It has emerged one of the teams, possibly defender Alinghi, has engineered a breakthrough that could give them a huge advantage. Yachting commentator Peter Lester says a swinging keel would be significant and it is the equivalent of putting the All Black front row on the deck of the boat and giving it more stability and power.
The hype surrounding a supposed revolutionary keel is being overplayed. Over the past couple of days rumour control in Valencia has it that one of the competitors in the 2007 America's Cup has developed a so-called canting keel. Further investigation has revealed that the keel does not cant, but rather a way may have been found to reduce the amount of keel strut deflection as a 20 tonne bulb is suspended away from the hull of a heeling America's Cup yacht.
What the ACC Rule does not restrict is the amount of lateral deflection of fixed appendages, and it would be beneficial for any team to be able to restrict that lateral deflection of the keel due to the weight of the bulb. Twenty tonnes at the end of a 4.1 metre deep keel must cause considerable deflection, more perhaps than the one degree 'tilt' that is being bandied about and which would be equivalent to an extra 325kgs on the windward rail.
If any team is able to reduce this by one degree more than the rest, it will be a case of 'game over' early, but the entire presumption that a team has found a loophole in the rule is unlikely and has the decided odour of a red herring. Should, however, the sneaky scientists have found a way - and who knows how their devious minds work - it will make Benny Lexcen's winged keel look very agricultural.
Custom Search