Yesterday I took a little bit of time off from an otherwise very busy day to watch one of the America’s Cup races. I had watched a couple of them previously on “TV” and on Youtube. But seeing it in person was even more impressive. The true speed of the boats is hard to appreciate on a small screen. From the stern of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien I was able to see the entire race course and it was spectacular:
The AC72s are to a boat such as the J100 that I sail like an F1 race car is to a normal car: they are vaguely in the same category (boat/car) but that’s about it. Everything on an AC72 is extreme, from the immense wing to the hydraulically operated dagger boards (that allow the boats to foil – meaning to pop out of the water).
There is much to disagree with on the Cup. To start with it is clearly a billionaire’s playground. It has also been extraordinarily litigious. And the boats were pushed past the edge resulting in a fatality during training. And yet seeing the boats fly through the bay above the water was majestic and made it (maybe too) easy to forget all of that.
As for the racing itself, Team Emirates New Zealand (ENZ) has a decisive lead and needs just one more win (which could come as early as today) to take the cup back. From watching yesterday it seemed to me that Team Oracle lost had consistently slower tacks than Team ENZ. I have to see if the detailed telemetry data from the boats is available because analyzing it would be a fun weekend project.
If ENZ indeed wins the cup will be interesting to see how they plan to conduct the next challenge. I for one would love to see them continue in this general direction. Maybe make the boats a bit smaller and a bit saner and a bit cheaper. Just enough so that there can be a lot of teams actually participating from all around the world. I hope they keep most of the other innovations, such as foiling and the on board cameras and microphones. Overall this would be good for sailing which I adore.
PS I also wish someone like Hobie would make a really scaled down version with a wing and dagger boards for foiling. Seems like it would be wicked fun.
