Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

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Rick Simonds
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Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by Rick Simonds »

I'll always have a place in my heart for the lovely, sleek 12 meters, but the new AC boats are off-the-scale fascinating to watch. Unbelievable speed in the 40+ knot range. Seeing them round a downwind mark then stand up on foils and fly was great.

I'm not sure exactly what I watched, I've never seen a sailboat race like that before, but I enjoyed it.
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Teke's Pride
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by Teke's Pride »

Tacticians and skippers certainly have a lot lees time to make descisions on th AC72s. I watched race 4 yesterday and it was certainly fast paced and there were a couple of exciting crossings. 41 kts!
Clark Myers
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by wcwcwc »

But are these really boats?
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gamayun
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by gamayun »

I'm getting out on the water tomorrow to watch Races 7 and 8. These are amazing boats, but it's akin to when horse & buggy racing transitioned to stock cars. I'm sure many people thought that was just crazy, out of control stuff :o, but who wants to go back to a slower time? It would be shocking if the Kiwis decide to bring keel boats back to the AC...we've passed a mark of no return.
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by Rick@RISE »

Oracle's come back win was not shabby at all..

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gamayun
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by gamayun »

The fastest boat with the most money won it definitively. What an amazing comeback. I feel for the Kiwis -- the Emirates team and the nation -- to have gone through such a defeat after so many races on match point.
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Rick Simonds
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Re: Any America's Cup watchers? Wudja think?

Post by Rick Simonds »

I read a lot about this, watched a lot of it, bored my coworkers to tears talking about it, but I enjoyed it, and still don't know what to think of it. It's not anything like any sailing or racing I've ever done. I hope some of the technology trickles down someday.

In the non-sailing press, it's interesting to read people trying to make sense of it at all. A quote that made me laugh:

"...Oracle Team USA fell way behind and then beat Emirates Team New Zealand, proving once and for all that the mercenary Kiwis who race monstrously expensive death boats for the good old Stars and Stripes perform better in the clutch than the Kiwis who race monstrously expensive death boats for the motherland."

And talking about the rules that allow the defender to decide what boats get used:

"Imagine the owner of the Miami Heat decreeing, after his team hoisted the championship trophy, that basketball should be played on a diamond-studded trampoline with a ball shaped like a starfish. To the victor go the spoils, and the spoils are really weird..."

The comeback was amazing, though...
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