An Updated USA17, Oracle Team USA’s first AC72 hit the water overnight. The revised boat, the same as capsized in mid October 2012, underwent load testing during the weekend, and was launched monday morning. We are still waiting to hear if they managed to sail as the weather in San Francisco is not the greatest.
Outwardly the boat seems close to the original but with a number of “several key modifications” as OTUSA general manager, Australian Grant Simmer puts it. Probably the most obvious being a change from the awkward looking tiller steering to bright red wheels. Simmer goes on to point out that ““The fairing on the front beam has become more substantial than it was. We’ve revised a lot of the systems on the boat. We’ve got the next generation of boards in the boat, that was always planned, so we’re moving forward with that. And this is the second wing too. It has subtle developments throughout but the profile is fairly similar to the original one, so it looks quite similar.” and “The amount that the platform racked (twisted) was a trade-off with weight and windage in the structure of the boat. That trade-off is still there. We’ve made some subtle changes that will reduce the racking, but again, it’s a design decision trading off windage and weight.”
NEW VIDEO OF ORACLE 17 SAILING: (6th February 2013)
Photos from Oracle’s Facebook page / Guilain Grenier
looks like the whole boat is much stiffer – which would allow it to foil quicker and longer.
Foils seem to be more of a J than an L this time round.
Straight daggerboard, hard-cornered J-tip and torpedo at the intersect on the stbd side, slight C-shaped daggerboard and swept junction to the smaller and less acute L-tip on the port side…… testing two at a time makes sense….
Looks like some one put the fork lift through behind where the aft beam connects to the starboard hull…
Looks like that is what happened, it doesn’t appear in the earlier photos of the day and looks like a ding of some sort when zoomed in.
strike my last – other pix show it to be velcro’d canvass flap to access the gubbins
Any reason they left the masking on the lower panels of the wing – time constraint or secrecy?
Obviously they are “masking” something.