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America’s Cup — where science, sport, artistry and art merge

America’s Cup — where science, sport, artistry and art merge
Ineos Britannia, the winners of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Photo: Ian Roman/America’s Cup
Craig Ray
By Craig Ray
13 Oct 2024
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Emirates Team New Zealand looks forward to defending its America’s Cup title against Ineos Britannia.

Artistry and sport often combine because athletic endeavour requires creative skill and unique abilities to perform at the highest level.

Science and sport are also close bedfellows, from the designs of equipment to diets and training regimes, and the use of legal and illegal performance-enhancing substances. Science is always hovering over sport.

Seldom, though, does pure art combine with sport, science and artistry because one person’s art is another’s bird cage lining.

Art and its quality is a hugely subjective exercise, of course. Sport is generally objective. Someone scores more points, runs faster or jumps higher or further, and wins. There are a few disciplines where judges score the athletes, bringing in a dose of subjectivity.

Even then, though, the scoring is weighted against a set of objective criteria, with the subjectivity coming from the judge’s interpretation of the performance measured against that data.

But sometimes it’s undeniable that art and sport overlap to create something beautiful. Think of some of the great Formula 1 cars of the past, or present. They are works of both science and beauty. The curves and lines are beautiful.

The Adidas Tango football, first used at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, was a piece of art as much as it was a functional tool of the sport. Yes, it was round, but the design was so simple yet iconic that its basic shape remained untouched for 20 years.

Flying boats


And over the past six weeks and for the next fortnight, science, artistry and sport have been overlapping, and will continue to overlap, with art as the 2024 America’s Cup plays out off the shores of Barcelona.

Since mid-August, five of the most beautiful, most technologically advanced boats ever put in water have been fighting it out for the right to face America’s Cup holders Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) in the final.

The New Zealanders, skippered by two-time America’s Cup winner Peter Burling, have not been part of the Louis Vuitton “challenger” series. As holders they are into the America’s Cup final, known as The Match, by right.

ETNZ participated in a preliminary regatta to test their new boat, but have sat out for more than a month as others scrapped it out to face them in The Match.

Along with ETNZ, teams from Switzerland, Italy, France, Britain and the US revealed what three years of design, planning, building and engineering, using the latest technology to best extract speed from Mother Nature, came up with.

The result has been a jaw-dropping array of flying watercraft that are technically boats in the same way that cheese is technically milk.

For the record, Britain’s entry, Ineos Britannia, skippered by four-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Ben Ainslie, won the right to face the New Zealanders. They beat Italy’s Luna Rossa 7-4 to reach The Match.

Ineos Britannia, the winners of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Photo: Ian Roman/America’s Cup


Technological masterpieces


The AC75s – the number referring to their length in feet – are 6.5-tonne foiling monohulls, handled by eight-men crews, which can reach speeds of 105km/h and manoeuvre like Cheslin Kolbe on the touchline.

They can’t go much faster because at that speed the water rushing over the foil – a large 2.5m wide “wing” submerged below the surface that provides the boat’s stability – starts to boil from the friction. That causes the foil to lose “grip” and the helmsman to lose control.

Their curved lines, each slightly different but adhering to strict design parameters, with giant cantilevered arms that raise and lower the foil, are straight out of science fiction.

These craft are both beautiful and brutal. They are products of science but equally they are pieces of art. There are four men on each boat known as cyclors, who use stationary bikes to power the boat’s hydraulics.

Read more: America’s Cup is a heady mix of invention, space technology and big egos

The hydraulics push oil through a complex network of pipes to provide the trimmers the ability to constantly adjust the boat’s sails.

The two helmsmen, one on starboard (right) and one on port (left), share the steering duties depending on the boat’s direction.

In conjunction with the port and starboard trimmers, the four brains have to communicate clearly and quickly to make split-second decisions about manoeuvring the beasts to find the best wind on a course.

While all this is going on, there is old-fashioned racing against the other boat. The sight of these behemoths crossing each other, metres apart, at speeds upwards of 90km/h is thrilling.

The skill of the actual sailors is still a huge factor in the outcome.

Each team has spent in the region of £200-million (R4.6-billion) on their campaigns. There are vast teams of data analysts, engineers and various experts behind the scenes that have built and maintain these machines.

The AC75s have 120,000 parts, including thousands of sensors that relay all sorts of information from the boat back to team bases. This deluge of data informs decisions for future races in a constant, never-ending cycle of development that might all be shelved once it’s over because the rules of the next America’s Cup might change.

It’s a unique sporting event because the defender chooses the category of boat and the boundaries within which challenging teams can operate.

It does raise the question: What’s the point if it all changes next time? But the same question could be asked of just about any endeavour, sporting or otherwise. Humans do things out of necessity or because, quite simply, they can.

Oldest sporting event


The America’s Cup might be the dictionary definition of a “niche” sport, but it is the oldest continuous sporting event in the world.

On 31 August 1851, it started out as a challenge between the boat of Britain’s Royal Yacht Squadron against America of the New York Yacht Club off the Isle of Wight.

America won that event and Britain has spent the past 173 years trying to win the America’s Cup (it was so named in 1870) for the first time. Ainslie’s crew are the first British team to contest the final in 60 years.

Ainslie is known as an aggressive racer and in the six weeks of racing in Barcelona, starts have been crucial as boats jockey for position to get off the line best. Britain are race-hardened, having come through the gruelling challenger series.

ETNZ skipper Burling hasn’t had the benefit of weeks of match racing, but he has spent hundreds of hours reviewing Britain’s races.

“It’s something we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out,” Burling said.

“The America’s Cup is a race to win the last race, not necessarily the first. You’ve got to continue to improve and evolve and I think our challenger… has been doing a good job of that so far… But we’re really happy with the progress we’ve been making as well.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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