America's Cup Sailing

[Lootifer]

Anyone following it?

Being a small nation it is dominating the headlines at the moment; im not really much of a sailing fanboi but man those boats are f'n cool.

Worth a glance at youtube if you're interested, the boats are impressive.

[Timminz]

I'm not much into sailing, but the technological advances of the past few years have been astounding.

[oVo]

The boats in this competition are amazing
and so far the Kiwis are kickin' butt.

I watched some a couple races Sunday...
and it's totally gnarly dudes!

New Zealand needs 6 more wins to take the Cup.

[BigBallinStalin]

How can you sail cups?

[Lootifer]

Id imagine sailing a cup would be easier than sailing the AC 72s.

[BigBallinStalin]

Your imagination is sailing away with you.

[oVo]

The carbon fiber 'wings' on those things are huge.

[Lootifer]

Uh oh 'Merica. 6 plays minus 1!

GOooooOOOOOOOooooo TNZ!

[Lootifer]

What a joke of a day...

[TeeGee]

Funny, this was Huge news in Australia in the 1970's and 80's. I didn't even know it was on right now, haven't heard anything about it.
But what surprised me in the pre-internet days was how some American friends I had at the time hadn't heard about the cup. Of course it was different yachts used back in those days.. and a very different set of rules too, that got changed to suit the cup holder at will

[oVo]

The winner always chooses the type of sailboat and venue
of the next America's Cup challenge.

Unreal... the USA Oracle team has pulled off the comeback
and won the cup.

[Lootifer]

Yeah pretty dissapointing from our perspective, but no doubt in who had the faster boat at the end of the regatta.

[oVo]

34th America's Cup

In the final race the finish margin was 44 seconds.
Those boats are huge and those carbon fiber wings
can propel the boats at 3x the wind speed.

The US won eight consecutive races to force the first
winner takes all race since the 25th America's Cup
and win it by a score of 9-8.

The expense to create these technological sailing beasts
is also astronomical. Ten Million bucks just doesn't go as
far as it used to and it's predicted that the 35th edition
will include rules that reduce the costs to expand the
number of competitors.