lumos
16.06.2021 22:32:51
Likewise, people ask, how much do America's Cup sailors earn?
See full version: How much does an America s Cup boat cost
Likewise, people ask, how much do America's Cup sailors earn?
Coutts said a SailGP team will cost $5 million a year to run. more
Secondly, how fast do America's Cup boats go? Up to speed Top speed in 34th America's Cup: 47.57 knots in 21.8 knots of wind (Team New Zealand, race 18). [links]
According to court filings shared by the Wall Street Journal, fired Oracle sailor Joe Spooner was being paid $25,000 a month — or $300,000 a year — as compensation for his work as a grinder. There are six grinders on a typical 12-person sailing team, and they tend to be the lowest-paid of the bunch.
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On the face of it, the America’s Cup does not lack sponsors: they include fashion brand Louis Vuitton, aircraft-maker Airbus and airline Emirates. But the list of sponsors is not a long one, and wealthy individuals step in partly because few other businesses can justify marketing to such a niche, albeit wealthy, audience. [links]
“The America’s Cup almost lives in this kind of exclusive enclave where you don’t have engagement with sports fans generally [or] with sponsors,” says Simon Chadwick, professor of sports enterprise at Salford Business School in the UK. “It is a self-serving elite.” [links]
Teams do not disclose members’ pay, but in 2015 a case for unfair dismissal in a US court brought by Joe Spooner, a former sailor in Ellison’s Oracle team, revealed his salary to be $300,000 a year. [links]
In March 2021, Sir Ben hopes to bring the trophy back to the UK for the first time in 170 years, backed by £110m from Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the founder of the Ineos chemicals group who topped The Sunday Times’ UK rich list in 2018. more
Today, teams compete for the same trophy, but with budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. The contest attracts some of the world’s wealthiest individuals and owners of luxury brands, both as fans and sponsors.
It is a sport driven by technology, which makes it very expensive [links]
At one point you had to sail your competition boat to the race, but today’s vessels just aren’t made for that kind of mileage. Teams typically disassemble them, package them up, and ship them on larger boats or planes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in transport and insurance fees. here
In a word: Yes. The boats alone cost between $8 million to $10 million, and most teams have a backup just in case. However, the boats are only part of the story, because you also have to take into account the entry fee ($3 million), the staff (Oracle Team USA had 130 people in 2013), the cost of shipping all that sailing equipment around the world, plus costs of maintenance, operations, and incidentals. It has been estimated that mounting a successful America’s Cup campaign costs over $100 million. Larry Ellison may have spent $250 million to $300 million defending the title in 2013.
That said, organizers are attempting to reduce costs. For 2017, competitors will race a smaller class of boat called the AC45, which is 45 feet long, rather than the AC62, which is 62 feet long. (Boat size had been previously reduced in 2013 from 72 feet to 62 feet.) Typically, smaller boats can be developed faster, require smaller crews, and cost less to transport.
Each team designs and develops its own boat and tries to keep the proprietary technology secret from other teams (despite the best efforts at spying when competitors are practicing on open water). What we do know is that everyone will be racing a twin-hulled catamaran that uses a hydrofoil to lift itself out of the water at speed. Of course, there are hundreds of nerdy boat rules that teams have to follow, but specifics around materials and drag-reducing technologies to provide an edge are kept under wraps. Various teams partner with aerospace companies like Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Airbus, and Cosworth to develop the technology. here
For starters, the hulls are made of honeycombed aluminum (so they’re light as can be) and the fixed-wing sail is made of Kevlar and carbon fiber instead of a flappy fabric sheet. But the biggest difference is in how they move. Where a traditional boat muscles through water or skips across the surface, an America’s Cup boat barely even touches it. This is made possible by L-shaped hydrofoils or “daggerboards” that lift the hull completely out of the water at speed. Since the introduction of hydrofoil technologies, race speeds have literally doubled.
Martin Fischer, who is the co-design coordinator at Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team and was also involved in coming up with the AC75 class rule, says that such a drastic design departure from the previous boats is rarely seen. here
Adventure publication Outside reports that each boat can cost anywhere between US$8 million and US$10 million to construct. This figure is independent of the US$3 million entry fee, the cost of shipping boat equipment across the globe, maintenance, operations and incidentals. Each team can employ up to 130 people and it has been estimated that successfully leading an America’s Cup campaign can easily exceed the US$100 million mark. It’s believed that American businessman and CEO of Oracle Corporation, Larry Ellison, spent between US$250 million to US$300 million defending his team’s 2013 America’s Cup title.
The sadder statistics already confirm one death in 2013 alongside an endless array of high-speed capsizes causing serious injury to crew members. America’s Cup sailors have even given the feared high wind turning manoeuvre a name: “death zone”.
The AC75 Luna Rossa reportedly took a team of 90 from luxury yacht maker Persico Marine over 78,000 hours to complete. The technology includes a hull crafted from 7,000 square-metres of carbon fibre alongside 400 square-metres of aluminium honeycomb. The aforementioned pivoting foils, which weigh 500kg each, can support a total maximum load of 27 tonnes. here
“That means you have to turn over every stone and look at every aspect carefully, because around every corner, there could be something unexpected.”