With Shamrock II laid up in Newport in 1901 after a request from the Royal Ulster Yacht Club for a re-match for the America’s Cup the following year to the New York Yacht Club was declined, Sir Thomas Lipton returned to Scotland and immediately set about laying the foundations for his third challenge.

After analysis of the design deficiency and overall management of his 1901 effort, a new direction was required and quickly the services of William Fife were engaged but crucially, Lipton managed to bring G.L Watson into the frame in a consultative role with the two leading designers working collaboratively together. Watson held the tank-testing results conducted at the Denny facility in Dumbarton and line drawings that had resulted in Shamrock II and these were shared with Fife in the hope of giving him a distinct advantage in the design of what would become Shamrock III.

Watson was more than accommodative and offered a thorough design analysis to the lead designer and agreed to play a role in further tank-testing as well as advising on construction – most notably his insistence on aluminium decks set on a steel hull. Meanwhile the Royal Ulster Yacht Club and Lipton himself were in considerable dialogue with the New York Yacht Club about the class of boat as it had been rumoured that the Americans were looking at making alteration to the club’s measurement rule which could have the consequence of changing the nature of the races for the America’s Cup itself.

Commodore Cass Leyland of the NYYC was rumoured to be the instigator of the changes seeking a “more satisfactory and wholesome type of vessel than has been produced under the current rule,” but in correspondence with Lipton, confirmed that these ideas were at an early stage and would not be implemented for a challenge in the following year, 1903, should it arise. On October 7th, 1902, a formal challenge was issued on behalf of Sir Thomas Lipton by Hugh Kelly, the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club for a new vessel, Shamrock III, with a length at waterline of 90 feet. It was the start of the most expensive Cup challenge in history.

As the Americans became aware of Lipton’s third challenge and his likely ‘win at all costs’ approach, C. Oliver Iselin was keen to not only meet fire with fire but to secure the very best crew capable of defending the America’s Cup. Having effectively outsailed Shamrock II and with better preparation clearly a deciding factor in that victory, Iselin’s first move was to secure the services of Captain Charles Barr before courting the skills of the ‘Wizard of Bristol’ Nathaniel Herreshoff who had been reluctant to join the nascent syndicate.

Herreshoff was a man concerned for the future of his burgeoning business and considerable reputation that he had built up and liked to be a master of his own destiny. In the 1901 defence, a restrictive covenant had precluded him from building the sails for Columbia, a job undertaken by Thomas Ratsey of Cowes who had set up a loft in New York, whilst on the design front he was concerned by the rising reputation of fast coming designer Starling Burgess and the skill of Boudoin Crowninshield (designer of Independence).

However, Oliver Iselin was persistent, and a considerable war-chest was afforded by Commodore Ledyard, bankrolled by significant millionaire members of the NYYC and with a reported $300,000 budget, the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company signed on the dotted line in September 1902 to build what was to become ‘Reliance’ – one of the grandest yachts ever built for the America’s Cup. In mentioning the millionaire backers of the Ledyard syndicate, it’s important to note that these were the new wave of oil barons, railway entrepreneurs, industrialists and scions of the burgeoning banking scene in New York whose mantra was ‘bigger is better.’ It was a time of mass expansion, and the expression of this wealth could be seen most notably in the changing face of the New York skyline and the weekend houses of the Hamptons and all around Rhode Island. Herreshoff as a result, was given a free hand and a mandate to build not only the fastest boat to defend the Cup, but the biggest too.

The cost of competing, on both sides, was of little concern. Sir Thomas Lipton had green-lighted the expense of £10,000 worth of aluminium for the decks of Shamrock III whilst Herreshoff deemed that Tobin bronze was the ultimate construction material for Reliance. When the lead was poured for Shamrock III, run through the lower part of the steel frames in the midship section (a construction method that allowed for lighter frames), Lipton expressed confidence in the duo of Fife and Watson saying: “They don’t care a cent about money, and they love the profession as much as Herreshoff.” Supporting the Challenger was the considerable workforce and facilities of the Denny’s Yard in Dumbarton with its 2500 strong labour force and tow-testing facilities, so it was scant surprise that the boat was finished early and launched on March 17th 1902, St Patrick’s Day, into the River Leven having been christened by the Countess of Shaftsbury, the wife of the Commodore of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club. Reliance was coming along at pace too in Bristol, Rhode Island, but without needing to cross the Atlantic on her hull, patience and care could be applied whilst a shroud of secrecy enveloped the build. She was duly launched on April 11th, 1902, and christened by Oliver Iselin’s daughter, Nora.

As is so often in the America’s Cup, even to this day, the respective launches of Reliance and Shamrock III revealed innovative hull shapes but hid the real advances going on below decks in mechanical and structural engineering. Reliance drew gasps at launch for her long overhangs, but it was under the decks where Herreshoff had installed advanced (for the time) two-speed winches to carry the vast loads of the mainsheet, jib sheets and halyards where the real efficiency lay. Further advances were later revealed when an innovative Herreshoff design for the rudder allowed water to be pumped in and out of the hollow blade using a pneumatic pump according to the conditions and how heavy the boat was on the helm.

https://www.americascup.com/history/26_LIPTONS-THIRD-CHALLENGE#:~:text=On%20October%207th,

------------------------

Although foiling feels like a recent revolution to take the world of watersports by storm, it has been at the heart of America’s Cup racing for 10 years.

It was August 2012 when the sailing world was turned upside down by a 72- foot catamaran flying in the Hauraki Gulf. Emirates Team New Zealand had brought foils to the America's Cup, changing the face of top-level yacht racing forever.

Six years later, in 2018, the publication of the AC75 Class Rule marked the beginning of a new sailing era. The engineering and sailing techniques needed to get the AC75 to fly were completely different from anything seen before. 

During the 36th America's Cup in 2021 the AC75 proved themselves to be unique and kept millions of fans worldwide glued to their screens.

Therefore On the 15th of November 2021, eight months after Emirates Team New Zealand successfully defended the America's Cup, an updated 'Version 2' of the AC75 Class Rule was released.

The foiling monohulls to be used in Barcelona in 2024, will be slightly different, with rules being tweaked partly to improve light wind performance and reduce crew numbers from 11 to 8. The move to reduce the crew means cycle power is again legalised, and the cyclors, introduced by Team New Zealand in 2017, might return in the game.

But what's the technology behind the AC75?

Therefore On the 15th of November 2021, eight months after Emirates Team New Zealand successfully defended the America's Cup, an updated 'Version 2' of the AC75 Class Rule was released. 

The foiling monohulls to be used in Barcelona in 2024, will be slightly different, with rules being tweaked partly to improve light wind performance and reduce crew numbers from 11 to 8. The move to reduce the crew means cycle power is again legalised, and the cyclors, introduced by Team New Zealand in 2017, might return in the game.

But what's the technology behind the AC75?

To start with, the AC75 is big - 75-feet long and 16-feet wide - but, it's also light, which is crucial, because the AC75 is designed to fly. It's also different - rather than a keel, a brand new concept keeps it standing. Foil Cant Arms move under, or outside, the boat to provide the leverage it needs to stay upright. 

Some parts of the boat are supplied - the mast, rigging, foil-cant arms and their hydraulics are all stock components. But, there are still plenty of areas that designers can experiment with to find a race-winning edge.

The double-sail skin Mainsail combines with the D shaped mast to form a wing, generating the power the AC75 needs to foil. 

Underwater is where things get really interesting, the foil cant system is a battery-driven, hydraulic power-unit that supplies the energy to lift and lower the immensely strong - and heavy - foil cant arms. 

As the boat swaps tacks, the cant system is activated, placing one hydrofoil in the water, and lifting the other one out, where its weight becomes ballast. At the end of the arms lie the teams' secret weapons - the foil wings. Apart from basic rules governing dimensions and weight, these are open territory for designers.

With the teams allowed to build only one AC75, will a lot change from what we have seen during the last Cup, or will the new monohulls resemble the winning Kiwi boat?

https://www.americascup.com/the-technology#

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

Saddling up on the high seas - the cyclists powering 50-mph yachts

BY Sophie Hurcom

Sitting on a bike and pedalling is something Simon van Velthooven has done for countless kilometres and hours during his cycling career. He has done it well, winning Olympic, World and Commonwealth medals on the track.

He still pedals a bike for a living, but the New Zealander's life as a 'cyclor' on a sailing boat in the America's Cup is now very different.

"You're just getting shaken around, holding on while you're turning some cranks that are veering a lot," Van Velthooven tells BBC Sport.

"It's RPM [revolutions per minute], power, watts, cadence, shaking, high turbulence, getting punch-drunk by whacking your head on the walls and trying to look at your numbers on your screen, and listening to all the comms of the sailors and what they're doing and trying to anticipate your energy levels coming up to the next manoeuvre."

Van Velthooven is among the wave of cycling experts that have crossed over to the world of sailing before the 37th edition of the America's Cup - the oldest international sailing competition in the world - this autumn in Barcelona.

Traditionally everything above the waterline on the 75ft-long boats - the sails, mast and winches - was powered by grinders, sailors who used their arms to turn cranks.

Yet technological rule changes for this year's competition have reduced crew sizes from 11 people to eight, but with the proviso that any body part can now be used to create power.

As legs can typically produce more power than arms, cyclors have been brought in and static pedalling systems installed on the boats. Teams estimate they have since seen a 25-30% gain in watts produced per athlete by using the lower part of their body rather than upper.

Cyclors are not entirely new. They were also used during in the 2017 staging of the America's Cup in Bermuda by Emirates Team New Zealand, which is how 35-year-old Van Velthooven was initially recruited to sailing from cycling.

The Kiwis were outliers during that competition as the only crew to try the technology, although it was to great effect as they won the Cup. They retained the title in 2021 when rules required a return to grinders.

This time around the cyclor technology is being used by all six competing teams.

This year's America's Cup boats - known as AC75s - are "designed to fly" across the water on a foiling monohull, racing at speeds of up to 50 knots (58mph).

For athletes with no experience of sailing, seasickness is an obvious first hurdle they need to overcome before they can become a cyclor.

Two athletes were unwell during trials with New York Yacht Club American Magic and were dropped.

"They've got to be able to perform in somewhat high-G [force] situations when the boat's getting spun around," says Terry Hutchinson, president of sailing operations at American Magic.

"Then they've got to be able to perform day in, day out in the sun and heat of Barcelona. It takes quite a unique athlete to achieve that."

Cyclors are not built the same as the professional cyclists at the Tour de France or Olympics. For cyclists, body weight and watts per kilogram are key to how they perform.

However, cyclors do not need to pull themselves up a mountain or around a track. They simply need to produce as big a wattage as possible when the boat needs it.

"There are some unique things we are looking for in this particular sport," says Ben Day, head performance coach of the American Magic team.

"When we're talking about Tour de France cyclists, we're maybe looking at someone who is 60kg up to 75-80kg. All of our guys are running 90kg and above.

"It's a bit of a unique skillset. We have guys who are super strong and we're just looking for absolute power."

Former cyclist Ashton Lambie, like Van Veltooven, has swapped over to sailing purely for his credentials on a bike.

Lambie is a former individual pursuit world champion. In 2021, he became the first rider in history to break the four-minute barrier for a 4km-long effort round the track.

He joined the American Magic team after a trial and his body shape has changed considerably over the last two years since.

"Even by cycling standards I was a fairly big guy, I am moderately well known for having big legs and they've gotten bigger since I've come here," Lambie says.

"During my racing career I was probably between 70 and 74kg, and now I've gained over 10kg. Most of it is muscle, and I've also gained watts. It's been a really big change."

Lambie, 33, says the only similarity to cycling is that the cyclors are pedalling in the same motion as on a regular bike.

"The pedalling feels very different and the overall sensations of moving on the water, either laterally or vertically, is wildly different from any kind of cycling," Lambie says.

"When you go through a corner on the track the banking pulls you in and the G-force pushes down on you - that's a very natural feeling when you lean into the corner.

"But on a boat it's like you're upright and somebody just whips the boat around so you're getting slammed, it's a purely lateral load.

"It looks quite static and stable when you're watching it on TV but the boat really moves a lot.

"We do a lot of stability work and mobility work in the gym and that definitely translates over to the boat when you're getting jostled around a lot and you still need to be able to pedal.

"The times when the boat's a little unstable, you're getting thrown around the most, that's when it's most important to pedal. Being able to put out power even when you're not in an optimal pedalling position is huge."

The races take place across head-to-head events that are split into two parts. 

The first part - the Louis Vuitton Cup - determines which of five challengers will face this year's defending champion Emirates Team New Zealand in the second, the America's Cup itself.

Races take approximately 25 minutes and this year start in August and end in October.

Endurance is the key metric for cyclors, who need to be able to consistently produce a high wattage during the races themselves and maintain their form across 10 weeks.

"We just want a huge reliable engine for the three months that we're going to be racing," Van Velthooven says.

"Big days are big days and easy days are still big days because they still need heaps of power. It's relentless."

The UK's Ineos Britannia team, led by Sir Ben Ainslie, might not have recruited professional cyclists to their crew like some of their rivals but they have the next best thing - an affiliation with the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team, formerly Team Sky and winner of seven Tours de France.

Matt Gotrel is part of Ineos Britannia's crew. This year will be his second America's Cup, but his first as a cyclor rather than grinder. A former Olympic gold medal-winning rower, having been part of Great Britain's eight at Rio 2016, Gotrel has found it a "big challenge" to train a different muscle group, even if recreationally he considered himself a cyclist already.

"As rowers, we had an upside-down pyramid [body shape] before, but it's flipped around now," Gotrel says.

As grinders, his crew would aim to produce 400 watts of power over 20 minutes. As cyclors they are now "well north of that".

Training for the past two years has predominantly taken place on the road or in the gym, rather than on water. Volume blocks can consist of four to six-hour-long rides, three times a week, interspersed with high-intensity intervals on a static bike and weight training.

Gotrel, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, compares powering the boats in a race to a cycling time trial, but with repeated sprint efforts throughout.

"You want to have a really good aerobic base where you can sit at as high a power as possible without producing too much lactate, and then you have your big spikes and need to be able to recover from those," he says.

The connection to Ineos' cycling team has been a "massive" resource for Gotrel and his fellow cyclors, enabling them to share training and nutritional insight on a training camp in Spain together.

"I had a chat with [sprinter Elia] Viviani about some sprinting technique, and then there are Filippo Ganna and Dan Bigham who have been really good on some of the strategy and fuelling things and what they did to push on the hour record," says Gotrel

Hutchinson says the America's Cup is a "design competition as much as a sailing competition" and development of the boats has been a process lasting more than two and a half years.

Part of the challenge has been incorporating the concept of a bike into a boat.

Most teams have chosen to position the cyclors upright, as they would be on a regular bike - even if the 'bike' consists of just a seat, seatpost and crank.

"We started it by scanning a standard bike and putting that in a boat and seeing what position you'd need to put the cyclors in," says David Adcock, Ineos Britannia’s lead mechanic.

"Some of the ideas we came up with at the start looked really strange from a cycling perspective - head down pretty much touching your feet - but we kind of went away from that and have gone back to a standard bike position that was best for getting power out."

In order to maximise the aerodynamics, the cyclors are below deck. They don't have much to look at beyond a screen showing their data.

"Trying to get someone who's 6ft 3in to fit has been quite challenging," says Adcock. "We've got handlebars that we can move up and down to get them packaged in properly."

By contrast, the American Magic team have chosen to put the cyclors in the recumbent position, lying almost flat on their backs.

"It's the America's Cup and so it takes clever thinking to be successful. I would look to Team New Zealand's success in 2017 - they were the outlier then and they won the regatta," Hutchinson says.

"We're not afraid to be different, we understand the power requirements of the boat."

Adcock describes the AC75 as like an "F1 car on water" and the links between the America's Cup and Formula 1 are easy to find.

Ineos Britannia share their UK base with the Mercedes team - where Ineos is also a sponsor. Adcock previously spent 22 years working for Mercedes before moving across in 2022.

American Magic have also spent time with the Williams team to see how they work.

Each boat can produce more than 3,000 data points within half a second and send them to engineers onshore for analysis in real time.

"The steering wheels look more like an F1 wheel with the functions on the wheel and how the boat's programmed to automatically shift mode. That side of it is very similar," says Hutchinson.

"If you're good at Call of Duty [video game] you're probably really good at sailing an AC75 because it's a similar controller."

The technological advancements in the sport have taken the America's Cup far away from the experience of most traditional sailors. The return of cyclors for this year's race has moved that dial even further.

"It's hard for the average sailor to relate to what we're doing," admits Hutchinson, who has been part of five America's Cups.

"They look at the boat and there are a lot of traditionalists out there who say 'this actually isn't racing'.

"But I bet you and I couldn't hop into an F1 car and understand how to turn the thing on. We understand the concept of the car, we know we can drive a car, but we probably can't drive one of those cars. I equate it to that.

"The America's Cup is a unique competition, it's always been at the tip of the sphere of the sport."

The crossover of cycling into sailing might seem incongruous, but at the heart of the two sports is a very similar culture, Day believes.

That shared ground has made blending the two so successful.

"There seems to be a correlation between sailors who love toys and boats and cyclists who love bikes and toys," says Day. "We all have this sense of freedom of getting out into nature with the wind in our hair.

“Whether it's on a boat or on a bike, it seems to be something we can enjoy together.”

https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/c4ngydm1x55o

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

American Spirit and Red Bull Switzerland are out...

The next instalment of the America's Cup will be between England (Sir Ben+) and Italy (Aussie Spithill+)... Then it will be the grand final between the winner of seven races VS the Kiwis....

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.