America’s Cup Sailing…

November 12, 2015 Rich

In early October Devon and I travelled to San Francisco for a family wedding and since we were down there I figured we should try to get out on the bay for some sailing. I’d previously looked into going out on America which is a replica of the 139 foot long schooner of the same name that won the 1851 Queen Victoria’s 100 Guinea Cup which was then dubbed the America’s Cup. Unfortunately that vessel was not in the Bay Area at the time since it was on tour.

I then found that USA 76, the 84 foot carbon fiber sloop from the 2003 America’s Cup was available for charter through ACSailingSF. So I booked it for Sunday afternoon.

USA 76 at Pier 39 — USA 76 pre-departure at Pier 39

Our stay in San Francisco netted really nice weather overall. It was pretty windy every day and sunny as well, warm enough to forgo a jacket most of the time. On Sunday we made our way down to Pier 39 and checked in. We had our bags since we were going to the airport right after the sail and the crew was able to stow our bags below deck.

USA 76 underway — USA 76 heading out into the bay

Shortly after we got everyone on board our skipper got us underway and out into the bay. You may notice that the port steering wheels is actually not attached to the helm. They remove it to raise and lower the mainsail and then reattach it once the sail is up. With the wheel in place, there’s no room for the mainsail to actually sit on the deck. Another interesting tidbit, those wheels look very stout and are very rigid, but they are made of carbon fiber and weigh next to nothing. You can easily hold on to the wheel in the air with one finger.

Devon grinding to hoist the mainsail on USA 76

USA 76’s winches are powered by grinders like most racing yachts nowadays. The winches are connected and disconnected to the grinding posts with buttons in the deck that you engage with your foot. Devon hopped in as a grinder to raise the mainsail which takes quite a bit of effort overall. The mast is 115ft high so there’s a ton of sail to hoist.

At 84ft, USA 76 is a pretty long boat of course, but it’s narrow, only 12 feet wide. By comparison our 45ft boat is nearly 15ft wide. Another major difference is the ballast ratio. Most sailboats have ballasts that are somewhere between 20% and 50% of the total weight of the boat. USA 76’s bulb keel is 14ft underwater and contributes 80% of the total weight of the boat. The boat weighs 25 tons and the keel bulb is about 19 tons by itself. This high ballast ratio allows her to carry a ton of sail area even in high winds, resulting in high speeds. She’s also designed to be fastest at approximately 20 degrees of heel, and in fact the platforms that you stand on at the helm are perfectly level at 20 degrees. USA 76 points upwind at the very close hauled angle of ~19 degrees. That’s very high and combined with the average boat speed of 11 knots you can make serious progress across any expanse of water. We sailed out from Pier 39, around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate bridge, all upwind in a very short amount of time.

We both got to take the helm during the upwind run and it was really amazing how stable the helm is. There was a little weather helm but nothing serious, and it never really changed. Even when a wind gust would hit, the boat would heel a slight bit more and accelerate but the helm never really felt different. It tracks like a freight train and accelerates like a sports car. USA 76 was tuned for upwind sailing because that was the expected conditions for the 2003 race.