The America's Cup Class Rule provides the detailed measurement constraints and tolerances for an America's Cup Class yacht.
Version 5 of the America's Cup Class Rule comes into force for 2005 and onwards. Version 5 of the rule allows more sail area, a lighter boat, but with deeper draft keel, providing the same stability as before. The result is a lighter, faster boat, 'turbo-charged' for 32nd America's Cup.
Version 4 of the Class Rule was in force for the 31st America's and is the rule that will be used to measure the boats for 2004.
Racing under the America’s Cup Class rule provides an incredible challenge to the designers, naval architects, materials engineers, and the build team associated with a Cup team.
The formula that defines the America’s Cup Class, (as opposed to a one-design class rule where the boats are identical), gives measurement constraints, but provides options for the designer to trade various favourable and unfavourable characteristics against each other.
The resulting boats, whilst very similar, are not identical, and often have very different performance characteristics. While this may seem to be handing the challenge of the America’s Cup to the engineers rather than sailors, that is far from the case.
Designing a fast America’s Cup Class boat requires a thorough understanding of the weather and wave conditions in which the boat will sail, and the demands likely to placed upon it by the crew. Communication between the sailors and designers is absolutely critical in this respect.
Further, due to the complexity of America’s Cup Class boats, a large amount of tuning and ‘tweaking’ is required before the boat reaches its full potential, and here the skill, experience and understanding of the sailors is crucial. An America’s Cup Class boat will often develop very significant performance improvement over its lifespan, and the sailors and designers alike are of great importance in realising this potential.
Rule Amendments
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