The America's Cup in San Francisco Bay .

Anyone else interested ? A long held interest of mine. Weird for a Alabama farm raised boy New Zealand won 2-0 today and the US had to forfeit 2 races illegally changing their boat after inspections were over. Sadly when the New York Yacht Club ran the races they made it very difficult for anyone else to win fairly and squarely.

The first race was close, the second easy for NZ. It is a best of 17 races and NZ is 4 up. The high tech catamarans actually ride on hydrofoils most of the time and can hit 50 mph or about 44 knots, that is fast for a sailboat. I have sailed cats and monohulls, the cats are the sports cars of sailboats but I preferred the America's Cup when everyone used monohulls. But if truthful the modern boats are like F 1 cars which I like. Oracle funds the American boat, the UAE, the New Zealand boat.

http://www.americascup.com/

Based on watching it or reading about it in the early years I am partial to the Kiwis, sounds like a traitor !!!! LOL

 

Maybe we should switch ships to this.

Might not win, bit it would be the only one afloat at the race's end.

 

I saw some of that GT. Very entertaining.

 

Incredible stuff...

Sir Ben Ainslie's Oracle Team USA came back from 8-1 down to seal one of sports greatest comebacks by beating Team New Zealand in the America's Cup decider in San Francisco.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/sailing/24278488#asset

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I recall once in tennis Steffi Graf was leading 6-4,5-1 ( in Paris ) and she lost...

 

Interesting to note that the average top speed of boats in 2007 was 10 knots. The Oracle averages closer to 40... At The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/4672686/billionaire-death-race

 

Poppy, that is a tremendous difference. In 200y they sailed so called displacement hulls, ( The vast majority of all boats and ships are in this category) a single hull with a keel that produced considerable drag in the water.
Such boats reach a theoretical hull speed in which they cannot be pushed through the water any faster without turning over by the force on the sail. Depending on the design this is 6-10 knots. Catamarans, twin hull boats frequently raise on hull out of the water deducing drag and can go considerably faster, 18-20 knots but the new Cop boats are not only catamarans but rise up on hydrofoils that are near knife thin and actually plane on the surface and can exceed the speed of the wind by far. The Cup boats do not sail in winds over about 20 knots but can reach speeds of 46-48 knots .

Many displacement boats can plane on the surface, to make this ww2 oriented PT boats easily could. But they still "dragged" over the surface. Soon they added a step in the hull so that only the front road on the surface and the rear on the prop, reducing drag.

Most hydroplanes are engine powered but cup boats are exploiting hydroplanes by sail, well not sails as we know them but "wings" which are rigid and very high aspect ratio. They require 100 % of your attention, unlike a displacement boat. Think of them as Formula 1 cars . An eye blink and you are in trouble.

But exceeding to watch.

 

Very interesting GT...The previous article says that some are worried the sport has become too dangerous. Yes it's dangerous, but not nearly as much as other main stream sports. Glad that these new boats have turned the Americas Cup world on its' ear. It is exciting now.