PSA: Sailing Americas Cup – NZ vs USA, pretty cool stuff

Americas Cup Match (oldest trophy in international sports) started on Saturday in San Francisco and it’s been very cool racing in giant foiling catermerans with solid wingsails. Excellent coverage online, bbc2 has highlights but online coverage is excellent. Live, full replay or highlights

Backstory includes sad loss of a British Olympic sailor who died in the elimination round before the final when the boat disintegrated and the US team having been caught cheating.

Races 1 and 4 especially good

Official website here[/url]

YouTube channel and excellent phone ad tablet aps which include live and replay coverage

Totally bonkers live feed:

That’s ace!

That’s even acer! (NZ nearly flipped it)

Amazing stuff. NZ almost flipped it just then.

Also on sky sports 3

Absolutely amazing technology in those boats, and amazing racing.

No idea how NZ kept their boat right side up.

Scenery is pretty impressive too. The highlights from Friday showed some of the gym work they did, get heart rate up to max then solve a puzzle.

Been watching on Sky HD for a week.. Über Cool stuff.

Those boats travel at up to 3 times the speed of the wind….amazing!

I was in San Francisco last month for business. Having forgotten that the Americas cup was on I was delighted to head down to the bay and spend the afternoon watching them going through trials. Damn they do shift.

I went down to watch them when they raced in Plymouth a while back, amazing acceleration.

Dibbs they were the smaller ac45’s rather than these. They are 45 odd foot wide. I would hate to be on the up side when they almost went over. I sail a cat and know how far they can go before they do go over and watched that with my breath held thinking that’s it for them.

Bump for tonight’s racing

http://www.redbull.com/en/stories/1331600236240/watch-the-americas-cup-live

thanks for the psa – astounding live tv!

Nice comeback for TNZ last night – I was very worried that Oracle had got on a roll with two consecutive wins. The spetics have certainly upped their game since inthe last week, but they do just seem to be copying TNZ techniques.
Hopefully it will all be finished off tomorrow night 🙂

If you download the App you can replay all the races in the series. It might be a little boring watching TNZ streak ahead in every race bar the last, but hey 😆

BB go wash your mouth out – how can TNZ kicking the septics ever be boring?

Well at least by kicking John Kostecki off as tactician meant a place for Ben, which as it turned out proved a shotminnthe arm for USA, going the right way helps.. 😆

Ah, but Sir Ben is on team Oracle (and on the boat for a couple of races – not sure if he still is), so that’s my loyalties divided.

+1 sharkbait – good comeback 🙂

I wonder how Kostecki is feeling right now having been replaced and the boat doing better (even though that is now completely down to BB)?

[name dropping]
I have raced against John Kostecki in J24’s a very long time ago in the US and am pleased to say we gave him a good beating – but I was crewing for Ken Read!! (who is doing a great commentating job in my view) 🙂
[/name dropping]

Nice to see this thread back and some fellow sailors on STW – I thought no one cared ! This is really stunning sailing which even non-sailors can appreciate. Had NZ flipped that would have been a $100m campaign out of the window.

Sir Ben has made a difference, Kosotecki made a very poor decision and took a big risk in one race which saw Oracle give up a lead, but to be fair Ben is playing it relatively safe and the Ofacle team have tweaked the boat to make it more competitive. The problem is that at this level you don’t get a second chance, there is a very long list of good sailors waiting for “their chance”

This is true all or nothing racing – TNZ have made it clear if they win that the competition will be made “national teams”, this is good for the UK (if we can raise the money) and bad for Oracle as their best team members are Aussies and New Zealanders. The NZ members at Oracle are regarded as traitors !

Go TNZ !

[name drop]
I raced the 2007 Melges 24 Worlds which Spithill won, I was blown away by his maturity and carisma when he spoke at the awards dinner, I think he was mid/late 20’s at the time. We even rounded the last leeward mark in one race ahead of Russell Coutts as he’d had a total shocker in that race. By the way in sailing in some classes you don’t have to qualify for the worlds you just enter (ie I am not that good a sailor). Have raced against Sir Ben too in Dartmouth, he was doing sponsor work for JPM, he was super relaxed as you imagine racing against us muppets and we all had a good laugh on and off the water.

@sharkbait – crewing for Ken Read must have been very cool.
[end name drop]

Ha!! Excellent, I too used to race Melges24’s back in the day, when they first came to the Solent along with Mumm30’s.. Sailed Mad Cow Hyde et all.. Ahhh those were the days.. Won the French Nats too one year.. Never sailed against the top tier skippers though, once did Maxi Worlds in Porto Cervo when Russell was on some Schmancy Italian thingy, but never got the chance to be on the same course.

I think the USA lost this purely down to tactics and lack of practice, you would have thought they’d have sorted that before going out to play, hey ho.

It has been a good series in spectator’isms, MrsBouy has even taken an interest.. 😯

Sir Ben has made a difference

He’s certainly not doing his reputation and future career any harm here – he won’t be lacking in offers to race big boats in future (if he ever was). Not sure how keen he’s likely to be on the national teams thing – all good if the UK raise the dosh, but if not it limits his opportunities. It is a bit daft when Oracle only has one US sailor on the boat though.

Not sure if I agree with bikebouy though – it appears that Oracle didn’t have the boat speed, rather than getting things that wrong.

I can’t drop any names in this context – have only ever raced dinghys (at a very low level).

Aracer Oracle ave half a US sailor on board as its only his mum who is amarican as his dad is an Aussie a d he was brought up there.
What ever changes they did in Friday have really speed there boat up. I think they spent most I their development time on the foiling side of things and not the up wind. It would be interesting to see another lighter wind race to see if they are still competitive up wind as it was in the lighter winds they weren’t going as well.
I to cant ne drop as I don’t race just sail for fun though I did see sir Ben on this years round the island race.

sharkbait – crewing for Ken Read must have been very cool.

A brilliant period in my life.
It started when was racing a J24 with Laurie Smith on the stick in the ’84 worlds in Poole. I’d got quite buddy with Ken earlier in the week as I’d helping him sort something out when they first arrived and at the end of the week (he won we came 5th) he asked if I’d like to go and stay with him in Newport RI the following year – I’d do a bit of work in the sail loft he was at and we’d sail all sorts of stuff.
It was pretty epic really. We sailed pretty much every day and raced mainly J’s but also Snipes, Lightenings and stuff up to about 44′.
Top event was winning the J24 North Americans which had pretty much all the the top US sailing guys involved (such as JK) and was generally regarded as more inportant than the worlds at the time.
When I came back in the September I went straight into the j Europeans with Laurie Smith and we won that too …… happy days!

Another shameless bump – yesterday was a rest day but the chaos continues at 2115 on youtube

6 minutes to go!

As for namedropping, growing up in NZ we lived next door to Peter Blake!

Thinking of that makes me happy and sad – what a tragic end 🙁

http://www.redbull.com/en/stories/1331600236240/watch-the-americas-cup-live

Edit: And we’re go on Red Bull TV!

Live coverage on Sky Sport 4 starts at 10pm. I have beer in hand. NZ to take it tonight 😆

Well, that’s that – no racing today 🙁

booo hissssss

20.1knots, pansies :-p

Sharkbait and bikebouy the login names make sense now, quite some memories and programmes there.

For everyone’s amusement prior to tonight’s racing

And we’re go, perhaps…

Boom ! 1 to go to win the cup. Good racing though. Productivity is about zero in the office when the races start.

Match point …

Wow! I was feeling a little disappointed a few days ago that the competition would be over all too quickly!

The TV coverage has been superb, both on the Beeb and the youtube channel.

Excellent racing with state of the art, bleeding edge catamarans that are ridiculously quick! 38+knots with an actual wind speed of 14knots!! How they generate so much lift and forward velocity with the apparent air is amazing me!

I do now find myself kinda backing Team Oracle, never did like the US much since the disappointment of Lionheart all those years ago, but seems we’ve got national interest onboard and a load of Antipodean’s, who quite frankly are worth every penny they are getting paid by Mr Ellison… Fantastic comeback, it’s effectively 8-8, although 6-8 in reality. More please!

The counter is that I understand if the Kiwi’s win, they are seeking to make the next regatta be competed by nations rather than corporates. I like that one! I hope we can secure the appropriate funding to enter a GB designed, built and crewed yacht, of whatever regulations they next come up with.

Yep, even though I don’t like US dominance of anything I am impressed how they’ve turned the boat into something of a rocket ship while TNZ seem to have stood still and maybe they should keep the cup? (at least hopefully have more of the same on TV!)
Nah, come on TNZ.

It’s all in the Ben..

So why do the grinders use their arms. Wouldn’t it be better to pedal?

If NZ win and host the next event the time difference will make live viewing difficult, so I’m hoping Oracle pull it off.

i Had the chance to Go to NZ designing these things ….have to admit though the kiwis make good boats