Blue Arrow
After Sir Michael Fay had lost the LVC Final in 1987 he tried to press Dennis Conner
After Sir Michael Fay had lost the LVC Final in 1987 he tried to press Dennis Conner
by a challenge on the very short notice of 1988. Conner denied the challenge.
The following court actions and decision were not as far as numerous as in the AC33
but confusing enough.
The first decision fined the San Diego YC to accept NZLs challenge. The next appeal that
the catamaran should be eliminated as an unfair yacht - ordered both “to find that out on
the water”. US -1 won 2 : 0.
NZL approached the New York Court again and was declared as winner in two instances.
The appealed Supreme Court decided finally for the US YC as winner.
Stars & Stripes / H 3: U.S. - 1 winner of the America's Cup 1988
Under the wings of the San Diego Yacht Club
as official defender Dennis Conner managed
Under the wings of the San Diego Yacht Club
as official defender Dennis Conner managed
the construction of a smaller test cat and 2 racing
boats.
One had conventional soft sails and was called
S1.
The other one with a wing sail was called H 3
and won the races on the water 2 : 0.
The overall-length of US-1 was about 1/2 of the
KZ-1.
The unique, rigid wing sail has been eveloped by
technicians coming from the NASA and the
aircraft industry.
The area after the rot-able mast was covered
with clear folios. The flap had a surface of slight-
grey ones.
The AC 1988 is also called the “mismatch”
© San Diego Boat Movers http://sandiegoboatmovers.com/
In 1988, a New Zealand syndicate
challenged the San Diego Yacht Club to
an A/C race using 'KZ1', a huge, fast,
unorthodox,132' boat with a 40 man
crew. Surprised, and not having time to
design or build such a boat, Conner
answered the challenge by building a
cutting edge catamaran with a wing sail.
The high-tech sail is pictured here, on
our trailer, at the Rutan Scaled
Composites factory in Mojave, CA.
The 'STARS & STRIPES' cat went on to
win the farcical race by a big margin, and
also prevailed in the final of three
associated law suits.
San Diego Boat Movers comment :
Big Boat": KZ - 1 hapless challenger
for the America's Cup 1988
KZ-1 was said to be the fastest monohull of her size at
that time.
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The merchant banker Sir Michael Fay tried to
challenge the San Diego Yacht Club
respectively Dennis Conner with this Big Boat
of 135 ft (36,6 m ) - but not exceeding the 90
ft (27,4 m) waterline as stipulated by the
Deed of Gift -
He wanted to sail already in 1988 hoping that
the USA can not arrange an equivalent
“monster” within this short time - and to lose
therefore the Cup on paper.
The club refused the challenge but was finally
forced by the New York Court to accept it.
The deck view explains her another nickname
“aircraft-carrier”.
She had a crew of 40 people, 8 of them
operating the “coffee-grinders” below deck.
Images show that 15 -20 of them were just
sitting on the
windward overhang in order to balance the
yacht’s
heeling.
KZ-1 was said to be the fastest monohull of
her size at that time.
Peter de Savary reached the LVC Challenger Final
in 1983 with his self-financed Victory 83 campaign
but lost then against Australia II.
At the AC 1987 he did not take part but placed a
challenge for the next Cup with an outstanding
monohull.
This was the hydrofoil-stabilized "Blue Arrow".
It was about the size of Conner's catamaran
Stars & Stripes, but had a single hull that was as
narrow as a canoe.
It was launched officially on 20th July 1988, 90
days after the start of design.
The boat was fitted with two hydrofoils at the end
of a crossbeam.
This beam could be hydraulically shifted along the
hull by about 30 cm.
The hydrofoils were not meant to lift the vessel out
of the water; they were designed to supply just a
heeling moment by having equal and opposite
angles of attack for each foil thus generating no
Blue Arrow “Radical” / GB Peter de Savary’s hydrofoil glider
This radical yacht was supported on a crossbar by two stilts with hydrodynamic wings
*
net vertical force on the vessel, but just a righting moment to counter the heeling moment
induced by the sail.
A crew member stood in a small cockpit in the main hull. He monitored the hydrofoil settings
via an instrument display in the cockpit, and controlled the hydrofoils with a hand crank to
balance them in a very small range of angles to control the heeling of the yacht.
This meant the vessel had to be under way to generate any appreciable righting moment.
At the low speeds, large inflatable floats were placed under the crossbeam by the support crew
(for docking, etc).
The mast was a sophisticated aerodynamic design and looked like a wing, but carried
soft sails made of Kevlar.
Michael Fay, who had nominated his big boat KZ-1 for the 1988 AC,was originally interested in an
elimination regatta of all challengers and reached a verbal agreement with de Savary to race in a
challenger series.
But when he saw the Blue Arrow he withdrew his promise as he was only prepared to challenge
yachts about equal in size to the KZ-1. Then, when the New York Court decided Fay and Conner
"should settle their conflict on the water" (The a Deed of Gift race with only two yachts limited to
3 rounds) Blue Arrow was effectively excluded from the Cup.
The Blue Arrow team planned to transport the disassembled yacht by airplane to San Diego, at
least for testing purposes.
However, while sailing from her home base at Falmouth October 27th 1988, an accident
occurred that led to severe damage of the vessel.
Sailing at high speed (estimated at 30 kts) in waves the bow "dig in" and the vessel
pitch-poled, fracturing the hull. A replacement boat was not built.
The Blue Arrow was a radical design and the first sign that the AC could be sailed with
completely different boats (see AC 2010 and AC 2013)
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Another sailing project that has used Flow Solutions' hydrodynamic design methods
is the World's fastest sailing vessel over 500m (65.45 kts) and a nautical mile (55.32 kts)!
Don’t miss this link: http://www.sailrocket.com/node/136
Yacht / Country : Blue Arrow “Radical” / GB
Sail Number : no number issued
Syndicate : Blue Arrow Yachting Syndicat
CEO : Peter de Savary
Yacht Club: Royal Burnham YC
Designers: Derek Clark (Technical Director)
Tony Castro
Ed Dubois
Rob Humphreys
Jo Richards
Geoff Willis (hydrodynamics)
Peter Heppel (sails)
Graeme Winn (instrumentation)
Technical Consultants: Steve Fiddes
Boat Builder: Various
Final assembly and launch at Falmouth Docks
AMERICA’S CUP HISTORY 1983 - 2013
