The AC45 catamarans have two distinct roles – as a one design class for racing in the America’s Cup World Series, and as a test bed for design ideas for the new AC62 cats that will race in the 2017 America’s Cup. While the teams need one “class legal” AC45 for ACWS racing, they face no limits at all on what they can test on their “development” AC45’s.

Background

The Protocol prohibits the teams from launching their AC62’s before approximately September 2016. The challengers can build only one AC62. Defender Oracle can build a second AC62, but the hulls must come from the same molds as the first, and Oracle may only race their first boat. All the teams, defender and challengers alike, face limits on the number of AC62 wings and daggerboards they can build and test – two wings, six daggerboard upper sections and 12 daggerboard lower sections.

As was the case for the 2013 America’s Cup, the 2017 Protocol forbids test and development using “surrogate yachts” – multihulls longer than 10 meters. The Protocol for the 2013 Cup ruled that, except for AC45’s, catamarans with LOA over 10 meters were surrogates. Teams were not allowed to launch their first AC72 until July 2012. Artemis Racing found a way around those limits by stepping their first AC72 wing in a stretched ORMA 60 trimaran four months early, in March 2012. In the lead up to the 2013 America’s Cup, Oracle and Artemis both modified AC45’s for foiling. Oracle also modified an AC45 wing in order to test a prototype control system for their AC72. Earlier in the cycle, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa fitted out less expensive SL33 catamarans – less than 10 meters long, so not surrogates – with foil control systems and scaled down versions of their AC72 wing designs.

For 2017, the catamaran / trimaran distinction has been eliminated: all multihulls with LOA over 33 feet long are considered surrogates, once again with the exception of those based on AC45’s. But an important detail is found in the definitions section of the the 2017 Protocol: as long as the lower part of the hulls has the same shape as an AC45, the boat is not a surrogate. The teams can build whatever they want on top and test it at any time. Recall that for the 2013 America’s Cup, AC45’s could be modified, but the crossbeams and hulls (except for daggerboard cases) still had to comply with the class rule. For 2017, each team can build as many as three “sky’s the limit” 45 foot long test boats. No limit on crossbeam shape or size. No limit on control systems or stored energy. No limit on the dimensions or number of wings. No limit on the number of daggerboards. And, no limit on modifications. The teams are limited only by their imagination, time and money. The foiling AC45’s that will be raced in the America’s Cup World Series beginning in June 2015 will be one design; the development AC45’s will be anything but.

Development boats for the 2017 America’s Cup

Since the beginning of the 2017 AC cycle, Artemis has continued sailing their foiling AC45. Luna Rossa has modified both of their AC45’s for foiling. Ben Ainslie Racing is testing with a modified AC45. ETNZ announced that they would convert one of their AC45’s for foiling, beginning in December 2014. Team France has yet to reveal their plans. The truly interesting development comes from Oracle. They have built   a development boat from the hulls of an AC45. They will launch it in San Francisco in February 2015 before moving their operations to Bermuda by May.

Oracle’s development boat has cockpits to accomodate wheel steering and a grinding pedestal, features that required flared hulls. Rather than the tubular crossbeams of the AC45, the Oracle boat has aerodynamic crossbeams that in all probability house parts of the foil control system. Instead of an AC45 center spine, this boat has a pod structure like their AC72. The pod is required by the AC62 class rule.

For now we can only guess at what control systems, power sources, telemetry equipment and other goodies might be aboard. Since they did not sail their modified AC45’s in 2014, Oracle could build two more brand new development boats. The Protocol allows four boats, and one must be a class rule compliant AC45 for ACWS racing.

Will the other teams build more advanced AC45 development boats, too? The Protocol places no limits on modifications, so any of the existing AC45 test boats could be dramatically modified. Safety considerations will likely play an important role – a cockpit of a modified AC45 is certainly a safer place to be than sitting on the hull when foiling at 40 knots. Of course, one wonders how reliably designs tested on these 45 footers will scale up to the AC62’s. We will see plenty of interesting developments on these test boats over the next year and a half while we await the launch of the AC62’s in September 2016.

More photos and details available online at www.cupexperience.com/seahorse