Sailor? Has a shadow fallen over your hull making you feel listless and leeward? Do you find yourself pulling up the sheet because your jib just isn’t stiff anymore, and it’s getting hard to keep your spinnaker inflated?
Well, never fear; I’ve got something new for you! This past month Armchair Binder (#AC01) kicked off the new NYC Tuesday Night ACC Sailboat Races. For the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to peek in at the ACC competition on the Bismark Sea Start Line and it’s been pretty fascinating.
Let me tell you a little about the boat. The ACC is a creation of Owen Oyen. The boat has the clean, classic appearance of an Americas Cup racer, and its dimensions are “explicitly compliant with the IACC 2007 Rule formulae.”
Most boats in SL are based on the original Tako design of Kanker Greenacre, but not the ACC. Owen built this boat from the ground up. The ACC is one of the most unique and technically innovative sailcraft in SL. It’s the boat that introduced wind shadowing and wave action to SL Sailing, and ocean current effects will be added soon.
Despite those advanced features, sailing the ACC is pretty easy. The sail plan includes a huge mainsail and a functionally coupled jib; a spinnaker is currently in testing. The sails are raised by clicking on the deck, and the sheet angle is adjusted through four discrete steps using the UP and DOWN Arrow keys. The sails gybe and wing automatically, depending on the point of sail.
The ACC has a clean Info HUD that displays a detailed, digital readout on both sides of the mast (see the picture below). I don’t know about you, but I like this setup compared to the more complicated HUD designs on other boats. I mean, I appreciate that a HUD is frequently a good thing. On many boats, including the Tako 3.x, the HUDs provide an intuitive interface that makes it very easy for a new sailor to confidently take the helm. However, I’m always having “personal HUD trouble…” and I suspect most sailors know what I’m talking about. The graphics and analog features of boat HUDs are often the first things to fail just when you need them most: in the middle of a crowded race, under Force Ten wind conditions, or during a treacherous SIM crossing.
I really like the ACC Info HUD. It’s exactly what I want. It’s no-nonsense, and it presents a ton of information right where I want to see it, without blocking my view.
The boats come in multiple colors, as long as you like blue. If you want to personalize your ACC, you might want to drop by Mowry Yacht Club and talk to Elisha Paklena. She’s doing customized textures for the ACC with Owen’s blessing.
Whatever your hull and HUD look like, however, ultimately it’s what’s under the hood that counts, and Owen’s given this boat the heart of a tactical racer. This is due in large measure to wind shadowing effects.
I’ve discussed wind shadowing in previous columns here, and why it will revolutionize SL Sailing. Wind shadowing allows boats to interact, turning a race into a real tactical duel. Well, the ACC is the boat that introduced wind shadowing, and the Tako 3.3 incorporated the idea soon after.
Although both boats have wind shadow, the effect is quite different. Shadow is rarely a deciding factor in Tako competition. After all, wind shadowing is a function of sail size, and the sail’s ability to cast a strong downwind shadow blanket on the competition. Lets face it, those dinky Tako sails are NOT very intimidating on the race course. Don’t let anybody kid you: In this one case, “Size DOES matter.”
The ACC boat’s huge sails are designed with realistic shadowing effects that, in contrast to the Tako, cast a paralyzing blanket effect on any downwind boat. This effect can reach as far as 100m, and represents a powerful tactical race weapon.
Recognizing the unique ability of these boats as tactical racers, Armchair Binder recently started a weekly series of NYC Tuesday Night ACC Races. Skippers meet on the Bismarck Sea race line at 7 p.m. and compete on straight-line courses (see below) designed by Armchair that maximize the potential for tactical interactions.
The Tuesday night ACC races are an amazing display of strategy, sailing knowledge, and flat-out tactical finesse.
Oliphant Ming, Taku Raymaker, Manul Rotaru, Armchair Binder, Pixeleen Mistral, Owen Oyen, Jaffa Infinity, and Skippy Spatula regularly compete, and the races have been huge fun to watch. Probably more important, the races turn out to be a great way to learn racing tactics that apply to both SL and RL sailing.
If you want to join the Tuesday night group, stop by and crew for one of the skippers. You’ll then want to grab your own ACC boat from the Mowry Bay Yacht Club dock!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Jane Fossett // Dec 18, 2007 at 8:38 am
I forgot to mention another thing: The bulb keel is real, and you can easily run aground in an ACC boat, so be careful!
Here’s a pic of Taku Raymaker stuck on the submerged rock on the NorthWest corner of Vella Lavella Island.
2 Owen Oyen // Dec 18, 2007 at 11:43 am
Jane, that is well written from someone who knows sailing and racing, RL and SL.
The ACC is not absent all flaws. She has a tiny hole in her sail polar that I won’t dwell on because only someone as thorough as Pensive Mission will find it. Her shadow is probably too sudden (a coding bug that needs and will get fixing) when it is encountered, but she was the first with the shadow in SL and it does change SL sail racing from NASCAR-like driving around a track fast to one where the leader can’t ignore the competitors behind.
Well done on the write up and on the cool races NYC has been kind enough to host.
3 Manul Rotaru // Jan 15, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I think, Owen Oyen´s ACC is a good beginners boat as well. There are only a very few things to explain:
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there is no HUD which you have to wear and loose somewhere, and also no gestures are necessary, only the arrow keys are in use.
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there are only 4 possible sail trim positions, which are fixed.
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learn to get out of IRONS fast. If you are in IRONS open up your sails wide, get yourself pushed back, and you have control over the rudder again.
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read the short instructions to learn the 2 commands to set up the wind you just need.
This 4 things are fast to learn, and ACC sailors are happy to share their knowledge and to be helpful. Also the ACC is a spectacular big boat, several times, sailing newbies said to me how impressed they are about this boat and its huge sails. And…. she is really damn fast…
…with the ACC I had the experiences that you really tickle each others, all this messing around, all this Rock´n´Roll at sea, all this windshadowing of your buddies, all this really playing with each others. For example I remember a situation where Armchair Binder was upwind from me, I have tried to come up, and he just crossed quickly here and there, shadowing me, it really was a playing with each others, many results of the ACC funraces I have joined had been very close and had been decided some metres in front of the line… I also remember the fun runs I had at TYC with friends of the Big Cat Cup, they had been sailing their Zinn 40s, I was sitting on my ACC-beast of a match racing rocket…they won mainly, but it was very close here and there, really great sailing, big fun…
Owen Oyen really does a great and very friendly customers support, and I also like the fact that the ACC sailors which I have met so far are really easy going funracing ppl, having a friendly competition during the run and having fun with each others without any Blablabla after finishing the course.
4 Alain Gloster // Mar 12, 2008 at 12:46 am
Some boats look fast,
some boats sail fast
Owen’s ACC manages both of that and manages to FEEL fast while doing it. I don’t know if its the Holy S***t accelleration off the line, or the wave action or the way it heels or even the HUD displaying knots as well as the usual m/sec, but as soon as you get it moving you know your in for a ride.
The new ACC 2.0 now has current modelling which was a surprise when I first ran across it and sail damage which can be repaired by a crew member hoisting up the mast (sadly I couldn’t test this, even afer making several offers to fellow sailors to climb my mast, all I accomplished was one laugh and three visits to peoples /ignore lists).
Windshadowing has been tweaked to be more realistic 9aparrently) and within half an hour of buying the boat, Owen IM’d me to see if I was happy with it or needed anything..as Manul said, great customer support.
In summary, not a boat for a sunday sail around the adriatic - unless your idea of a sunday sail involves outrunning police patrol cruisers. But if you want to get past that slow square rigger so fast its a blur, or keep up with the beach cat crowd without all the hiking, the ACC is the boat to do it in.
5 Manul Rotaru // Mar 12, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I agree with the statements of Alain above, and I would like to add 2 more points:
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the default ACC 2.0 looks different now. She got painted new, she looks gorgeous, Vendor Xeno has done a great artwork on her. Scout Catteneo has posted some beautiful pics of her:
http://flickr.com/photos/23059342@N05/2310793347/in/set-72157604049202335/
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the ACC 2.0 is Full Mod now, Owners are free to be creative on own paint shemes and designs.
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