Hydrofoils innovation almost as old as the cup itself
Even with all that history, Team NZ only stumbled on foiling by accident four years ago.
For those of us who figured Team New Zealand’s foils were a newfangled mode of nautical propulsion, think again.
A reader furnished me with a 1956 National Geographic magazine that reported an Italian, Enrico Forlanini, was experimenting with hydrofoils in 1911.
He took two visiting Canadian residents over Lake Maggiore in a hydrofoil boat. Yes, all of 106 years ago.
One of those men was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.
He and his inventor partner FW Baldwin went home and designed a torpedo-shaped hydrofoil that set a then world speedboat record of 114kmh on remote Baddeck Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1919.
Team NZ’S cats were powered only by the wind, whereas Bell and Baldwin’s boat was powered by two aircraft engines.
Even at low speeds their 4500-kilogram boat rose on to its hydrofoils.
Bell and Baldwin applied the principles of powered flight to boats and in trials they discovered by freeing the hull from water resistance, the boat sped along on the bottom strips of metal, the same as in water-skiing.
Even with all that history, Team NZ only stumbled on foiling by accident before they competed at San Francisco four years ago.
Anyway, it’s great to see the America’s Cup back and destined for the Waitemata Harbour.
It sticks it right up the nostrils of Russell Coutts, who should never have been knighted in 2009 – not after he defected to Alinghi and uplifted the Mug from our shores in 2003 and then jumped ship to Oracle.
Since his defection he has worked against New Zealand winning the cup and directed snide remarks our way.
It’s like Warren Gatland with his barbs aimed at the All Blacks – we won’t forget if he comes sniffing around for the All Blacks’ job.
But now, even with a backer worth US$55 billion, Coutts couldn’t prevent his bitter enemy, the tenacious Grant Dalton, from nicking the cup with a budget challenge.
Good on Dalton for refusing to sign the agreement with Oracle that would have taken the racing back to Bermuda, after the other syndicates ingratiated themselves to Oracle by signing.
Dalton has kept Team NZ breathing since that 2003 debacle, fundraising his head off, including Toyota NZ from Palmerston North, with Bob Field, who seems to have been there from the start.
This time Dalton recruited the best innovators and they came up with the master stroke of the cyclists, who produced 30 per cent more hydraulic pressure via their thunder thighs. Jimmy Spithill could only frantically copy some of our heroes’ bits and pieces when it was all too late.
Of their 32 races in Bermuda, Team NZ won 25. Justice has been served. That loss in Frisco after being 8-1 up was our greatest sporting humiliation, worse even than our nosedives at those Rugby World Cups, or, on a local level, with the Manawatu rugby team’s 109-6 loss to the 2005 Lions.
Helmsman Dean Barker always did his humble best for our team, but the choke at San Francisco meant he had to go, even if it was to steer Oracle lapdog, Team Japan.
I didn’t give our guys a dog’s show after what happened four years ago. With my nerve endings shot, this time I made a point of checking out the race results before watching the racing.
Oracle was continually referred to by the TV commentators as ‘‘the Americans’’ when they were largely Aussies. Dalton will fix that when he demands largely national crews.
It would be great to see the airborne catamarans continue, blatting along at up to 75kmh, rather than slow old keelers. But if not, Dalts, bring back the spinnakers.
I wondered for a moment if our yachties at Foxton might offer the Manawatu River estuary, given the courses are for sprints now. On second thoughts, a few logs en route to the sea might torpedo the whole show and the godwits might flee ahead of time.
All Blacks can lift
So while the Lions believe they can improve on the dusting they got at Eden Park, so can the All Blacks.
You can bet defence coach Wayne Smith will shore up those gaping holes the Lions poured through. Even a tubby prop galloped through one.
We had too many kicks charged down. Guard dogs will fix that or better off, don’t kick it, as Aaron Cruden will have regretted when the Lions scored a try it didn’t seem they were capable of.
Leave the boot to Conor Murray because that is his only skill. Our electric petit general, Aaron Smith, showed him up in every other facet.
The Lions will never cope with the velocity of the All Black offloads nor with their cleanouts at the rucks. The moment a Lion groped for the ball, he was torpedoed amidships.
But what was Sky thinking when it played the Hyundai rallying ad after the haka?