America's Cup returns to America

[Richard Koch]

I just finished watching the US challenger BMW Oracle win the America's Cup 2 races to 0 over the Swiss multihull Alinghi. The boats, especially the US one, were very Viper like in the speeds they hit. Today Oracle hit 33 knots in only 9 knots of windspeed. The boat is 100 feet long 90 feet wide and has a wing sail towering 228 feet. Oracle sailed for the San Francisco Yacht Club, so the next defense will be in the Bay area.

The boat was built in Washington State and first sailed in the San Juans. If you want to see what a really wild sailing yacht looks like you can go to 33rd America's Cup . Check out the boats and see why I think they should be considered the Dodge Viper on the water.

 

[PatentLaw]

This is great news. My undergraduate school has one of the worlds largest hydrodynamic testing tanks that they do the fluid dynamics solutions on for the Americas Cup boats. The design of these craft is fantastic and very experimental. Great engineering there. I saw that the first couple of days the Americas Cup was postponed. I forgot about the race with the Olympics.

Thanks for the great post. Go USA. Finally bringing it back home!

 

[pgbeek]

I was born and raised in Newport,RI Actual home to the America's Cup until we lost it. It was fun growing up with crews staying a block away from our house. When they went out to sail we took advantage of the free beer on their porch. We were just kids having a good time. Saw allot of boats in my day.

 

[BlackSnake99]

Thats great news and I am glad that the Cup is back in the US.

Let me ask you guys a question, though. I used to be much more interested in the race, but now it seems much less interesting. I think that it is the same issue that killed Formula 1 for me. Both sports have been taken over by a few high dollar, high tech teams that have a complete monopoly on the competition. There is no more little guy. No more underdog to pull for. I mean, the BMW/Oracle boat is beautiful, but it seems..... soulless? It's all computer designed. Throw enough money at a sport and you can win. Am I wrong?

 

[Richard Koch]

This year was hopefully an anomaly. It was a Deed of Gift challenge where the challenger could dream up whatever kind of boat they wanted and the defender could sail whatever they wanted. I really liked the mult-nation challenges of the new style AC boats as they were pretty fast. They were expensive, but nothing like the boats this year. They had Burt Routan of aircraft and X-prize fame design and build the amazing wing sail. I can't imagine what it may have cost.

I hope they go back to America's Cup monohulls when they sail in SanFrancisco. Holding the cup there will be a multi-billion dollar boom to the area.

I just remembered that the last time the US won the cup was 1992, the first year of the Viper. Nice to have it back, and let's hope that Viper stays around too.

 

[CitySnake]

I hope they go back to America's Cup monohulls when they sail in SanFrancisco.

Couldn't agree more. It's mesmerizing watching cats on the water ... but the real sense of competition is gone. Tactics are so negated due to the single directional speed and the inability to turn, as others have mentioned it now comes down to $ and technology.

Sort of wish each team were given the same fixed budget (it could be an extraordinary sum so that the boats were all high tech) to build a monohull racing yacht that would leave the race results up to the sailors and tactics rather than effectively waiting for the faster straight line boat to get to the lay line to walk away.

 

[SmokinViperGTS]

I actually saw the Oracle boat while it was testing in the San Juans, shortly after launch. It's enormous! In fact, the dingy/support craft was a 40' open-RIB with twin diesels. I spoke with the Australian sounding skipper while we were both fueling up.

While I'm no fan of Larry Ellison per se, I have to commend him for the fortitude to stick it out and get it back. IMHO, the only reason that the race came to this rather bizarre format this time, is that the Alinghi team bent the rules so hard for the previous race, that it was barely a race, and was trying to bend them even harder for this one. Oracle had enough, and took it to court - winning, and under the race rules, causing this alternate format.

Here's hoping that team Oracle/BMW will now return the race to it's roots, leaving this as a nasty, and expensive, lesson to all. If you don't play fair, it isn't sport, and then people lose interest.