's about the next wave of sailor customers..
To that point: We already have a couple foiling A- Cats on the lake and no, you don't have to be a billionaire to afford one. http://www.usaca.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=900:mid-2015-a15-exploder-with-jz-foils&catid=7:a-class-catamarans-for-sale&Itemid=20 With the prices of bigger new boats already in the stratosphere dinghies and smaller sport boat type keel boats are what's selling as new boats these days. The industry has to look at what's next if they want to capture today's over-stimulated / always looking for immediate gratification kids.. Boats designed for action packed excitement flirt with that "extreme sports" flair that has been effective at capturing the new generation sports lovers / adrenaline junkies. Think snowboarding. As an actual tradition, the Like F1, America's Cup boats have pretty much always been a showcase of the cutting edge boat technology and foiling's where it's at these days. A lot of the technology you have in your current car was showcased decades ago in F1.. As another example of todays' thinking: My all star foredeck dude teenage son loves our boat and gets that would be a bit iffy for a family of 4 to spend weekends on a sport boat. However, when he talks about the boat he'll buy when he gets out of college and can afford one what he wants is a Melges 24, not a racer cruiser.. Just sayin' -Francois Rivard Message: 7 Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 09:26:13 -0400 From: "Marek Dziedzic" <dziedzi...@hotmail.com> To: <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Subject: Re: Stus-List Australian Cup Wing Keel Message-ID: <blu407-eas122993420311bde0d3776a3ce...@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I am not sure if watching the foiling catamarans at 40 kt. is not fun. I think it is quite exciting (especially watching it on TV, with all the virtual reality add-ons) . But I also think that watching the current AC is a bit like watching F1 or Indy car races ? it might be exciting, but there is no relation to what (or how) we drive on the regular basis. The same applies to AC. The 12 m boats where ?boats?(as opposed to some weird contraptions), kind of similar (at least by the looks) to what we sail on the daily basis. Their techniques and tactics where easily translatable to how we sail our boats (at least in theory). I think this is why we all liked it more. just my 2c Marek
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